When I was in the first year of school I remember making a Christmas card for my Mum, a big green hand print covered in sequins and glitter glue, I loved that card and was so proud when she displayed it all year around despite it being Christmas themed. I LOVE hand print art, it’s easy to do and creates a great snapshot in time of your little one, here’s a collection of some of my favourite body prints that [...]

One of my favourite things from Connor’s hungry caterpillar birthday celebration was the little matching party hats I made up for him and his brother, let me refresh your memory with a very bored looking birthday boy… (Connor is 3 going on 13, he has already decided he is far too cool to have people sing “Happy Birthday” to him) The hats are great if you’re fed up of buying party hats that rarely last the day or to add [...]

My eldest has a name that is rarely heard in Australia, we could go to Ireland and find ourselves overwhelmed with “Declan” merchandise, but we’re pretty much out of luck here. He treasures the facewasher and keyring that we’ve managed to pick up with his name on, but still scours gift shops and gets a little disappointed when his name isn’t there, it’s about ten times worse when he can find his brother’s name right off the bat. Growing up [...]

My four year old has recently developed a love of writing, it’s been awesome watching his little scribbles slowly turn themselves into recognisable words (along with constant requests of “How do you spell….?”) and he’s absolutely enamoured with the idea of writing letter and emails to everyone he knows. We printed out this letter writing kit from Kate at Picklebums this morning and have had a lovely time writing letters to everyone we know, even my 3 year old got [...]

I absolutely adore the rainbow cakes that have populated the blogsphere over the last few years, but, as a Mum who tries everything to avoid artificial flavours and colours, they’ve always made me wince just a little to think of the amount of chemicals and toxins going into little bodies. They are just so awesome to look at, but I don’t think I could bring myself to eat one, let alone feed one to my kids, particularly the hypersensitive four [...]

On our first Christmas day together, my husband and I took a walk along the beach. I was a mess of emotions, it was a large collection of firsts, my first Christmas in Australia, my first experience of a southern hemisphere Christmas (this December marks my eighth and I still find it just as weird as I did that first year!), the first Christmas without the chaos of my Mum, my sisters and niece and my first Christmas with the [...]

“Check out this stunning artwork made entirely from potato prints!” is something I never thought I would say (or type?) but seriously, check out this stunning artwork made entirely from potato prints! Jordan and her family are only based in Paris for a year and obviously don’t want to spend too much on artwork or decorating their home, but still want to make it feel like someone lives there. Although you’d think “cut up potatoes, print them on paper” would [...]

Are we already at the end of week twelve? This year is flying by. This week has mostly been spent sorting out the garage. I was doing great until I got so angry at all the shit we have (seriously, four big boxes of computer cables – why???) that I copped a strop and haven’t touched another box since Thursday. Unfortunately for me, that’s where my craft space is, so I had to clean that up a bit so I [...]

Christmas is fast approaching, you’re short on time, money and ideas, this blanket is the answer to all your problems! Well, maybe not all of them, but I can give you a present you can knock out in 45 minutes and (if you’re in Australia) all of the fleece at Lincraft and Spotlight is on clearance for 40-50% off to clear out the old winter stock, so it works out fairly cheap. If I hadn’t have been overcharged on the [...]

Ed’s note: Please welcome Leah, our resident shopping guru, to the blog, this is her first post of (hopefully!) many more on CB. My name is Leah and I’m an addict. An Etsy addict. I can’t make, sew, knit, paint or build anything (yet), but what I can do is buy handmade. For me, my girls, our home, our friends and just about anyone else I can justify making a purchase for. I pour over the lovingly handmade item treasure [...]