The Baby Baby Blog CV

Name
Baby Baby

Reason for naming this blog Baby Baby
When I started blogging I had two babies. Presley was 20 months and Cash was 8 months old. Now they're 4 and 3 years old, but they'll always be my babies.

Date of Birth
14 May 2009

Reason for starting this blog
I was looking for a hobby and my Twitter friend @Caroljs had just started her first blog, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Reason for still blogging
Because it is fun. I love writing and I love the friends I've made. I now write about so much more than parenting and babies. I love having a creative outlet and a place to display my photographs. Oh yeah, I get invited to do fun stuff and get sent free stuff too. I don't particularly care for blogging about blogging, but I'd quite like a blogger calendar!

Most Popular Posts
The Little Girl and the Diet
My Old Man

The future?
Watch this space...

Santa's Sack of Potatoes

Presley and Cash want bikes for Christmas.

The last time we went to Lancashire they rode their friend Evie's bike and loved it. A few weeks ago we measured them up for bikes and told Santa which ones they wanted *touches nose mysteriously*.

They also want toys and games and cars and trains and sweeties and so on. They understand that Santa only brings you presents if you are very very good.

What we have also told them is that Santa also has a sack of potatoes. Every time you do anything naughty Santa takes one of your toys away and replaces it with a potato.

Presley and Cash do not want to get potatoes for Christmas, so they are on their best behaviour (mostly). It's hilarious to watch them remember about the potatoes and stop fighting over toys.

Some may say it's manipulative lying and the worst parenting technique ever, but some days you'll do or say anything for a bit of peace and quiet!

We are so tempted to wrap up a couple of spuds and put them in their stockings...

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For our other Christmas traditions head over to A Mother's Ramblings. Pippa kindly asked me to guest post for her. How could I refuse?!

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My inbox is littered with unread press releases, but one caught my eye today.

For the person who has everything, why not get them a virtual gift for Christmas? Take a look at More Than a Gift from the charity for the young homeless, Centrepoint.

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Merry Christmas x


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Our Christmas Decorations 2011

An Easy Christmas Card Design for a Child to Make

If your child wants to make Christmas cards and you need a little design inspiration, how about this Christmas tree card? It's easy to make, easy to replicate and you get to use up some of the billions of paintings that come home from nursery.

You will need:

• Blank cards (Hobbycraft do a pack of 50, with envelopes, in xmassy colours for £4.99).
• Scissors (we used fancy ones, but any will do).
• Glitter Glue (you need glue and the glitter version is nowhere near as messy as using real glitter).
• Christmas confetti or sequins.
• Paintings

Method:

• See if your child can cut out triangle shapes from their paintings. It's more effective if they use green.
• Glue three triangles on the card, one on top of the other, to make a tree.
• Go crazy with the glitter glue and sequins.

Fused Glass Christmas Decorations

I always been drawn to coloured glass. I'm equally as happy looking at stained glass windows or glass bricks.

I took an evening class in 2005 and made this stained glass panel. It sits in my utility room window and I look at it every day. I had plans to make more panels. I still have my glass tools in a box in the garage. They've moved house with me five times since then.

I was delighted when my friend, Liz, asked me if I'd like to go to a fused glass workshop with her. We were going to make Christmas decorations and have a good old natter. What a treat.

Fused glass is nothing like stained glass and I didn't know what to expect. Basically you put pieces of coloured glass together and then place them in a kiln to fuse. Fusing melts the glass. You can make jewellery this way, as well as ornaments and Christmas decorations.

We started off by playing with the tubs of coloured glass and put together a few ideas.

It was difficult to picture the outcome and some of our ideas worked better than others.

This:

...becomes this:

And this:

...becomes this:

Even this:

...can become this:

...or this:

Here are a couple I wired up and hung on my Christmas tree:

The class we attended was run by the extremely talented Carla Sealey and cost us £35 each.

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How to Make an Easy Christmas Wreath

This is my first ever attempt at making a Christmas Wreath. It was remarkably easy and I'm over the moon with the results.

I don't know what's come over me lately, but I've gone all crafty in my old age. I had high hopes for this wreath as I had spent weeks planning it. I even cut some of the evergreen a few weeks before to see how well it lasted. In fact, I was so confident I could make it that I took plenty of photographs for the blog!

Here is my step-by-step guide of how to make an easy Christmas wreath

You will need:

• A willow circle (£4.99, Hobbycraft)
• Florists' wire (75p, Hobbycraft)
• Wired ribbon (£2.50, Hobbycraft)
• Wired berries (£1.49, Hobbycraft)
• Pine cones (£2.99, Sainsbury's)
• Evergreen branches (free, our garden)
• Scissors and secateurs (I didn't buy these especially!)

Step 1

Attach sprigs of foliage to the circle with florists' wire

Step 2

Make a bow using wired ribbon.

I practised first and then made the bow directly on to the wreath. Wired ribbon allows you to shape your bow.

Step 3

Add pine cones

I cheated and wired some pine cone decorations on to the wreath, but pine cones are easy to wire anyway and free if you know where to look.

Step 4

Add wired berries.

I twisted together a couple of the wired berries and pushed them into the wreath.

That's it!

If you make your own wreath, do let me know.

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Freaky Friday: Squirrel Nutcrackers

They're nutcrackers, in the shape of a squirrel.

Isn't he freaky?!

We saw him on the bric-a-brac table at the church xmas fayre. I asked how much they wanted for him. They said 'make us an offer'. Andy said 'how do you put a price on such a item?'.

I ended up buying evil nutcracker squirrel and a bird feeder for £5.

Bargain!



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Win a Bouquet or Hamper from Serenata Flowers

This competition is now closed.

The winner, selected at random, is entry number 61 out of 64.

Congratulations, Karen, I'll pass your email address to the PR.

What would you do if you were given £40 (plus p&p) to spend at Serenata Flowers?

Do you know anyone who has just had a baby? You could treat your mum or your best friend or even your favourite blogger (coughs) to a surprise in the post and make their day. Would you buy someone flowers for Christmas? I'd be tempted to send my husband a surprise hamper or - more likely - just get something for myself!

I've had a look at the site and found some inspiration for you.

I love this bouquet of 20 luxury white roses:

I also like the look of this Ambersweet Christmas Wreath






Who wouldn't want to receive this champagne and truffles hamper?

Serenata Flowers do the usual stuff, Mother's Day Flowers and Valentine's Flowers Delivered, but they also sell many other gift ideas.

Fresh lemons for your G&T? How about a lemon tree:

Serenata Flowers have kindly offered one lucky Baby Baby reader the chance to win £40 (plus p&p) to spend on their site.

How to enter:

• Leave a comment on this post. That's it. Make sure you include some way to contact you should you win, your Twitter ID or an email address would be great.

Terms and Conditions:

• UK delivery only
• One entry per person
• Closes Thursday 15th December 2011 at 8am
• I will then choose the winner, using Random.org
• I will contact you asking for your details and pass them on to the PR who will arrange your prize
• If I can not get hold of you I will redraw after 3 days

Good luck!





ThePrizeFinder - UK Competitions

Brrrrr

The theme for The Gallery this week is My Awesome Photo.

I'm rather proud of this one.

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Holly Bell's Creatures and Flowers Cupcake Course

Normal Mum, Holly Bell, kindly invited me to her Creatures and Flowers Cupcake Course yesterday.

Look! I made these:

If Holly's name sounds familiar, it may be because she reached the final of the BBC's Great British Bake Off earlier this year.

Holly is a patient and natural teacher. She was happy to share all her tips and tricks. She was friendly and down to earth.

We started with the basics, the cake batter:

We then moved on to working with fondant icing; making flowers, ladybirds, tortoises, snails and Christmassy robins:

After a gorgeous lunch, we moved on to assembling our cakes. We learnt how to buff fondant discs and turned chocolate icing into bricks and bark.

Then we moved on to butter cream and the dreaded piping bag. We practised on greaseproof paper before icing our cakes, learning three techniques; the flower, Mr Whippy and ribbons (I'm not sure how many of these were technical terms):

We left with a dozen fabulous cupcakes, a few new friends and huge amounts of pride and confidence.

Fact and Figures:

Each course lasts a full day - 9am to 5.15pm
Breakfast, lunch and refreshments are provided
You just bring yourself
You take home 12 cupcakes, decorated by you, and a manual of full step-by-step instructions
Course dates are here
Location: Bridge 67 Cookery School in rural Leicestershire
Cost: £125



The Baby Baby Verdict:

I absolutely adored this course. Holly is genuinely lovely and full of Bake-Off anecdotes (in a nice, un-starry, way). I am confident I could replicate each of the designs, in fact one of my friends has asked me to make cupcakes for her children's birthday parties. You know what? I'm going to do it too.

*Sandy adds a KitchenAid to her xmas list*

I had a whole day to myself, learning how to make something with my hands. This course would make a wonderful treat for you, it would also make a fabulous present too.


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