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Crafts on Sea

Kate Williams

How to encourage a picky toddler to eat!

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I’m so thankful to be able to share this guest post with you today from Gude. She is genuinely one of my favourite craft bloggers, whose blog I found when I guest edited the Mumsnet Craft Blogs Round Up. A couple of months later and I discovered (spooky music alert) that she is actually a friend from my teenage days (should have guessed that as her twitter profile is a picture of her drinking. Obviously we went to a school where we learnt all the important stuff!) I’m always in need of some hints on how to encouage a picky toddler to eat so I’ll be trying all of these ideas out soon, especially the dinosaur sandwich cutters which I am in love with! Anyway, here’s Gude…

how to encourage a picky toddler to eat…

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Hilltop Farm Benfleet: Fruit Picking in Essex

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Hilltop Farm Benfleet is a bit of a hidden gem. Not many people know about it but it’s a great place for fruit or strawberry picking in Essex. Occasionally we go out as a family and I think ‘I’m not going to blog about this, I’m not going to blog about this, I’m just going to have a nice time…’ and then ‘Argh! This is too nice! I have to blog about it!!’ So this is my review of it – if you want to know about the farms opening times or other places for fruit picking in Essex then I’ve popped these at the end of the post.

pick your own fruit benfleet

This weekend we went to Hilltop Farm in Benfleet, which is about a twenty minute drive from central Southend. I’ve wanted to do fruit picking for ages, I grew up in Kent and picking strawberries was just one of those things that you did every summer holiday. As I grew older I had friends who worked on the farms picking blackberries and the likes and to me it always reminds me of my childhood. Fruit should be something we can pick, not just something we pick up in Tescos. But round here? Well, despite the loveliness of the seaside I live in one of the most densely populated areas in the country. There’s foraging to be done, but it’s at the side of busy roads, so the discovery of Hilltop Farm was a rather sweet one….

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Oh I do like to be (heavily pregnant) by the seaside!

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Do you remember a little while ago I wrote a post about how to take to take your own photographs during pregnancy? Well, as fate would have it, while I was writing that post I was contacted by Marie Donn to see if I fancied doing some maternity photos with her.

marie donn photography

Marie is a proper photographer and does gorgeous lifestyle shoots so of course I said yes. And then the panic set in. I am not a supermodel. I am a normal woman, in my early thirties, living in Essex. Generally, I am quite happy with the above facts, but when you realise that someone is going to take pictures of you, being as normal a woman as you can be while heavily pregnant…. well, I was a little bit worried. …

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Messy play to beat the hot weather

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Messy play in the garden: keeps kids cool too!In the old days I used to love the hot weather. I have Raynaurd’s Disease too which means the times when I feel anything other than freezing can basically be counted on one hand. But six months pregnant? With a toddler? Hmm.

This great idea was something the Pre-school I visited yesterday were doing and when I recreated it at home today my friend told me to take pictures and blog it as it’s such a fab idea. I know that she reads this so I thought I better comply!

I filled the washing up bowl with cold water and a squirt of washing up liquid and chucked in a load of The Toddlers toys. Obviously not anything containing batteries! Toddler and his friend then spent ages looking for toys, taking them out, playing with them, putting them back in the water and, bonus, getting the toys clean at the same time. (I umm..don’t clean toys that often…)

Another added and brill bonus is that the BBC reported this week that one of their tips for cooling down in hot weather is to stick your hands in cold water. Much easier to get a child to do if there’s toys involved! They also encouraged wearing a damp tshirt which I can also report back certainly happened!

How are you keeping you and your kids cool in the hot weather? Any suggestions gratefully received!

How to make a dribble bib

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After realising with my first child quite how long teething lasted, by the time I was pregnant with my second I thought it would be sensible to work out how to make dribble bibs! I like an easy craft project and as these simple dribble bibs are so useful to have on hand it seemed silly not to give it a try. Of course, there is nothing wrong at all with just buying everything, but this dribble bib was so stupidly quick and easy to make it seemed almost silly not to do it. Plus you get to use a hammer on a sewing project, which is always a good thing. And you get to look like one of those mums who is On Top Of Everything which is always a bonus!

How to make dribble bibs

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