What do you think of our masterpieces? Would you like to have a go? As [...]]]> The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee festivities have already started as she travels around the UK and with the special Diamond Jubilee Bank Holiday soon upon us we decided to get started practising our Jubilee Biscuits especially for the occasion.

What do you think of our masterpieces? Would you like to have a go? As you can see the children were involved and they loved it, it’s a super easy biscuit recipe and bakes in 12-15 minutes and then once cooled the fun begins!

Jubilee Biscuits

Ingredients – makes about 30

I used my Cuisinart food processor just because I am in love with it but this simple biscuit recipe can be easily made by hand following the same step by step process

1. Mix the butter and the sugar in a large wooden bowl using a wooden spoon
2. Add the egg yolk and the vanilla extract and combine well
3. Sift over the plain flour and stir until the mixture is well combined
4. Press the dough into a ball and leave to rest for a bit

Place the dough on a floured surface, cover your rolling pin with a little flour and roll out to about 1/2 cm in thickness

I found some fabulous crown cutters in Lakeland which after the Diamond Jubilee can be used for many a future princess party and we cut over 30 biscuits from our dough

Pop in a preheated oven 180C/ 160C fan ovens/ Gas mark 4 for about 12 -15 minutes or until golden brown

Cool on a wire rack and wait until room temperature before decorating then the fun begins…

Megan and Gracey heads down in concentration

Bessie hard at work

Alice uses orange and stars

His show is part of the CBeeBies pre-school series and when the sound track starts my girls run into their [...]]]> Little Charley Bear is my very most favourite cartoon character and the fact James Cordon is the voice of this cute bear makes me fall in love with him just a little bit more.

His show is part of the CBeeBies pre-school series and when the sound track starts my girls run into their places and sit gripped to the screen, mind you I do too, it really is a well thought out animation project that goes with the line ‘It’s amazing what you can do with your imagination.’

I was asked a couple of weeks ago if we’d like to review Charley Bear’s latest adventures ‘Charley on Safari’ and we jumped at the chance. In fact seeing as we were off to Butlins I made sure to pack it and take it with us for that journey. The girls loved it and watched all six epsiodes back to back and then again!

image courtesy of the BBC

In this DVD Charley pretends to be different wild animals but he doesn’t know which noises they make, to find out he goes on safari to discover the sounds he’s looking for. The DVD also comes with a small plastic Charley Bear to keep as your own, awwww Can’t wait to see the furry version!

Charley Bear even has his own Facebook fan page or you can find him on his Little Charley Bear website. His DVD Charley on Safari is out 7th May and costs £12.99 it has a running time of 50 minutes

So 1 DVD up for grabs and here’s how you can win

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I don’t know about you but the state of our Planet is on my mind quite a lot and I find myself turning to [...]]]> Can your family live ‘Five Days of Sustainable Living’ was the challenge thrown at me from P&G this time to which I replied ‘Of course we can! Bring it on!’

I don’t know about you but the state of our Planet is on my mind quite a lot and I find myself turning to more environmentally friendly solutions whenever I can. This post will show you simple, non expensive ideas that will help us leave a healthier planet for our loved ones when our time is over.

P&G Future Friendly Hamper

P&G started us off with a collection of goodies to use and report back on. It included a few items I had heard of but not got round to getting like Hippo the Water Saver This ingenious idea (a plastic bag) will save 2-3 litres of water EVERY FLUSH. Designed to last a lifetime too. Did you know that 30% of our precious water supply is flushed down the loo?

Then I found a Food Kozie, trust me I had to read the notes as on first sight I didn’t have a clue what it was. Another ingenious idea to cut down on the amount of non-reusable film or foil used in family lunches. You can wrap all foodstuffs in them and they stay as fresh as ever. I haven’t been able to use this one yet as I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it has poured down since my hamper arrived!

Then there was the Tap Aerator a cunning device which you attach to your tap and it cuts down on unnecessary water consumption when washing hands, brushing teeth and cleaning vegetables from your taps. Simply installing this baby can reduce the flow of water by 60% That is a lot especially in a drought.

They included lots of their Future Friendly products too which all help save energy by using lower temperatures and packaging too like Ariel powders and gel, Fairy Platinum Liquid, Flash Clean and Shine, Lenor and Fairy Platinum Dishwasher Tablets.

Here are 20 tips to start being Future Friendly

In the kitchen

1. Washing machines – wait for a full load and wash at lower temperatures, even 30′C
2. Use Flash for your cleaning which works with cooler temperatures hence saving energy
3. Hang out the washing
4. Use less water washing up don’t leave the tap running
5. Only boil the amount of water you need for tea
6. Use re-usable wraps and lunchboxes for packed lunches

Around the Home

1. Use a tap aerator
2. Use a Hippo in the cistern
3. Use a watering can in the garden
4. Use a bucket and water to wash the car
5. Have showers rather than baths
6. Turn the tap off whilst brushing your teeth
7. Close the curtains at dusk to stop heat escaping
8. Look out for less packaging when buying products

Fun With The Kids

1. Be a waste watcher – make a wall chart and show how much product is used. You can save loads
2. Make a collection and reuse – a collection of 20 items leaves, stamps, fabrics, buttons or celebrity pics from magazines and find ways of re-using them
3. Revamp your wardrobe, give to charity anything you don’t wear anymore or revamp with new accessories
4. Borrow books from the local library, save trees and money too.
5. Make a potato print eco poster and encourage your neighbours to become Future Friendly too

The twins do have a notion of the time and even now will tell me 5 more minutes mummy when I want to get them into bed. [...]]]> It’s John Crane time again and this week in Mari’s Toy Box I bring you a fabulous Tidlo wooden toy for teaching the time – a clock!

The twins do have a notion of the time and even now will tell me 5 more minutes mummy when I want to get them into bed. They are learning all sorts from preschool, the days of the week, the colours of the rainbow, to distinguish shapes and understand opposites, big and small, fast and slow and so on. They know the four seasons and understand the differences of weather each one brings (apart from in the UK where we swing from a drought to a downpour in nanoseconds.

Learning to tell the time

I’m fairly certain they have a notion of how the day works too as we have a pretty steady routine Mon – Fri and weekends can go a bit haywire depending on what we’re up too.

7.20am (on a good day) is wake up followed by breakfast

8.00am Wash and brushing of teeth, dressing and the dreaded brushing of hair

9am preschool

12 pm Lunch and ‘Quickly Mummy’ as they are very hungry and not inclined to wait!

Afternoons could be gymnastics, swimming lessons, park or just playing with their toys

5pm tea

7pm milk

7.30 upstairs, teeth, wash, pyjamas bedtime story ALWAYS and then lights out

They have started to ask the time or what are we doing today but it all needs a lot of work still and this toy is the perfect place to start. In the video you can see us familiarising with the numbers, shapes, the handles which go round and the fun factor of a new toy, they immediately recognised as having an identical one at preschool too.

I like the fact that it has a stand to it, that the shapes have a magnet to hold them in their place and they are easy to manage for little hands. This is another toy that will grow with us over the next few years as we can move on to minutes, and then quarter past and quarter to. also as the internal circle of minutes has been quartered and coloured differently it can be used for fractions too.

The RRP is £16.00 and you can find your nearest retailer on the John Crane website

The hashtag #CybHerUK was trending by 6am and with a bunch [...]]]> This year the British blogging community have many conferences to enjoy and the first of those for me was CybHer UK held in London yesterday and attended by hundreds of bloggers from all over Britain and Maria who flew in from Madrid too!

The hashtag #CybHerUK was trending by 6am and with a bunch of very excited women stayed close to the top all day I reckon, I don’t know for sure as I didn’t have time to check back.

What was CybHer UK about?

Venue – 8 Northumberland House, luckily very close to Charing Cross station making it super easy to get to, nice one Sian!

Founder – Sian To, blogger of Geek is The New Chic, blonde, fun and feisty with a passion for satchels. After handing in my coat and queuing up for my badge we then all got to choose a gorgeous satchel made by Leather Satchel Co, I went for pink (highly influenced by my companion of the day the Domestic Goddesque who stood out from the crowd with her sparkling tiara) and spent most of the day wondering if I should have gone for the blue, or the neon yellow as they were all beautiful.

Inside an Old School Exercise book and pen, what a brilliant idea not only that, the book had a QR code printed on the cover where you could scan the schedule of the day on to your phone! Only I don’t have that app and those who did failed to download as the phones were not liking the pink on pink code. Oh well, great idea and I really must look into this QR code a bit more.

My sessions were Digital Diaries held by AGV and very interesting, a reminder of how we must all be more wary and make sure our children KNOW the basic online rules as surveys prove they are already more tech savvy than us! I hope to post their findings over the next week.

Second session was Imagery, as every blog needs to be accompanied by good images and you can never learn enough in this field.

Then it was lunch and we were greeted by trays and trays of delicious panini, sandwiches, wraps and rolls. I waited for the cakes and pastries to appear but they didn’t so off I popped to the WordPress session held by Julie Hall. I gained so much info from her including some brilliant plug in tips and I have bookmarked her website Women Unlimited to go back and learn even more!

Next it was a chat session with 3 great bloggers, Tara Cain who I’ve mentioned lots on here as I love her weekly The Gallery, I can’t believe she wouldn’t tell me the prompt for this week when I asked her! Louise Pentland from Beauty blog  Sprinkle of Glitter and Kelli Hill from Big Fashionista lovely ladies and all worth a visit.

And finally I popped over to In The Powder Room where Paula Battle and Gigi Eligoloff gave out glasses of wine and Swag bags with euphemisms in them to play the great game of Vagingo! The Leaky Cauldron won and took away a very handsome prize indeed and we heard all about their very exciting brand new We Shop which is to be launched later this month.

I’m afraid I was all sessioned out by the time we went back to the Ballroom to listen to the last speakers and I fear many other bloggers were too. All in all a fabulous day where I’m so pleased to have met so many of my favourite bloggers and a chance to chat in real life.

Needless to say we all ended up at All Bar One to celebrate.

Me snogging Domestic Goddesque for the Brit Mums SnapHappyBritMums prompt - KISSING