News & Views from the Folks at Tree House Blue

Winter Whites

2010-02-09T20:16:00.008Z

Down came the snow and poof went the computer, up in smoke never to work again, thus any hopes of trying to create a blog went out the window for quite sometime. But now we are back in operation and its incredibly cold outside, with everyone talking of Winter Blues.

I decided that instead we should really be thinking of Winter whites! This year of course we had the snow which blanketed everything and made the countryside look so magical. Igloos and igloo envy became the name of the game in our area, our neighbours son had a camping stove in his and was making hot chocolate and building his door ready to sleep in it for the night. My gang thought the hot chocolate idea was great and so we emulated this in our own creation but the drop in temperature by 4pm in the evening meant they all came in with frozen noses and toeses!

In order to look great and keep warm on these bitter cold days my essential items of kit were, of course, my welligogs,

they worked amazingly in the deep snow with the fleece liners and in addition a charming wooly hat. Which of course at TreeHouseBlue we now have in stock and are a definite must, everyone will be wanting one once you do the school pick up in one of these.

I have now realised that there may be a new contender for the role as best ever footwear (sorry welligogs) the new in 'wedge wellies', they are fab! I know they are going to go down a storm during the festival season but I think they really should be purchased now to wear in!!! Dog walking will never be the same again.

There is not much to remark on during my dog walks at the moment, I had a job finding enough greenery to take to my flower club class this week.

The theme was Chinese New year and we were going to do a modern arrangement. Whilst out shopping with my sister I told her this and she had me looking for little Chinese themed things to use, as well as saying it should be in reds and golds.
I then explained that the brief is only a guide and that I would adapt it to suit the type of arrangement I would like in my home, which in this case was an arrangement with white amaryllis! She concluded that in the end the brief was irrelevant and you just did what you wanted. I am not sure she gets the idea but hopefully my arrangement had a bit of a Chinese feel to it without requiring dangly fish and gold tassels to portray this.

I have definitely got a thing about' white' at the moment, which must be why I am currently writing about it, I think it should be the official colour of Winter. My favourite nature table scene is the one of King Winter, I need to find my snowdrops now to add to this scene.
I was totally amazed that the large crop of snowdrops that grow in the children's school woods just appeared out of the blue on the 1st of February. They look so dainty and beautiful.

TreeHouseBlue have encouraged my white obsession by stocking the most charming little white dishes for valentines day or any other occasion you might want to display these very original pieces.

The heart mug

is a definite hot choccie must, I think, that wouldn't be used outside in the igloo, that is for sure . Talking of original pieces, I went to visit my brother at the weekend and his flat is very modern and newly decorated in white with a very cool fire that fixes to the wall showing a film of a real fire with sound effects and heat. The room looked so much cosier with it, unfortunately the new white shelf unit they bought for the enormous flatscreen tv they now own looks rather empty and sad. They haven't found any appropriate ornaments to display on the shelves. Whilst writing this I have realised I will need to give him a call to suggest he buys his fiance the recycled metal roses because they would look absolutely fantastic on the empty shelf unit and what better than a valentines gift that will last for ages not just a week.

Despite now having a new computer I have not worked out how to put photos on and so will have to wait until my husband comes back from skiing with the girls to help me out.
Yes I am now all alone for 10 days with my little Toby to keep me company or drive me mad depending what mood he is in because Andy and the girls have gone off on a school ski trip to Switzerland. The traumas beforehand about how high the cable cars were going to be and how awful the vegetarian food might be, have all been forgotten now they are there having an amazing time. I on the other hand am left behind feeling totally emotionally drained from keeping every body's spirits up until the departure date. Never mind, I am going to a Valentines Ball on Saturday, I volunteered to do the table arrangements so I think my next theme will have to be reds and hearts and hopefully Andy will be back by then and I can show off some photos of the event.

Father time has been busy!

2009-10-19T20:28:00.029+01:00

I wonder daily what father time does to the clocks in our house, he seems to be pushing them on whenever I look! Autumn is now well and truly here and I have not even been able to write a single post until now. This time of year is always a busy one for me because it is Toby's birthday as well as all my nieces and nephews on my husbands side!
It is also a very busy time at Tree House Blue as we go on the search for great new products and excitedly open the parcels when they arrive. If you have not clicked on the "new in" icon recently, then you really should, there are some great new 'must' have gifts. We even featured in the Daily Telegraphs top ten oilcloths feature with our red floral oilcloth.
One of my reasons for not blogging might also be because I have been making some new products for the shop. The storage boxes I made with the oilcloth featured in the Telegraph, for the shop have been received well, the larger boxes I made for storing bathroom items such as toilet rolls etc., we discovered fit our welligogs beautifully and so save the shoe cupboard or car boot from becoming covered in mud!

I have also made some reversible fabric children's headbands which feature a school uniform gingham on one side and another more funky fabric on the other, thus it can be turned round the minute the girls come out of school but whilst at school they look incredibly smart.

It has been a bit of a 'make it' week or so because I also customised two organic cotton t shirts for my goddaughter to send to Australia, I usually send a gift from Tree House Blue but this year I had not been to the shop in time and so had to resort to a homemade item.

I did attempt one year to send The Princess and the Pea to her, I took ages painstakingly wrapping it so that it would not get damaged but then nearly fainted when I got to the post office and it would have cost almost as much to send it, as it was to buy it.

So now I am always very conscious of what I choose her. I think this Christmas it will be something from our soft fabric pretend play range, our vicar bought the tee pee and Indians one year to send to Canada for her grandson so I know these would be ideal to send.

My friend has a beautiful little girl called Freya whom my daughters adore and love to go round to bath her and give her, her bottle. Every time she comes to our house she loves to play with my maileg pixie so I have made a note to buy her one for her birthday next week.

This is even more poignant now because my own pixie who sits by my fireplace all year round very happily is also very well loved by our dog shadow, unfortunately too well loved!!

I will be on the lookout for a new one this year when they come in for Christmas!
Shadow arrived at our house last year for Toby's birthday and is now firmly part of the family he even featured on Toby's birthday cake. Unfortunately for some reason I did not take a photo of the cake that featured shadow, but I did take one of his other cake which depicted Toby's new hobby instead! He led a very persuasive argument for the reason why he needed two cakes for his birthday and being a glutton for punishment I crumbled when his bottom lip started to drop!!!

At Tree House Blue we love our pets almost as much as our children!, which is probably why we have a whole section dedicated to them. The woof lead holder is such a brilliant idea, in our house we would also need a neigh and a quack, though on second thoughts we don't actually take the ducks for a walk. Toby was over the moon when he came in with the most enormous egg we have ever seen produced by Poppy, I told him it must have been his birthday present and he was so pleased. I used it to make his other birthday cake( yes that would now be number 3) that he takes into school and it was double yolked as we suspected.

It is getting harder to find a time when it is light enough in the mornings to walk the dog, but I did take this photo the other day because the mist and the sunlight looked so magical. Winter is just round the corner and with it we have Halloween, bonfire night and of course Christmas to look forward to. This year I will be taking Tree House Blue to a new 3 day Christmas Fair at the mansion house(Trunkwell House) in our village, they are having an ice rink and funfair as well as lots of stalls, it will be over the Halloween weekend whilst the children are on half term, so that should be something to look forward to for everyone.

Susie also has other events planned so if you would like to see where we are, leading up to Christmas just send us a message via info@treehouseblue.co.uk and we can let you know what other events we will be attending.

Homegrown and hot!

2009-08-26T19:41:00.016+01:00

How lucky we feel, not only did we enjoy a wonderful holiday again in Bulgaria with plenty of sunshine, we were also able to embark on a slice of Bulgarian village life by harvesting our gardens treasures.

Trees are made to be climbed by all little boys and our trees in Bulgaria just seem to be the best for this and even better when plums can be picked at the same time! Molly and I then chopped and stoned these tasty items and made jam with them, we finally could return something to our neighbour to thank him for all his work, even if it was just a jar of jam. What else do you give a man who is totally self sufficient and has absolutely no need for anything. Though the girls did suggest we give him a leather tankard for his rakia, but even for him I think a pint of this very strong plum brandy might be a little too much. The plums that littered the ground were then collected on his instruction and placed in a bucket where we were taken to his cellar to empty the contents into a huge drum in which the lethal brew of his next batch of homemade rakia was fermenting!

Unfortunately the very same trees we delighted in by day, the local wildlife played in by night. Our first experience of this, left my mum terrified that all night, all she could here was a bear walking around on our roof! We reasoned with her that it was very probably a cat that had jumped onto the roof from the over hanging pear tree.
Whatever it is visits us every year and each year keeps us awake with its scampering around, but hey presto! this year we found out it is called a belka and is larger than a squirrel and is harmless, they just get into the roof space in order to find bird eggs in the nests. It is all very well knowing what it is but it still keeps you awake half the night! so following a particularly disturbed night, the evening we started to hear them again we took the matter into our own hands and started to bash the ceiling with a broom very loudly. The noise stopped and the children shouted "mum we've seen them" and sure enough in the trees were three sets of eyes looking at us, the children went out to chase them out of the trees and they turned out to be something similar to a polecat.
So our belkas had harvested their eggs from our roof space and thankfully moved onto another house in the village using the trees as their exit route as well as the path between the tomato vines, what a relief.

That left us to complete our harvest with the tomatoes and peppers our neighbour had kindly planted for us. The only problem was what to do with the huge and abundant amount of tomato's we had now picked. Molly's answer was to make bruschetta for breakfast every morning for whom ever fancied it. The beautifully tactile wooden chopping boards that we sell at THB would do a fantastic job with this delicious snack. In honour of Molly's taciturn efforts to eat as many tomatoes as she possibly can during the holiday I will write out her very own bruschetta recipe.

One loaf of uncut bread
tomatoes
garlic
olive oil
salt

Slice the bread and toast.
Chop the tomatoes into small pieces
Rub a clove of garlic over each slice.
Drizzle some oil over the top.
Place the tomatoes on top with another small drizzle of oil.
Eat straight away or place under the grill briefly.

A truly delicious holiday breakfast experience!

Molly's dad came up with another idea," how about some tomato soup"?,It was the best tomato soup we had ever tasted. The village children who joined us for lunch that day, thought we had gone completely crazy drinking hot soup for lunch when it was 35degrees outside, nonetheless all bowls were empty.

I just stoically made tons of the local 'shopska' salad and we ate it with every meal. This involves mixing chopped tomatoes, cucumber,onion and peppers in a bowl topped with grated serena cheese, which is a white cheese similar to feta that can only be found in Bulgaria. Pasta sauce was another meal we made up with our produce though this was not quite as exotic as the gourmet sauces that we now stock. If you haven't been lucky enough to go away this year these sauces would certainly help to take you to some exotic place during your mealtime.

It wasn't until I started to write this post that I realised how important the trees in our garden have become to us during our holiday. The pear tree holds the hammock, the swing and the rope ladder every year and all the local children come around to play. Nature and natural products play such an important part in our children's lives and it is experience with these that makes the biggest impressions on our memories. How many young people reminisce about a particular play station game they played when they were young, I am sure their most strong memory would be one of climbing trees or baking cakes even if these were done far less often than playing on the wii!

Holiday time

2009-07-12T21:31:00.011+01:00

Well, it finally arrived the end of term and the start of the Summer holidays. We go away soon to our second home in Bulgaria where we exchange our English village for a traditional Bulgarian one, and we are all very excited. I think Toby has caught the bug first by finding the hundreds of paper airplanes he made after Christmas, and with his friend Jo took them out onto the front lawn and proceeded to launch every single one of them. The girls looked out the window horrified calling " mum look at the mess Toby has made!" I looked out the window and it was such a lovely sight seeing the boys playing with their planes surrounded by all the ones they had launched so far, I had to run and get my camera in order to capture the image.

Paper airplanes are such a lovely nostalgic item, at the shop we now have a twist on this with postcards made from balsa wood which when written can be made into airplanes and posted! I am sure Toby would love to receive one of these. We also have a whole new range of paper airplane goodies just in time for my holiday. There's a purse and travel wallet designed as though it is an airmail letter, as well as a large bag which would be a perfect hand luggage bag and then a photo album to put all the photos of your holiday in. They are all just so quirky and different, a definite pre holiday treat for yourself or a gift for someone about to go travelling.

If the airmail range doesn't tempt you then the travel map range which not only includes the travel wallet and passport cover but also a luggage tag might. This range definitely has an air of sophistication about it I think.

Not everyone in the household is as excited about going away for 3 weeks though, Ellen is very concerned about the animals and is going to miss them all dreadfully. I can understand why she feels this way, only today the ducks had us giggling and running for the camera when we found them hiding in my sage bush, all we could see was a rustling in the bush and then suddenly these two cheeky little ducks would pop up. Great entertainment!Luckily for them we have 3 sets of friends who are coming to stay in our house each week and look after them for us. I just need to convince Ellen that they are going to enjoy their little holiday just as much as us. Its not as if she wont have any contact with animals on holiday, we usually have a gaggle of ducks and geese waiting at our front gate in the morning ready for their breakfast. and the donkeys wake us with their braying each day. We usually play the game of who can guess the correct number of donkey and carts we will see on our way to the beach each day, some how dad always wins, I think it must have something to do with the many alternative routes he takes each time! cheeky!!

We have a wonderful farmer who lives opposite us who looks after our house and plants our garden with tomatoes and chillies so that they are ready just in time for our arrival. I have plans to make lots of pasta sauce this year because I couldn't bear to see the wastage when we left last year, we were literally drowning in tomatoes. My own tomatoes instead will be enjoyed by my wonderful house sitters I am sure, I think also they will get some broccoli and lettuce and no end supply of potatoes.

Luckily my dahlia bloomed just in time for me to enjoy it before we go away. I have never grown dahlias before but my 2 neighbours have a bit of a rivalry thing going on' who can grow the prettiest biggest dahlias'. I would like to say it is friendly rivalry but I don't think it is! Anyway I have been drawn into the contest by one neighbour who presented me with a bulb and said " Here you go Sam see if you can grow that". Help!! So I planted my bulb and watched it grow into what was starting to look a bit like a triffid before I took the courage to plant it outside and hopefully avoid any late frost. It was looking a bit iffy for a while, I was beginning to think I had grown a stalk but no flower, but then it started to appear and now I have an enormous yellow bloom! No comparison I know to the many many enormous blooms grown in my neighbours gardens but myself and the children are just as pleased with ours. I was also able to cheer Ellen up a little by being able to pick our first handful of sweet peas, she particularly loves the smell of them and immediately found one of my jugs to display them in. The trouble is the flowers look lovely in jugs but I also like to use the jugs, and I do have trouble using something for food that has had flowers in. Then I realised that what we need is a new vase to put our sweet peas in, but one that looked vintage, utilitarian and practical and as luck would have it TreeHouseBlue have just got in the vintage American milk bottle vases which I know would look so great with the sweet peas in.

Happy Campers

2009-06-30T20:38:00.023+01:00

My two wonderful daughters successfully (despite alot of heartache beforehand) carried out a 30 mile hike over 3 days with their school this week. The trouble with this was that this then obviously led to the camping bug for no.1 daughter! I said they could have a treat as my way of saying well done, Ellen chose to hit the shops and bought herself a dress, Molly on the other hand decided she wanted the whole family to camp out in the garden!!! ( why did I offer such an open ended treat- lesson learnt!)

Toby having also just returned from a camping trip with his dad and the beavers thought this was a fantastic idea, a chance to reconstruct the full English breakfast that was the highlight of his trip as well as the abseiling of course! We actually don't own a tent but this was no problem because their Uncle had loaned them a 4 man tent which according to him would easily fit 6 in. Why do little things like my brother being prone to exaggeration not dawn on me until the deed is done. The tent was in fact a 3 man and would have been hard pushed to fit much more than that in, but a promise is a promise so we proceed to squeeze into the tent. The girls thought the tent looked very cosy I thought a night light would have been good but the battery on Molly's sun jar was not charged, how lovely it might have looked if we had the new pink sun jar!! I haven't let on to the girls yet that we now have pink ones!! They both have the Bill Brown cotton sleeping bags in pink stripe which was met with a look of disbelief from the boys at their school whilst camping, even their teacher (whom is male!) was unsure they would be warm enough, but we proved them wrong, maybe next year girls we will add the sun jar and see what the boys think about that!!

I myself have definitely got my eye on the new Bill Brown sleeping bags that have just come in , they look like vintage eiderdowns but zip up into sleeping bags very, very stylish.

We had a yummy BBQ for dinner and then settled down to a board game in our new home. The problem arose when it came to bed time, what do we do with Shadow the dog?, If we left him out he would bark at anything that went past all night and he certainly was not going to fit in with us, so I attempted to put him in the house. After a loud barking session I conceded to go inside to settle him, after a few minutes I attempted to fool shadow into thinking I was going to bed and sneaked out to regain my place in the tent!! Oh dear everyone was fast asleep, spread eagle across the tent with not the tiniest of space for me to attempt to lie in, so there was nothing for it , I went back inside and had a lovely nights sleep in my bed!!!

As we sat outside our tent in the morning eating our full English breakfast cooked by Molly and Andy on the BBQ, it occurred to me we were not the only ones doing this because Glastonbury was about to start in full swing. Apparently we had a customer buy a shewee for that very event! Another vital piece of festival kit has to be the Eco friendly disposable picnic sets, they are fully biodegradable but can be washed up a few times before the need to dispose of them, the cup is even large enough to hold half a lager or a large coffee depending on how you are feeling at the time.

On Sunday we were invited to a village BBQ, in which we were asked to bring a pudding, so I whizzed over to the next village to pick up some strawberries and cream to make a pavlova, whilst in the shop we bumped into 6 other people from the village all of whom had popped in to pick up ingredients for their pudding, it was quite comical. Whilst there the strawberries were on offer so I decided now was as good a time as any to make some jam. Consequently I chose the hottest day of the year so far to commence my jam making. A friend had made some beautiful strawberry and rose petal jam last year and I really wanted to give it a try this year. The recipe comes from a Country Living magazine from a couple of years ago.

Strawberry and Rose petal Jam

Ingredients

6 unsprayed scented red or pink roses

1.25kg strawberries

800g jam sugar

juice of 1 lemon

2tbsp rose water

Place a saucer in the freezer. Wash and dry jam jars and place on a baking tray in a low oven to sterilise.

Remove the petals from the roses and cut off the bitter white base( I did this with scissors quite easily) rinse in cold water.

Hull and halve the strawberries and place in a preserving pan with the sugar to dissolve slowly, stirring frequently so the sugar does not burn.

Once dissolved, increase heat and bring the jam to the boil. Remove any froth that forms with a large spoon. Boil quite fast over medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Place a tsp of jam onto your chilled saucer and leave for 30 seconds. If it wrinkles when pushed with your finger, the jam is ready.If not,continue to cook ad test every 3-4 minutes.

Once jam has reached setting point add the lemon juice,rose water and petals and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

Pour the jam into jars that have been sterilised and then set them aside to cool before labelling

I had a lovely morning making this recipe, I had saved some jars already but otherwise I could have used the storage jars that we sell at the shop, the lids come in two colours duck egg blue or cream . I have a large one at the moment that I keep my vanilla sugar in. I put the empty vanilla pod that I had used at the weekend to make a vanilla creme for my pavlova into the jar with some caster sugar and already I only have to lift off the lid and the aroma of vanilla is amazing.

As you can see from this photo I will now have plenty of jam to have with my toast and mug of tea drunk from my new ladybird party mug, which of course is pink and makes me smile every time I drink from it!!

Cordial,cupcakes and Kathryn Jenkins!

2009-06-15T21:54:00.024+01:00

This week promised to be the perfect week for me and luckily I was not disappointed. My sister and I bought tickets to see the open air Kathryn Jenkins concert at Wisley Gardens, as a birthday gift to each other. We packed up our fold up chairs and our picnic and joined the queue!

The weather was amazing, the singing fantastic and we topped it all off with a tasty cupcake in the interval!!

We talked ourselves out of buying a hot chocolate to go with it because the one disappointing part of the evening was the usual enormous queue for the loo!! Which led me to explain to my sister the wonders of the new product we have in the shop called the shewee, a product that once you have one in your handbag you would not want to be with out, it enables us less versatile ladies become much better equipped to pee whilst standing without any of those sprinkling accidents! I will say no more but definitely worth investigating if you have a holiday planned to any country that tends to have unsavoury toilet facilities.

I popped into the shop this week also and the oilcloth holdalls were a hit, I was so inspired by the teams response I promptly came home and made two large rectangular toilet roll holders or bathroom tidies. Oh dear! I do seem to have a problem with trying to lead myself away from lavatory talk.

I had a lovely lunch with Susie and Issy and we had a great session of bouncing ideas around that could be taken forward into new products. Whilst at the shop my sister texted me to order 3 kiss letterpress necklaces and a friend one.

She had given a kiss necklace to her daughter Harriet's nursery school teacher because Harriet is now going to 'big school' and she absolutely loved it, as well as all the other mums who saw it and then asked her to place an order for some more. My sister stated" you must tell everyone what a fantastic idea they are as teacher gifts", and so I am doing exactly that.

Another great gift are the momijji products, these dolls all come with a little note in the base that can be used to send a little personal message, they really are very cute. My sister also became very popular when all her friends saw the yummy cupcakes she made for Harriet's birthday using the momijii cupcake set with the little flags in each one. Consequently she was volunteered in her absence to provide all the cupcakes for the children's end of term leaving party, oops maybe she won't thank treehouseblue for that one!

For my sisters birthday, my girls decided they were going to make some elderflower cordial to give to Auntie Nikki. Since we moved to our house we have wanted to have a go at making elderflower cordial but have missed the ideal time in which to pick the elder flowers. This year we managed to pick armfuls on a walk we did after school and with the help of dad who stopped at the chemist on his way home from work to pick up the citric acid, we proceeded to make elderflower cordial.

It was so easy to make and smelt and tasted absolutely divine, I think we might have to make some more before the flowers start to drop, now is definitely the perfect time to do this. If you would like to give it a go yourselves, this is the recipe we used:

ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL

1 lemon, grate the rind and slice the fruit

25g(10z) citric acid

1kg (2lb) sugar

10 elderflower heads

750ml water

Pour boiling water onto sugar in a bowl.

Stir to dissolve, add the lemon rind,slices citric acid and flowerheads (wash through in a colander first)

Leave for 24 hours, stirring occassionally.

Sieve through a muslin pour into clean bottles and seal with screw top caps.

Keeps for 6 months unless you have kids!!!

Dilute with ice cold water or sparkling water for a beautifully refreshing summer drink.

Floral Inspiration

2009-06-03T10:04:00.021+01:00

It is amazing how in just a few weeks our gardens and the countryside have blossomed into beautiful palettes of colour. My next door neighbours have the most amazing country borders full of foxgloves,delphiniums, aquilegia and sweet william, my garden is not quite so wonderful but I use theirs to provide me with enthusiasm and inspiration. Taking this inspiration the theme for flower club this week was a summer basket, which Margaret our teacher thinks we should all enter into the local Country Show competition in September. I think we will need another one or two of the white wine spritzers we had last night to convince ourselves we are worthy of entering a competition but once we had all finished our creations and our spritzers! we did feel slightly more confident about the whole concept.

I had a theory that if I tidied and beautified my working space it would help with my creativity and production, so I set to work to do this and was very pleased with my definite floral themed working area.

I have since made some of these oilcloth holdalls, that I discovered whilst trying to come up with a lunch bag design. My initial one had some definite design flaws and so whilst I was waiting to buy the extra bits in order to rectify these flaws I put all my sewing bits and bobs related to the project inside the said failed bag. Hey presto! this has now become an incredibly handy tidyall for my sewing room. Thus I digressed from lunch bags and moved onto reversible oilcloth holdalls and set my imagination going as to what they could be used for around the home, below are some of my ideas. As you can see the little pencil pot looks great with the twig pencils that we sell at TreeHouseBlue, they really jazz up any workspace and are so great to hold. I think I will take these up to the shop next week and see whether Susie and Sam like them.

I have become stuck on my lunch bag design and so am now thinking along the lines of painting overalls! In between though I have had to make a white pair of trousers for Toby , as it will be his first Whitsun festival on Friday. I realised I may have made them a little wide in the leg , when Toby burst into an Elvis impression the minute he tried them on!! He seemed happy enough with them despite this, I now have visions of him at school amidst a very reverent and beautiful assembly becoming the king!

Looking out the window I see that my plan at the start of the Spring to make my veg plot equally inspiring and chintzy is coming together a little slower. The sweetpeas in the flour tin are doing great, I think what would help the effect along even more would be the really gorgeous windbreak and matching deckchair!! as featured in this months Country living. The screening we put up to hide nextdoors rubbish and discourage rabbits from entering my plot has not faired at all well through the Winter, maybe the solution would be to use the windbreak to add colour to the garden through the Summer but it can be safely put away for the Winter months and brought out again the next year. Equally my deckchairs are a disgrace, I have attempted to cover them in a different fabric and for now I think that will have to be my solution but really the whole effect would be completed by some new ones to match. Maybe my husband would like one for Fathers Day, what better way to relax, than in the garden, in a deckchair with a good book!

To bring things back around to flowers and Spring, I have taken a photo of our current nature table, every family who goes to a Steiner Waldorf school will have a nature table somewhere in their house. It helps to demonstrate to the children the Seasons and the rhythm that the year brings as well as allowing them space to put any of the treasures they have found whilst out and about. Some of them can be incredibly beautiful and elaborate with lots of handmade as well as bought items to help set the scene for the time of year. Our table tends to be busy with all 3 children contributing. Soon the whitsun doves will appear and some of the other items will go.

Sending the children to The Steiner school means that they are aware of events in the calendar such as Whitsun but at the same time are aware of the slightly more commercial events such as fathers day also which are just as important in a child's life.

Jam and Jerusalem!

2009-05-18T20:46:00.017+01:00

Every time I attend one of our village hall committee meetings, I have to giggle to myself. The whole scenario is like something from an episode of Jam and Jerusalem. I live in a lovely village with a pond, pub, village green and beautiful church. Additionally we have a Village Memorial Hall which from the outside appears to be an old scout hut, but once inside you realise it really is a quaint old village hall with ancient china kept in an antique wall cupboard in a kitchen shared with mice and ivy that has grown through the wall into the kitchen!

We are trying desperately hard to raise £100,000 in order to rebuild the Hall in the same position and also enlarge it. Thus every other month or so we meet to discuss how we are going to do this, where we can go to get grants and at what stage the planning permission and build are at. The committee consists of the 'ladies', of which I am one, whom bake the cakes and organise social events to help raise money, and then there are the big guys who ask for considerably larger amounts of money from various organisations and draw up plans etc. for the build. The captain at the helm is the owner of the villages' beautiful mansion house, who seems to have contacts all over the place and tries his darnedest to keep everyone happy but in the process upsets many!!

Invariably the meetings start off following a true agenda but soon somewhere along the line comments about various inhabitants of the village are made and so a true picture of life at Beech Hill starts to unfold. I joined the committee when we first moved to the village to meet local people and become part of the village and this portal has proved the best way to do this and more! I would thoroughly recommend anyone wishing to embark in village life to attend a meeting of their local village hall or parish councillors. Beware though because once you are drawn in, your life will never be the same, needless to say you will almost certainly need to acquire a mothers manager. The beautiful chintzy diary we stock that not only gives you room to write in all these new meetings and events, it also has a brilliant pocket in which to store all the necessary bits of paper that come along with it.

I will endeavour to keep you updated of the events that occur in the meetings and impart any juicy gossip I am privy to hearing!

The farrier visited us this week, which I know Moon and Sunbeam appreciated because their hooves were looking a little long in the tooth. They have now had their french manicure and look so much better for it. Next month we have a visit from the equine dentist booked in, which I am not looking forward to, Moon does not do dentists, much like Molly and so sedation is a necessary element of this process. Hmm maybe this should be the approach to use for Molly!!

I myself visited the dentist today and managed to get away with a quick check up and no work required. Two hours later I receive a call from the school to say can I come and collect Toby he is unwell and has a toothache!! Once I had collected Toby I realised he really was not at all well, he was feverish and in alot of pain, so off we go back to the dentist!!!! It transpires that our poor little man has in fact got an abscess on his tooth and will require antibiotic treatment, apparently the next line of treatment is tooth extraction but our wonderful dentist does not believe in children undergoing this procedure for baby teeth and instead made a deal with Toby saying that if it became infected again we would have to take it out but in the meantime he can do the best he can to wobble it and lose the tooth by himself. Thank goodness!

Toby thinks the problem started at the weekend when he had a toffee bon bon as a treat, my new tactic will be to buy goodies that are not only soft but also organic, such as the moreish motezumas chocolate bars we sell at the shop and then we can indulge in a little bit of pleasure for alot less pain!

Moving on from chocolate to chocolate puddles! we took shadow for a walk at the weekend to the Englefield Estates woods, it was lovely and as you can see from the pictures the chosen activity for the walk was' who could find the deepest chocolatey puddle'. I wonder!!!!

Beautiful Homes and mini gardens

2009-05-11T09:39:00.023+01:00

Note to self do not make jokey comments about bodyparts and losing them!!!

Toby had to be taken to A and E on the afternoon of our May Fayre because he managed to run into a deckchair and split his ear! No sooner did we get that mended with glue did he then lose his tooth whilst digging into his lunch and proceed to swallow it!

I have spent this week clearing out and reorganising my workspace in order to achieve some sort of inspiration for new products to sell at the shop. I am sure this has been aided by my avid viewing of Kirsty Allsops homemade home! I love it and especially loved it when she furnished her children's playroom with a wooden toy carousel that we sell, it is made by a local craftsman. It is as bright and colourful, as it looks on the programme, a real toddler pleaser!

I then realised that we actually sell a few of Kirsty Allsops products, her style whilst doing up her Devon cottage is definitely in keeping with the THB teamstyle. We have her lovely retro sewing kits, picture hanging kits and tool kits which are full of useful but beautiful items essential for any new homeowner or refurbisher. The candles are divine they make my workroom smell gorgeous and I haven't even lit one yet, they come in a box with a matching set of matches an absolutely perfect gift or treat to self!

For the younger aspiring house owners, of which my children definitely are, I think I may have biased their TV viewing so that now they avidly watch Kirsty, Grand designs and Jamie Oliver!

The Moulin Roty sewing kit is a must, it is another one of those products that is just so beautiful and nostalgic to look at but also usable.

The children spent a busy weekend making mini gardens because they want to enter the Cath Kidston competition to win £100 of products. Ellen said she would give me half the prize and Molly spotted the tee pee tent that sleeps 6 and has decided she would buy this. It does look very lovely, it is almost a grown up, mummy version of our children's tee pees. I think it would be great to have the large version surrounded by a little camp of kids ones in the garden for the Summer.

Poor daddy was also being creative but he instead was creating a penthouse run for the ducks, I declared that I would not be able to sleep the night we move the ducks out of the house and into their own house in the garden due to the fear of the dreaded fox! So we (that is the royal we!) set forth to make a run that would include the new pond that Toby dug out for the ducks, as well as their house and thus be completely predator safe. It is nearly complete and will be quite plush when finished but I have to say it does look a little like the house that jack built at the moment. I am sure the ducks are going to absolutely love it and I will be able to sleep soundly knowing they are safe. The ducks are now grown up and have the purest of white feathers, they waddle into their run in the morning, skipping underneath the ponies legs on the way, much to Ellen's horror and then in the evening they come and stand by the back door ready to be let in for the night.

My veg patch is doing well, I was joined in it by the ducks at the weekend and puddle proceeded to play in and out the dusty bluebells with the canes I had just put up for the peas I had planted. It was hilarious! I will endeavour to take some photos of this event next time it occurs!

A week for working with wood

2009-04-28T12:48:00.012+01:00

Whilst pondering what to write for my next blog I was starting to think I was suffering from writers block when I realised there had definitely been a theme to my past week and that was working with wood!

The children and I visited Burlesdon windmill on their last day before starting back at school last week and we had a wonderful day. It was gorgeously sunny and the staff had arranged a windmill workshop which meant the children were able to make these fantastic windmillls out of willow and the traditional paper ones too.

We did this all in a beautiful old barn and then we sat on the lawn next to the pond for our picnic and once we were full up on chocolate brownies and strawberries we were able to climb the windmill and be told the story of how flour is milled. Every single child soaked in the information and then returned to the barn to grind with a large hand stone their own flour and sieve it into different grades and take it home. The whole day cost £5 per child including materials, I would recommend it to anyone with children from the age of about 5-12 years.

The girls then went off to school and their weekend project was to strip the bark from 12 various sized sticks in order to make a set of wind chimes. They immediately enlisted the help of their little brother and his wonderful much loved and cherished Tree House Blue Moulin Roty tool box. Molly and Toby then set to work sawing off the knobbly bits!

The toolbox came in useful again when at the weekend we decided that as the ducklings are now getting quite large and frankly starting to make our back cloakroom smell of a farmyard! they needed to spend some time outside but as well as needing to make their run foxproof they would need a shelter whilst outside. Molly volunteered for the job and designed and built a superb shelter with minimal help from dad, which the ducks nestled down into almost straight away.

Moon our pony came over to inspect and cant quite work out what all the fuss is all about.

This week is also the week the bluebells have blossomed in our nearby woods, so we have been visiting them daily on our dog walks, they are just wonderful to look at and marvel at the beauty of nature. I think Ellen did a good job of photographing the woods in order to appreciate how amazing they are.

We are looking forward and preparing now for our school May Fayre, which if anyone has ever visited a Steiner School Fayre is a really lovely event full of handmade ideas, products and activities. My brother has been roped in to teach fly tying and casting so watch out anyone who may be in the vicinity of Aldermaston's Alderbridge school on Saturday 7th May at 11:30. He assures me he will be removing anything remotely sharp from the hooks, so that all visitors leave with body parts intact!!

Happy Days !

2009-04-12T19:13:00.020+01:00

Happy Days!

What a glorious day we had last week, the sun shone and the whole family set to work in the garden.
Dad moved and repaired the hen house that had been abandoned by the previous house owners in the paddock next to our house.

I spent an incredibly satisfying couple of hours digging over my veg patch , adding manure ( made for us by our two ponies moon and sunbeam!) and then finally planting the potatoes. I am really hopeful of a bumper crop this year because my friend whose family have a biodynamic farm assures me that this was the best day this year to plant potatoes!

I could not have done this job without my great leather gardening gloves, they appear to fit all members of our family, as I spend much of my time retrieving them from whomever has borrowed! them for the particular job they are tackling at that moment.

I am feeling the need to turn my vegetable patch and greenhouse into a bijou chic working space that is not only full of wonderful homegrown vegetables but also looks really cool. I will keep you updated on how I get on but I have a feeling alot of it will be sourced from all the great gardening products we sell at the shop, as well as other vintage finds. I am starting some sweetpeas off in an old enamel flour tin and I of course have all my seeds stuffed into my seed tin!

Meanwhile Toby and Molly have started to transform the old hen house into the ducklings very own bijou residence. Ellen is busy keeping the little ones happy, they think she is their mum and follow her or Molly around the garden, it is so sweet to watch.

Following our happy day in the garden, I had a lovely evening joining the ladies in our village at the village hall for our flower arranging night. The girls asked to come this week as it was the easter holidays and they didnt have school the next day. So we all went off together to do a really nice creative girlie thing together and I am sure you will agree they did a great job, in fact I think they actually achieved better results than I did!

Molly's Display

The hand felted egg cosies on either side of my display were also made by the girls in handwork class at the Waldorf Steiner School they attend, I've a feeling I am going to be regularly outshone by their crafting talents from now on.

Ellens Display

Sam's Display

Puppy Love

2009-04-08T18:02:00.008+01:00

My muttley mutt Mij has been helping with product photography today, as the sun was shining on us.

She was particularly enthusiastic about some new organic doggy treats from East of India, oddly enough...

Just as well, as I've just bought my son a hamster, and Mij will need a distraction...!

Ducklings and Bunnies

2009-03-30T11:52:00.013+01:00

Ducklings have arrived in my household and bunnies have arrived in the Tree House Blue household, we really are feeling full of the joys of Spring.

In keeping with this wonderful vintage image of ducks and bunnies ,( that incidentally was another Country Living Show purchase from many years ago) the new range of Maileg bunnies have a nautical or watery theme attached to them.

The baby bunnies are just so sweet in their little romper suits and the medium bunnies even have armbands, I think these would be a great gift for a child who has just passed a swimming exam!

Our new little arrivals will not need armbands I am sure because they are already trying to bathe in their water bowl which results in a hilarious scene in which one duckling gets into the bowl then the other pushes him out and so it goes on with 2 little ducklings going round and round in circles until one finally gives up!

Demonstrating our family and company ethos of "no batteries required" my twin daughters asked for a duckling for their 12th birthday and after a few seconds deliberation on my part we decided to do it!

Far better than the computer games and mobile phones so many other 12 year olds ask for I thought, so I decided to delay the inevitable requests for these in the future and run with the ducklings idea or should that be waddle!

I made a duckling cake which looks homemade I know, but the girls appreciated it and their little brother Toby declared that for his present to his sisters he was going to dig their ducklings a pond.

I can see now that when we are going on our searches for new products, there may become a bit of a duck theme because they are incredibly funny and sweet to watch, ours should grow up to become the white aylesbury ducks and they have been named "puddle" and "poppy".

Lavender hearts and Moths!

2009-03-30T11:24:00.005+01:00

Spring has officially arrived at TreeHouseBlue and with it comes moths!!!!

A friend of mine was having a Spring sort out and handed over to me a very exciting back of fabric remnants left over from her curtainmaking business and her design degree. In it I found some lovely soft cream felt like fabric which had in places been attacked by moths! but there was still much more useable fabric untouched and so I combined this with some of the gorgeous ribbon I found at The Country Living Show and indulged in making this lavender heart.

Coincidentally we have just received into the shop our supply of very beautiful but incredibly functional anti moth products which Susie tells me has resolved her sisters' kitchen moth problem by dramatically catching 30+ moths. I bet you didn't know there was such a thing as kitchen moths! This week I popped into the same friend who gave me the fabric and what did I see flying around her kitchen but a moth! Just as I was explaining the virtues of our new products, her son ran in saw the moth and promptly dealt with it in a way 6 year old boys would!!!

So if you do have a moth problem or intend storing clothing and fabric away for the Summer but do not have a lively six year old boy running around your home, I would highly recommend our anti moth range and surprisingly it most definitely does not smell like your grandmothers wardrobe!

Tree House Blue and the countryside

2009-03-17T19:58:00.003Z

I am feeling a little nervous that I have been handed over the means to start writing my blog on our Tree House Blue website. But how hard can it be to talk about your life when it is entwined with such wonderful products and fun people that make up Tree House Blue!

I couldn't help but post my profile photo as the one in which I christened my brand new welligogs! The company sold them to us as fully waterproof and I was on a mission to prove this, consequently on the way up the incredibly high hill I am standing on in the Lake District we had to walk up a waterfall. Amazing - they did what it said on the packet and not only that they were comfortable enough to be able to continue the trek up the hill , no trouble at all.

I have to admit that I did feel a little smug when I spotted another lady wearing the rather more expensive Durberry version of our welligogs. My boots were equally waterproof and in my opinion more stylish and half the price.

Both myself and the other Sam are on our second pair now because we literally wore the first pair out after 2 years of constant daily usage. I wear mine to do the horses every day as well as walk the dog and Sam also walks her little dog in hers every day. I wear them all year round, they are lovely and warm in Winter and I do not get too hot in Summer either.

I once told a customer at a Country Fayre that they were the best thing since' sliced bread' and his reply was, " you would say that" , that I suppose is true but I can truly say they really are my favourite item, which I would never want to be without.

Patiently Awaiting Bunnies...

2009-03-10T17:37:00.004Z

Well, they're nearly here - the new Maileg Bunnies are hopping their way to us as I type, according to Mother Bunny.

Depending on how much they have to hang on for the little ones to catch up, they should be with us in the next week to 10 days, but sometimes they do get a little distracted, so I'm not buying in the carrots just yet...

But here's a sneak preview of some of the cute little critters....

Putumayo World Music

2008-06-09T12:46:00.003+01:00

As a mother of 3 I know that anything that creates a sense of calm and tranquillity is worth every penny. Putumayo World Music has a cd that does just that! Dreamland World Lullabies and Soothing Songs is the perfect anecdote to our hectic lives and great for little ones to fall asleep to. So if you are looking for a little calm in our world of chaos this is the one for you!

Putumayo has contributed a portion of CD proceeds totalling over a million dollars to non-profit organisations doing good work in regions where the music originates such as Amnesty International and Oxfam.

Summer Sizzler - Isabella Smith Insect Repellent Eau de Cologne

2008-06-05T17:27:00.002+01:00

The Isabella Smith Insect Repellent Eau de Cologne has been flying out the door and with green journalists from the Times and Independent giving it great write-ups, that’s no surprise. This effective, non-toxic insect repellent leaves your body delicately scented while making you untraceable to mosquitoes, ticks, wasps, bees and black flies. The cologne comes in three fragrances Floral, Lemon and Spice and all smell wonderful. The floral is a nostalgic floral scent with feminine lily-of-the-valley notes, the lemon is a bit more vibrant and the spice a mellow rich scent, great for both men and women!

But, I hear you all saying, does it actually work! Well, we have lots of customers out there giving it a go and the feed-back so far has been very positive. However we are keen to hear from you if you have tested the cologne, so do get in touch with your comments.

To purchase Isabelle Smith Insect Repellent Eau de Cologne go to www.treehouseblue.co.uk or Tel: 01737 814890

Chocolate Tea - I'm in Heaven!

2008-06-03T16:51:00.007+01:00

No, we didn't believe it either, but it's true – we’ve found tea with chocolate flakes in it! So much better than a chocolate biscuit – no soggy bits in the bottom of the cup (and fewer calories too, for the same chocolate fix!)

Not only are we now indulging our taste for both tea and chocolate with rigorous product sampling (we only want to share the best with you!), but our ethical values are catered for too, because our tea comes from a lovely, quirky company called Teapigs, who share our vision for a more fairly-trading, environmentally conscious world. They only buy from estates that respect the rights of their workers, and they’ve also made a pledge to help directly those communities they work with.

Doesn’t get much better than that!