Corners Of My New Home

At the end of November we packed up our home of the last twelve years and moved to a smaller house. We just don't need as much space as we used to now that we aren't bursting at the seams with toys and baby gear.

It was an epic move with an even bigger downsizing exercise running alongside and as we were only going around the corner, we thought we could handle the move ourselves. Big mistake, huge!

I don't think that I have ever been as stressed as I was during that week and when I finally closed the door on the place where our children have grown-up, it was with relief at having achieved something huge rather than the sadness I was expecting.

Our new place is a stark contrast to our previous home. We have gone from a light, bright, roomy, 15 year old, Georgian Style to the oldest house in the village that was built over 450 years ago.

None of furniture fitted the size or the style of the new place so our unpacking and placement (of all of my kitsch loveliness) is still ongoing.

I've never really been a lover of beams but I have fallen totally in love with this house with it's thick, wonky walls and uneven floors. My favourite space is the beautiful galleried landing where I've made my office space.

We think that this part of the house was added about 40 years ago when the old tin roof (with a thatch underneath) was removed. The light floods through the duel aspect windows and the cats love to sit on the high beam above my desk.

With a new house comes the opportunity to accessorise and we went to town on bits for Biba's Biba themed bedroom. My favourite bits are the glassware from the bathroom collection.

And these oversized Biba cushions for her bed.

The Biba books are mine but she promises to care for them so I relented. The pots on top of the books are original Biba pots that are ideally sized for tea-light candles and the yellow stool I lovingly painted at a Home Barn paint day.

There will be more Corners Of My New Home coming soon...

Disclosure : I was sent the Biba glassware to review all other items featured in this post have been lovingly collected by my own fair hands.

Something Beautiful - Biba

The apple of my eye, my baby girl turned 12 yesterday. She has been rocking her something beautiful (almost) since the day she was born (chicken pox wasn't a good look).

For this weeks The Gallery

Biba's Dip Dyed Hair

Following on from the post I wrote yesterday. I survived the stress of the day (just about) and here's the results. What do you think?

Would You Let Your Daughter Dye Her Hair?

I'm at an uneasy junction as a parent right now. I must have been blinkered, but I really didn't see the huge change that moving from primary to secondary school would have on my little girl.

Just two terms in and she has become an independent, even more strong willed version of her younger self. Phone firmly planted to her being at all times, it's all about going out with friends, clothes and funky haircuts (that push the boundaries of school acceptance).

The hair conversations started tentatively after just a couple of weeks at high school. A new Pinterest board, with highlights and dip dye galore appeared in answer to my staling tactic, of proving to me, that she had thought about it properly.

I kept my head down in an attempt to avoid hair conversations at all costs. But I was only delaying the inevitable.

In a moment of weakness, I agreed to take her to the salon for a strand test, I was quietly confident that her hair wouldn't lift past a shade of ginger that she would hate and we could go back to normality (at least until the goth or punk stage hit).

No such luck. Her hair, it seems, shows no sign of its Chinese heritage.

I moved the goal posts (as all good parents do). Again I thought I was home and dry. A clean and tidy bedroom was surely a mountain too high?

I underestimated her steely resolve and now, here I am on the eve of the big deed, feeling really, quite sick.

Tomorrow, the beautiful long hair, that she has been growing forever, is going to get the shock of its life and I'm not sure I can cope with sitting through it.

Do you think she's too young?

Silent Sunday : January 12th 2014

For Silent Sunday

The End Of An Era

School broke for the summer on Friday and as term ended, so did Biba's time at primary school. 

It's emotional and even though I've been here before, this year feels different somehow. I'm still not sure why.

Maybe because I'm not ready for my little girl to move to 'big school'? Or maybe because I don't want my little girl to make that next step towards teenage independence...

I hope that her next school allows her to realise her dreams, just as mine did for me.

Silent Sunday

Content and Calm Travel Bug Competition

Content and Calm have a great new competition for budding little travel reporters so if your little one loves spending time in front of the camera read on as they could be in with the chance of winning a luxury family holiday to Greece or an all expenses paid trip to a top UK family attraction.

Content and Calm are looking for 10 TravelBug Reporters who will be sent off on an all-expenses paid adventure with their families to report back and share their insider tips for a series of Content and Calm online travel guide videos.

All you need to do to enter is create a short fun video of your child sharing their favourite holiday memories, highlights and funny stories. To help you along Content and Calm have come up with 6 questions that you can use as prompts but feel free to be as creative and out of the box as you wish. You could even create a location set or dress up in your favourite holiday clothes!

Questions:

1.       Tell us about your favourite holiday, where you went and what you did?

2.       What was the best element of the holiday and why?

3.       What was the worst part of the holiday?

4.       If your best friend went there tomorrow, what would you tell them to do?

5.       Who would you most love to go on holiday with?

6.       Who is more fun on holiday, mum or dad and why?

To help you with inspiration here's Biba's Travel Bug report on a holiday to Phuket in Thailand.

Here's how you can enter...

1.       Take a quick video of your child chatting about their holiday

2.       Upload it to the Content & Calm Facebook app before 11.59pm on 01/07/12

3.       Get your friends and family voting!

4.       If you blog, why not blog about the comp too. It's a great way to get people voting.

The 19 videos with the most votes and 1 random wildcard entry will then go through to the judging round where the 10 Content and Calm TravelBug Reporters will be chosen.

Good luck and look out for other entries by following the #ContentandCalm tag on Twitter.

*Disclosure* This is a sponsored post.

How to make my day

I just opened my email and found this.

I'm clearly way too emotional because I cried my eyes out!

Biba is an Original Sister

I'm having a total proud mum moment, so please humour me. My beautiful daughter, Biba shot for the new Original Sister Collection last week and the new pics have just gone live on their site.

If you have a girl and you haven't already checked out their beautiful range, I suggest you do it right away. 

Biba has been modelling for 10 years (she did her first job when she was 2 weeks old) but she came away from this shoot on cloud nine. She said it was the best shoot that she's ever done.

She loves the collection and has already decided that she's ordering everything that she wore in the shoot!

It's Original Sister's attention to detail that makes their clothes stand out. A puff sleeve here, a full swirly skirt there. Everything can be layered and mixed to create a fab range of stylish basics that are head and shoulders above the high street offering.

Everyones favourite is the Natalya Skater Dress. Biba LOVED it and it will look amazing with the retro style roller boots that I bought her for her birthday.

Original Sister are giving one away... All you need to do is head over to the Original Sister Facebook page for details of how to enter.

If you have a spare 5 mins, check out the behind the scenes vid. Yes I do have my iPhone permanently attached to my being:)

Me Right Now : Original Sister

Its been quite a while since I joined in The Gallery. Life has kind of gotten in the way of small personal pleasures like that. But I'm back with this weeks 'Me Right Now' theme.

I'd just taken this picture of Biba when I read Tara's prompt. She's sitting in hair and make up at this weeks shoot for the new Original Sister Collection.

She had some awesome hair do's durning the day and I can't wait to see the official collection images. Biba had a great day and met some new friends. I know that Ali from Original Sister will be really pleased to know that Biba said that was the best shoot she'd ever done.

Go check out www.originalsister.com and the rest of the pictures in this weeks The Gallery.

Silent Sunday : July 24th 2011

For Silent Sunday, don't forget to visit the other photographs from this week and do remember to leave a comment if you like what you see.

Proud Mum Moment

Today is another of those proud 'mum of a model' moments...

Stop by Next.co.uk to see Biba modeling some of their new range. You will find her in the older girls Jeans shop and also in dresses.

and another....