Happy Hat

Last day of term and time for Mini's Easter Hat Parade. But hey this is Strawberry Fields and no ordinary hat walk but an all singing all dancing catwalk. This year's theme was your favourite pop song and ours was Pharrell Williams' Happy from the film Despicable Me 2. So our starting point was yellow and everything that makes us happy. Like bunnies and bees and little baby chicks and glitter of course!

So first stop was Poundland. That fantastic mecca of all things cheap and cheerful. There we bought the fake flowers, the straw hat, ping balls, polystyrene eggs, fuzzy baby chicks and bunnies. Then we went to Cass Art our favourite art shop and picked up a cardboard mask, yellow and gold spray paint, gold glitter and colourful pipe cleaners.

Next step was spray painting everything!

We glue gunned our mask to our hat (its my favourite toy - no creative mum can last five seconds without a glue gun) and then glue gunned just about everything to the hat. flowers, bunnies and chicks. while we attached a few of them to pipe cleaners so that when Mini walked they would bounce up and down. We also coated our eggs and mask in PVA glue and then dusted with glitter.

we cut out stripes and wings from sticky backed foam for the little buzzy bees and stuck them onto spray painted garden wire and added crazy googly eyes from our favourite on-line craft store yellow moon

Et Voila!!! The finished Happy Hat

Mini walked the catwalk with grace, poise and a lot of confidence and closed the show with her Easter showstopper.

A little twirling is always a must

And our very own Happy Hat girl complete in her bee costume.

Red hand gang

Mini was decked out in her Little Bird by Jools range from Mothercare. Its so seventies, right up my street. Their t-shirts are super soft and come in candy stripes as well as photographic prints of blue birds and shooting stars. Mini paired her t-shirt with matching knee socks and belt all worn with her Stella McCartney denim a-line skirt and Hello Kitty Key. So Seventies in fact she could have stepped right out of my favourite show The Red Hand Gang.

Phin and Mini got a special treat on Sunday when they visited the pop up fair ground at Shepherd's Bush Green. They went on every ride and waved and yelped with utter glee.

And even got to eat blue bubblegum ice cream!

Ottie update

My third little munchkin has turned six months if you can believe it. Nothing beats having a little cuddle in the morning before the day starts.

Mini is really embracing being an older sister. She's been a little forceful at times, however today she gently pushed Ottilie on her first time on the swings.

Like Mini i can't help but dress Ottilie up. She has received so many great clothes as well as all Mini's great hand me downs. Here she is in her heart peplum sweater from The Gap with star print leggings from Kids Case and Mini's old red baby Bloch ballet slippers

Here Ottilie is in another great Bonpoint gift, a beautiful linen dress with front panel embroidery

Mini is sooooo excited to be a big sis. And what could be better than wearing matching outfits. Here Ottilie is wearing Mini's old sweater crochet dress from Stella McCartney for Gap, whilst Mini still fits the top.

Here's Mini in the same dress when she was little but with a bow of course!

Its party time and to celebrate Ottilie attending her first birthday party she wears Minis old Angel's Face tutu but with a Grandma Eve hand knit.

And here is Mini in the same tutu. Just as frothy, just as fun!

And here Ottilie is sitting on her 94 year old great grandma's lap in Germany. We went for the weekend and it was such a treat for me to see the oldest in our family embrace the youngest.

Mini goes to the ballet

Mini and her best friend India went to the ballet this week to see Sleeping Beauty. What better place to get to be introduced to the ballet than at The Royal Opera House, India's mummy Kate is one clever chicken indeed as she managed to book a box, meaning any squirming would go unnoticed in a rather lengthy three hour performance. India and Mini both dressed up for the Occasion with Mini wearing her favourite white dress with black gross grain bow by Maan and her silver duster coat from H&M's All for the children range.

Mini was captivated by the Queen whilst India fell in love with the Blue Bird in the performance

Mini is really growing up and having fun expressing herself through all her clothes. I love this Isabel Marrant plaid jacket i picked up in the sales years ago. Yay it finally fits! Mini paired it with her JCrew star print leggings, a striped Bon Ton T and her old Bonpoint neckerchief as a headscarf.

While here Mini is rejoicing that spring has finally sprung by wearing knee socks instead of tights! Hers have little bows and are from JCrew Crew Cuts. We paired them with her Boden summer skirt, stripe t-shirt and a Stella McCartney crochet bolero.

Create your own Boden Cover!

This weekend Phin, Mini and I have been having great fun making our very own idyllic island scenes on my iPad. We've been enticed to ditch the paper pens and design our very own Boden Summer Catalogue cover, because Boden and Macmillan Children's books have teamed up on a global creative campaign to raise money for children's charities with the help of budding young designers like my Phin and Mini.
 Simply click onto the Boden website and learn how to create your very own cover for their new catalogue. There's a step-by-step video which shows you how to click and drag all the icons to make your very own fantasy island. Unfortunately the competition is only for the under 12, but the top 10 designs will receive £500 to spend at Boden as well as an iPad Mini and a framed copy of their cover. And for every cover designed, Boden will donate £1 to one of my favourite charities - Kids Company, which provides support to vulnerable children in the UK. $1 to No Kid Hungry for designs made in America and 1€ to Ein Herz fur Kinder for those done in Germany. And each child that enters will be mailed a unique copy of the Mini Boden summer catalogue featuring the cover that they designed!

The competition is being judged by the fantastic children's illustrator Lydia Monks and head designer at Mini Boden Tara Ryan. Winners will be announced at the end of March 2014 however the deadline for entries is March 7th so get cracking!

This is Phin's entry, complete with dinosaurs, volcanos and pirate eating sharks

While this one was designed by Mini and features an island made from fruit with pineapples and pears and flying birds. you can check out all the other entries online and in May Boden will be launching the Creative Corner on their website which will feature exclusive content from Lydia Monks including drawing tutorials, island stories, activity sheets and special offers on books by Lydia Monks and Julia Donaldson.