Tuesday, 28 March 2017

my sun, my stars








Balloons, giant number four balloon, a pig cake, a tractor ride. Nothing was spared for the birthday party down at the farm on Saturday. We were blessed with a fantastic sunny weather for the whole weekend, which really made our celebrations all the more special.
It was the first time we organised a "party" for our daughter, so we decided to book it with one of the local farms we visited before. For a four year-old active animal lover, it was just the right choice.
I thought the highlight would be the private animal handling session, but it turned out the tractor ride  won it.
We had planned to bake a cake for the evening after the party, but the gorgeous pig cake we ordered for the party was so big we had loads left, so the homebaking will have to wait till next weekend when we have more guests coming to celebrate this special occasion.

We were lucky and grateful that the party turned out so well. Here are a few tips I picked up along the process:

* book your event WELL in advance - I mean at least 6 weeks. The farm party I booked was actually way more popular than I thought, and on the day I wanted there was only one opening left! 

*party bags - this was a gandma job, saving me time and hassle to look for all the bits and bobs. She got the plain bags (Hobbycraft I think), stickers and sweets. I am not one for too many plastic useless toys in party bags, so I was in charge of finding something not-too-useless. In the end I settle for a set of Frozen hairpins for the girls and one of those funny compressed face towels for boys, both from Wilko

*our gorgeous Pig Cake is from Marks and Spencer, they take an online order and then you just collect a day or so before the party, it was perfect

* the few decorations I got are from our local Tesco supermarket (the big 4 is not). I had literally zero time to do anything, so those paper balls were a blessing, and they are super easy to put up

* Finally, the ultimate alpha mum trick - I used my original guest list to write down who each present was from so that we can thank everyone individually. Simple but useful ;)


Monday, 20 March 2017

3 things to smile about #6

I am not one to linger too long here about my personal life, but let's just say that February was like the worst.month.ever. But hey, everything being relative, I have decided to focus on the positive, smile again, and try not to be too much of a miserable cow. 'Cos goodness knows only bad things happen to miserable cows. I'm all about the karma, baby!
So here are some of the things I have been smiling about these last few days.





A rustic bunch of flowers waiting for us on the table we booked at Cedar Farm in Lancashire. Early March seemed like the right time to put February behind us (you don't say, hey!) so we headed North and reconnected with our roots a bit. I just loved that bouquet and the contrast it made with the bluey-grey wall behind: simple, effective. I would have never put red tulips with cherry blossoms, but wow, don't you think?




Putting old bits of fabric together. Always good therapy, and what better to do put together a mother-daughter collaboration? Half-way through the preparations I realised I wouldn't have enough of the red spotted fabric and had to change, but it was still a nice little DIY thing to do.


don't mind me while I take a quick photo with bed hair, no proper background, and let's not even go down the lighting route :(



Last but not least, this absolute beauty from Zara. A cheap-as-chips, sure to cheer you up kinda bag, aka the perfect little picnic basket bag. It will be perfect for spring, summer, and may even end up with mushrooms in it come Autumn! I simply loved it as soon as I saw it on a parisian website a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I didn't order it straight away, and it got sold out online pretty quickly. Luckily for me, the Oxford Street branch had ONE left. Yay me!


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