Hatch-To-Hospital Box
I love the idea of this new hospital box from maternity label, Hatch. It’s a box of luxurious hospital necessities for new mothers to wear after they’ve given birth. The box contains a knee-length nightgown designed to feel like your softest t-shirt, as well as a grey jersey robe, a pair of Cosabella black briefs (full coverage, but still pretty), and a pair of luxurious grey cashmere socks.
I think it would make for a lovely gift to give yourself as you’re gearing up for labour… or for your husband to give to you! I don’t know about anyone else, but the outfit I wore after giving birth was always the last thing I thought about before I went into labour, and I often ended up snatching my husband’s t-shirt and throwing back on the outfit I wore into the hospital. There was nothing special about it at all. I sort of like the idea of adding a bit of luxurious comfort to the equation, and feeling that bit more elegant in the special first days after your baby is born. (Not that I will be doing it ever again! But still!)
x Courtney
British Garden Birds Poster
We recently hung a bird feeder in the apple tree right outside our kitchen window, and it has been so much fun to watch all the garden birds help themselves to the birdseed. There are moments where we can spot three or four different birds taking turns flying up to our bird feeder, meanwhile pigeons (and squirrels!) help themselves to the seeds which fall onto the ground. The kids love pointing out the different birds we spot in the garden, which is why I knew they would love this new British Garden Birds Poster from Finch and Robin. The poster details 10 different garden birds, and we’ve hung it right on the wall by our kitchen table so that we can reference it every time we spot them.
I also like that £2 per poster is being donated to the RSPB Scotland to help save wildlife.
x Courtney
Cute, handcrafted espadrilles from Slowers
How cute are these espadrilles from the Spanish brand, Slowers!! Ivy and I recently got a pair of matching ones (see photo) in the mosaic print and they are so fun — I’m not sure which one of us loves them more!
I like that they’ve taken the traditional Spanish espadrilles and have given them a bit of a modern twist with the fun prints and colours…
Slowers is a small brand inspired by slow and rural life. They believe in creating shoes which are both natural, cool and comfortable, ideal for long summer walks in nature. They make espadrilles for men, women and children, and they’re all handcrafted in Spain and made from organic cotton and 100% natural jute fibres. (If you’re interested, you can read some interesting bits about the history of espadrilles here.)
x Courtney
Thoughts on children’s personalities…
Before I had children, I genuinely thought that when I had children I would be producing miniature clones of myself. Even after I had them, the thought lingered on. After all, I had two girls, they looked similar to me, why would they not be similar in character?
Fast forward 7 years and I cannot help laughing about how wrong I was. Not only are my two girls nothing like me, they are also nothing like each other. One of them can pick up a stick and give it a complex life story that is longer than a Harry Potter novel. The other one will see the same stick and see nothing but a stick, and have a great time poking random things with it. Experimenting, she calls this.
One girl is easy going and off with the fairies, the other one is headstrong like a bull. As my grandmother once said, at least I was not boring and did not mass produce. Not quite sure where I am going with this, but I am quite interested to hear if you were as naive as I was and thought you were going to produce mini versions of yourselves.
Emilie x
P.S. Quick disclaimer: I am incredibly glad that my children are nothing like me, that would be sooo boring!
P.P.S. The above photo was taken last week when we were in the south of Spain. On the left, headstrong Violette, on the right dreamy Coco.
Not just a towel…
Whenever we go on a beach holiday, I like to pack turkish towels instead of normal beach towels because they take up less space in your suitcase, they’re less heavy when wet after a long day at the beach, they dry more quickly… and they’re super cute!
Yesterday I was in the Conran Shop with my mom and we stumbled on these large linen bath towels by FB Collection from Frescobol Carioca, and I couldn’t resist picking up the cute pink and white striped one. I love how multipurpose they are — they can be used as a scarf, a shawl, a sarong, a blanket or a beach towel. The perfect thing to have at the beach! (Can you tell I am desperate for a sunny, beach holiday? Desperate!!!).
x Courtney
DIY: Simple skirts for little girls
When I was in Amsterdam with Esther last month, we sat down one evening to make some cute stripy skirts for the girls. (I should clarify – I did a bit of ironing, and Esther did everything else!!). She whipped up three skirts in one evening and I was so super impressed with how quickly you can have results! The girls were wearing their new skirts the following day! Esther explained the simple steps to me… but of course, like with anything else, you can’t fully learn how to do something unless you really sit down and do it yourself. So I was determined to come back to London, buy some cute fabric and learn by doing.
My mom is here visiting us so I figured it was the perfect timing to do so. Together we set up my sewing machine and sat down one evening for a little sewing session. It is surprisingly easy! And I must say, quite addictive!
I thought I would share the steps for how to make a super simple elastic waistband skirt (taught to me by Esther). My sewing lingo is very basic, so I’m not even sure if I can properly explain it… but I figured my basic steps might be helpful for other beginner sewers.
- Cut the length of fabric you think will be suitable for your child’s height. (I’ve made a few skirts now for Ivy and I think my favourite length began with a 46cm length of fabric. The length of the pink skirt in the photo below is longer, roughly 52cm). Remember to wash the fabric first so you know how much it is going to shrink (or allow for shrinkage if you don’t wash it first).
- The width of the fabric will become the waist/width of the skirt (the elastic will determine the size of the waist, determining how much fabric gets scrunched by the elastic). Widths of fabric differ – the wider the fabric, the fuller the skirt will be. (The floral Liberty print skirt pictured above has a 135cm or 54″ width.)
- Fold your fabric width-wise with the inside of the fabric on the outside, matching up the two outside edges. Sew a basic seam along this edge (about 1.5cm from the edge). Now you will have a loop of fabric with one seam. (You can iron the flaps of the seam down so they are flat against the fabric – this help keeps things looking tidy and also helps when sewing the hem and waistband over the seam.)
- Create a hem at the bottom by folding the bottom edge up (about 1cm) once and then folding again (about 2.5cm) to create a neat hem (where you don’t see any of the unfinished edge). Iron the folds, and pin the folding down so that it stays straight and in place. (You can measure while you do this to ensure the hem is straight and remains the same thickness all along the bottom). Then sew the hem in place.
- Create a waist band by doing roughly the same thing as the bottom hem (only it can be thinner, about half the width of the hem). I’ve been using elastic which is 9mm wide, so I just need to make sure the waistband is wide enough for the 9mm elastic to fit through easily). Iron the folds and pin down so that it stays straight when you sew it. Sew it together, leaving a small gap at the seam of the skirt for you to get the elastic band into the waist.
- Insert the elastic into the waistband using a safety pin pinned to the end of the elastic. Work the elastic all the way around the waistband and cinch up to your desired waist size (make sure the elastic doesn’t get twisted). Sew the elastic together so that it makes a loop within the waistband.
- Finish the skirt by sewing shut the gap of the waistband.
And that’s it! It’s so basic. The skirt consists of one seam, one hem and one elastic waistband. Easy peasy! I hope my instructions haven’t confused you. If you have any questions, just ask in the comments section below.
x Courtney
Mum & Baby yoga
As I mentioned in this post, I took my first yoga class when I was pregnant with Marlow and after just one class I knew it would become an important part of my life from then on. I don’t know what took me so long to start up yoga, but I am so thankful I finally did. I loved taking pregnancy yoga classes when I was pregnant, and I am so convinced it helped prepare me mentally and physically for the birthing experience I had always longed for.
When Marlow was 8 weeks old we started taking yoga classes together. Once a week the two of us hop on a bus and head over to Triyoga in Primrose Hill for the Mummy & Me yoga class with Nadia Narain. It is always a highlight of the week for both of us! I love that I get to practice yoga even though I have a little baby who still can’t be left with a sitter, I love that every Wednesday I wake up and my muscles are slightly sore from the previous day’s work out, I love being surrounded by other mums with young babies and chatting to them about motherhood and baby stages, and I love ending the class with a little dance with Marlow – a special time for the two of us to share with each other. Marlow loves the bit at the end when we sing songs (Incy Wincy Spider is her favourite!), and she loves checking out all the other sweet babies in the room — I’m certain that she loves our yoga class as much as I do.
x Courtney
p.s. Marlow’s romper in the photo above is from Marie Puce.
‘As They Grow’ on The Littlest Blog
Elizabeth from The Littlest blog (and our lovely LA-based contributor) has started up a wonderful new series on her blog called ‘As They Grow’ which features a different mother & baby duo to highlight the monthly stages of a baby’s development from birth up to 24 months. Each mother will describe how they engage with their baby – how they play with their baby, what songs they sing, what games they play, etc. She asked me to describe the third month in a baby’s development and Esther to describe the fourth month.
Take a peek at The Littlest blog to see our contributions and to see what other mums say about the different months. We’re excited to read about the coming months (months five, six, seven, eight, etc.) in anticipation of our own babies being at that stage. It’s always nice to hear ideas for how to engage and play with your baby at the different stages.
x Courtney
The String Shelf
I completely adore the String Shelf. The String system was design in 1949 and over the last years has become one of the most popular pieces of classic scandinavian design. We got one for Nico’s room — we call it “the treasure shelf”, because this is where he keeps his most valuable toys at the moment.
Robots, dinos, rockets. But the most important toys are the Star Wars ones, because they were a present from Uncle Javi. The toys belonged to him since he was little, and now they belong to Nico, 30 years later! Such a lovely present.
We are very happy with our String ! Hope you like it!
- Maria
Introducing Polona, writing from Germany!
Polona is born and bread in a tiny chicken-shaped country situated in Central Europe: Slovenia. Together with her husband and their daughter Tila she lived in Denmark and France, before moving to Germany where they are currently located. But they might be moving again this summer… What an adventurous lifestyle!
We’ve been following Polona’s wonderful blog Baby Jungle for a while now. She has such a fun and honest style, and the photos she takes of Tila are so adorable. Not to mention her fun craft projects — so do-able, and so inspirational!
So, we’re super to announce our newest contributor, whose first post will go up today, and let me tell you — it’s a super fun DIY project.
Welcome, Polona — we’re thrilled to have you over here!
xxx Esther
Tie-dye!
I totally remember tie-dying as a child — it was such fashion back then, and I remember how fun and exciting it was. You never really knew what the results were going to be like! So I picked up a packet of fabric dye from the local drugstore (there wasn’t much choice — I used Dylon dye for hand use, colour Ocean Blue), and a few simple, white cotton T-shirts for the kids (plus a onesie for Casper of course). After pre-washing the shirts, I wet the shirts (or you can just leave them wet after washing), and put the kids around the table with each a shirt to use and a bag of elastic bands. I explained some different folding techniques to them using this page, and we started! For Casper’s onesie, I made a big donut by creating a big rosette and pushing the tip back through the rubber band. For Ava’s shirt, we made a line of small rosettes which we tied together with one elastic band. Pim used the folding technique, making vertical folds and tying them at irregular intervals. As you can see he’s very pleased with the results. And Sara made random circles, bigger and small, which also gave a cool effect I think.
After tying the shirts, I prepared the dye in the kitchen sink and we submerged the shirts in the dye for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally with a big steel spoon. Then, I rinsed with cold water and let the kids untie their shirts with plastic gloves on. The excitement and surprise — they absolutely loved it! After a quick spin in the machine the shirts were ready to wear. With pride!
xxx Esther
INspiRaTiOns by la Girafe
With summer creeping up on us, I am suddenly in the mood for cute, colourful accessories — for my girls and for me! INspiRaTiOns by la Girafe is a French brand with an adorable collection of necklaces, hairclips and bracelets, just perfect in their simplicity and innocence.
I love the tiny details like little shells, beads, and neon accents. Summer!
xxx Esther
Decorating a baby’s nursery, wallpaper on the ceiling
A few weeks ago I told you about the nursery I had the pleasure to decorate. Today I would like to share the lovely wallpaper we used — instead of putting it on the wall I put it on the ceiling! It looks different, don’t you think?
The paper is one of my favorite nowadays. The Ferm Living, Harlequin. I am completely madly in love with it! Hope you like it!
- Maria
Addicted to green smoothies!
My sister recently suggested I read Green for Life
And thus began our addiction to green smoothies!! We make them every day. It’s such an easy way to eat spinach, kale, chard and other extremely healthy green vegetables. She also argues that we should be eating more of the green parts of vegetables — the green bits of strawberries (just throw the whole strawberries, stems included, into your blender!), the greens of carrots, beet greens, etc. I don’t think I’ll ever toss those green bits away again! Plus, it’s so much easier to throw it all into your blender without removing the stems.
In addition to the greens, we also add sweet fruit like bananas, mangoes, strawberries, apples, etc. So the smoothies are not only extremely healthy, they’re super yummy! My kids are as addicted as I am! Here is one of our favourite sweet green smoothie recipes from the Green for Life
1 cup chard
1 cup spinach
10 strawberries, stems included
1 mango, peeled
1 apple
1 banana
Juice of 1 lemon
2 cups water
And another recipe we also like (a bit less sweet – more healthy tasting!) is this one which we’ve sort of created ourselves:
2 avocados
1-2 cups of spinach
1 bunch of mint, stems included
1 bunch of parsley, stems included
1 apple
2 kiwis
1 cup apple juice
Try it! It’s delicious! And please share your green smoothie recipes. We would love to have more options!
x Courtney
ONE YEAR AGO WE WROTE ABOUT:
• Famille Summerbelle: Screen Printed City Maps• Dinner with Joslyn from Shak-Shuka
Spring Tent DIY
My son Henrik loves to make tents and forts. He builds one practically every day. This year for an Easter surprise I decided to make my children a tent that they could leave up and play with all day every day. I used the genius tutorial featured on a beautiful mess invented by Rubyellen. I then made some of my own modifications. I added an extra wooden piece of moulding at the bottom of both sides so that the tent won’t slide down and will stay upright on hard wood floors.
I also added a window with a roll flap that snaps open. I lined the inside of it with a blue geometric fabric. I trimmed the window and the outside of the tent in a solid aqua fabric bias tape that I made. I ended up using a small black polka dot fabric for the tent. I cut and sewed the green fabric on the bottom to look like grass and make it feel more like spring. To make the tent more cozy I made a few floor cushions in corresponding colors (even a star pillow).
I think it’s safe to say they love the tent.
I may have also got my children two bunnies. I couldn’t help myself. I had bunnies growing up as a child and had so much fun with them. Henrik named the black one hoppy and Maja named the brown one honey.
Aren’t the bow tie and bow so cute that Henrik and Maja are wearing?! If you’re interested in some for your little ones my sweet friend makes them and you can get them here.
I hope you enjoy!
xoxo–Meta
Merci – online
This post is actually written for some of my favourite ladies, Courtney and Esther, who have a favourite shop here in Paris. They literally go there every time they come. In fact, I sometimes suspect that they might be visiting me just as an excuse to visit Merci, the fantastic concept shop which happens to be very close to my flat.
And now they might never come visit again, as Merci has (finally) started an international online shop, full of amazing linens, the Merci clothes line, wall paper, these cool picnic napkins and many other bits and pieces.
Merci was started by the same people who founded Bonpoint many moons ago. It actually functions as a very stylish charity shop: all the proceeds of the shop are invested in educational projects in Madagascar (but certainly does not look like any charity shop I have ever seen before). Hopefully the online Merci is not the end to a wonderful friendship 
- Emilie
The Honeycomb parade
These darling honeycomg figurines by OMM design are just too cute! They come in a gift box with a selection of 5 figures (three different sets of designs are available) and are just perfect to give away as a little present, spruce up a boring corner in your house, or include in an envelope to send to a far away friend.
Available by Little Baby Company!
xxx Esther
ONE YEAR AGO WE WROTE ABOUT:
• Ethnic prints at Native Belle• Stitch n’ Kids: Easter decoration
• Hot Cross Buns
An easy nightmare remedy. It might help!
Our son Pim (he just turned 6) recently went through a period in which every night he would stand next to our bed because a nightmare had woken him up. The nightmare was very consistently about bears, and would leave him very scared, the poor boy. During the day he would sometimes ask me if there really are no bears here in the Netherlands! (There are not, in case you were wondering.) Of course I tried to comfort and reassure him, but the dreams kept coming back.
After a few weeks I suddenly remembered something my sister-in-law once told me after my nephew had a series of bad dreams when he was around that same age: she had given him a toy sword in his bed to fight of his bad dreams, and it worked like a charm. That night, I taught Pim the following magic spell to empower the bears that would surely come to haunt him in his dreams:
I am Pim
And I say:
All the bears
Now go away!!
That night, he didn’t have a nightmare. And ever since, he has been sleeping very well. No nasty bears in his dreams anymore! And when a few weeks ago wild boars were threatening to disturb his sweet dreams, we simply changed the magic spell, and again, it worked!
I think the secret is to give the child a way to empower whatever scares them in their dreams. For Pim, the spell worked wonders, for my nephew the toy sword did the trick, and Courtney has told me that for her 3 year old daughter Ivy a magic princess wand was all that it took.
I just thought I’d share this little trick in case your child has been suffering from bad dreams. I hope it helps! And if you know of another magic remedy — please share!
xxx Esther
PS The above illustration is of two of the creatures that were haunting Pim’s dreams recently: a bear and a boar are having tea together under a table — it’s by Lieke van der Vorst, and part of this poetry poster. I love it!
ONE YEAR AGO WE WROTE ABOUT:
• Learning Maths with Numicon• Stitch ‘n Kids — DIY Easter chicks from pom-poms
• Easter Buddies
Molly Brown London, for stylish jewellery
Molly Brown London just knows how to spoil a girl. You should have seen the excitement on the face of our daughter Sara, when she received a chic, pink bag, filled with clouds of pink tissue paper and a hand-written card by Molly Brown… Inside, a pink jewellery box revealed a beautiful, sterling silver necklace from the Alphabet Collection, with an S charm hanging on it. I don’t think any other gift could have made her any more pleased!
Molly Brown London offers a sophisticated collection of pretty jewellery for (young) girls. If you’re looking for a special, keepsake gift for a birthday, a holy communion or another special occasion, Molly Brown London offers a very fine selection of choices. I love the colourful jellybean and heart charms!
xxx Esther
ONE YEAR AGO WE WROTE ABOUT:
• Learning Maths with Numicon• Stitch ‘n Kids — DIY Easter chicks from pom-poms
• Easter Buddies
Crochet At Play
I have always wanted to learn to crochet! And I was even more inspired to learn when I spent a weekend last year with Emilie and Esther and they were both crocheting the cutest little hats and accessories. They gave me a quick tutorial and it seemed quite do-able. But of course, I came back to London and a whole year has passed and I still haven’t picked up a crochet hook!
But things are about to change! I just received Kat Goldin’s new book, Crochet at Play
I think I’ll start with the little crown. Stay tuned for results.
xx Courtney
Photo from Kat Goldin’s blog, Slugs on the Refrigerator. And you can also watch this video trailer for the book, made by Kat Molesworth.
