Month by Month Birthday Mobile

Thank you so much for all the compliments on Florence's birthday party. Ever since India's first birthday I've enjoyed coming up with decorating ideas and making handmade party favours to fit a theme that most suits the birthday girl at the time. Last year I hit upon the idea of making a mobile featuring a photo of Florence from each month of her first year to hang as a centrepiece. It worked so well, I made another one this year and I thought you might like to try it next time you have a birthday to celebrate.


How to make a Birthday Mobile

To make your own Birthday Mobile, you will need:

Photo paper

Coloured card stock

A circle cutter or scissors

Photosafe glue

Invisible thread

Your sewing machine and a printer well stocked with ink!

First comes the hard part - choosing the twelve photos you want to use! If you're more organized than me, you might want to start doing this before the morning of the party. Just sayin'! This year I used a mixture of close ups and, because Florence's appearance hasn't changed as much this year as it did from birth to twelve months, I also used photos of some of her milestones like first steps and walking the dog!



Once you have selected and edited your 12 photos print them out onto your photo paper and you will be ready to start constructing your mobile. I used the mask feature on my computer's layout program to enlarge each image to the exact size I wanted (circle with a diameter of 9cm) but if you don't have that capability you can crop the part of the image you want after you print out the photo.


Cut each of your photos into a circle and cut 12 circles of card stock to the same dimensions. You can use all the same colour or a mixture as I did. Whatever suits the party's colour scheme. I used my trusty circle cutter from my scrapbooking days to cut out each circle, but scissors and a drafting compass would work just as well!


Once you have your set of 12 photos and 12 coloured circles it's time to get stitching. Thread your invisible thread into your machine and sew through the centre of each card circle until all 12 circles are linked in a long string. Just like chain piecing if you're a quilter! Run a couple of stitches between each circle so that the mobile spins when it's hung and be sure to pull out enough thread before you start stitching to use as hanging loop.


After you have made your chain of coloured circles use the glue to attach each photo to the back of a circle in chronological order.

Your mobile is now complete. Find a handy chandelier or other suitable receptacle and hang your mobile masterpiece.


Just in time for the party to start!

This Moment. Fresh evening baguette

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Joining in with Amanda and friends at SouleMama

Turning Two

Well we now have a two year old in the house. Not too terrible so far!

For someone who wouldn't have noticed what day it was, Florence had quite the birthday extravaganza. We spent her big day at Disneyland. Not my first choice of birthday venue for a two year old, but we were there for another friend's birthday party and Florence loved it. She is now a big fan of the It's a Small World ride, popcorn and coke. Sigh!

On Sunday we had a family tea party for the birthday girl.

Exactly one week after I was in New York buying fabric for her birthday outfit she was wearing it. Yeah!


Jet lag got the better of me before I could attempt the matching trousers but I did have time to whip up some 'Bonjour' bunting from the scraps. Inspired by Kirsty's tutorial I cut a bunch of four inch equilateral triangles from the Liberty fabric and shot cottons that I bought at Purl Soho and then stitched them to five yards of colourful twill tape which was another Purl purchase. Easy!


Knowing we'd be out until late the night before the party, I let the local boulangerie take most of the baking strain. These macarons were delicious and matched the colour scheme perfectly!


My Mum also made her cheese scones which were a huge hit. So much so that our guests asked her to write down the recipe. I'm so glad because now I have it and she says I can share it with you:

8oz plain flour sifted
2oz butter
2oz cheddar cheese grated
pinch of salt
7tbsp (approx) milk
dessert spoon of mustard

Pre-heat oven to 220ºC (425ºF).
Rub the sifted flour and butter together until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
Add other dry ingredients.
Combine mustard and milk then add to the dry ingredients to make a dough mix.
Roll out the dough to about one and a half inches thick and cut into rounds.
Place on non-stick baking tray and leave in a warm place to rise for 20 minutes.
Brush tops with milk and place in the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.


When I was growing up, my birthday cakes were the talk of the town. It was usually my Dad who designed and decorated them. He even made drawings! This is the design for the cake for my second birthday. I found it recently tucked in the back of my baby book.


I've made my share of elaborate birthday cakes over the past eleven years, but this being the 21st (!) birthday party I have organized for one of my children, I chose to keep it simple with our favourite lemon poppy seed cake and a marzipan ladybird from the boulangerie.


Florence was much more interested in blowing out the candles than eating it anyway. And singing Happy Birthday ten times accompanied by Georgia who figured out all by herself how to play it on the piano.


I made play dough as party favours, packaged in my vast collection of empty Bonne Maman jars and tied up with more Liberty scraps.


I've been wanting to make my own play dough for Florence ever since seeing this post at Sew Liberated, but I've been put off by my inability to find cream of tartar in France. In the end I made it without and it was ridiculously easy although a bit sticky the next day. The need to add extra flour made it all the more fun though!


Just as much of a hit with the big kids as the two year old.

So there you have it. Florence turns two in style. Rather a long post but being a fourth child she doesn't have a baby book for me to tuck memories into so this is the virtual version.

This Moment. Two Today!

{this moment} - A Friday Saturday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Joining in with Amanda and friends at SouleMama

Blog encounters of the nicest kind

One of the advantages of living a bit closer to home now is that my Mum can come and visit more often and we can leave the kids with her! She graciously agreed to look after all four so that Keith and I could have our first ever vacation without them to celebrate his birthday. We left Jersey on Saturday morning and by Sunday morning we were landing in the island's namesake New Jersey en route to a long weekend in New York.

In the few hours that we were at home we had the pleasure of meeting my very talented blog friend Kirsty and her lovely family for real. Her gorgeous and funny blog is one of my all time favorites. She was also the first person ever to leave a comment on one of my posts which means she has a special pace in my bloggy heart! As crafting crazed mothers of four writing about ex-pat life in France whilst photographing all that we do, we have a lot in common and with precision timing they happened to be practically passing our doorstep on their way to Versailles on the only evening we were in France this Spring Break. It all worked out perfectly and I whipped up dinner for twelve (just two families!) courtesy of our favourite fast but yummy Jamie Oliver recipe the sausage and tomato bake. Try it, you'll be glad you did. We like it best with French chipolatas. Miraculously with eight children running around, we managed to finish a few sentences and were still chatting away way past the kids', and our, bedtimes!


On arriving in a wet and windy New York, top of my places to visit was Purl Soho, store front for the legendary (in the craft blogging world anyway!) Purl Bee blog. The blog has been inspiring my stitching ever since I discovered the wonderful world of craft blogs and I have made many of the projects featured. Visiting the store and seeing the actual projects made for the blog was almost, but not quite, as exciting as meeting a blog friend for real!

The bulky baby blanket that the giant bunny in the window was sitting on was the first Purl Bee post I ever read and it inspired me to start knitting again so that I could make it for Florence.

The shop did not disappoint and I spent an age deciding what to buy. Keith was a good sport and helped me pick out co-ordinating colours, only escaping to the Mac store for a little bit! I came out with quite a stash which should keep me busy for a long time to come.


This colourful collection has already been pre-washed and cut ready to make a birthday outfit for Florence. In a truly craft crazed moment last week I signed up for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge. Spend an hour a day every day for a week to make something for your kids. Clearly I already have plenty to occupy me this week, but the Purl visit at the start of the week combined with Florence's birthday at the end of the week meant I just couldn't resist. Wish me luck!


I spent an hour or two on the plane home sewing in all those loose ends and stitching together this cardigan for Florence that I started before she turned one! A KCWC success - if it fits...

I left my heart in Jersey

It’s Love the Place You Live time again over at Design Mom and this month I’m loving the place I used to live. The Channel Island of Jersey.


This tiny island, just nine miles by five but with a population of around 90,000, fourteen miles from France, but part of Britain, famous for Jersey cows, and beautiful beaches is where I was born and brought up. My family still lives there and last week we packed all the Berries into our little car and drove four hours to Saint Malo in Brittany to catch the ferry to Jersey.

Sailing away from the walled town of Saint Malo
The ferry crossing takes just over an hour, you can visit for the day if you want, and the ease of getting there from our house in France has been one of the highlights of our move here. Especially now that there is a new addition to the Jersey branch of the family, my new niece Eva.


Florence was fascinated by her new cousin!

This is the parish church of St. John. I was baptised and married here, attending a whole lot of regular services in between! I grew up with the sound of the church bell chiming every passing hour; our family home is just behind those red roofs. My sister lives there now and with the new baby it’s a bit of a squeeze to get us all in so on this visit we stayed in a typical old Jersey house now converted into a holiday home.


Pink is a popular house colour, it accentuates the pink granite that is the local building material!

The picturesque parish church of St. Brelade, otherwise known as the Fisherman's Chapel
The house was just steps away from our favourite beach at St. Brelade. Beachfront property prices are insanely high, but for a week we lived the dream!


The soft sand and shallow beach at St. Brelade make it the perfect playground. Too chilly for swimming at this time of year (although we did see lots of surfers) but perfect for acrobatics!





When you’ve had enough of the sand head out to the rock pools and see if you can catch a crab.


Good seafood is plentiful here and there are no shortage of great restaurants and beach cafes to choose from.

This is our all time favourite. The Wayside cafe at St. Brelade.

El Tico on St. Ouen’s five mile long beach was a big hit too with moules mariniere on the kids’ menu,

surf boards for sale hanging from the ceiling


and this view from the table!


Our family loves the beach so a lot of our time was spent there, but the countryside is pretty too.


Florence and I took a little stroll around the lanes of St. John looking for cows. They weren’t in their usual field so we couldn't photograph them for you, but we found this patch of bluebells just outside my old school.

From the looks of these photos you would think the sun shone every minute we were there. We weren't quite that lucky. Our week was windy and cold and it did rain, but the good thing about being on a small island is that bad weather quite often passes over quickly and a stormy start to the day can end in a beautiful sunny evening. When we couldn't be on the beach we found plenty to do.


Always a must see is a visit to the animals at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. The big girls also love the activities at outdoor adventure park aMaizin and as we were there after the British school holidays had ended they had the place to themselves. Like France, the Channel Islands were occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. India is currently fascinated by that period in history and she and the rest of us learnt a lot about Jersey's wartime experience at the Jersey War Tunnels. As always there was so much we didn't have time to do.


I haven't lived in Jersey permanently since I left home to go to university, but I've been lucky to return every year. Wherever in the world I'm living arriving back on the island feels like coming home. As sure as the tide goes out and comes in, I'll be back!

This Moment. Moules mischief

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Joining in with Amanda and friends at SouleMama