I was recently privileged to attend a talk by Marilyn Brocklehurst on Creating Readers. And I do mean privileged. To be honest she didn't look much, sitting at the front of the school hall, bobbed hair and glasses on a chain round her neck looking for all the world like a Librarian, which she is by training. But when she started talking? Golly I was captivated. She spoke with such unending enthusiasm about reading and children's books, of which … [Read more...]
Not so spooky glittery spiders
If you know me, you will know what a fan I am of Aunt Peaches. Last year I was inspired by her amazing Confetti Cake Toppers to make cute glittered snowflakes to hang on the Christmas Tree. So when I was thinking about the #GetYourCraftOn Spooky craft challenge, that is running all this month on Instagram, I was struck with inspiration to use the same technique to make spiders: Not so Spooky Glittery Glue Gun Spiders. They really are so … [Read more...]
Kicking at the leaves: Autumn Kids Clothes from House of Fraser
Autumn conjours up pictures of cold, bright days, kicking up leaves in every hue of Umber and Orange and snaffling blackberries still hiding under leaves and getting the juice all over your fingerless gloves. It's a time of scarves and gilets rather than coats and hats. Yet for us at DG Cottage, it's like a switch has been flicked from Indian Summer to Wet British Winter with very little Autumn between the two. The leaves fall from the trees, … [Read more...]
Spooky Spiderweb chocolate cake
There are, on average, 90,500 online searches a month for ‘chocolate cake recipes’, so Waitrose.com have compiled the ULTIMATE collection of chocolate cake recipes in one handy place on their website. To test how great their recipes are, they challenged me to make one of the online recipes with one proviso: that I used a secret ingredient, which they would supply, in my cake. Not one to turn down chocolate, and having a surfeit of eggs, I was … [Read more...]
Simple Halloween party ideas
It is surprisingly easy to put together a Halloween party, even if you weren't planning one. We certainly weren't when The Girls insisted we have one last October half-term when we were in Belgium. They do say that necessity is the mother of invention, so here are a few simple Halloween party ideas that we used. A party needs three things: 1. food 2. activities 3. dressing up. For some parties, Dressing Up may just be putting … [Read more...]
Duck Tape Pinboard Makeover
You will have seen that we've been turning our summerhouse into a Clubhouse for The Girls so they have a space to call their own as they grow. DH gave our new summerhouse a Shabby Chic makeover during the summer and I've been accessorising since. We added a fabulous Fairtrade rug for card games, as well as a little bookcase I bought via eBay. I added a few twinkly battery-operated lights too, so we could enjoy autumn evenings out there … [Read more...]
Getting organised for the New School Year #StationeryWednesday
I have declared a break with convention in the DG home. Rather than follow the more conventional calendar that runs from January to December, I will operate a calendar that follows the Academic year, from September through to August. It is such a frustration to receive the year's events for the diary in September and then find I have to transfer all this data from one diary to another only three months or so later. Thus I am getting organised … [Read more...]
