To boldly go... into a space themed child's bedroom!

It's always great fun decorating a child's bedroom - it's a time when you get the opportunity to do something adventurous and daring that you probably wouldn't do in any other part of your home!

One of the hottest trends at the moment is all things space themed: think retro rockets, moons and stars, with colours in deep blue, teal, muted soft dusky purple - offset with neutral grey, taupe and white. In fact, if you fancy delving into the theme for some inspiration I've created a board on Pinterest for you!

I thought I'd pick some items from the PhotoFairytales site with the space and astronaut theme for you, starting with a brand new item: this cool wooden photo holder in the shape of a rocket!

Wooden Memory Photo Rocket
- personalised with your chosen name, available at PhotoFairytales

Created from solid birch wood, the photo holder is personalised with your chosen name and can take 5 photos of your gorgeous little boy or girl. Find the new Wooden Memory Photo Rocket at PhotoFairytales by clicking here.

Here are some more fun space-inspired finishing touches for your child's bedroom...

1: 'Space Man' fantasy photo portrait, created from your own photo - from £24.50

2: 'Space Adventure' personalised canvas print - from £18.50

3: 'When I grow up... astronaut' personalised canvas print - from £18.50

4: 'Retro Spaceship' personalised canvas print - from £18.50

The retro 1950's and 1960's space theme is very on trend too: think The Jetsons, Cath Kidston-type pyjamas, the Festival of Britain... do take a browse through my board on Pinterest for more inspiration!

Sarah x

Pining for Peddles: bike lust, pure and simple

OK, it’s not big, and it’s not clever - but I feel like I’m 7 years old again and want to have a good old whine - you see, I have bike envy. Quite bad bike envy. Put it this way…

I WANNA NEW BIKE!!!!

I haven’t really given bikes that much thought since I was a schoolgirl. I used to ride mine every day backwards and forwards to school, riding around town to visit mates or go to the park. Then of course, becoming a parent you inevitably get back into bikes to a degree - having a daughter has meant owning bikes with glittery tassels on the handlebars, a basket on the front for dolls (or the cat if she sits still long enough), beads on the wheels that clatter. You know the type of thing.

But our gorgeous and incredibly lanky daughter has now outgrown her bike and the time has arrived for her first proper, grown up sized bike. After much debate over BMX style versus traditional style, colours, basket/no basket (no basket, apparently they’re not cool unless you’re a *little* girl or a mum), etc, etc, she has finally got her clutches on her shiny new bike. And boy it’s a beauty! (Hence my jealousy).

It’s a Raleigh - traditional style, but a hybrid so good for a bit of bumpy off-roading. It’s a lovely pale blue. With silver mudguards. It’s got 18 gears (18! mine only used to have 3…) And spokes that glitter in the sunshine as she peddles. It’s got lovely chunky grips on the handlebars, and a nice squishy seat. And it’s so shiny…. So very, very shiny….

After visiting a couple of bike shops at the weekend I have decided that if money were no object I would most definitely have a bike for every day of the week. Seriously, there are some GORGEOUS bikes to be had out there. I must admit I do rather like the traditional style - and I’m a mum, so it’s OK for me to lust after a basket! There’s the lovely lavender coloured one, with colour coded mudguards. Or the green and orange one with a cupholder (perfect for peddling along the prom, very seaside-y). And there’s the lovely grown up blue one with a brown leather saddle and matching handle grips. Or the bright red one with white tyres (white tyres!) and a ‘Miss Marple’ style wicker basket on the front. Oh, and a proper bell. Ting ting!!

My husband confessed to me that as a child he used to go into the local bike shops to look at the brake blocks. Just, you know, look at them. Not to buy (he didn't actually own a bike). Just look. And one of my earliest memories is sitting in the child bike seat strapped behind my mum watching her back go from side to side as we peddled to the shops. So I guess bikes get under our skin pretty early on. It's our first chance of freedom that comes long before the first car. 

What’s the opposite of being a Petrol Head? Because I think I’m that now. I used to turn my head when we drove past car dealers - but I think that may be about to change….

So biking with a basket: cool or uncool? Leave a comment, and tell me what you think!

Sarah :)

A question for all Mums - old and young!

It’s Mother’s Day - a day that celebrates all the fabulous mums that look after, love and care for their families. So I’m feeling a bit reminiscent of the time 10 years ago when I became a mum...

The first few years of your child’s life are amazing: they grow and transform at such a fast pace. One moment you’re marvelling at their first words and steps, the next it’s their first day at school and then they’re taking driving lessons! I don’t know about you, but we have a large (and ever growing) ‘Memory Box’ - packed full of keepsakes from Amy’s life so far. From first curls and a favourite tiny sleepsuit, to her first pair of proper walking shoes and an adorable tiny denim jacket she used to wear. These mementoes will probably never stop being added to - and are definitely the first thing I’d reach for to save in a house fire!

As far as Amy is concerned, I think her main childhood memento will be her beloved bear: PB. He has been with her since her 3rd birthday, and they have never spent a night apart. He protects her from bad dreams, looks after her when she’s poorly (even at the risk of catching it himself), he hogs her bed at night, and has had lots of outings and holidays. I can see PB sitting somewhere in a corner of Amy’s life forever - it may not always be on her bed, he may be consigned to a cupboard or even a box in years to come, but she’ll always have him in her life.

So what are the mementos you kept from your child’s early years - and what are the things that you still have from your own childhood that are still treasured possessions? (Mine is a small, flat and slightly grubby white bear called ‘Snowy’ - and a little elephant brooch that I’ve had since about the age of 6 which I still occasionally wear!)

First footprints? Baby blankets? Favourite cuddlies? Hospital bracelet? Tiny clothes? A special painting?  Or just an enormous box (or boxes) crammed with mementoes from each and every year?! Let me know, I’d love to hear!

Sarah :)

Letters from Santa - 'the best by far'

You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why:

Santa Claus is coming to town!

- and he'll be writing to the very best behaved children again this year, so you better take a look at his fabulous personalised letters quick!

Once again this year, Father Christmas is going to be sending some truly magical letters to just a few lucky children - he only sends a limited number, so if you know a youngster who would love to receive one it's time to act! Head on over to PhotoFairytales and reserve one now - and for every one he writes, I will make a donation to a fabulous UK charity too!

As before, each letter is prepared individually and is packed with details that will help children to really understand the spirit of Christmas and the magic of Santa. He will sign each letter personally, and also sends a personalised quality card certificate awarded for excellent behaviour throughout 2012. Plus, he will be popping 4 fabulous little gifts in too which will keep little fingers busy during the exciting wait for Christmas Day. Everything is packaged up in a big jolly red envelope, and delivered to your little boy or girl during December.

If you would like Father Christmas to send letters to siblings each letter will be slightly different. And if he wrote to you last year don't worry - the letter this year will be different (Santa doesn't like to repeat himself!).

Every letter will raise money for Rainbow Trust - a UK charity providing emotional and practical support to families who have a child with life threatening or terminal illness. So when you reserve a letter I will make a 50p donation and you will be helping me to support a very worthwhile charity.

But hurry - as ever, there are only a limited number of letters available and every year they sell out. So don't be disappointed - click here now and reserve yours!

Praise for last years' letters:

My granddaughter, Lia, was very excited to receive not just a letter from Santa but a certificate and gifts too! Highly recommended and Lia's mum was even more delighted that Santa told Lia to go to bed early on Christmas Eve! ...you have made one little girl (and mum and granny) very happy!

Simply wonderful - the children adored them!

A HUGE thank you for Scarlett's letter from Santa! I have never seen her eyes so big and her smile so wide! She has told everyone about her certificate for being on the nice list!!!

I just wanted to thank you for my girls Letters from Santa - the look of awe on their faces was amazing, they couldn't believe that Santa actually knew what they wanted for Christmas and who their best friends were, they got to work instantly colouring in their cards and decorating the finger puppets and bookmarks - you definitely made their day...

Ho, ho, ho!
Sarah :)

If you like a lot of chocolate, read my blog!

Pin back your ears, lick your lips, I’m about to take you for a plunge into pure chocolate heaven….

“Never mind about 1066 William the Conqueror, 1087 William the Second. Such things are not going to affect one's life ... but 1932 the Mars Bar and 1936 Maltesers and 1937 the Kit Kat - these dates are milestones in history and should be seared into the memory of every child in the country.”

That’s what Roald Dahl reckoned, and you can’t deny the 30’s were a golden era. In fact, when you look into it, most of the chocolate we know and love today is getting on for 100 years old (and still hasn’t gone beyond the “best before” date!). In 1905 Cadburys launched the Dairy Milk bar, in 1908 came the Toblerone, Walnut Whips followed in 1910, then the Flake in 1920, in 1923 the Milky Way was born, Crunchie came about in 1929, 1930 saw the arrival of the Snickers (or if you’re a traditionalist, the Marathon!), Maltesers in 1936, and I was surprised to find out that Terry’s Chocolate Orange dates back to 1932…

And I suppose as the inventor of Mr Willy Wonka, it makes sense that Roald Dahl should know his stuff about chocolate. But I reckon we’re all Smartie-Pants (excuse the pun), when it comes to chocolate - I’d be amazed if you, dear reader, hadn’t sampled every single one of those chocolates I’ve mentioned and counted yourself a bit of a connoisseur. Ask anyone which they prefer: milk chocolate or plain, and they’ll have an answer for you before you can say “Twix”.

So, here’s the thing: over the last few years there’s been a bit of a chocolate “make over” - magazines tell us that we will be just as satisfied with a square or two of 90% cocoa solid organic chocolate as we would be with an entire Mars bar. That it’s better for us, and because it has more of a cocoa hit we won’t want as much. There’s even - pause for breath - chocolate with the sophistication of added chilli, or salt. Hmm. [presses lips together in slightly in-approving way…]

Well I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t hit the spot for me - on any level! If you’re the kind of person who likes the bitterest of bitter chocolate (not to be confused with plain chocolate, that’s lush) and looks down their nose at the sweet and sugary Cadburys type stuff - well I just don’t believe you. Sorry, no, don’t believe you. Pants definitely on fire. I reckon when you’re in a room, all on your own, you’d choose a bar of Dairy Milk! And anyway, you’re denying yourself two of the world’s greatest inventions: Munchies and Creme Eggs. Or if you still want to be sophisticated, help yourself to a Fry’s Peppermint Cream. We won’t think any less of you, promise.

Right, must dash, the sweet shop is calling my name… (but if you want to leave a comment and tell me what your favourite chocolate is, or indeed if you prefer milk or plain, go for it - we can wallow in chocolate together!)

Sarah x

Me & My Dad: The Penny Pinchers!

When I was growing up, one of the phrases I remember quite clearly was: “hmmm, petrol situation’s getting a bit dodgy…”, always said by my Dad, usually on a long journey, and often said whilst travelling down a motorway. On the upside, it at least gave the journey a bit of thrill factor - let’s spurn those overpriced motorway service stations, let’s see if we can squeeze out a few more drops and make it to a nice, off the beaten track (AKA “cheaper”) petrol station. More entertaining than playing I Spy, real edge-of-the-seat stuff!

You see, my Dad is ‘careful’ with money and I think - no, I know - it’s a trait I’ve picked up and run with the older I get. When I was still living at home, I would sometimes request that the heating be turned up a bit - “it’s up at 64 degrees already!”, my Dad would exclaim. “If it was a summer’s day and 64 degrees outside, you’d be walking around in a t-shirt!”. It’s a bit tricky to argue your way out of that one - especially when you’re 9.

I remember when, as a family, we would go to get our collective hair cut (by a nice lady called Jane who ‘did you’ in her kitchen - much cheaper than going to the hairdressers, plus if we all went together it saved on the aforementioned petrol). Whilst Jane was sorting out my Dad’s mop of hair he asked her to clear up an argument that he and my Mum had recently had: namely, is washing up liquid basically the same as shampoo? I think you see where this was going… (Just for the record, Jane confirmed that it wouldn’t do his hair any harm if he wanted to wash it in the cheapest brand of bright green washing up liquid available. Apparently, it’s the conditioner that counts…)

Our house was regularly “lit up like bloody Blackpool”, and paying for a car park space was something only idiots did. Even if it did mean a bit of a walk… Creosote for your fence was a waste of money when you had a bucket of old engine oil to hand (result: lovely smart black fence, but no naked flames to be used within a 500 yard radius please). Dad’s taste in wine is legendary in our family - his philosophy is if he can get it for under £2.50 and it doesn’t make him sick, it’s a winner. When we moved house once he had the phone installed in the kitchen, on the wall - to prevent people from getting too comfortable and thereby talking longer. Phone calls, of course, must always be made after 6pm. Oh, and a sachet of any kind (sugar, ketchup, vinegar, salad cream) made available for customers in that coffee shop? Well, that was just begging to be snaffled...

Of course, these days it’s easy to wrap up all this scrimping as being “eco friendly”. Don’t use the tumble drier, turn the heating down (or preferably off all together), reduce, re-use, recycle, etc. My Mum had the lid of a Nescafe coffee jar as the handle for her oven for quite some time - see, maybe my Dad was actually just ahead of his time!

The thing is though, I appear to be exactly the same. Let’s not put the heating on, let’s just buy a hot water bottle instead. (Preferably in Poundland). See a penny, pick it up, and all day long - you’ll be a penny richer than you were yesterday, result! And if you’re ever out and about, and find yourself in need of a sachet of pepper or a nice lemony-fresh wipe (from KFC, c1998, probably a bit dried out now), then just let me know. I’ve got a handbag full of them.

Sarah x

Too young to cook..?

How old would your own child need to be before you set them loose in the kitchen? Do you believe a kitchen is a dangerous place (all hot things and sharp knives, and far too risky), or have you always tried to encourage your child to take part when it comes to cooking?

My own daughter Amy was given a fabulous children’s cookery book from Santa this year - if Santa thinks its OK for her to cook a chocolate cake or chicken goujons, who am I to argue?! Amy turned 9 at the end of December, and I’ve always tried to find time to have baking sessions with her. We’ve turned out sticky buns (with lots of icing), the old favourite rice crispie cakes, shortbread (good excuse for using all those shape cutters), and loads more. But it’s always been based around “baking”: weighing the ingredients, stirring them up, rolling out or tipping into the baking tin. Then I would take over with the hot oven bit.

But this weekend was different! Amongst all the cake recipes in Amy’s new book there is a big section on main meals, full of things like chicken skewers, curry and rice, savoury pancakes - and chicken chow mein. It could be the fact that it’s the Chinese New Year, but Amy decided she wanted to cook chicken chow mein from scratch, herself with no (well, very minimal!) help. She wanted to cook a proper grown-up dinner for the family - none of those soppy rice crispie cakes here, thank you! So we wrote out a shopping list for the ingredients, bought everything we needed, and last night she set to work.

Now, chicken chow mein involves all those scary things: hot water to cook the noodles, sharp knives to cut the chicken and vegetables, hot fat to stir fry. Was I nervous? A tad…

I confess I took over the boiling of the noodles - the site of all that bubbling hot water, yikes! But step two in the cookery book involved peeling and slicing carrots, chopping spring onions, slicing beans, etc. I handed Amy a very sharp knife and gritted my teeth….. She was fine - she was very careful and respectful of the sharpness of the blade, took care to make sure her fingers were clear - honestly, she was fine!

So next step: stir frying the chicken. OK, oil put into wok and heated [gulp], chicken tipped carefully in [gulp], wooden spoon handed over: and she was off! Stirring the chicken like a seasoned pro, taking on all my comments about keeping it low so that the oil doesn’t splash, etc, etc. Then we added the vegetables: more stirring in hot spitty oil, and finally the noodles. Stir, stir, stir.

I can only say that the meal was fabulous - tasty, cooked to perfection, and with clean plates all round afterwards. What was most interesting was that the recipe included mangetout and fine beans - both vegetables that Amy normally “hates”, but it seems when a child cooks their own dinner these things lose the yuk factor. She scoffed the lot!

So, despite the fact that it was a great way to encourage my child to eat vegetables she wouldn’t normally, was I right to let her near the sharp knives and hot fat? Would you let your 9 year old do something like this too? Am I overly cautious/not cautious enough?!

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Sarah x

Should adults act more like children..?

I just wanted to share this little moment I had at the start of my day today:

I had just dropped Amy off at school, and Freddy Dog and I were walking home. A little girl and her mummy were walking towards us on the opposite side of the road when the little girl suddenly called out "hello" and waved to us. I called out "hello" back and she said "I've got on a dress!".

"Yes", I said "and you look beautiful."

"So do you!" was the reply - wasn't that lovely? Never seen her before in my life, but we both swapped spontaneous compliments that made us both grin at one another. What a shame as adults we don't just approach strangers and tell them we like their hat, or ask them to admire our new shoes! Imagine that world!!

Of course, on the other side, it could also be a world where we occasionally point blank tell friends that are getting on our nerves that we don't want to talk to them today - or we point at someone fat and say loudly "look, they're fat!" - or we go round to a friends' house and proclaim that it "smells funny" and then ask for a biscuit...

So perhaps its just as well we grow out of it after all.

Sarah x

" Sexy" - am I being overly sensitive..?

I'm developing a serious problem with the word "sexy", and I think I'm going to have to vent my spleen here a bit - tell me what you think...

It seems totally acceptable now to use this word in mainstream situations: tv, magazines, etc. Now, I'm not talking about this from the point of view of an adult - I'm talking about it from the point of view of a mum to a 7 year old. Should I be getting upset when she puts on a new top, looks at herself in the mirror, strikes a silly pose and asks "d'ya think I'm seeexy?!". Now, she's doing it in a fun, jokey way - but, it makes me feel so uncomfortable. This word gets bantered around even on children's telly - and don't even get me started on pop videos/singers...

My daughter is clever, smart, funny, beautiful and a fabulous little character - she is NOT sexy.

So, when she asked if I thought she was "seeexy", I just smiled and said, "no sweetheart, you're not, you're my little girl and I love you." But she still wasn't sure if I was being mean or not. And what to say when she turns round (like she did the other day) and asks me what the word means? Well poppet, it means you're sexually attractive to other people...I think not!!!

I don't remember this word being in use when I was a kid. I might sound like a total old prude, but I'm not sure I'm getting upset for no reason am I? I don't even feel comfortable letting her watch pop videos - I'm so sick of seeing women with their bums on show grinding like a lap dancer. And then there's the Playboy range in Argos - Amy loves looking at those pages in the catalogue: they're all PINK! Oh, and it seems that once your child gets past the age 5/6 years clothing sizes, she's suddenly expected to dress like a psuedo teenager in black t-shirts with words like "Bitch" picked out in glitter. You're kidding me right...?

Tell me what you think...