I have been potting about the house this past week, making up things, tidying away, bottling chutneys, peeling cooking apples very kindly donated by our neighbours who have the most amazing and enormous apple tree... it's been a lovely, homestead-y kind of start to the summer holidays (in between work, of course).

I made Tomato Chili Jam which is a favourite in our home, and never really lasts all that long. We have it with everything - delicious with soft cream cheese served with pitas for dipping, dolloped on top of baked potatoes, swirled into quinoa or couscous  with vegetables, perfect with salads and sandwiches.

This is my absolute favourite tomato chilli jam recipe. it's a mish-mash of all of the recipes I've tried over the last ten years, tweaked and pulled and moulded into a deliciously spicy and sweet "jam" which is really more of a chutney, perfect for adding to - well - anything really.

It's great for using up all of the tomatoes which are almost very nearly ready in the garden (hooray summer!), or if you can't wait, jump the queue and store-bought glut to make a few pots which is totally acceptable in my book. I usually double this recipe when making.

Tomato Chilli Jam (makes 6 small jars)

• 500g tomatoes
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 4 red chillies, seeds and all (add more chillies if you like it hot hot hot. I added in an extra tablespoon of chilli flakes and cayenne pepper to my latest batch and it is delicious, but not everyone likes the extra spice.)
• 7cm ginger root, peeled
• 300g golden caster sugar
• 100ml vinegar - I use a mix of red wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons spice (I use cumin, coriander, paprika, chilli flakes, mustard powder, salt and pepper)

It's very nearly the end of the school year here in the UK. I'm still trying to get my head around it; in South Africa, our school term was January - December. The end of the year meant the end of the school year, and you had a jolly long holiday over Christmas (and the summer holidays).  

It's only just gone June and I'm already thinking about teacher gifts and thank you cards. It's our very first proper school year as Isla moves up from little miss muffets class to humpty dumpty class. She'll say good bye to the saints who look after the "baby class" and will wave hello to her new teachers and a new toilet regime. Thank goodness for successful potty training these past few weeks.


And so, teacher cards. I'm by no means a card maker, but I thought I'd give these a bash as I couldn't find anything I liked all that much in the shops.

Because I tend to think in puns and silliness, I wanted something fun that Isla would appreciate too. We pootled through my stamp stash and each chose something we liked. Nee-norns ("unicorns" to you and I) are on the top of her love list so she chose those. And vegetables. Because you can never, ever have too many radishes and carrots with kawaii faces. 

Thank you for believing in me! A magical unicorn (colours chosen by Isla, of course) and all glittered up because nee-norns sparkle, mama. I used Avery Elle's Be a Unicorn and Tonic Nuvo Aqua Shimmer, with stamps I made myself for the punny wordage.


Thank you for helping me grow. Layered stamping with Lawn Fawn's Rooting for You, plenty of Tonic Nuvo Aqua Shimmer and wordage my own again. I love these banners. I cut up strips of kraft card, cut ribbon ends with a scissors, and folded them over for height. Double sided tape and foam squares are magic. MAGIC.

I use Papermania Kraftstax Brown Card for absolutely everything around here. It's recycled, and makes brilliant business cards, labels, tags, it prints surprisingly well given that it is super strong and stiff - and now, I've discovered that it makes good cards and silly banners too! Huzzah! Slowly slowly making my way through the ridiculously large pile of brown card that mysteriously piled up on my craft desk. All by itself. Honest.

In other news, we've just done our last big event for Bean & Boy Soap for a few weeks. It was Village Green (#VG17), an enormous music festival in Southend-on-Sea with about 4 music stages, comedy tents, farmer's market, handmade maker market (that's where we were exhibiting), a car boot rally, a million activities, and around 20,000 visitors.

Set up was at 8am, even though it only opened at 11am. It felt like one of the longest days of the year. Hot, hot, hot and lots of standing up and chatting to people about wonderful, wonderful soap. It was fantastic and exhausting. Fantastically exhausting, too. It was great, but I could do with a few weeks off. Which is handy as we have been invited to children's parties every weekend for the next four weeks, and school holidays means that I get both children all day every day for six glorious weeks. Six loooooooong weeks. I've already had to promise Isla that we'll be making slime (glitter slime mama, otherwise it is gross) and our own playdough (mama, we need more playdough for pizzas) and yes of course darling we will have the paddling pool out every single day. Phew.