How to Make a Darling Hair Bow in Just 2 Minutes x

For those of you with lovely shoulder length/long hair or if you have a littlie with long locks this is perfect. It seriously only takes a few minutes. Perfect ‘in a rush but I want cute hair’, hair!

So here goes…
→ shoulder length to long hair
→ hairbrush
→ hair bobble/elastic
→ kirby grips/hair pins
→ a dash of rose tinted lip balm as you fly out the door

My hair is still too short for this, so my daughter gets the benefit at present.  

Brush your hair into a high pony. At the last elastic twist instead of pulling your hair totally free of the elastic, leave a little. Your pony tail is now in a little loop.

Separate the looped hair into two. This will form the bow shape.

Pull the hair that wasn’t fully pulled through the pony tail between the two loops and pin at the back.

Tutepatootes.

Hope you enjoy making your hair look darling x

♡naomi

Questions I Never Expected To Answer

I set out to for this to predominately be a crafting blog. However, I have to share some of the questions I am fielding here, from the little 3 year old that throws me curve balls at any given moment.

Any sage advice/knowledge that I should have learnt at school, would be welcome.

Okay here goes.

Aged 2 and a half:

Where do baby dogs come from? Followed by where do babies come from?
Yes, 2 and a half years old, people. New parents- do not get lulled into a false sense of “ahh I’ve got years to prepare *that* answer”. No. No you haven’t. Learn from me. Prepare and do not mention eggs. It’s too early. They’re too young. Plus you’ll put them off hen eggs for a while.

Why is the sky blue?
Try and answer that right now. Go on I dare you, try it. Oh, do it whilst navigating and driving London roads too.
Ahh dear. I thought it was something to do with the spectrum,  prisms, light distortion and rainbows.  But I was hazy and how in the world to you go from there to straightforward and comprehensible?.. People, this is not another one of my fortes.

What is rain?
Thankfully that was one of the better ones. I felt like a CBBC presenter on that one. My geography came back to me in a flash and interestingly a picture I had drawn on the process of precipitation.  Wahoo. Yeah, get me. I’ll revel in this one, as it’s the only one that was worthy.

Then I got:
When I older can I touch the clouds?
That was just adorable. A brief discussion about why ladders weren’t tall enough followed. But mainly I was seeping into the car seat in mushy love…And trying to memorise her narrative to write it down later.

Why do wheels move cars?
I put this to my family who proceeded in telling me its the chassis or motor or ‘something’, rather than the wheels. Hey. Again I went too complicated.  I can’t help it. I was transported back to my physics class with that very scary teacher. I felt the pressure, words were coming out as my brain tried to scramble together a cognisant understanding.  Um,  friction, um heat, um round, round things roll. Heck. Cars need wheels to roll on?!? That was it. Best I’ve got.

Me: What do you think mama was like as a baby? [I walked right into this one]
Minou: a baby...then a look of horror crossed her face…if you was a baby who would be my mama?!
Me: I am always your mama.
Minou: how can babies be mamas?
Me: Well, no, when I was a baby you weren’t born.
Minou: Who was I with?
Return to question 1 or try and explain souls and love and faith and…

A few others thrown into the mix:
→ Why can’t we eat poo poo?

→ What are those on your face? [Spots. Nice. Thanks]

→ What are pigs made of? What are dogs made of? What are [insert any old Mac Donald creature here] made of?

→ What is glass made of? [Insert any material or object here and repeat x20]

→ Why are we late?

→ What you doing/eating [again insert any activity, gift or food treat that you are secreting here]

And finally today.

What are laws?
Seriously, law?! Where?  What?!
Actually this one wasn’t too bad. I’ve learnt to control that classroom transportation “argghh I’ve no idea and I’ve been picked to explain” syndrome. My daughter now knows the word ‘research’, why Google exists and that it is the font of all knowledge after we’ve exhausted mine. She aptly informed me that we should look on my phone when we got home. Hummm, so maybe my answer wasn’t that good after all!

I have a feeling there will be many more of these to come.

Parents out there. Prep me. What should I revise?! What other classics are out there that are ripe for the asking? Ah the joys.

♡naomi

Milly’s Door ~ Knitting

I’m getting worried. Worried about myself.  I know I’m a perfectionist. Always have been, probably always will be to some extent or another. But seriously. It’s 23h10 and what am I doing?..I’m knitting and purling on cut off cocktail sticks. Seriously. Call my therapist – I need more sessions!

So yes, Milly’s Door has a special little extra tonight. It was going to be 3 dinky balls of yarn in a wicker basket. Then she had to have needles [with the ends painted] a sickly shade of pink which will delight the Minou no end. Then tell me, who can look at needles and yarn and not knit a few rows?! It took a while to cast on and find my jive with the cocktail sticks [very sharp and snags on the yarn, in case you were wondering].

So here we have it. Milly has obviously caught the crafting fever in this house:

My Minou has been checking Milly’s door almost daily now, looking for additions outside and hoping to catch a peek of her.

Please tell me I’m not the only one to take craft/activities [heck how do I even categorise this!] so *seriously*!

♡naomi

Huge Home Crafted Valentine Handprint Heart Postcards ~ Send Some Love People

Send a little love with this larger than life postcard.

We made these over the course of several days. Attention spans can only be stretched so far! 

We had some fun messy play painting her hands and making handprint hearts. Minou then got down to some serious ‘doll, duck and star’ painting.

We only get the paints and playdoh out once a month ish so when we do she loves it and plays for about an hour [aka mama’s opportunity to observe with a running commentary whilst indulging in a huge flat white coffee].

To join us you’ll need:

→ Paint
→ Colored card/paper. We used old file dividers
→ Scissors
→ Glue
→ Pens
→ Wet wipes in abundance
→ that huge flat white

Once your hand hearts are dry, and you are throughly buzzing from your coffee, cut into a ♡ shape. We have fun scalloped edged scissors which make it look very sweet.

Many of our hand hearts didn’t look much like “hearts” as you and I would call them but handpainting is only fun for so long and is no fun if its got to be done a very particular way.

Never fear, cutting them into a heart shape makes it much more obvious about what they’re supposed to be!

Glue onto your card/file divider. 

Turn over and mark out a postcard. Careful the pen doesn’t seep through to the other side [we learnt the hard way!]

Write your little note [and adorn with pictures of oranges?!]. Copy the address out and send with a kiss and hug.

Dont forget these will probably need a large stamp if you’re posting in the UK [I still can’t get my head around this system].

Have fun sending love notes to friends and family.

♡naomi 

Eeek! I’m a Finalist!

Very exciting news today…

I entered a photographic competition held by the interesting, diverse and funny blog: Field Notes From Fatherhood.

I nearly required the assistance of a friend when I read ‘about us’ [and the comment about 16 ways to make things with used dental floss] as I had a mouthful of coffee which resulted in a half swallow/half choke/splutter laugh].

I found out today I’m one of the finalists!

Please take a look at the photos and vote for the one that warms/excites/moves your soul!

For my blogasphere lovelies the otherside of the pond they’ll be posted in the evening. For my European blogasphere lovelies it’ll be in the wee hours and finally for those to the East of this little Isle it’ll be your middayish. Oooh no idea if I have that right! Never been my forte: currency or timezones.

The winner will get a print, of their choice, by the fabulous Kevin Dyer.

You can have a look at his photography on his website: A World In Focus.

Eeee. I’m so excited [does a funny jig in the cold kitchen].

Hope you’ve all had a lovely day/morning/evening. Excuse me whilst I go back to finishing that little jig and vague hip hop moves that even my daughter would be embarrassed to witness.

♡naomi