Daisy Has Arrived!

Well you might have guessed by the long pause between posts that our darling daughter, Daisy, has arrived!

She came 1 week and 1 day late on Sunday 13th November at 7.22pm. She weighed 7lbs 10oz and is absolutely beautiful!

I have so many things to update on the blog as we’ve made more purchases and received more gifts in the weeks following her birth including a sling, play gym, buggy mobile, knitted cardigans, extra large muslins, buggy safety strap, bibs and a baby bath foam insert to name but a few!

I’ll do my best to update the blog with more details as soon as I can, Daisy depending!

Handmade Baby Toys and Sewing!

My sister and I went to a fab vintage handmade fair on Sunday in Hatton. We had tea and cake on vintage china and spent some time looking around all the lovely stalls of handmade goodies!

I found these gorgeous handmade sock toys and bought a black and white one and a pink stripy one for just £8!

I also bought a penguin felt making kit! They are really Christmas tree decorations but because they are black and white I thought they would be good for our baby to look at in her car seat or around the house! I also added a bell inside the penguin to make it more interesting!

Because I’ve had some unexpected spare time on my hands I decided to get on and make the black and white felt squares for our daughter to look at in the first few weeks/months when she can only see high contrast things!

I searched the internet for someone who had made something similar and found a blog post on The Crafting Chicks website which gave me ideas for the patterns to make. I decided to machine sew the shapes onto the felt squares instead of glue because I didn’t want little bits of felt coming off and being a choking risk! I think I’ll also make some smaller ones and sew them into a cube to hang off the car seat handle too.

I finally finished another sewing project which was to make a light excluder for the outside of the nursery door. It’s obviously really a draft excluder but we need it to stop light from getting into the nursery from under the bottom of the old cottage door!

It’s quite shabby chic as I didn’t do a very good job on sewing the hearts on but it does the job!!

2 Days Overdue!

Well I’m 2 days over my due date!

Now just waiting, excited as to when our daughter will decide it’s time to arrive!

So I’ve been busy making and sewing some handmade things for her which I’ll photograph tomorrow and post about.

More Gifts From Mum!

My Mum has been knitting again and made a gorgeous navy sailor cardigan!

It was a challenge though as the pattern was one I found in a magazine and we don’t think it was quite right! Anyway I think it looks great and can’t wait to put Daisy in it!

Mum also wanted buy something we needed for the baby so I suggested a lovely pink Snuggle Suit from Organics for Kids which arrived this week.

It’s made from 100% organic cotton and made in the UK.

She also bought us 3 more organic bodysuits from Huddle & Bliss which are made in the UK.

Made in the UK Buying Bonanza!

With less than 3 weeks to go we have been making sure we buy the last remaining items we need!
    
We have bought 3 cot bed 100% cotton flat sheets, made in the UK, by DK Glovesheet from Bennellies, a baby bath mat from Boots, made in the UK and Little Me Organics baby bath wash and moisturising cream, again from Boots and made in the UK.

We also swapped the original wet nappy bags (made in China) for TotsBots wet nappy bags which are made in the UK.

For my hospital bag I ordered 2 gorgeous personalised handmade wash bags from Heavenly Hearts on the Not on the High Street website, made in the UK and found Maternity Pads in Boots that are made in the UK.

 We checked out our local Scope charity shop to see if there were any second hand books and found quite a few were made in the UK.

All new books seem to be printed in China and we’ve found it almost impossible to buy any baby books made in the UK.

We found 2 baby books and 2 classics (The Railway Children and The Jungle Books) in the Scope charity shop that were made in the UK so we bought them!

Phew! That was a lot of buying!

Returns!

I decided to return some of the original Mothercare products that we purchased and found were made in China.

Back went the Travel Changing Mat, Snowsuit and Wadded Pinny Dress!

So now I have £26 on a Mothercare gift card and can’t find anything in their store that we need and is made in the UK!!!

Look What We Found In Cornwall!

We decided for our 13th Wedding Anniversary to go away for a long weekend to Cornwall. We stayed in this gorgeous cottage in Mousehole and on Saturday visited the lovely town of St. Ives.

Whilst looking in all the wonderful little boutique shops we found one called LAFF selling lots of baby and children’s clothes made in the UK. They stocked brands such as Lizzie Shirt, Little Blossoms, Madfish Clothing and Inch Blue all designed and manufactured in the UK (mostly in Cornwall).

We bought a baby top by Lizzie Shirt and some baby dungarees with butterflies on by Little Blossoms.

Then on Sunday we decided to visit St. Just and as we were driving in we spotted a craft shop and Robert saw a sign in the window for Little Blossoms!

They weren’t really open but the owner let us go in and we chatted for ages about the baby clothes and finding ones made in the UK. It was great to meet the designer and maker of the clothes and we couldn’t help ourselves and bought 4 more items!

We loved this thick fleecy coat and bought it in size 1-2yr old so that we would get more wear out of it! We also bought a gorgeous baby pink flower dress, blue spotty baby jacket and pink spotty dungarees.

The fabrics were just gorgeous and we were sorely tempted to buy everything in the shop!

In addition all the Little Blossom clothes are reversible so there are pockets and decorative flowers on the inside and outside, so they can be worn either way. We were very impressed to say the least!

In general, Cornwall seems to be very proud of all it makes and shouts about it at every opportunity! Why don’t we do this in Warwickshire?

UK Made Baby Bodysuits Arrived Today!

I’ve just received our order of organic cotton baby bodysuits from Huddle & Bliss this morning! They are all made in England from 100% GOTS certified organic cotton.

We ordered three newborn and three 0-3 months but Huddle & Bliss kindly sent an extra complimentary 0-3 month bodysuit because they had run out of white (our original colour request) and had to send us the cream ones instead.

The newborn bodysuits do look very small but our baby is on track to be around 7.5lbs when she is born so hopefully they’ll fit!

Saturday’s Buying Spree!

On Saturday we had a very busy day! We went to the Birth & Baby Show in Leamington Spa and attended a couple of seminars on Baby Signing and Baby Swimming, as well as talking through our washable nappy options with Anna from the Cotton Nappy Company.

Before visiting the Cotton Nappy Company shop in Leamington we popped in to Bravissimo to buy a couple of nursing bras (disappointingly made in China but very necessary!) and also into the Kinderroom shop to see if we could find any UK made baby toys.

We couldn’t find any toys made in the UK but purchased a wooden elephant mobile to go over the changing mat area that was made in Germany (£25.50).

We then made our way to the Cotton Nappy Company shop and bought all the washable nappies and accessories we needed.

We had already decided on TotsBots nappies because they are made in the UK (Glasgow) and also because they have bamboo in them which is good for preventing eczema – click here see my previous post about choosing nappies.

We decided to buy 16 Teenyfit nappies (5-14lbs baby weight) which won’t last long but are a very straight forward one piece nappy, to make our lives a little easier in the first few weeks of having our new baby daughter!

We then also ordered 16 Easyfit one size nappies (8lbs – toddler) for daytime wearing and 4 Bamboozle Stretch 2 piece nappies in size 2 for night time, along with 2 waterproof wraps (size 1 and size 2). These nappies should last us from birth to potty training.

Along with the nappies we bought an accessory kit consisting of a nappy bucket (in a lovely lavender colour), 2 nappy mesh bags, 200 TotsBots  flushable and biodegradable liners (made in the UK), lavender oil (to fragrance the bucket), pack of 80 herbal natural baby wipes (made in China), 20 washable wipes (made in the UK), 1 waterproof nappy bag (made in China) and 2 TotsBots bamboo nappy boosters (made in the UK).

We also decided to buy an extra waterproof nappy bag (made in China), a pack of 6 washable nursing pads (made in Hungary), TotsBots swimming nappy (made in the UK) and a pack of 25 Natracare disposable nursing pads (made in the UK).

Phew! That took some doing! We then went home for a well earned rest!

Nearly New Sale Nightmare!

If you like queuing for ages (to get in and to pay) and getting shoved about by crazy women racing around for bargains – then a NCT nearly new sale is for you!

We arrived 20mins before the start and had to queue around the building to get in! People took children in buggies, babies in car seats and babies strapped to themselves into the sale with 2 large NCT shopping bags to grab whatever they deemed to be a bargain! It was a fight of the bumps with very pregnant ladies shoving into each other! It was chaotic and not very enjoyable to say the least!

Trying to look at labels to see where things were made was almost impossible but I did manage to get an Organics for Kids sleepsuit for £1.50 (£18.20 new, made in the UK), 2 packs of 2 bibs (Pink Pig Clothing, made in the UK) for £1 each, a Powell Craft hooded towel for £1 (£9.99 new) and some Mothercare baby coat hangers for £2 (£4.99 new).

I’ve sent an email to Powell Craft to find out where their products are made as there was no indication on the label. I received a disappointing reply this morning saying they make their products in Kashmir (India). The Mothercare coat hangers I suspect are also not made in the UK but will have to go into the “unknown” category!

We then waited another 20mins to pay for our items in a hot, cramped corridor full of parents, crying babies and large shopping bags! We were asked 3 times if we wanted a plastic bag at the paying counter but explained that we wanted to be good to the environment and would be fine hand carrying our very few items out to the car! That was a bit of a trauma because then we had to be labelled up as paid and got stopped by a rude woman at the exit telling us we had to pay for our items, which we duly informed her we had but were trying to be environmental by not using loads of unnecessary plastic bags!