Small changes and some eco product reviews

I'm really trying hard at the moment to make some positive changes in mine and my family's lives that will hopefully have less of an impact on the environment. Environmental issues of all kinds are really very important to me, as they should be to everyone, and I don't think that one really takes much explaining. But as a young family some factors of our lifestyle will particularly affect the environment and those are what I'm concentrating on right now.

Here are my biggest concerns:

1. Disposable Nappies/diapers. The conventional sort are full of chemicals and take a very long time to break down in landfill. If one child can use an average of 8000 disposable nappies before they are potty trained, when four out of five mums that I know use them, that is A LOT of waste. Various sources claim they can take anywhere from 50 to 500 years to break down, depending on their make-up and the particular landfill site.

2. Our heavy usage of plastic. I have to say this one really gets me down. Sometimes I feel like we are drowning in this unsustainable, non degradable material. I know most plastics these days are recyclable but in my opinion it just isn't enough. When you have children you are suddenly surrounded by it, dummies, bottles, toys, toothbrushes, cups, spoons, bowls. Argh!

3. Toiletries cosmetics and cleaning products. Not to mention most packaging is plastic, a lot is animal-tested or paraffin based (you know oils, moisturisers and the like) or just plain artificial.

Now I'll tell you about some of the ways I'm trying to change our habits for good.

First up- nappies. Our living situation means that there is usually a queue for the washing machine, so whilst I desperately wanted to use cloth nappies it just won't be possible until we have moved house. So instead, I use eco disposables. They can be expensive compared to the dirt cheap deals you get on conventional disposables but the environmental difference is huge. They are all natural ingredients  (this also goes for the wipes and nappy sacks) they are completely bio-degradable and compostable. They take such a short time to break down that when I empty the outside nappy bin once a week the ones at the bottom have dissolved their nappy sacks and are falling apart already. It's great.

Plastics: obviously this one is particularly difficult. When you have a child, people buy them things. You can't just tell them no, or that they can only buy nice traditional wooden toys. You can gently encourage books and wooden toys of  sorts, but you can't keep them away from plastic toys completely, plus it kind of just feels cruel. But as parents we only buy one special gift for our daughter for birthdays and christmas, for example a baby trike for her birthday. Reegan just doesn't need that many toys, she has a lot of them and half of them she isn't even that interested in. Sometimes I give her a big mixing bowl and a spoon or a whisk and she will play happily for ages, the same with some wooden blocks or a cardboard box.
But things that I can control, I do try to make good choices. I have recently switched us onto wooden toothbrushes because I couldn't bear the thought of between six and ten of them (if you follow guidlines to replace every 3-6 months) going in the bin every year, just from the three of us.

So this is the eco bamboo toothbrush, which I found for a reasonable price on amazon. I bought myself a child's brush because  I have receeding gums, so I need soft bristles. Aside from the length of the handle I don't feel that the size has really been adapted for a childs mouth because the head is quite big. The bristles are nice and it's grippy to hold but the dry smooth wood against my mouth can sometimes make me gag, so if you have problems with gag reflex (hah) normally then do not go for the adult size (hah).

I also have a bamboo hair brush, which is barrel shaped for fringe styling. It's fine for purpose but you couldn't brush your hair with it normally because the bristles are extremely spiky and uncomfortable. I won't replace my normal (plastic) hair brush unless I absolutely have too, and then I'll switch to a bamboo one.

Finally cosmetics. You have probably heard me talk before about switching to cruelty free and small makeup brands, which is going well and I am also discovering some quite nice brushes (Eco Tools and So Eco). Eco Tools do a wonderful set of brushes for the eyes, and So Eco have a 'finishing brush' supposedly for blush and powder that is perfect for stippling on my foundation. It's feels all lovely and posh (get my fancy adjectives!) and the bristles are very soft. I used to use the Real Techniques stippling brush but the So Eco one is a lot bigger and softer so I am officially converted.

Real Techniques on the left, So Eco on the right

I have also been using a 'natural' deodorant for my underarms, after years of switching between Nivea and Sure roll ons because of my sensitive skin, plus after a little while I would seemingly become immune and smelly and so have to switch brands again. But this new stuff is great. It comes in a tin and you rub it in with your fingers like a balm, it's lavender scented and thick with little grains that feel exfoliating.

Putting it on in the mornings is a little ritual I quite enjoy and it feels nice on my sensitive armpits even after shaving. And it really works! It was about four pounds I think, and supposedly lasts six months, when I used to use one in under 2 months at £2.50 a pop! I got it from a website called Boobalou in case anyone is interested.

I'm still using E45 liquis paraffin cream on my face and body because it's the only consistent solution to my dry and sensitive eczeme prone skin. I use it as a facial  moisturiser morning and night and before makeup. If anyone can suggest an alternative I'd be grateful!

One year of little bean

On Saturday my daughter Reegan turned one, my little baby bean, no longer a little baby. I still don't know where the time has gone, I am in awe of the transformation she has gone through in just twelve short months. She is now a functioning human being, a real tiny human! I mean she has been all along, but she is nowhere near as dependent on me as she once was. She can just about walk now, she says lots of words (her first was "dog", how could it not be!) she can use a fork without too much difficulty and she loves books.

I'm very proud of her, especially over the books part, when she brings books to me and asks me to read them too her it makes my heart swell, and I hope when she is older she will still love books as much as I do. I practically worship them, so I will be teaching her always to respect and take care of them.

I've also found myself going through a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the weekend, revisiting all the memories of that night one year ago, both the highs and the lows. I have nothing but positive and fond memories of my labour and her birth, but the following day in the hospital I didn't have such a good time at all. After five days cooped up in hospital I wanted more than anything to go home to my own bed and sleep. That night I cried and cried until they let me go home at 10pm, where Rob and I spent most of the night trying to get Reegan to breastfeed from me, with more tears and lots of anxiety over everything. I don't think anyone in our house slept that night. Rob's brother wanted to go and stay in a hotel. I wish I could go back to that night, and hug my former self, tell myself everything would be ok, because I am strong, we would persevere because I am stubborn, I would face my parenting battles and I would win.

In this one year, everything has changed, and yet it feels as if this is how it always was. I feel very lucky to have a daughter like Reegan, being her mama has taught me so much about myself and about life. I have grown. I know now what I want out of life and being a mother has given me the drive to go out and get it.

Weating her Ladybug hat crocheted by an old friend of mine.

I FOUND THE HAT!

I think I may have tempted fate by saying British weather was on the turn towards Autumn now, because we seem to be having another last little blast of sunshine this week. For once I'm hoping it holds out just one more week because we are having a barbecue for little R's birthday on Saturday and it would be nice to have the pool out for the little ones like we did this afternoon. But the main part I'm ok with the hot weather still is because I actually found a decent sun hat that I LOVE and don't feel silly in.

Today we went to look at prospective wedding venues (although we only looked at one because we fell in love with it and now it's settled!) and had a snacky lunch in the car, so I wore smartish casual with an emphasis on staying cool.

So as you can see, its a large floppy black hat, 100% cotton, with a little wreath of roses around it. You would think that a hat so seemingly simple would not be hard to find. But no, I have been searching for a hat such as this for a couple of years now with no luck. Yet one day I stroll into Primark with no intention of buying anything, and find this beauty. There was no way I was leaving without it. The only thing is that it is quite thick, and it takes only the slightest bit of wind to pick up for it to be blown away, so I think I may attach some crocodile clips inside to keep it in place. Woohoo! Finally a sunhat that is in keeping with my style and that I feel comfortable in!

Outfit rundown:

• Hat - Primark
• Strappy vest - H&M
• Velvet mini skirt - H&M
• High waisted lace bustle overskirt - Necessary Evil
• Shoes - Ironfist
• Bag - LoungeFly 
• Sunnies - Primark

What kind of sunhat do you like best? 

Tiny Tophat Fascinator Tutorial

As promised, I am posting a how-to for the fascinator I wore to the Mad Hatter's teaparty last week. With a just two rigid elements already at my fingertips, some cardboard and a whole tube of superglue, here's how I did it:

What you will need:

• Scissors
• Superglue
• Paper or fabric glue
• Double sided tape
• Small glue dots
• Some fabric
• Cardboard
• A small plastic pot (shape of your choice, I used the container from my Method laundry liquid because of it's large bottom and small top).
• An Alice band
• A black felt pen
• A small selection of adornments (I used feathers, ribbon, a pocket watch charm and some brown card with 10/6 written on it)
• Possibly a needle and thread if you are stretched for time

So firstly I removed the label from my detergent bottle, marked the desired length, and used a serrated knife to cut the bottom off (the bottom is the part we need). Make sure you cut off slightly more than you think you want, just in case. 

Next, I made two circles from cardboard, one slightly smaller- to glue to the top- and one slightly larger for the bottom, which will be the brim of the hat. After this step, it is time to cover all of your parts in your chosen fabric, which is where you may need to do some experimenting. Don't just go straight on in there with your glue, because (as I learned, thankfully on a practice piece) your glue may just soak straight through your fabric and leave an unsightly sticky splodge when dry. So for the plastic part I wrapped it completely in double sided tape, with each piece on a slight diagonal slant, making sure to overlap so that the fabric adhered to the plastic the whole way around. 

I then folded the excess tape over the top and bottom edges before peeling off the non-sticky coating and rolling it carefully across the fabric to stick it down evenly.

So here you can see all three of the hat-parts are now covered in fabric, and if you look closely you can see a white splodge in the middle of the larger disc, but this is fine because that side will be adhered to the bottom of the hat. Be sure to cover both sides of the larger disc in fabric because the underside may show.

The next part was somewhat tricky, and to glue the top disc to the hat I used copydex in the middle, and then went around the whole edge squeezing superglue into the gap and holding it down until it was dry, I did this about an inch at a time and had to squash thr whole thing down firmly throughout whilst trying not to get superglue on my skin. But the results were good because it pretty much closed the gap and made it look neatly finished. To attatch the bottom disc, I used some tape running from the inside of the hat body and folded it down at the bottom to secure it to the disc whilst I used the same superglue-the-gap-and-press method as before.

Once all of the glue was dry and sturdy, I decided to decorate straight away as I only had a few hours to go until the party and had to get it done. So I used glue dots at either end of my red ribbon to secure it around the bottom of the hat, and made sure to line up the join of the ribbon with the join of the fabric so that my embellishments would disguise them. I used another glue dot for the feather, another for the pocket watch on top and went in with some more superglue just to make sure. 

Luckily I already had an alice band covered with black satin, or I would have had to make one to match myself, and used another small disc of fabric covered card to stick the hat to the band, but this time it was oval shaped to ensure maximum surface area for gluing. After gluing the disc to the alice band, I used a needle and thread to stitch it on for further stability and finally glued it onto the hat (with yet more superglue). 

Tada! This is the only closeup I could get of me wearing it so sorry it's so blurry. Anybody else tried making hats before? How did you find it?

Mad hatter's tea party and a DIY hat

Saturday night a few friends of mine put on a 'Mad Hatter's Teaparty' at a local bar in honour of Alice in Wonderland's 150th birthday. They had been planning it quite a while, with fancy dress, teapot cocktails and a teapot decorating competition, it was -excuse the pun- JUST  my cup of tea. Down to the very blend and spoons of sugar. Just perfect. So as you can probably tell, I was very excited and had planned my outfit and hat weeks ago.

Yum yum and yum, cakes made and decorated by the lovely hosts. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to take any proper outfit photos, but honestly although perhaps I looked "in costume" I was wearing my normal clothes... (Spin Doctor skirt with chinese style silky blouse from a charity shop, on top of a corset from ebay.)

This was the skirt I was wearing.

Please excuse my rediculously excited expression. As you can see, I also wore a teeny top hat fascinator (made by me, DIY post coming soon) a key and pocket watch on a necklace, and drank my g&t from a Hello Kitty teacup. There was an agreement from the manager of the bar that party goers could bring their own teapots to drink from, and would charge accordingly as to how much liquid each could hold. I also had a teapot full of cocktail for £8, which was delicious and very reasonable.

 

As you can see there were some wonderful and dedicated costumes, I always have time for good fancy dress, so I rather felt as if I was cheating by wearing my normal clothes! 

Did anybody else celebrate the birthday of Alice In Wonderland?? 

Anniversary engagement

I certainly had an exciting time this past weekend,  because it was both mine and Rob's 3rd anniversary, and he asked me to marry him! It was funny and confusing because he has been talking to friends about planning it for a while now, and before we had Reegan we were planning a trip to Iceland and I think thats where he was intending to propose. He was also planning to ask me on Sunday when we went out for our anniversary dinner (more on that in a moment) but he thought one of our friends had let the cat out of the bag, so he proposed on Saturday to still surprise me, but I didn't even realise he was going to in the first place! So all a surprise really. Saturday afternoon we took Reegan and Inca (our dog) for a walk to Blaise Castle estate and walked up the big hill to the castle.

The spot where Rob proposed

As you can see, it's tiny, and you can't go inside it because it's a grade two listed building, except on the special open days, which don't happen often. At the estate museum there are pictures of what it looked like when in was completed in 1798 as a sort of summer house that the owner at the time used for entertaining guests. It was beatufully decorated in the gothic revival style and even had a kitchen in the cellar for dinner parties.

Anyway. We got up there and Rob suggested we sit down as if he was tired, so I said sure why not, and bent down to get Reegan something to eat from the pushchair basket, and turned around to see him on his knees holding out the ring.

It's currently being resized. ALL I want to do is wear it!!

I couldn't quite believe he was really asking me and I just stared at him for a minute and I think I asked if he was joking. My heart stopped and I felt all fluttery and dizzy and I just couldn't process what was happening. How dramatic! But of course I eventually said yes, and off we went to the pub where our friends were waiting with a bottle of Prosecco.

Then on Sunday we went out for dinner at a place called Steak of the Art, which is a steakhouse/art gallery, it was super cool and the food was lush! (Imagine me saying that in my West Country accent.)

Those blue lights over the bar were colour-changing

Alice in Wonderland booth carved by chainsaw

The style of decor was very modern and industrial looking, so not entirely my cup of tea but it was still very fascinating to be surrounded by so much art.

Sorry for the overload of smug couple selfies. The last two are mainly so that you can see my makeup in more detail, which was a grey cut crease shadow with a feline flick and my trusty red lippy. I'll  be off to work tonight so happy Monday everybody! :)

Gothic Wedding guest attire (at a "normal" wedding)

Saturday evening my family and I had the pleasure  of attending the wedding of a close family friend. Well, not just the bride specifically as both of our families have been friends for a very long time indeed. Both my granny and hers have lived in the same street for more that forty years I think, and have been very close until she sadly passed away last year. Everyone in my family would call her auntie just as everyone in hers would call my gran auntie. So we knew a lot of people at the wedding, and as they have all known me since childhood they are quite used to my eccentricies, and do infact embrace them. I got a lot of compliments on my green hair and outfit (and of course plenty of fuss over the baby, which she loved). The wedding also had a running theme of Alice in Wonderland because of the 150th anniversary on it's publication, which of course I enjoyed very much. So heres my outfit:

As you can see it was a relatively conservative dress from Hell Bunny, with the skirt hanging just above the knee with a sweetheart neckline and net panel on the chest. I love the collar and the green anatomical print because it's my style, whilst still looking respectable, and not too attention grabbing either because the last thing you want to be doing at a wedding is stealing attention from the happy couple. I also tried to get a close up of my makeup but unfortunately before my mum arrived and took my outfit photos Reegan was being a little clingy, so I took the opportunity to just take some selfies with her. But I think you can see fairly well that I just went with a simple fawn coloured eyeshadow and black eyeliner, with wispy-natural looking lashes and my current obsession- the Pretty Zombie Vamp lipstick. You can't see from the photos but I wore my Iron Fist Timmy Chew ballet pumps, mostly because they are my go to summer shoes and also because I rarely wear heels. I get self concious because I'm quite tall anyway and heels make me feel like some sort of freakish giant. I was also planning to straighten my hair (something I don't do often to avoid damaging my bleached hair, which is in a remarkably good state at the moment) but I ran out of time so I just left it to dry naturally and do its thing, and just added the skeleton hand clip to keep my hair from my eyes.

A friend of ours (who by the way is male if this makes any difference to the opinion) told me the first time I wore this dress that it wasn't wedding appropriate, because  I was 'test driving' it and wanted to know what he thought. He told me that "anything to do with skulls or death should not have any place at a wedding." I didn't really know what to make of that, seeing as both Rob and I are a bit obsessed with skulls so naturally if ever we do get married they will probably be featured in the wedding somewhere or other. But then I do think that sometimes we kind of forget that we aren't all that normal so it's kind of hard to judge how other people will react to our tastes, and a lot of the time I forget that people would react in the first place. Using skeletal body parts (or bats or lace or studs or horns) to decorate my brightly coloured hair is something I do on a daily basis so when someone notices and says something as if it's out of the ordinary I don't always know what to say. (Every day is halloween?!)

Do you think my outfit was wedding appropriate? What would you wear to a "normal" wedding - would you tone it down a tad or just be yourself?