Memory box frames

Well it's been a while since I've written a post but I just had to share this.

I've recently been working on a memory frame box for Oscar, he's now 20 months old and we have boxes of stuff, momentos, baby grows, toys the list is endless!

But you can't keep it all without verging onto hoarding so I decided rather than keep it all boxed up why not pick a few sentimental bits and actually make a keepsake from them.

That's when I stumbled across memory frame boxes or 'shadow boxes' as they call them across the pond!

I'll be honest I was a bit nervous about putting one together, and a bit at a loss as to where to order a suitable frame especially online so the idea has sat on the back burner temporarily!

Then I came across a deep box frame, featuring a fitted pin board, pearl effect pins and an opening glass with magnetic closure in a nice ivory vintage finish. All of this for an affordable £12.99 at The Range.

Box Pin Frame- Shop here.

I couldn't resist!

It was simply a case of picking out some of Oscar's belongings and pinning them in place to display. We choose Sophie la girafe his favourite teether, first baby grow, christening booties, his hospital tag & newborn hat.

To have one of these ordered and put together for you will set you back around £40. But I thoroughly enjoyed making one myself and saved some pennies in doing so.

Here is the finished product.

I have a spare frame for Lottie and have started filling it already so each of the children have one.

Hope this has inspired you to make your own keepsake or think creatively about other ways to cherish your baby's belongings.

Trendy Tot Thursday- Summer Wear

Ahh its that time if week again! Trendy Tot Thursday and this week we've had some gorgeous sunshine and warm temperatures :)

It was at this point that we soon realised Oscar only currrently had one pair of jersey shorts to wear in the correct sizing.

We thought we'd have a browse for some Summer wear for him in advance of the next few months when all the stock will probably all snapped up from the shop shelves.

We spotted another bundle on the buy and sell groups for £7 including 5 pairs of shorts and 3 tees.

Oscar was so keen to get into his new gear on straight away and here he is modelling one of his new pairs of Summer shorts! As you can see we think he approves hehe!

Oscar also has a couple of cute little Summer hats to protect his face, head and neck from this harsh summer rays when he's exploring the great outdoors.

He has a little brown bear cub one and a blue hippopotamus one perfect for days in the sunshine!

Insect Hotel

Another craft project post here, this time

something for the garden! 

We actually started this before Lottie made an arrival last week, with some of the gorgeous spring sunshine we've been having I've been keen to get the garden into a nice place for the children to roam and so has hubby!

He's been pruning and mowing and I've been looking for garden toys and activities for the little ones.

I've always been keen on bird tables, houses and insect homes! You can get some really pretty ones now and some fun to make practical ones too! Unfortunately they don't always come cheap and some of the insect houses in the garden centres are £20-£30.

So we set out to make our own. Pinterest  is full of inspiration and designs for insect hotels and is great place to explore ideas for your bug home.

Here are some of the designs we liked:

I also found some excellent guides to constructing an insect hotel and what materials to use for the 'rooms'

This was our personal favourite! It's a really colourful and illustrative guide.

http://www.daviddomoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/David-Domoneys-Complete-Guide-to-Making-Your-Own-Insect-Hotels.pdf

We scoured the local green areas around the house to collect bits, walked over to the common with Oscar and went for walks with family to collect pine cones, dried leaves, reeds, moss and picked up some bamboo from B&Q.

To create little quarters in the hotel we separated areas off using tin cans, we actually recycled Oscar's formula tins as they're a nice big size to fill and create bug friendly spaces. The hotel also features a brick at the base with little crevices and holes for the bugs to nestle in, this also gives some weight to the hotel which will help stop it toppling in the wind.

The structure of our bug hotel was a shelf type design made from wood, varnished with wood protector and then painted with an outdoor paint we found in the garden shed. Its a nice natural green colour so blends in well in the garden. I believe its a garden paint available at B&Q but if you have materials spare lying around the house it's always cheaper and more fun just to re use things!

Here is our frame being constructed in the woodwork stage by our lovely Grandad :)

Here you can see the frame is made from wood which has been cut to size, pieced 

together and affixed with screws and then varnished. A final coat is being applied, we went for the green paint instead of the white/cream.

The fun part was filling the bug hotel with our little toddler Oscar! Here he is at work in the garden:

And here is the progress thus far! We still have some dried leaves and other nesting materials to finalise the hotel before its grand opening! But we're really pleased with it so far and are looking forward to welcoming some creepy crawlies into the living quarters real soon :)

If you're handy with woodwork and like painting and recycling items we hope this has inspired you to put together your own bug hotel. It doesn't even need to be made from wood, there are lots of additional ideas for structures of bug houses including empty cans, bottles or simply reusing an old compartment drawer to fill. Explore what items you have laying around the house/ shed/ garage for ideas and you can also pick items up that might work from the dump or from free cycle groups.

Just think of all those beautiful butterflies, ladybirds and bumble bees you could have visiting soon and the good they do for nourishing the garden and encouraging local wildlife.

Trendy Tot Thursday!

For this weeks trendy tot Thursday I'd like to take the chance to introduce a new addition to our family :)

Here is the beautiful Lottie Florence born April 4th weighing 7lbs 2oz.

Here she is adorning a pink baby hat including cute little ears, from the TU range -Sainsburys which her Daddy bought her!

She's here!

Well I was expecting to be waddling around this Easter indulging in chocolate eggs and enjoying family time! And that's exactly what we were doing on Good Friday!

Hubby has been busy nesting and building a set of drawers and getting the swinging crib set up in our bedroom!

Auntie Krissi and Uncle David popped round in the afternoon for a walk to collect some materials for our latest craft project! An insect hotel for the garden (more on this topic later) 

And then we finished the day off with a yummy dominos pizza feast! 

At 11pm I started to get a few cramp type period pains but nothing substantial and I thought well perhaps its a sign things might be progressing with bump now officially overdue.

We went to bed as usual and I started to wake every 15 minutes with pains which were progressing more into contraction sensations, thinking it might be braxton hicks I continued to try and ignore them as best possible and return to getting some rest! Hubby got me a hot water bottle and we attempted to get some more shut eye.

However come early morning the contractions were getting very painful and far more regular, Hubby called the birth centre & they wanted me in to be checked. Namely because we have a fair drive to the New Forest and because of my history with a reasonably fast previous labour with Oscar.

We arrived at the birth centre in a record 22 minutes, I don't quite remember the drive to be honest! I occasionally would look up and get a rough bearing of where we were but its a bit of a blur! I remember hubby parking up as close to the entrance as he could and pointing out the deer whilst I was in the middle of a full blown contraction! Think I grabbed on to him with all my might for support! We waddled in and straight into a birthing room, I was so glad to be there and was offered gas and air straight away such a huge relief! 

Following assessment the midwife confirmed I was fully dilated and then whilst adjusting my position on the bed my waters went. She asked where I wished to labour and I stated my desire to use the birthing pool, unfortunately it only reached about 1/4 full and was cold so no time for a dip!

Bubba was coming! After 15-20 minutes of pushing baby made an entrance into the world safely and we discovered we'd had a little baby girl :)

A sister for Oscar and a beautiful daughter for my Husband and I. We'd always known what name we wanted for a baby girl so was easy to announce little Lottie's arrival.

We had a few middle names in mind but thought Florence was really pretty so Lottie Florence it was!

The midwifery team at NFBC were simply  amazing and have been with both my pregnancies and newborns. I was so pleased we managed to birth there with Lottie and we spent the next day in the Heather room getting to know Lottie, feeding her and settling in to being a family of four :) we already adore her!

I was so pleased to have a smooth labour especially after such a tough pregnancy. I really suffered when carrying Lottie with constant illness, infections and was on antibiotics for the majority of my 2nd and 3rd trimester. I pretty much had to live off Gaviscon (my saviour) due to terrible heartburn and Lottie was breech until 37 weeks so we had  accipunture with the midwives, additional scans and monitoring and then blood tests for both genestational diabetes and obstetric cholestatis when I reached full term. But she is here safely, so let the adventures continue, with our now 'two' little pickles! :) 

My first photograph:

Meeting Daddy & my big brother:

Back at home:

With my mummy (our first girly selfie)

Easter goodies

So so much chocolate! These eggs are everywhere and as cheap as £1 per egg in some stores!

Hubby's bought one, Grandparents, Aunties! And hey we all love chocolate but with Oscar's dairy intolerance he gets very sickly at the smallest portion he just can't hold it down!

So I treated Daddy & Oscar to an alternative Easter gift in a matching Daddy & Baby mug set!

Just adorable and only £2 from the buy/sell groups! 

What alternative Easter gifts have you shared with your loved ones? X

Trendy Tot Thursday

Its been a while since we've taken part in Trendy Tot Thursday mainly due to pregnancy complications, but this morning we are back and sharing an adorable jeans and waistcoat combo!

A few weeks back Oscar was making the transition from 12-18 month to 18-24 months sizing! Although some trousers/jumpers can still be a little long he mainly fits into the larger sizing well.

I can't believe how quickly he is growing! 

Purchasing clothes new can be very expensive every 6 months especially as you need to invest in shoes and an entire range of trousers, vests, tees and jumpers.

So I had a browse on the buy/sell groups online! I found a bundle of clothes for £8 and we collected a big bin liner full! After riffling through it we found we liked about half of it an the other half we donated to the charity shop!

So here were our goodies:

As you can see we did pretty well for £8 and this included vests, socks, coats, long and short sleeved tops! We were very pleased!

So today I am featured an outfit from our bundle. Here we have a pair of nice denim jeans, a long sleeved blue top and gorgeous lightweight cotton waistcoat! How smart! :)

Other favourites from the bundle include a 'Daddy's Little Helper' Long sleeved tee and a lovely woolen jumper (which daddy has a matching one to!)

We also got these very cute dinosaur jamas Raaaawr!

And finally we adore this little beige lightweight coat which was included in the bundle perfect for Spring time and some fun in the garden :)

Oscar looks dapper in it all! I will definitely be keen to purchase another bundle in the near future if we can find one :)

I believe people often auction bundles on Ebay too! You may not like it all when you go for a clothes bundle but we were pleasantly surprised with our items and would definitely consider buying a 2nd hand bundle of clothes again :)