Happy 5 months

Happy 5 months my love! At five months Leon Valentino is:
- rolling over
- everything goes in the mouth
- squeals a lot
- loves tummy time, kicks in the air and it looks like he will be a fast crawler
- dribbles heaps
- pulls on Lola's ears and talks with his firsts in his mouth
- loves avocado & banana 
- grabs onto anything and everything 
- reaches out to toys and turns around in a circle
- can't seem to put him down a lot, want's to be held most of the time
- doesn't have a dummy anymore which has improved his sleeping pattern a lot! (Only wakes up twice now 10/11 and then again at 3 or 4) 
- he has randomly done a 2 - 3 hour nap during the day which I hope continues
- he lost one shoe today
- ticklish on his back just like me
- loves going for walks with me, mike & lola at the dog park
- new favourite toys are: all plastic baking equipment 
- I also loves dressing him in onesies because I don't want him to grow up too fast
- his latest trick is in the third photo, he uses his feet to move around like this
- I love this child unconditionally 
- I would like to buy him montessori toys and get him a little mobile to hang above his cot

The Little Bandana

  

You may see it in a picture made by a Nashville photographer or in some ELLE pictorial. You may see the bandana.. Yep, I’m talking about the thing you have seen many times on some 53-year-old biker.

     

This year, the bandana was gracefully worn by the male models on the Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent runway shows. It is quite possible that this little thing is the new big must have. You can see it really often on RIhanna’s neck, head and hand. The star famous star owns many bandanas, which are helping her mixing high fashion shoes with streetwear accessories. And she is absolutely rocking this trend like no one else. Also, Candice Swanepoel, the Victoria’s Secret sweetheart was seen rocking a blue bandana, while being extremely cute, walking her puppy.

If you remember the 90’s iconic movie ‘Clueless’ you have to picture one of those high school queens being a total diva, while rocking the decade’s seminal fashion flick. Also, the glamorous ‘Jenny from the block’ rocked one white bandana, while being out with her hubby at the time, Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy. And if we’re talking rap, we must mention the grand late star Tupac Shakur. The bandana was not only a thing on his head, but a huge part of his style and of the way we remember the rap king. T upac Shakur is as synonymous with the red bandana as he is with the rap game. That’s a huge reason to love this old and new thing.

There’s no exact date of when it appeared, but we know one thing-everyone loves it. Bikers, hip hop stars, teenagers and fancy designers are showing us how to wear these headscarves in different ways and on different parts of our bodies.

Remember Jane Birkin and her wrist bandana? Or Robert Redford and his classic neckerchief? These are another two examples of how cool is this little piece.

     

Next time when you go the shopping mall and you see a beautiful bandana, take it and let it be your little nice accessory. It will add a little color and style to your whole outfit. 

  

Sweet Treats Recipe Book

I recently got asked by our church to design & photograph a recipe book to help them raise funds to send a lucky lady to Sisters Conference this year. I thought I would show a little taster of what it looks like on here. 

For those who would be interested in helping fundraise it's selling for $30.00 only and you can contact shelleylamborn@gmail.com to order one.

Red Letter Jewellery

Today has been one of the coldest days here in Hawkes Bay, I am definitely not a fan of winter that's for sure. I have been tucked inside with a wriggly little baby who has been a bit grumpy. Which has left me in front of the computer screen looking at these beautiful pieces from Red Letter Jewellery. Make sure you pop in and say hi!

Make Your Own Pop Art Pet Portrait

credit

Since we have a beautiful pug called Lola who I love to photograph, I thought this tutorial is actually worth giving a go! Such a great idea, especially if you don't have the software to create something like this. I'm guessing you can be as creative as you want with this and you could even use photo's of babies, parents, girlfriends etc..how amazing it it that when you pop something into a white frame it just smartens it up as well as the room it is in.

Make Your Own Pop Art Pet Portrait

1. You will need:

Spray glue, a white frame, pink and orange paper, a photo, a photocopier and scissors

2. Cut out the photo of your pet, and photocopy it onto pink paper

3. Cut out the pink paper with your pet on it and paste it onto your orange piece of paper

4. Frame it! Finish!

Natural Parenting

After having Leon I have found a new awareness of natural parenting. At our playgroup I found a great magazine I thought a friend of mine would be interested called The Natural Parent. However I ended up reading half of it and found it really awesome. I then started flicking through the back pages and found Made4baby which is natural baby products which I absolutely love! I didn't think much of using general cleaning products for babies to start of with, until I actually had my own baby, and I then discovered how sensitive their skin can be. I am also a big fan of the Little Hearts natural bib & teether set which Leon loves, especially now that he has started to teeth! 

Happy Home Living

Since we bought our house we had to fix a few things on it just like any new home owner would. Most of the time I have no clue what to do, so we rely heavily on friends & family's advice obviously. I also found this website called Hardware Online which I found really helpful. I have found quite a few tools and cables on our house on Hardware Online which has been super helpful. 

I find it so much easier buying online now than actually physically going into a shop since I have become a mum. You don't realise how much stuff you have to carry with you 24/7 when you have a baby and kids to look after. I'm guessing that 90% of woman with babies do their shopping online! It's just so much easier right?

How To Find Uncommon Goods For Your House

caterpillar bud vase

Vintage Camera Pillows

Grow your own terrarium
Honeycomb decorative accent shelf

Hooray it's the weekend at last! I get to have some "me time" and by "me time" I mean time to sit on my bum on my laptop and dream about beautiful home décor for our new house. I wasn't aware that setting up a home takes so much research and vision. We have now realised that we enjoy the "less is more" type of home and slowly but surely I have started clearing out the stuff from five years ago that just wasn't us anymore. Fortunately for us we stumbled upon UncommonGoods home décor. 

One thing I didn't realise was how expensive setting up a home can be, especially if you are interested in running a theme through your house. This why we went for a more cleaner look since we have furniture from mine and Mike's flatting days, combined with my parents dining table etc.. That's why we found UncommonGoods so good because it has exactly what it says it has, unique items to make your home look fabulous.

In my online research on the newest trends, you would have noticed that the scandinavian look has taken off all over the internet stores. They seems to go for more of a natural interior environment. Things like geometrical shapes, wood & neutral colour tones, combined with with plants seem to have hit almost every Pinterest page out there it seems. 

Cute terrariums filled with moss on a wooden board in an empty white room transports us back to a more natural simplistic space and time. And to be quite frank it creates more of a relaxed atmosphere as well. I have shared a few favourites of mine on here today. Initially my idea was to put the honeycomb decorative accent shelf in Leon's room for all his little books. I want the terrarium to go on my dresser because I like a bit of green in the bedroom, and it's great for improving the air quality indoors. The vintage camera cushions would go on our bed of course, they would look great with a white duvet cover. Finally we get to the caterpillar bud vase. This would look great on our kitchen table with some freshly snipped camellias in them (if you follow us on Instagram you would have noticed that I have a bit of a fetish for this beautiful flower). 

I could spend hours whiling away the time on this wonderful site, filling our house full of stylish things to make it just the way I want it. I only hope my husband will one day let me make this reality!