mothers day pretties

Mothers day is right around the corner. Here's a few Etsy pretties that have caught my eye...

one: toastie felt slippers  two: scientific oil burner  three: ceramic house candle holder  four: personalised embossed rolling pin  five: vintage embroidered pillow  six: linen scarf  seven: mid-century planter  eight: heart shaped nesting bowls

exploring autumn

It's Autumn. It's one of the most beautiful times of the year. The days are getting shorter, the temperature is dropping and the trees are losing their leaves. There's something magical about the change of seasons. After living further up north - which is beautiful too, I realised how much I love the obvious seasonal change down here.

The seasonal change can be a great thing to explore with your children. We can teach them about nature, the changes it goes through and how that might influence us. There are lots of Autumny things that we can explore like plants, colours, foods and weather.

Here's a few ways that you can explore Autumn with your children...

 Go on a walk with your children. Take a basket and collect fallen leaves, flowers or nuts. Look at what flowers are growing. Maybe some trees have lost their leaves or maybe the leaves have changed colour?

 Go to your local community garden, farmers market or through your veggie patch and look at what foods are in season at the moment. Maybe you could make some yummy apple muffins or pumpkin scones!

Journal the season by sticking leaves and flowers into a scrapbook or you could pop them into a flower press. You might like to draw some pictures of the things you've seen on your Autumn adventures or make a collage with your Autumn treasures.

Do you love the change in seasons? Are you ready for the cooler months, or warmer ones depending on where you might live? xx

our time

We're currently on our Autumn break. We're moving at our own pace. Spending time together as a family and enjoying our little break together before school goes back again next week.

It had been so wet and the carousel saved us from a bit of a meltdown after a few home days. After the carousel we went to a local play and then for afternoon coffee with some friends. It rained and rained all day - which added to the fun. Little giggles in the rain and puddle jumps on the way to the car are one of my favourite things to witness as a mother. Such joy!

Thankfully the rain eased and the sun shone for the most glorious market day down at Little Creatures brewery.

Since the sun has returned we've enjoyed days at the lake trying to find Jemima Puddle Duck and collecting the falling Autumn leaves. Afternoons have been spent laying in the warm sunshine munching on pumpkin scones, date balls and hot cross buns. Savoring the warm sunshine while it still lingers and savoring the last few days of wandering at our own pace.

I love our time together. Yes, the house in messier, the children have had little arguments and bed times are a bit out of order at the moment, but that's ok. Our time together is so important.

What have you been savoring lately? xx

autumn pace

We're getting into the Autumn pace. Warm sunshiny days and cool nights. We had a bit of an Autumn heatwave earlier this week but already the temperature has cooled right down again. It was nice to savor those few hot nights with gin and outside picnic dinners. 

We're baking with apples, pears and figs, while cinnamon is creeping into all of our baked treats again. Lola loves to munch on the apples from the apple tree at the school gate, a sweet little routine after each school day.

The weeks have been busy. So busy. There have been lots of lovely bits in between the busy bits though. Birthday gatherings in the tea tree, bike adventures, horse riding and crafting. All the lovely bits keeping us sane, calming the nerves and bringing joy.

Our Autumn festival at school marked the end of term one. The Autumn break - one we're all looking forward to. Slower days and some well needed rest and family time.

Are you welcoming the seasonal change with open arms? xx

the next chapter

This week we've been getting our garden back into order. Pulling out the last of the summer crops and getting the soil ready for our Autumn planting. I feel like we're a little behind but it was a hot, dry summer and some things, like our tomatoes, were a little slow this year. Everything flourished in the end and I'm pretty happy with our first vegie season in this house!

We spotted our little baby pumpkins earlier this week too! We thought they might never grow! Hooray!!

Now we're weeding, preparing soil and deciding on what we'll plant next.

Have you been having happy gardening adventures? I hope so! xx

tea tree wreath

I was admiring the tea tree on my adventure yesterday and came home with a great handful. The bulk of it is in a vase as I think it looks pretty on its own and a little bit went towards a spot of wreath making! Here's how I went about it:

I used some jewellery making wire to make a basic wreath shape and twisted the ends into place * Next, I crossed 2 bunches of tea tree across each other and tied this into place with some cotton twine * Then I wove the tea tree around the wire until both ends met up with each other at the top * I secured the top with another small piece of wire * After a little bit of adjusting I shaped the wire and tea tree into the wreath shape that I was happy with and hung it pretty on the wall! xx

autumn nature table

 Yesterday I made our Autumn nature table for Lola and Sadie's room. It was super easy and our girls love it. Would you like to make one too?

I started off by dying some wool roving brown (I have a link here to dying wool). * Next, blanket stitch some simple gnome clothes and hats. I used wooden peg people for my gnomes from this wonderful Etsy shop here, or you could also make some gnomes out of pipe cleaners, there's some great tutorials here and here * Then, using pipe cleaners I made a tree shape with four legs so it can stand up on it's own and wrapped the brown wool roving around the pipe cleaners to make the tree look tree-ish * Finally I cut some Autumn leaves out of some felt and needle felted some leaves onto the tree then scattered the rest on the ground *

There you go! Easy and a winner with the little ones! xx