D.I.Y - Gift Ideas

 

 

 

 

Happy mothers day!! I hope all you lovely mummy's had a lovely day! I know this is a little late for a mothers day gift idea but I couldn't share it until I gave it to my mum and mother in law as I know they sometimes read my blog and I wanted to make it a little surprise.

 

I love thoughtful gifts that have been handmade. I saw on a blog at Christmas that someone made all their family cookies and put them in different jars and decorated them all pretty and festive and I thought It was such a lovely idea and knew I wanted to use the idea.

 

These were a little gift to 'nanny' from Lilly, Lilly loves to bake cookies with me, she helps me mix and roll out the dough then she will use the cookies cutters to cut out the shapes. We bought 101 cookie cutters in a set from amazon ages ago and it comes with all different festive cutters, letters & numbers. We spelt nanny and made some heart shape ones too.

Lilly's favourite part is to help decorate them I make up the icing and she will get a spoon and 'sploge' it on (usually next to) then I put a bowl with all the decorations and she will pick them up individually and 'sprink spink' as she says.

The actually jar itself I picked up in the range for 79p. We wrapped the cookies in tissue paper and put them in the jar and then cut around the edges. The lid of the jar was gold with writing on so I just wrapped it in tissue paper and glued it to the lid (didn't do a good job but hey ho!) I made the label using scrap paper with a butterfly as Lilly is obsessed with them at the moment and thought it was a sweet touch.

This cost me less than £5 to make and I think it was a really nice little gift and we will definitely be making more for other occasions.

Polar FT4 // Review

 
 
Hello guys! I have really been into trying to live a healthier lifestyle lately and wanting to exercise and loose some weight just to feel happier in myself. I have been wanting a polar watch for a long time. My Instagram feed is full of photos of peoples workouts and showing how much calories they burned.

The nearest gym to me is miles away and with Lilly its easier for me to work out at home and outdoors. I do a lot of workout dvds and youtube videos. I also go for a lot of walks with Lilly and the dogs and we also have a mini gym set up at home with a cross trainer etc which does have a little calorie thing on it but it doesn't work properly and I don't feel it gives a correct track. Knowing how many calories I have burned some how pushes me to work harder, I have a number of calories I want to burn and If I don't reach it I work harder and the polar FT4 is perfect to show me how many calories I have burned.

Polar has various watches which do similar things. I decided to buy the FT4 mainly because it is the cheapest and does everything I want it to do. The Polar FT4 retails at 69.99 here which admittedly I thought was maybe a little expensive for a calorie tracker/heart rate monitor but im glad that I bought it. The polar FT4 comes in a little black box and is available is various colours. It comes with a heart rate monitor and strap which is slightly elasticated the you clip around just under your bra line and attach the monitor. Under the strap does have to be slightly damped to work properly and doesn't feel uncomfortable but when I have a sports bra on its a little awkward.

When you first set up the watch it is set to your personal stats to get a correct reading of calories. The screen Is simple and clear and just looks like a normal watch with date and time. When the side buttons are pressed it bring up the menu where you can start your tracking and also scroll through the previous readings. It tells you the duration you worked out for, your heart rate, calories burned and how long you were in zone for. The inzone feature is what your heart rate should be between when working out. If your drop below or go above it bleeps at you to tell you.

This watch has really helped me when working out, and if your do a lot of home workouts and would like to know how many calories you are burning I would highly recommend this watch.

Lilly's OOTD - #1

 
 

 

 

I wanted to share with you Lilly's First 'OOTD' I love reading them on other mums blogs and wanted to add it to Lilly and me :)

 

Let me tell you, trying to get a picture of Lilly keeping still is a massive task! When I asked her to stand still she thought it was a funny game and ran away as quickly as she could haha!!

Matalan is somewhere I have never really thought to buy toddler clothes from but I saw another blog post on some really cute pieces and thought I would have a look. They do have some really nice things, especially their baby section! I picked up a few dresses for Lilly including this black and white little number! I paired it with black tights from next and these cute little ballet pumps with a glitter heart detail on the front. Then as always Lilly either has a clip or headband on from my shop what's in Lilly's closet.

 

Today Lilly is wearing:

Dress & tshirt // Matalan (2 piece set)

Tights // Next

Ballet pumps // Matalan

Headband // What's in Lilly's Closet

Lighter Banana Bread

Hi everyone! I have been wanting to bake some banana bread for a while now for Lilly to try. Lilly hates bananas, not because she doesn't like the taste but she hates the look and feel of them so wont touch them anymore and I wanted to find a way that I could 'hide' the banana so she will eat them (I do this with a lot of fruit and veg) and what better way than a 'light banana bread'

I recently purchased 'Lighter way to bake' by. Im obsessed with cooking and baking healthy meals recently and im trying to make all of our family meals healthy and made from scratch by me. I am guilty of eating processed foods when I cant be bothered to cook or we get in late but recently I have been food prepping to help and avoid hitting the freezer for unhealthy processed foods. This also goes for our 'treats' I have been baking all of our treats and making lighter versions of them for me, Lilly and Mike.

Lighter way to bake is perfect for yummy recipes which aren't as guilty or added ingredients which are good for us. I found this banana bread recipe and decided to bake some today.

Ingredients:

25g rolled oats

4 just overripe bananas

200g self raising flour

50ml maple syrup

25g unsalted butter, melted

50ml olive oil

pinch of salt

 

Pre heat oven to 180oc and line a loaf tin with baking parchment (I used a silicone bread case which is stick free)

 Step 1: Scatter about 1/3 of the oats in the bottom of the loaf tin. Cut 1 of the bananas into 1/2cm thick rounds and lay them over the oats evenly.

Step 2: Peel and roughly mash the remainly bananas in a large bowl. Add the flour, maple syrup, butter, olive oil, salt and remaining oats mix everything together until well mixed to a soft dropping consistency.

Step 3: Carefully pour the mixture into the loaf tin on top of the bananas. Spread evenly and bake for 45mins.

Once baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool before lifting out then leave to cool some more ( I made the mistake of cutting it to soon and it crumbled)

The loaf can be served warm or cold and stays at it best for 1-2 days in a airtight container.

This went down a storm with Lilly, she loved it!