Lberty London launches Debut Childrenswear Collection

AUTUMN WINTER 13 - LIBERTY LONDON LAUNCHES DEBUT CHILDRENSWEAR COLLECTION

Popping prints, contrasting trims and a touch of 70’s Bohemia - Liberty London launches its inaugural childrenswear collection - an eclectic celebration of Liberty’s rich print, design and colour heritage.

The Liberty design studio has been creating exceptional printed textiles since the late 1870’s. Autumn Winter 2013 sees a collection of Liberty classic and exciting new prints exploding with colour and vivid pattern inspired by the archive re-coloured and transformed into wonderful pieces in the world’s finest textiles for young Liberty fans.

Modern, simple shapes allow vibrant print and bold colour to play together unexpectedly - creating a delightful, carefree yet classic collection of exceptional childrenswear in quintessential English style.   

Boys look effortlessly cool in printed skinny fit jeans, placement t-shirts and collared shirts complemented by a range of textured knitwear with contrasting Liberty print trims, styled with a hooded wool coat perfect for the winter winds. 

An exclusive collection of printed baby jersey in soft pastels [from newborn to 18 months] is complemented by exquisite pieces knitted in the finest Scottish cashmere yarn to welcome the very youngest Liberty fan.

Collection Highlights:

Boys

Super cool Elizabeth Anne Liberty print skinny fit jeans with the bright Orizaba print classic shirt.

Liberty Coram Fields placement print t-shirt teamed with raspberry red skinny fit jeans and topped off with a hooded wool coat popped with Marco Liberty print trim.

Baby Boy

Hip Criss Cross Liberty print shirt with Marco print reversible trousers and textured raglan jumper with Orizaba print trim. 

information provided via press release from Liberty London no payment received.

           

" Can we have a dog ? "

Going back to Christmas 3 years ago, all the presents are open, paper strewn, happy faces all around.

Jarvis starts to cry.

"What's the matter sweetie ? "

"I didn't get my dog mummy, I asked Father Christmas for a dog, I promised to be a good boy and he didn't bring me one "

Floods of tears.

oh dear !  Explanations given and the excuses began

 and have continued ever since. We can't have a dog because .......


Fast forward to this weekend.


Norman came to stay....

I might be starting to waver.

Create a World Review & Giveaway

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

Many thanks to all who entered.  The winner picked at Random by No 1 son is

ZOE ARTHURS - Congratulations !

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We were recently sent a Create a World to review.  Unfortunately my twins felt it was "for babies" and were not interested in it.  Luckily I know another mummy of twins who was more than happy to receive it for her boys. 

Julie's Review

Review of Simply Good – “Create-a- World” – soft imaginative game offering endless playtime fun.

Suitable for 12 months plus

(My kids are 3 ½ boys(twins) and 7 year old girl)

Younger product than I would buy for this age but they did have good interactive fun with it for about 20 minutes or so.

Having researched the price I felt it was a little bit too expensive for what it was. (Approx RRP £45ish??) Would probably pay around £20 if buying as a present for younger children. 

Size of product did mean that more than one child could play with it.

Equally great for mummy and me time as the play mat is big enough for you and child to sit around on the floor.

Great detail on the fuzzy felt pieces, great bright colours to capture younger childrens imagination.

Promotes interactive play between older and younger children (or mum and younger toddler) as there is simply so much to talk about. Colours, people, make up stories etc. and it can really encourage children to chat about what they are creating.

Opportunity to link animals or people to settings and then talk about it. Giving children good language skills.

My older child took the lead and the boys followed her and they were imagining what would happen between the characters etc and what would link with what. Eg princess with castle and dragon etc. Never heard my boys talk so much!!

Think as a child gets older it would be nice to have wall mounted and then they could create a scene as some wall art.

My kids biggest disappointment was on the box it showed a beach scene and a sun. They searched endlessly for these pieces to link with their scene and story and could not find them. We counted the pieces at the end (there were 61 present as stated on the box) but not all of the ones depicted on the exterior of the product. I found this a little misleading as they felt short changed by it. (Perhaps they should state on outside “may contain only some of the pieces depicted”). (On Amazon it says comes with 90 pieces so this may have been rectified…??)

To summarise I would say a great product for say 12 mths – 2 ½ years old but a little expensive and misleading packaging. 6 out of 10??


Julie's review is complete and unedited in anyway.  I think she (and the children) did a great job of reviewing this set.

Create a World available to buy from Whitestep 

GIVEAWAY

I have a brand new and boxed "Create a World" to giveaway if you would like to be in with a chance of winning it.  Please follow this blog and leave a comment below, making sure you are contactable either through google, twitter, email or facebook.


Giveaway is open to UK residents only (sorry)
Will close on Monday 14th May at 8pm
Winner will be picked at random

We received the item to review and keep, no payment was received and all views expressed are Julie's : )

THANK YOU & GOOD LUCK

Sea Band Giveaway

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

Many apologies for the delay in drawing the winners.

The winners picked at random by Jarvis are :

LucyRobinson - Child Sea Band
Hannah Batram - Adult Sea Band
Ness - Child Sea Band
Maria - Adult Sea Band
Sarahmumof3 Adult Sea Band

I am so sorry I only had 5 sets to give away and as there were only 11 combined entries (7 individuals)  I will contact the company and see if I can get two more so that everybody is a winner !

Many thanks for taking part and another giveaway will be coming soon.




Do you or members of your family suffer from feelings of nausea, travel or sea sickness ?  If so this weeks giveaway is for you.  I have two sets of the adults and two of the childrens to giveaway. 

The Sea-Band Story

The natural way to fight feelings of nausea.

The Sea-Band is an elastic wrist band, which applies pressure on the Nei Kuan acupressure point on the wrist. This is a natural, effective and drug free solution to alleviate even the worst feelings of nausea.

Sea-bands are clinically tested and proven to work for –

 Travel Sickness

 Morning Sickness

 Chemotherapy Induced Nausea

 Post Operative Nausea

How Do Sea-Bands Work?

The plastic stud on the inside of each Sea-Band applies acupressure to the Nei Kuan pressure point on the wrist. This naturally soothes the stomach and eases nausea.

Since Sea-Bands are all natural and drug-free, they can be worn at any time by anyone with no adverse side effects (making them especially useful for ladies suffering with morning sickness).

Sea-Band Features

 The only clinically tested wristband

 No drugs, no side effects

 The natural alternative to drugs

 Used by doctors and in hospitals

How to wear Sea-Bands Place your middle fingers on the inside of your wrist with the edge of your third finger at the bottom of your hand, at the crease of your wrist. Underneath your middle finger, you will find the Nei Kuan pressure point, in between two wrist tendons. You will be able to feel it by pressing down in this spot. Place the Sea-Band on your wrist, with the plastic stud toward your skin on the Nei Kuan pressure point. Do the same with the other wrist band. Both Sea-Band wrist bands must be worn at the same time for them to be effective.

You should begin to feel relief within five minutes. If nausea worsens, apply pressure with your finger to the plastic stud.

* I was given the seabands for the purpose of this giveaway. I was not paid for this post.

To enter the giveaway :

Leave a comment below telling me who in your family could benefit from the Sea Bands.

For an additional entry pop over and like the Sea Band Facebook page (don't forget to leave a comment so we know you have visited them).

Open to UK residents only I'm afraid

Giveaway ends on Monday 12th March at 8.00pm

Winners selected at random

Thanks and good luck

Multiple Mayhem Carnival

Firstly, many apologies for the lateness of this carnival post.   I've been a bit busy with half term entertaining the twins and visitors, Halloween party, back to school and then catching up with the work I couldn't do when the twins were off school.  Anyway excuses over, here we go. 

This is my first time of hosting this wonderful carnival which celebrates everything that is good, bad and downright amazing about being parents to twins or dare I even say it ; Triplets or more !

My little darlings !

Reading through all the contributions below and probably being the mum to the oldest multiples in the group, my boys are seven next month (please accept my apologies if I am wrong) I can certainly relate to all of the posts, having gone through all of the situations at one time or another.

Karen from Tales of a twin mum tells us the classic bath time dance story and the very different reactions her twins have to bath time.  A lovely, funny story.  

Debbie from Johnson babies (love the blog name) has the age old dilemma of the feeding routine.  Still makes me wonder how on earth I coped mostly alone during that time. 

Marianne from Marisworld gives us a round robin of her 3&1/4 yr old twins including the "oh I remember it well" day they started pre-school and the worry of the will they come up to scratch in the assessments.

Rebecca from Here come the girls (another fab name for a blog) has the flashback to discovering she was pregnant with twins and the classic  comment "do twins run in your family? "  .  That moment I personally, will never forget.  We were in for an early scan due to bleeding, 3 months earlier I had miscarried a baby, only to find out that I was now pregnant with twins !  oh how we laughed !

Mich from Mummy from the heart tells us about co-sleeping and has the most adorable photographs of her twins.  We tried and sadly failed with this one.  My twins were kick boxing champions at the age of two weeks, no chance of peaceful co-sleeping for us.

Kerry from Multiple mummy gives us the potty training lowdown.  My view, don't panic, let them go at their own pace, after all very few children attend their first day at school still wearing a nappy. 

Heather from Young and Younger has the forever endearing tale of the special bond between twins.  In our case not always apparent until that is they are apart !  It never fails to touch me, however much my boys fight (and they do, a lot)  when they are apart there is almost puppy like pining for each other.

Finally the wonderfully funny Emily from More than just a mother raises a smile with her embarrassing behaviour Ron Weasley tale.  Please tell us Emily that you will put the poor boy out of his misery.....

So there we have this months Multiple Mayhem Carnival, Please do take a moment to follow the links to the posts for a wonderful read.  A great roundup of the tales of twin parenting.  If you have twins or more multiples we would love you to join in next time.

Celebrate the wedding in Red, White & Blue

I know we all say it about our own children, but really, how GORGEOUS does my eldest son look wearing one of the Ralph Lauren Tees just in ! 

Available in Patriotic Red, White and Blue, they will be on the website in time to celebrate the Royal Wedding.

Is now the right time ?

I have to admit to thriving on a challenge.   

I am always looking for more ways to make a living.  Sales of my childrens clothes in my Ebay Shop and website have taken a bit of a nose dive in the last year.  In some way due to the recession I am sure, but also if I am honest, because I haven't given that aspect of my business the attention I should have. 

I get distracted by new ideas and bored by old ones.  I have a typical Gemini Mind.

Last year I launched my own small range of Milly by the Sea clothes for little girls, it was well received and I had lots of ideas but not the money required to produce all the items I would have liked or to follow up the range. 

The clothes are hand crafted in England and it was important for me to be able to sell them at an affordable price.  A tough call.  Anyone who is involved in the manufacture of goods in the UK will know that its impossible to compete with the mass produced rates overseas manufacturers offer.  So inevitably there was little profit for me and I decided to put Milly to bed for the time being until hopefully I was in a position to develop and market the range properly.

I would dearly love to wake Milly up now, but as I also have another idea on the back boiler at the moment coming as a result of my new and second blog The White Approach (yes, another one) is it the right time ?  Should I just concentrate on one business ?

Or is this how I should be thinking in these tough times ? Running several different concerns to appeal to as many people as possible ? 

Is this Entrepreneurial Spirt ? - 

 Entrepreneur – noun

1. a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

or

Being a Jack of all trades and master of non ? 

I've changed my plans for the Easter holidays.

When No1 son was 18 months old I became a single mum (through choice).  I needed to earn a living but  my mother lived in Cheshire and my son's biological father & his parents were refusing to help us in any way, shape or form.  I was desperate, a friend of mine at the time said she was sure her parents would be happy to help me out with some childcare.  I had met her parents they were the kind of people that you instantly take to.  They had a warm, loving family home always filled with family, friends and grandchildren. Nothing was too much trouble, food was always on offer and they welcomed us into their fold as if we were family. 

Nanna Jill and Uncle John as they became known looked after Jacob for me two days a week for a year, they refused payment of any kind, but I found ways (giving them M & S vouchers etc). When Jacob was 2.5 he moved onto kindergarten and a new chapter of our life began. 

Over the years we haven't seen Nanna Jill & Uncle John as much as we should have considering how generous they had been to us.  We saw them from time to time and around town.  They had terrible tragedy in their life when two of their grandchildren died (one as a toddler and one as a teenager ) but they were always positive about life whenever I saw them.  A few weeks ago John died after a short battle with cancer.  I was told by a friend of the family and asked if I wanted to go to his funeral.  I felt I couldn't go, that somehow it was a bit like being an ambulance chaser as I hadn't kept in touch with them as I should have.  I felt, I feel, guilt that I wasn't the friend I should have been to them considering how kind they were to me when I most needed help.  What would I say.  I realise now it was my feelings I was concerned about.  I should have gone to the funeral to pay my respects to a kind, generous and funny man.   Yesterday I saw Nanna Jill in the park.  As she walked towards me it dawned on me who she was, almost changed beyond recognition.  She grabbed me in a big hug and we talked for a long, long time about John, how she felt, what had happened, so many words.  Her parting words to me " tell each other every day how much you love them".

I was also with another very special lady at the weekend who has recently lost her mother and is grieving terribly, because we were involved in a busy event and had our children, there never seemed the right moment to talk to her about her mum and I was scared that if I picked the wrong moment to mention mum she might be upset.  I should have gone ahead anyway. 

I come from a really small family I have been blessed to get this far in my life without loosing a close member of my immediate family.  I can't imagine the pain it causes.  So instead of putting the twins in club next week during the school holidays I have changed my plans.  We are going to Cheshire to visit Grandma.

I have this sign in my home, I try to live by it every day.