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.

I have been working (slowly) on a few crafty projects around the house and am starting to finish things. Hurray! This past week, my mosaic house numbers went up on the wall. I love these - they're bright and cheerful, with just the right amount of sparkle to tell passers by that this is our house. 

It's a particularly festive week here, what with Father's Day (today) and my birthday later this week (Wednesday). I made a cheerful banner to string across the wall in the dining room - happy everything!


We made dad a card and a keyring for Father's Day. I really love this keyring - it was a collaborative art effort, with stamped polymer clay that was baked (and anxiously watched by an impatient toddler), finger painted on the reverse (more gold mommy, daddy needs gold) and then sealed with a million coats of plasti-kote gloss.


I also painted a tiny laser-cut rocket and star to match the card design which is of course an upside-down footprint in red, just like a rocket. More stars mommy, we need more stars. It's a rocket! Yay! She chose the rocket, and the red. Good girl.


Here it is on its side so that you can actually see the foot part. And the rocket part. We had a lot of fun making this card; I had all the wet wipes in the world ready on-hand for clean-ups and there was much ridiculous screechy delight on Isla's part. She finger painted the stars and flames too.


We even decorated the envelope with stamps. My turn, mommy. This girl has such opinions. I really, really love these stamps. The big bold ones are from Lora Bailora's "Packaging", and the speech bubble with scripty whatnot is from Lawn Fawn's "Love Letters". We got a bit carried away. It's such hard work keeping a little person focused on the task at hand when there are so many other temptations. Ooh, what's this mama? Is it mine?

We did it, though. And dad was delighted.

And so - to you - happy everything, wherever you are.

Here's a photo just to make you chuckle 😊 We attended the Southend Festival on Bank Holiday Weekend and it was loads of work - prepping, wrapping, setting up, chatting, selling. Ah it's a tough life. 

It's not all work and no play though; we took every opportunity to chat to our market neighbours, go walking about and even hobnob with real-life Disney Princesses! They had the most marvellous hand gestures and mannerisms (just look at Cinderella's Disney-esque pose and elegant hand!), and were one of the many performers at the event over the weekend. I did wonder briefly about making adult-sized princess dresses with added poof but I'm not sure that it's socially acceptable to dress up like this in everyday public situations? But perhaps if I start now, I'd get something finished in time for Isla's birthday next year. It's still cool when your mom dresses up for your party, right?

Working events like this is thoroughly exhausting work. We enjoyed it - and absolutely loved meeting our customers in person - but I'm very pleased to say that we don't have any more three-day festivals planned for this year! I'm so appreciative for all of the good company and excellent help that we had to help pull this off. We have loads of events planned for June and July, but I'm hoping there's a bit of quiet time in August. Ooh, an actual weekend. With actual weekend activities. Maybe even some sewing! #princess

We've had a whirlwind of activity here in the last few weeks, so much so that I've hardly had time to sit down and catch up! Most importantly, Finnlay turned one. Big boy!

A whole year! It's amazing to see how different he is to his big sister at the same age. He is stronger, bigger, more demanding. But he is also less confident, more affectionate. The sweetest little boy. He loves his sister, his family. He loves Peppa Pig. He loves saying "go". He has an amazing abundance of love to give, and approaches everything with a soft kindness that amazes me.


I haven't spent nearly as much time in front of a computer as I normally do. It is a wonderful thing. These days I spend most of my time making soap, playing in the garden with the children, attending markets or exhibiting at shows. We paint, we play in the sandpit, we chase Finnlay around as he climbs anything taller than himself - the slide, steps, chairs. I do spend some time doing work work, but it's wonderfully liberating to be moving away from that.


We've also been doing events, including a huge market at Southend Festival, loads of soapmaking, family visiting from South Africa and visitors staying from the West Coast, we've had the summer arrive with gloriously hot days and long sunny nights, and an occasional moment for crafting.


Here's a sneak peek of what I've been working on: a house number made with cut stained glass. I hope to put our stamp on our home as we slowly transform it from an ancient mosaic of different styles and eras. There seems to be an endless supply of walls that need stripping, wallpaper that needs peeling off, and layers upon layers of old tiles that are coming out. Small projects like these rainbow-coloured house numbers are an excellent way to feel like we're making progress in amongst the never-ending big jobs.

Finnlay turning one marks a year that we've been in this house too - golly, a whole year! Next on our project to-do list is: bedroom cupboards (oh the promise of the luxury of storage!) and a new bathroom to put in a shower upstairs. How exciting. Watch this space.