Found - The 1990s called and they want their neon friendship bracelets back

As part of my job running Pica Pica Vintage I buy a lot of random boxes of toys - job lots and collections. I save the best vintage things for my collectors and customers and then the remainder gets donated to charity, saved for our Christmas shoe boxes and only then, if it's really of no use to anyone that's the only time I actually throw something away.

Often I'll find little notes or items that are so typical of the era that the toys are from - a few weeks ago I found this:

Just a little neon string bracelet that instantly transported me back to the 1990s. Neon rope friendships bracelets. I gave up having a cake at break time at school so I had the money to buy my friend one as a present on the way home. I probably would have changed into my cycling shorts and a dolphin tee shirt when I got home. Did you have them?

New Pica Pica Vintage Stock Update Week 41 2015

New stock winging it's way to the shop this week :-)

Party Baby Bunting

Our littlest, baby Rudie turned 1 last week. We've all been ill so we kept the day low key and just had cake with family.

I like to decorate the mantelpiece in the living room for Birthdays and celebrations so came up with this simple idea for party hat bunting. I don't think it's complicated enough to write a tutorial, but if you're curious I just enlarged four of our favourite pictures onto an A4 sheet and used some scrap booking paper I had leftover from doing the boys baby books to make the party hats. I had some pink and red bakers twine from my recent trip to Fred Aldous which worked perfectly. I think my husband is going to have it up on his desk at work after we take it down. I think it might be a new family Birthday tradition.

New Pica Pica Vintage Stock Update Week 40 2015

New stock winging it's way to the shop this week :-)

My Current Shopping List

1. I love making a gift basket. I'm already getting excited about Halloween, and this little guy is going in Emmett's pumpkin basket this October

2. I love Autumn and winter and being able to wear tights again. Tabio are my absolute favourite. Being 6ft tall can make buying tights a nightmare, but these always fit me perfectly

3. I've recently moved my office into the small bedroom. I'm slowly starting to make it feel more like mine and I've treated myself (haha!) to some nice new postage scales. Obviously you can use it in the kitchen too. It's so small and cute

4. Ryan Adams does Taylor Swift's 1989 . Ryan, covering Taylor, channeling Bruce Springsteen. What's not to like?

5. Spotted Lauren Laverne in one of these. I ordered one straight away, obviously.

Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom Gelli Baff Jelly Flood Messy Play

With two little boys, most play in our house is messy whether I like it or not. Emmett age 3 really enjoys Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom, made by the same people that created Peppa. Now he's a little bit older he enjoys the more detailed stories and the humor in Ben & Holly.

When I came across the product Gelli Baff Lava Blast Red the first thing I thought of was Nanny Plum's constant spell errors that cause jelly floods in the cartoon. We have a set of the toy figures and so on a rainy afternoon it was the perfect activity.

Emmett was very excited to put all the toys in the bath but was less convinced about the unusual texture of the Gelli. With some encouragement he was soon in the bath playing and squelching about in all the red goo. Also rather brilliant was how easy it was to clean up - I rinsed the children off with warm water and using the sachet in the pack, true to the instructions it all washed down the plug hole without fuss. We all really enjoyed ourselves and it's something we'll definitely do again.

La Passablahblahblah Cog #1

Now our littlest boy is a year old i'm finally starting to manage to carve out a little more time for myself. One of my favourite evening crafts is hand sewing. I previously tried English Paper Piecing around 5 years ago. I made a huge hexagon quilt which started life as a baby blanket and grew to the size of a double bedspread because I enjoyed it so much. I've started the Instagram crafter's favourite La Passacaglia

This is my first cog. I thought I'd start on one of the big ones in the pattern first. I think it's going to take a while, but I'm really enjoying it so far.

Shoes #2

Getting Back To It

So, as it turns out having two children under 3 is quite time consuming.

We have barely scratched the surface on all the home projects I'd hoped to have done, but having two little boys literally undoing any cleaning and tidying throughout the day with the effort of a well oiled tag team, I'm powerless to try and fight it. I can't stop the tide. I'm trying to enjoy this time as best as I can and remind myself to feel lucky everyday that I have a job that allows me to be home with these little tornadoes.

Right, let's try and get back to business.