I had hoped to record a video of Rudi making things too but she is one independent little soul, so I wasn't always there when the making took place. I actually really love that about the jar. Everything you need is there and Rudi could help herself to scissors and glue and get stuck in. She followed the instructions for some things and free-styled some other things. I love that combination! 

The My Little Makes blog is full of so many great ideas of things to make. Happy crafting! xo

This year it took me a while longer than usual to decide on my word. In the past it's been so much easier for me to choose one but it wasn't until about half way through January that I rested on the word Patience. 

I am, I think, a pretty patient person but I could see, looking at the year ahead, that there were going to be some things that were going to take an extra level of patience, some in work and some in life. 

Each year my word grounds me as I make decisions, face challenges and navigate life. Patience is already helping me so much and I feel that this year, more than in others perhaps, that my word of the year is really going to help me grow. Grow in myself, grow as a mother and grow as a business woman. 

A few weeks ago I found something wonderful to help me even more. I now have a beautiful ring, made by Sally How, which has the word Patience hand stamped inside. I wear it every day and whenever I need some extra patience I feel it is right there, so strongly. I rub my finger on the ring, take a deep breath and instantly feel calmer and stronger. 

Words really are such powerful things. 

A few days ago we had some bad news about our daughter's secondary school application. We didn't get into any of the schools on our application and now have got a tricky few weeks or months ahead of us while we check on waiting list places as often as possible and get our plan B together. 

Having my word and my ring has already helped me more than I could have imagined when I picked Patience a few weeks ago. 

Do you have a word for the year? It's not too late to pick one if you don't. xo

So to celebrate all of that love and happiness here are some images from the Valentine Tea that I held for my children and our good friend Kathryn of Wander For A While during the half-term holiday. 

I love Valentine's Day because it gives me a chance to craft some cute things with my children, decorate that house, think about how we can all show our love and kindness to each other a little bit more and of course eat cake. What's not to love about that! 

Our big LOVE balloon is from Hello Party and we printed these cute Love Tokens from Lia Griffiths, which I might need to keep forever in our memory box. Too much cuteness here! xo 

Thank you to Kathryn for taking the two photos I am in! xo

This week I had my moment for me on Monday, which was such a beautiful way to start the week and has actually led to one of the most creative weeks I have had in a long time and I have had such a beautiful sense of calm all week too. I wonder if I need to start each week this way!  

I headed into town to meet up with my dear friends Kathryn and Miranda, and Miranda’s lovely Mum joined us too. We went to visit the gorgeous Real Flower Company’s pop-up at Cabbages & Roses and also visited their super cute store.  

And we had fun taking some photos together too!  

Before heading home we popped into the adorable new Boden store. It was so lovely to see lots of their clothes in real life rather than just in their catalogue and I fell in love with even more of their children’s clothes!  

I hope find time to create a little Moment For You this coming week. xo

This year I have used this pretty hanging tree from Cox & Cox (I got it last year but they might have similar ones again this year) and 24 pretty envelopes. You could make these yourself out of newspaper or kraft paper. I have written the days in with a metallic pen but you could use stamps or stickers too.

I used a hole punch and pretty navy and gold string to tie them to the tree.

Inside each envelope is a lottery scratch card. So a fun little game each day and you never know what he might win!

And I have also created an Advent Calendar for you! 24 days of inspiration and creativity with a Facebook Group for us all to connect with each other. There is no pressure to join in each day but if you have a little time for yourself then it will be there for you each day of Advent. Pop over to Makelight to sign up. xo

The boxes are made from empty smoothie boxes that I've been saving for a few weeks! I simply turned them inside out and glued them back together. I love the simplicity of the brown boxes and I have added some washi tape to each box both as decoration and to give them a little bit more stick! I then added some shiny dot stickers that I found in WHSmith.  For box 24 I have used a bigger box for something a little bit more special for Christmas Eve. 

This year I wanted to combine little gifts with a cute activity to do together each day. I fell in love with the activity calendar idea when I saw it on Babyccino and I downloaded their activities and chose the ones that I knew we could do. It took a little bit of time to make sure that the right ones went on the right days and some co-ordination with the children's lovely nanny who will be doing four of the activities with them! I am so excited about the activities and it will be a really sweet way to spread our festive activities nicely through the month. 

For the gifts I have done half chocolates and half little toys. I love the challenge of finding sweet little treasures for advent calendars! 

I have put the activities into little envelopes, which I have hole-punched to thread a little bit of shiny twine through and then attached them to the boxes. I found the sweet number sticks in Hema but before I saw the stickers I had planned to just write the numbers on the envelopes with a pretty pen. 

I hope this inspires you to make your own Advent Calendar too. Next week I will share the one I'm making for Stef and the ones that I make with the children to send to the Grandparents. You can never have enough Advent Calendars! xo

Twenty years ago I made the first trip of many to San Francisco and felt something so special, not only in that wonderful city but up and down the coast too. It was many years later that I made it all the way up to Oregon but I knew on that first trip I just had to go there one day. 

Two years ago I got to take my eldest with me on my USA book tour and then the following year I took Stef. He loved it too and this year we were lucky enough to take the whole family. And yes, we all loved it very much indeed. To share somewhere you love with the people you love is all the more special. 

Road Tripping With Kids

For our whole trip we had two and a half weeks, and we started and ended it in New York. It was our first long haul flight with four children, so we wanted to make it a little more manageable, so breaking it into two parts was really helpful. It also meant we could squeeze Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History into our trip! 

It also gave us all a great perspective into the size of the United States when we flew all the way from NYC to LA. 

In LA we picked up our car, which was going to take us on a big adventure across to Yosemite, back inland to San Francisco and then up to Portland. I cannot believe that we totally forgot to take one single photo of our big white car! 

Our kids are brilliant travellers and they really loved the road trip. Some travel days were a little too long and if we are lucky enough to do it again we'll definitely go for an extra week, so we can have more stops but I love that we've all had a taste for the West Coast and that we got to see so much in the two weeks we were there. 

The trip was definitely an exciting adventure and not are relaxing holiday. But it was simply amazing and a time that brought us even closer together as a family. It has left us all with a bigger sense of adventure and wanderlust. 

First Stop : Huntington Beach & LA

Our first stop when we arrived on the West Coast was to travel down a little way south of LA to Huntington Beach to see a very special friend of mine, Emma. 

Emma and I sadly lost touch after University. And then one day I received an email from someone called Emma asking if I was the Emily she had lived with at Uni! She had found me through searching for online photography courses! It is seriously the best thing ever to have come out of Makelight! For a couple of years we have been emailing each other and I was so excited when I got to tell Emma that we were coming to LA and could come and see her! 

For me, it was the most special part of the trip and the way our children played together was just a dream come true. 

It is for reasons like this that I love the internet so much! 

Imogen got to have another go at surfing and the boys got to body board in the Pacific Ocean. What a way to start our adventure. 

After Huntington Beach we stayed in LA for one night and got to meet up with Cynthia, a lovely Makelight Member. 

And we also stopped off at the California Science Center and saw the partial eclipse of the sun and a real life space shuttle. Mind blown! xo

Later this week I will share Part Two and our adventure to Yosemite, San Francisco and Dillon Beach. 

In preparation for tomorrow and whatever time we all end up waking up, I have been thinking about how to make the most of this extra hour. 

A family board game. 

A walk in the woods.

Baking some Halloween cakes. 

A long run.

A big craft session. 

Or maybe even trying to squeeze all those into our Sunday. 

If you are reading this at some silly hour on Sunday morning try and think of a way to embrace the extra hour today and do something lovely with it. xo

Our trip was kindly paid for by Airbnb and we enjoyed staying in a super cute apartment in the old part of Porto. 

Here's a short video about our trip and below are a selection of images. I adored all the colourful tiles and did have to make sure I had a couple of short walks on my own to capture them! 

Thank you again to Airbnb for this adventure. xo

I am 41 today, so this was a big deal to go through as an adult but I did it and I can now enjoy my teeth for the rest of my life. Two years is worth that but there were times when it didn't feel like that. And it took a whole lot of courage to even make the appointment to see the orthodontist in the first place. 

Since I had them put on I've had lots of emails from friends thinking of having them done too, so I wanted to make this little video to share my experience and to give you the encouragement to be brave if you are a grown up who doesn't like their teeth. I hope it inspires you. 

My braces were fitted at Aesthetic Dental Zone in East Dulwich by Dr Nadjafi. 

Here I am the morning before they were fitted! 

These days I write lists of things I am grateful for each day and practising gratitude is now a popular daily activity for lots of people. And what a wonderful thing that is. But to add to this  I have decided to relaunch this weekly post as a way of encouraging myself and hopefully sharing some inspiration with you too. Enjoy and please do share what's made you smile this week. I'd love to hear. xo

To make all this a lot more joyful we were so happy to receive a very thoughtful gift from the wonderful people at Goodordering Bags. Stef and I have been using these bags since earlier in the year and both love them. We took them to the USA with us on our road trip (lots more about the trip coming very soon!) and so many people said how much they loved them. And the kids love that we have matching bags. 

So, you can imagine their excitement when they came home to their very own ones?! 

Now we have one each and it makes me smile so much when I come downstairs in the morning to see them all lined up together. 

Our ones are the Market Shoppers and can be worn over the shoulder, as a backpack and even attach to your bike as a pannier. And they have a wonderful number of pockets, which for me is a very important feature of any bag! 

And the children have the Kids' Backpacks. We have both also used these on a couple of weekend days when we've just needed a smaller bag. 

Not only do I adore the bags but I love the story behind the bags. The company is based in East London, so nice and local to us. And the brand name comes from founder Jacqui's childhood memories of going out for family meals in restaurants and when they had enjoyed the food they would shout "good ordering!" to their mum. I love the sense of family and gatherings that is at the heart of this brand, which is why it feels even more perfect that our family all have one to match! 

Emily xo

I keep them simple and the whole shoot takes about 15-20 minutes. But they are some of my most precious images. 

Do you take portraits at the same time of year each year? It's a beautiful family tradition to develop. I want to add a yearly family portrait to the project now too. 

Emily xo

It feels like the very best day to launch as our older three children started back at school today and our youngest goes into reception at the same school next week. New beginnings for all of us. 

I will be writing the majority of posts on here but do look out for guest posts from Stef and our children too. 

This blog began life many years ago as The Startup Wife, which then evolved into Makelight. We have now moved Makelight away from Squarespace and onto its own custom built site, so this space is now coming right back round to a space for family stories once again.

And I can't wait to get stuck in. I hope you will keep coming back!

Emily xo

Here's a little lesson about resilience from my eldest, Imogen. 

Resilience

I am always amazed at how resilient children are. They are so much tougher than we give them credit for and they can really teach us how to follow their lead. 

It is the resilience they show when they are learning that inspires me the most. Learning new things is hard. It takes time, patience and resilience.

At Easter we went down to Cornwall and we took Imogen surfing for the first time. When we booked her first lesson I explained that it would be hard. That she might get cold, disheartened and exhausted. I was so worried that she would get in the water, get cold quickly, get knocked off her board in the waves, get salt water in her eyes and give up within minutes. But I also knew just how much she would love it if she could get over all the hard stuff. Imogen is a strong swimmer and I knew she could do it but it still made me concerned.

She simply looked out at the sea, smiled and said "Don't worry Mummy, I'm resilient." 

Yes, yes exactly. The next day she went out surfing with Stef and loved it so much. Yes she got cold and needed hot chocolate and so much to eat afterwards but she stood up on her board and feel in love with surfing and the sea. 

That afternoon we both went back to the surf school and booked in another lesson. This time for both of us. I haven't been in the sea with a surfboard since my uni days. That is a long time ago. I've had four children since then. I knew I'd be mostly in the water with people so much younger than me and way more likely to stand up on their boards. But I looked out at the sea and looked at all the boards and wetsuits all lined up and I just couldn't not say yes. 

As the lesson time got closer I was so tempted to pull out. To ask Stef to go instead of me. To make up some excuse. But I held onto Imogen's resilience and spirit. She gave me the strength and determination to do it. I can be resilient too....even in the water with a surfboard at the age of 40! 

The minute I got the wetsuit on I felt so excited and happy. I spent so much time in the sea during my early 20s and once I was back in there with the waves and the salt and the complete emersion in that special place I lost all worries about my age or falling off, or getting salt in my eyes and up my nose. It was simply the best and just so wonderful to be back there.

And it's has a lasting impression too. Just those two hours in the water. It's given renewed trust and belief in my resilience levels for all of my life and work...not just in the sea. Thank you Imogen. xo

MYO (Make Your Own) magazine is a new publication by Donna Wilson celebrating creativity. It is beautiful and so inspiring. And packed full of great things to make, which we can't wait to start working our way through soon. 

The launch event was magical. It was held in Protein Studios in Shoreditch and when we arrived the stage was set for a puppet show and full of Donna's wonderful knitted trees. The puppet show, "Goose The Bear" was a complete treat and thoroughly enjoyed be everyone in the audience whatever their age. It was performed by Ljubljana Puppet Theatre and all the puppets had been created by Donna. 

After the puppet show there were a whole host of workshops, including cup cake decorating with BKD, robot drawing with Line Us, necklace making with Rosy Nicholas, and the cutest art supply station I have ever seen with badge making at The Amazing Art Cart. 

We all loved it all and my children asked when we could next go back to make more stuff! 

Subscribe to MYO today for a dose of wonderful creativity straight to your door twice a year. xo 

The images of the puppet show were taken by Gareth Hacker and the rest are with my iPhone 6s. 

I blogged to help me live my best life. I loved it. It connected me to people all over the world even on the days when I didn't venture further than the local park. As well as writing and sharing to keep sane it was also part of a bigger plan to build my own business. It was great for that too. Fast forward a few years and that entrepreneur working insane hours is now working with me full time from home! 

Blog to Business

The Start-Up Wife changed it's name to Makelight when I saw that my workshops were becoming popular and the work I was doing alongside the blog was growing. Along the way this blog had to grow with Makelight and I haven’t always been able to write what I’ve wanted to. The space has changed. I went from blog to business and it's amazing and wonderful that I did that and it's totally right that my blogging space became our blogging space and it moved from a personal space to a business space.

It all makes sense and I don't have any regrets about how I have build Makelight out of my blog but jeez I have missed having my own space. A space where I can write in a way that feels totally free.

This month we have been focussing on blogging in the Makelight Membership, so I have been really thinking about all of this a lot more than usual. I read this great piece in our new Makelight Medium Publication by one of our members, Bex of Cup of Tea and a Bex and I thought yes, this is what writing a personal blog is all about. I really remembered the importance of writing for myself....even if there is no-one reading it. I lead a very full life, our house is a busy one and sometimes I just need a little space to call my own...even if it is a virtual one. 

And back again

So, this blog is going to become my very own Journal (because for years I've wanted a journal instead of a blog .... totally the same thing of course but I do love the name so much more!) and Makelight will have its own blog where Stef and I will both write. Stef needs to work some tech magic to make this happen and we’re having a bit of a crazy week here, doing that stressful ‘startup life behind the scenes stuff that you can only talk about at some point in the future’ and also trying to get everything sorted before half-term begins on Friday afternoon. Sorting out my blogging space has understandably slipped to the bottom or our to-do list. 

But…in my true style I’m just going to get on with it as if the top of this page and the URL and whatever else may happen here have changed. It will change all in good time and I’m hoping that you’ll just imagine it’s all sorted and just enjoy the posts I’m going to share here! 

I hope you will stick with me! xo

Putting yourself into the spotlight online can be quite a daunting experience. Now that we have kids, especially, we both have to think quite carefully about what we put online and what we don’t. But even if you don’t, just taking that first step and writing online can feel intimidating for lots of reasons.

One thing I know that worries first-time bloggers is that perhaps they’ll put something online and someone somewhere will take issue with it and they’ll end up with someone “trolling” in response, or even worse with ongoing harassment as a result.

That worry that one day we’ll have to deal with someone being unusually nasty is something that we both talk about from time to time. Bad stuff happens and from time to time you hear about a prominent blogger having to take a break from it as a result.

You could take a view that the best thing to do would be to have a very “at arm's length” approach to writing online. To reinforce yourself from any of that risk by being slightly impersonal in what you write. And that works for business blogs and if you’re doing “content marketing” rather than writing from the heart.

We’ve both learned, though, that if you write from the heart, and don’t just talk about the highs – how life is one long Instagram success-fest, well, you find a certain type of person takes note and follows along. 

That’s the approach that we’ve both taken – Stef is always tweeting not just about the successes, the wins, the highs, but the stuff that hasn’t worked along the way. Sometimes you can’t go into too much detail when things aren’t going so well, but it’s all part of the process. Without a little struggle, your whole story can look pretty dull from the outside.

Blogging is about telling a story, and none of the major basic plot structures of any well-known stories are entirely lacking in any form of struggle. In fact, the struggle is a big part of them!

So we’ve decided to be somewhat vulnerable in our writing over the years. To put ourselves in the spotlight occasionally, and not hold back from talking about some of the struggles along the way. But that’s in moderation. People equally don’t appreciate following along for someone’s constant tales of how things aren’t going well. You’ve got to have the right balance. Vulnerable enough to give people a sense of the reality of what you’re doing. Stand-offish enough to give an air of mystery and to help them something of themselves in what you write about.

I think people will begin tiring of the overly-polished Instagram life. There are so many apps that can remove all the blemishes, clone out the strangers in the background, fill in those shadows, crop out the imperfect world around your perfect moment. That’s not to say that we’ll all want to see every detail of the lives of others, but understanding how much of your own reality into your writing and how you represent yourself online is something I’d encourage us all to think about.

One last thought is about positivity. The world can throw things at you and your plans might not work out all the time, but you can still be positive through it without dismissing those events. We both try to be positive and support other people to do what they’re doing. That’s why we’ve made Makelight in the first place! If you can stick to something like that, where you’re able to balance up talking about some of the honest reality of your life, but putting that in the overall context that you’re striving towards things being awesome, you’re probably on a good path. 

At least, that’s what we’re always trying to do. Balance up being positive, talking about possibilities and futures as-yet-unmade, with a little reality, a little vulnerability and not being too self-involved along the way. It’s tough to achieve, and we’re not there yet by any means, but these are the things we talk about when we’re asking ourselves “what shall I write today?” Have a think – when were you last vulnerable in a post or are you mostly presenting a veneer to the world?

I am only doing a handful of workshops this year, so that made it even more special. 

This year I had a beautiful space one the first floor of the shop, overlooking Regent Street, with beautiful natural light from the big industrial style windows. What a joy! And like last year I was able to wander round the store with one of their big baskets, collecting beautiful props for everyone to photograph during the workshop. This year two Makelight Members, who had arrived early, helped me with this task, which made it even more fun. Thank you Vaani and Ju!  

During the workshop I talked about the importance of story telling in your images, developing a style, how to get the most from your smartphone photographing and tips for styling, composing and editing your images. This was followed by time to practise with the gorgeous Anthropologie props and then of course we couldn't finish without a good old chat about how to grow your following and reach your audience. 

It was so lovely to meet some Makelight Members for the first time, see some familiar faces and of course to meet some new people too. Thank you so much for coming everyone. And a huge thank you to Anthropologie for hosting me again. xo

Thank you for the photos above Vaani! xo

I am a pretty organised person and highly motivated. I have worked for myself for a long time and I am good at time management. I fit a lot into life. I always have done but over the past couple of years I have felt like perhaps I've been getting things little bit wrong and there might be a different approach to living and working in a world where we can do so much at any time of day or night. 

And then I read (well listened to on Audible!) Tony Crabbe’s “Busy. How to thrive in a world of too much”. I felt like it had been written for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve read something that has literally stopped me in my tracks and made me not only really think but also start taking action straight away. 

I started this post with a summary of the book but I feel that this book is way too good and important for a summary, so I think you should make time to read it yourself. 

But I did want to share one simple change I have made with you. It is so easy and little that you might want to try it too. 

Setting my phone alarm

I now set my morning phone alarm at 9pm when I am still downstairs. I try not to look at it again after that but at the very least I don’t look at it once I’m heading up to bed. I simply put it by my bed for the morning and do not touch it. When I climb into bed I read a book or magazine instead of getting sucked into my phone. 

Now, this might seem so simple and obvious. You might wonder why on earth I don’t just have an alarm clock and leave my phone downstairs. Well, for a number of reasons that doesn’t work for me for my morning routine (little people, a yoga app, Instagram time….) and for now I’m fine with that. 

Before I made this change, I would regularly go up to bed determined not to look at my phone because I know all the reasons why this is not a good idea. And I often wanted to read my book but however I hard I tried when I stopped to set my alarm I would just need to check something else on my phone or a notification would pop up that I couldn't just ignore. 

This little change means that I now go to sleep earlier. I go to bed so much calmer, I never see an email once I’ve headed up to bed, I don’t suddenly fall down an Instagram or Pinterest rabbit hole by mistake, or obsess over Makelight stats, or start chatting with friends in different time zones and I don’t read the news, which in the current state of the world is never a good idea before trying to go to sleep!

I have been doing this for two weeks now and for the first time in ages I’m excited about going up to bed because I can’t wait to read the next chapter of my book. I feel that beautiful sense of calm relaxation before I go to sleep….that feeling that for the past few years I’ve only really got on holiday. I thought it was to do with being a busy mother of four…not my iPhone! 

Thank you, thank you Tony for helping me to make this one simple change. I will now be riding this wave and making other small changes that I know will have an equally big effect. 

Do you have any small little habits like this that have a big impact on a busy life? I’d love to hear them. xo