I made these muffins using this recipe for basic muffins from BBC Good Food. I replaced the milk chocolate chips with white chocolate chips, the pulp and seeds of one passion fruit / granadilla, and a cup of fresh blueberries (first rolled in flour to stop them from sinking).


Isla helped decorate them with sugar nibs before we baked them.

This recipe is great. It's such a simple go-to recipe that is easily customised to what you have on-hand, or in the fridge. It's also extremely toddler-friendly and can be made in one bowl with a large wooden spoon for mess-free stirring.

Isla's idea of baking with blueberries is "one handful for me to eat while we bake, one blueberry for the muffin". Thank goodness I had a secret stash behind the mixing bowl that she didn't notice.

This is a great flavour combination but next time I'll leave out the granadilla seeds: they gave this batch an unexpected - but not unpleasant! - crunch which resulted in a game of muffin-bite roulette.

Another pinterest-inspired project: crocheted jellyfish. #love

I'm really happy with this one.

There are swirls and twirls and loop-de-loops of yarn loveliness.


The free crochet jellyfish pattern is from One Dog Woof, and is worked in amigurumi rounds quite quickly. The tentacles take longest of all but they're very portable and I was making them in the car, in the doctor's waiting room, while the kids were sleeping...


The original pattern was designed to be a bathroom accessory for kids, with the cotton tentacles making an  ideal hand-drying towel. I used the rest of my Drops Love You 5 cotton yarn for this project; it is ideal for facecloths, scrubbies, and just about anything that needs to withstand the rough handling of an enthusiastic two-year-old.

I made some small adjustments to the original pattern: I made 9 tentacles for each jellyfish, doing lots of twists and turns along a very long chain (70 stitches for most of them, with some 60 and some 80 and 90 for the longest ones), I changed the colours a little, and replaced the polyfill stuffing with a sponge that I cut down to the right size so that it can be used in the bath too.


I particularly love the jellyfish faces which make me chuckle every time I see them hanging up in our bathroom.

I'm enjoying all of these mini craft projects because they're so portable, and that means that even though the family and the house is whirlwinding around me, I'm able to do a tiny little bit of making time for me.

And making for me means making for us, which Isla adores because let's face it ... there's not much going on here that she doesn't lay claim to. Sweet girl.

Thanks to 3am baby feeds, I get to spend a lot of time on Pinterest looking at amazing things I could be making if I had a few moments to myself. Like this bunny from Lanukas.com - a free pattern that keeps popping up on Pinterest. I really like the colours and his cheerful face, it's an ideal textural baby toy for little Finnlay.

I'm determined to make some of the things I'm pinning away for a rainy day. There's no "free time" anymore, but sometimes (rarely) I find myself in a rare moment of quiet when both children sleep simultaneously and the dishes can just wait. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I take full advantage.


This pattern is ideal: you can pick it up and put it down without losing your place, and the amigurumi construction is so simple. I imagined that it'd be around 10cm tall but as I worked up the rows, it grew and grew and grew...



I really like it. Isla likes it more, and calls it Bah. She tucks it under her arm and takes it for walks around the house. This poor boy is going to have to fight to get his toys back when he's big enough to know.

The yarn is Drops Love You 5 cotton which is quite a solid yarn, albeit a bit splitty to work with. It is only 80p a 50g ball so you can't really complain! I love the earthy colours it comes in, and it is really easy to work with if you're aware of the splittiness and make sure that you get all of the strands under your hook to work a stitch. I didn't think about this at first and had to pull out a few rows to tidy things up, but if you're not too fussy then that probably isn't necessary.

I used a 4mm hook for the yarn, but of course a smaller hook and thinner yarn would result in a much more sensibly-sized toy. I really like the feel of this yarn - it's interesting to touch for little hands, and holds its shape well. I also love that it is recycled which makes me feel better about buying new yarn. It used up a bit more than I expected it to - 50g of each colour - so one ear is "beige" (which is a lovely stone colour) and the other is yellow. I used a bit of merino wool felt for the white eye.

Pinterest win!

I do most of my shopping online; if I can avoid the shops, I will. But there's something different about yarn. You don't get to feel the yarn and imagine what it might be to work with. You don't get to see the real colours up-close. You don't get the same kind of enthusiastic customer service from fellow yarn addicts.

But. Getting to a yarn shop with a toddler and a baby was just not an option for me, and I have things to make! And of course, nothing in my enormous yarn stash was quite right for the projects I had in mind.

So, let me tell you how wonderfully impressed I am with the folks at Wool Warehouse who were so organised and helpful. I contacted them to ask a question and they responded immediately, were amazingly helpful, and prompt. My yarn arrived the next day, all beautifully packaged in a project bag (bonus) and organised by colour.

It was my birthday this last week, and I was spoilt. Lucky, lucky girl.

I especially appreciated this parcel that arrived all the way from New Zealand this week, packed full of happiness! It was a welcomed addition to the longest and most tiresome of days spent running after a moving-and-shaking toddler and a Very Serious Baby who insists on being held - even when you're changing nappies, making tea, opening the door to the postie. Sweet children.