Paper Beads

Now that Indiana (who just turned one!) is totally mobile and eating everything in sight, the rest of my kids have taken a keen interest in beading. Of course they have.

It’s tough to find beads that have a big enough hole for them to string without a needle and aren’t awful and ugly (instead of a needle, I’m a big fan of masking tape wrapped around the end of a piece of cotton twine).

Paper beads are the perfect solution to this – the holes are as big as you make them, the beads are big enough to see and pick up before the baby does (usually), and they make great use of old paper.

We usually make a batch when my stack of “creative recycling” starts to overflow.

You can use anything: patterned paper, kids old artwork, phone books, newsprint. This time we also had some corrugated cardboard which was a huge success (you can find it on Amazon or your local craft store).

Keep in mind, this is a great craft to put into your “remember for (Grand)Mother’s Day” file: a handmade gift that’s legitimately a keeper

MATERIALS
Paper
Scissors
Glue (or a decoupage paste, like mod podge)
Paintbrush
Pencil/ skewer/ toothpick (a pencil is great for kids, but if you wanted a smaller hole, a skewer or toothpick is better)

1.  Cut your paper into long triangular strips. Different sizes and dimensions will make different shapes of beads – a standard skinny triangle will create an oval shape, one with two triangles like the one above will make a double bead with two bumps (we called these ones twinsies!).

It’s fun to try different things and get the kids to guess what they’ll end up looking like.

2. Take the wide end of your paper strip and begin to wind it around the pencil tightly.

3. Once it’s gone around once, add some glue to the bottom of the strip and continue to wind it, holding tightly and adding glue as it goes around.

Depending on the age of your kids, it’s helpful to collaborate at this stage*. We found that the thicker corrugated paper winds well, but is tricky for little hands to manage while turning the pencil themselves.

*Disclaimer: if your kids don’t like getting glue on their hands, you’ll likely be the messy one here.

4. Once the entire strip is wrapped around, add a layer of glue to the whole bead and then carefully slip it off the pencil and onto some wax paper or parchment to dry.

The different materials create totally different beads. We used a couple strips, one after the other, to build up the bead with the newsprint because it was so thin.

I think it is really pretty to paint these ones with watercolor but Ella overruled me this time (she wanted them to stand out against her rainbow colored beads and good luck going against her creative vision).

At this point, you could paint a coat of gloss medium over the beads to make them shine (or use glitter glue if, like us, you can’t escape any opportunity for sparkles when it comes to crafting).

That said, you’ll get full credit (and a virtual high five from me) if you skip that step and move straight to stringing them up and tying them on.

Ella added a few other beads we had around to break the necklace up and make it look more like something a queen would wear. And I must say, I think it does look quite regal (if you really squint!).

Maureen x

p.s. Find more cute craft projects over on Mo’s Pipsticks blog. 

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Lunch Lady magazine

Never has going back to school been more fun! I want to feed the girls nourishing, wholesome food, making sure they have enough energy to withstand the cold outside and keep their brains ticking over for the day but there are days when I open up that lunchbox and stare at it complacently wondering what to pop in. So when I discovered this new magazine that Kate Berry has put her heart and soul into I jumped for joy!

This colourful magazine is real, it’s dazzles with fun and it’s filled with doable and healthy recipes. I love it and so do my girls! In fact we made these super tasty peach pasties so quickly they were eaten up before they even hit the lunch box. And after making a second batch Helena took a few to school and her friends asked her to bring more back the next day!

The magazine was recently published after the success of Kate’s blog which she started back in 2013 when her daughter was being bullied at school for eating a homemade lunch. Kate wanted to inspire parents to make delicious lunches for their children and she’s certainly done that. You can watch her launch video here which sums up why this magazine is so close to Kate’s heart.

Recipes such as chocnut butter which you can spread thickly on toasted bread, with berries and coconut, or Aunty Jade’s tomato sauce is perfect for pasta days, and then there’s the spread on energy balls which have now become a regular in our house. And did I mention the stickers they supply to decorate your bananas! The whole magazine is just bursting with foodie fun!

As well as scrumptious recipes, you’ll also find cool articles which reflect on parenting and family life. Kate says herself  it’s where ‘parenting is not taken too seriously but where a balanced approach to family life is’.

 You can buy Lunch Lady online here. I cannot recommend this magazine enough. I’m definitely subscribing to the second issue when it’s released. The blog is just as great and so are the impressive images on Lunch Lady’s IG account.

Vanessa xx

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February Giveaways!

Have you taken a peek at this month’s great giveaways? We’ve got four wonderful prizes up for grabs. Here are the details below — you can click over to our WIN page to enter to win!

Esthex make a sweet range of playful products, many of which feature their fun characters – like Harry the Hedgehog, here. Harry has a bit of a big tummy from eating lots of nuts and he’s perfect for a cuddle. He’s perfect for taking to school too, super functional, an ideal companion and sure to raise a smile! This month Esthex are giving away a Harry backpack and pencil case set.

Carlito Carlita have a charming range of beautifully classic clothing for babies and children aged 3 months – 10 years. It’s a perfect destination for those looking to dress siblings since each item belongs to a theme – it’s so easy to find complimentary options for your children! This month Carlito Carlita are offering one lucky winner a voucher for £100 to spend on their site.

Giddy Up and Grow make unique, handmade accessories for children and, just sometimes, their parents too. The adorable hair clips, bows, headbands, jewellery and t-shirts all bring a smile to the face. The quality is obvious and the whole collection is made from all-natural fibres including wool felts, silk, cotton fabrics and leather. This month Giddy Up and Grow are giving away CAD$100 vouchers to two lucky winners!

Scout and Co is one of the coolest shops we know, they’re always bringing us the latest, greatest finds – be it clothing, books, toys, accessories. You can be sure anything in their range is a design-led gem with a good touch of fun to boot. This month, Scout and Co are giving away a dolls house worth over £150. It’s not just any dolls house, mind! It’s neon orange, ultra-modern and it’s unisex. You won’t want to hide it in your kid’s bedroom!

Enter to win here for all the above prizes! Good luck. x

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Thursday Thoughts: Teaching our Girls to be Gutsy

Earlier this week, my mom forwarded me this opinion article from the NY times, ‘Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute To Be Scared?’. The author, Caroline Paul, is a San Francisco firefighter, and she writes about how we condition our girls to be scared, while boys are encouraged to be brave and resilient. It’s a topic I haven’t stopped thinking about since.

Reading through the article, I must admit that I felt a sense of affirmation of my relaxed parenting style. Like my own mother, I have adopted a rather hands-off approach when it comes to my children’s adventuring and playing, within reason, of course. In general, I’m more likely to encourage my girls and boys to be adventurous than to caution them to be careful. I have always felt that you have to let kids explore independently and find their own limits so that they can learn for themselves when to exercise caution. Michael, however, is much more safety-conscious so perhaps that allows me to be the more relaxed parent. It’s funny how our role in parenting is influenced by our partner, and sometimes we have to adjust our parenting strategies to ensure you’re a balance team. (This is perhaps an interesting discussion for another time…!)

Anyway, what I find especially interesting about Caroline’s article is the fact that we, as parents, are often guilty of parenting our children differently based on their gender, and that these differences have a direct effect on how boys and girls view themselves and their capabilities as they grow older. For example, we are much more likely to compliment little girls on their appearance than boys — a topic covered in this article on ‘how to talk to little girls’. In most cases, I think we do these things without even being aware of it. We have been brought up with the same biases.

Caroline’s article is another reminder not to put our children into gender boxes — we should encourage both girls AND boys to be emotionally sensitive (see this previous post), we should encourage both boys AND girls to be brave, and we should stop praising girls for what they look like and should instead celebrate their interests, skills, hobbies, etc.

This parenting job is not easy, right?!  Please share your thoughts.

Courtney x

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Versatile, merino wool wonders from Smalls!

Hello from South Tirol! We’re currently enjoying a week in the mountains, submerged in the beautiful nature and culture of the Dolomites. We’re staying in a lovely family run hotel (Hotel Al Plan in San Vigilio di Marebbe) and skiing every day. The children are in ski classes (meanwhile picking up some Italian!), and Tamar and I are hitting the slopes together. My dad came along as well, which is just perfect, as he doesn’t ski anymore but is happy to help out with the smaller kids.

Packing for this trip has been a huge affair — I already find it challenging to pack my own bags for a skiing holiday, let alone adding 4 children! Outerwear, thermowear, loungewear, sleepwear, formal wear — sunscreen, helmets, snow boots, etc etc…  A lot of things to think of! But now that we’ve been here for a few days I’m starting to discover our key pieces, and the merino wool basics of Smalls are an absolute winner. They are the perfect pyjamas for crisp and frosty winter nights. Then they become the most comfortable, second skin layer of thermo wear. And after skiing, when the shells are stripped of, the kids hang out in the cosy hotel lobby using their cute Smalls pieces as lounge wear. So versatile! (If they didn’t need a bath every now and then they could just wear the same layer 24/7!)

Smalls clothing are a bit of an investment, but they’re made to last long — cuffs fold or unfold to accommodate growing children, and shirts have a nice, longer cut as well. Also, I love how easy to care for the pieces are — of course wool pieces don’t need extensive washing, but when I do wash them they go on a regular 40 degrees cycle (no wool wash), and I even dry them in the tumble dryer. And after a year of wearing and washing, the pieces still look like new.

OK, time to enjoy my aperativo now… Ciao from Italy!

xxx Esther

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Tuesday Tips: A simple birthday party

Esther has organised some epic kids birthday parties, some of my favourite being the disco party and the stick horse party .

I on the other hand am terrible at this! I seriously cannot compete. BUT I do think it is important for my kids to have their friends over, host them in our home and basically say “thank you” to all their friends for a great year together. Because that is what birthday parties are all about, right? (Not at all about presents and being the centre of attention ;)).

Now another mom at school, who is a pre-school teacher, gave me a couple of tips on how she organises a typical birthday party and I thought it was so genius I wanted to shared them with you. She manages to have some of the best parties without any preparation whatsoever.

When the kids turn up she divides the kids into 2 groups (depending on the numbers) and each group then bakes a cake. It takes them a good 30 mins to get all the ingredients together, mix the batter and get the cakes ready to be popped into the oven. Then she gets the kids to make the world’s longest chain garland which they then decorate the room with. After that, they have time for about 2 games (musical chairs, statues or memory tray). By that time the games are finished, the cakes are ready to eat and everyone loves them even more because they have made them themselves. When the cakes are eaten up and everyone has sung happy birthday, it is already pick-up time.

I thought this very so simple and fun! If anyone has any other ideas to share I would LOVE to hear ;). I have a birthday coming up soon..

Emilie

PS. The above photos are of Esther’s children’s amazing birthday parties!

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Origami Fortune Teller Set by Djeco

Do you remember playing the game paper fortune tellers when you were at school? I had such fun with my friends in the playground excitedly opening up the prediction to see what we had to do – we wrote simple challenges like hop on one foot 10 times, or say a joke, and then there were the fun predictions like kiss a boy, do the splits or make bunny ears behind the teacher’s back! Gosh it was such fun!

We’ve been playing it quite regularly with the girls —  it’s a great after dinner game. They love folding the paper, adding the numbers and writing secret predictions under the flaps. So when I saw this pretty Djeco set when I was in London I knew it was the perfect little coming home gift from me.

The set comes with delightfully patterned paper squares ready to fold, lovely stickers showing the challange and a colourful instruction booklet. The girls (and their friends) really enjoy this modernised set and there are new challenges for us all to do – like swap your shoes around, talk to the door or find an insect.

I bought this particular fortune teller set from Trotters in Chiswick but a similar set can be found here.

Have fun!
Vanessa x

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Italian-Inspired Tuna & Bean Salad

The other day we were in a little grocery store here in New Zealand, looking for some quick supplies to make lunch in our campervan. Michael scanned their modest cheese section hoping to find something beyond the standard Cheddar and Edam options, to add a bit of interest to our sandwiches. He found Gruyere, an Adamo family favourite, but missed the small print. What he actually bought was ‘Gruyere-Style’ cheese—and a very bland rendition at that, with not much more than a name in common with the original. I’m pretty sure the Swiss would not approve.

Michael and I had a good laugh. We know better than to trust anything bearing the ‘-style’ suffix. ‘Italian-style’, ‘Greek-style’, ‘Gruyere-style…run a mile. But now I find myself wanting to share a recipe we have created based on the Italian classic, Tonno & Faggioli. It would be wrong to label our version Italian, but I couldn’t possibly add style to the title of this post.

Here’s our version of a dish that we love to eat in Italy. We have no clue if this is how the Italians make it, but it’s certainly been influenced by their recipe. So we’re going with Italian-inspired. Ha!

Whatever you call it, it’s the easiest, quickest, and tastiest meal in our camper van repertoire. It has become one of the kids’ favourite and a weekly staple. It is especially handy while camping as there is no cooking required, and most of the ingredients are ones you can keep in your cupboard. It literally takes less than 10 minutes to make, and my kids gobble it up just as quickly. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

•  2 cans of Cannellini Beans
•  1 large tin of tuna (preferably sustainably line-caught in olive oil)
• 1 punnet of cherry tomatoes
• 2 small spring onions
• 1 small bunch of flat-leaf parsley
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• salt & pepper

Drain the cans of beans and tuna and empty into a bowl. Chop tomatoes and spring onions and add to the bean and tuna mix. Chop the flat-leaf parsley and sprinkle into the bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste.

We usually serve with some good Italian ciabatta bread, but we had a difficult time finding that when it came time to snap some photos of our meal – so pita bread it was. Not very Italian, but this is camping-style fare!

Buon appetito!

x

p.s. This simple tomato pasta is another favourite campervan meal for us!

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Our favourite backpacks!

I mentioned in a previous post that each of my kids has been travelling with their own backpack. It’s been a handy way of keeping their belongings (journals, books, collected treasures, etc.) organised, as well as lightening the load of stuff we’re carrying around in our suitcases.

Michael and I also each have a backpack, and again it’s been a great way of keeping things organised. Michael’s backpack has his computer, our chargers, our GoPro camera and other electronics. It also has our guide books, travel documents, and other important stuff. In my backpack is my computer, my journal, and other bits and pieces – including snacks for the kids, a water bottle, chapstick, etc.

I wanted to share where each of our backpacks come from, in case you’re on the look-out for good ones for travel. So here goes…

Michael has had this waxed cotton rucksack from Ally Capellino for years – I think I gave it to him for his birthday when he turned 40 (I won’t say how many years ago that was. haha!!). He always wore it on his back as he cycled to work in London every day. It is now much-loved but still in great shape, and has proven to be a worthwhile investment.

I have had this handy Kaos Ransel backpack (which is really a nappy bag!!) for the past year or so. Naomi from The Tipi boutique sent one over for me to test-drive last year, and I’ve loved it so much it has now travelled around the world with me. I’m obviously not using the changing mat bit, but all the other many compartments come in so handy for travelling… and it’s stylish too! (Can you believe that’s a nappy bag?)

The three bigger kids have backpacks from Herschel Supply Co., each in a different colour to keep their backpacks from getting mixed up. We love these bags – they’re simple, durable, and so cute! Herschel has small ones for children under six as well as bigger ones for the older kids — and obviously cool ones for grown-ups too! (Yesterday, Quin saw a trendy guy walking with a matching backpack in the Sydney airport – and it made him feel so cool that he had the same one. Cute!)

As I’ve mentioned before, Marlow has this little rucksack from Annaliv which she loves. It’s great because it’s lightweight and easy for her to carry, and it folds up easily (and takes little space in our suitcase) when she’s not wearing it.

I should really get a photo of all six of us walking through an airport with our backpacks and wheelie suitcases. It must be quite the sight! Anyway, I hope these recommendations come in handy.

Courtney x

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New Spring/Summer collection from Caramel Baby & Child

I love the shopping in Notting Hill and when I got to spend a lucky few days in London last week I just had to take some time out to step into one of my favourite boutiques there, Caramel Baby & Child. I have always loved their collections but this one has to be a favourite with its nostalgic referencing to the ’70s and the colour palette of lilac and carob brown it is perfection.

I adore the peppercorn trousers with these pretty silky blouses and the rosemary dress  is perfect for an alfresco lunch. For the boys, I’m loving their linens shorts with this charming cool skirt.

But wait until you see the baby collection! It is gorgeous! Their collection of rompers is super cute and I love the cosiness of their cotton jumpers for cooler days. The bloomers and the dresses for little baby girls makes me melt. Oh I need another baby!

The collection is available online now and available throughout their beautiful boutiques worldwide.

Vanessa x

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The Little Things: bread on a stick!

We have seen the first signs of spring here in Amsterdam, but still, they say it’s going to be the coldest week so far this winter. So a good time to celebrate a bit of outdoor coldness for this new The Little Things post!

We got together with three families in our team member Nina’s gorgeous country house and had a wonderful morning making bread dough and wrapping it around sticks, while the dads were preparing a fire in the garden. Making the dough was easy and sooo much fun!

We used a basic bread recipe:

• 4 cups plain flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• ½ cup olive oil
• ½ cup lukewarm water

We were with 10 children, so you can definitely use half the amounts if you are with a smaller group. You can add some sugar and cinnamon to make the bread slightly sweet, but we were planning to fill the bread with sausages later so preferred them to be more savoury.

Obviously, children are the very best tools at working the dough into a smooth consistency. : )

You need some good sticks to wrap the bread around. So time for a little search outside for some cool sticks! (Or, in our case, just collect them from the stick collection in the basket outside our front door.)

We covered the end of the sticks with aluminium foil before we twined the dough around in long strips — making sure not to make the layers of dough too thick.

Time to bake our bread!

Standing around a fire with a group of friends preparing food is such a warm and wonderful way to spend time together…

It takes a little while for the bread to bake, turning them around and around.

We used a Dutch oven on the fire to warm the sausages, and then stuck them with right in the bread with a bit of ketchup. Yum!

What a perfect winter weekend morning! Spring, we are ready for you when you are, but in the meantime, we’ll entertain ourselves with our good friend Winter!

xxx Esther

PS – This is the newest post in a series which is called ‘The Little Things’. Thank you Maud Fontein for taking these beautiful photos and thank you Nina for letting us use your beautiful house and garden! The children are wearing clothes from Babaà, Omibia, Mabo, Dotty Dungarees, and La Coqueta.

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