Monday Moodboard - Expecting

Have we mentioned that Nat is expecting a baby boy in May?

Olive is going to be a big sister!

Top left: "Waiting" - Wool needle felted tapestry by woolicious

Top right: Crocheted baby chicks by sabahnur

Bottom left: Felt family feet by mellsva

Bottom Right: Yellow & brown slouchy hat by afra

A little collection of sweet goodies from the Etsy European Street Team 

to celebrate Nat's blossoming belly :)

Easy cake for toddlers to make - Gluten and Dairy free options

After successfully trialling this recipe with Olive I decided I just had to share it with you. I was so amazed at how Olive (age 3yrs) was able to complete so much of the preparation independently. Olive had so much fun and she was thrilled at being able to prepare her very own cake. It was a totally different baking experience to our usual adult led sessions which often cause her to lose interest. Most importantly, we both VERY much enjoyed eating it! :)

"Yoghurt cake (Gateau au yaourt)" is a traditional French recipe that I stumbled across in a book, and is apparently the first baking experience that a French child might typically encounter.

For the purposes of measuring ingredients your toddler will use standard adult size single portion yoghurt pots, hence why the following ingredients list refers to "tubs of" and not your usual ounces or kilos.

You will need:

2 tubs plain yoghurt (for a dairy free version you could always use soya or another alternative)
2 eggs
1 or 2 tubs sugar (I encouraged Olive to measure two tubs on the smaller size)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (Okay - I assisted a little at this stage!)
Just under 1 tub vegetable oil
4 tubs plain white flour (we used gluten free due to an intolerance in the family and it worked just fine)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tub flavouring of your choice such as dried fruit, berries, or our preferred option, chocolate chips :)

Oven 190 degrees Celsius. Grease 9 inch pan with oil.

Method:

• Set out your packets of ingredients on the table and direct your toddler one ingredient at a time on how many tubs they will need (starting from the top of the list). Encourage them to give the mixture a stir in between additions. After they've tipped out the yoghurt give the tubs a quick rinse and dry so that the dry ingredients don't stick. You could always encourage them to use one pot for the wet ingredients and another for the dry, or, like me, just let them go at it and have faith!
• Give the mixture a final "grown up helper" mix, and then pop your cake in the oven for 35 minutes.
• Olive always likes to lick the bowl at this point.

After 35 minutes remove your cake from the oven, leave to cool, pop the kettle on and let the tea party commence.

Happy toddler time :)

WINNER! Toddler treats pick n mix giveaway

Thanks to everyone who entered our accessories giveaway :) We have collected the entries from the Facebook and blog comments and numbered you all, then used our trusty old online random number generator to pick the winner...

...And the winner is...

Jill Courtright Sakowski!!

Congratulations, Jill, We will get in touch soon to discuss your prize!

Thanks to everyone who entered, keep your eyes peeled for our next giveaway;

details will be shared on Facebook, Twitter and here on our blog :)

Toddler treats pick n mix GIVEAWAY!

We're having another GIVEAWAY! This time, you get to choose your prize from ANY of these awesome Olive and Vince toddler accessories (the winner will receive one of the following):

• A baby or toddler hat
• Two bandana bibs
• A children's necklace
• A bow tie

 

 
You can even pick your colours and sizes, check out our Etsy shop to see what you will choose if you win and start getting excited!

So how do you enter? It's EASY. Many people will know that our main "hub" of communication is our Facebook page. We'd like you to show off our page to your friends by sharing the following image on Facebook and letting us know your favourite item from our accessories in a comment either here on our blog or on the Facebook image. Here's the image, and clicking on it will take you to our Facebook page where you can just click "share" and it will be shared with your friends:

Get sharing and good luck! The competition closes on Thursday 18th October, the winner will be announced here on our blog on Friday 19th October. One entry per person.

Nat & Naomi xx

p.s. Don't have Facebook? You can also enter by tweeting the following message:

 @OliveAndVince are having a pick n mix GIVEAWAY! I want to win one of their funky toddler accessories- Check it out at http://www.oliveandvince.blogspot.co.uk

Don't forget to add a comment here on the blog to let us know your favourite item from our accessories range! :)

Please welcome our knitting Nana...

Meet Olive's Nan, our 100% cool knitting Nana! She may not look or behave like your typical granny, but she has totally mastered all the traditional skills such as baking, knitting and mending things. Olive has been lucky to be in receipt of many a gorgeous hand knitted garment since she was very small, and I decided it was unfair to limit such talent to one little princess!  So, now we have a super excited Nana on board, waiting with her knitting needles in hand, to ensure all the babies and toddlers from all around the world have warm ears, hands and knees!!! 

Let’s introduce you to what our knitting Nana has been up to so far:

Fingerless gloves

Our teeny little fingerless gloves have been uniquely designed with lots of extra length in the arm, both to ensure that they stay on and to add warmth to the whole lower arm beyond just the hand. As parents ourselves, we’ve found that Olive and Vince have always fussed about having their hands contained within gloves, but fingerless gloves have always proved a success for us, and we do love to share our little successes!

Leg warmers 

Designed to add extra warmth to the lower leg, typically reaching just below the knee. For younger children they can be folded to achieve the perfect length plus providing an added layer for extra warmth. Can be worn alone or as an under layer.

Hat

Our intentionally oversized hat has been especially designed with extra height to ensure it pulls down around the head and face to keep little ears tucked away from cold weather.

Knitwear makes the most precious gift, just make sure you give our Nana plenty of notice in time for Christmas :)

Monday Moodboard: Bittersweet

1. Sunshineartdesign

2. Bialakura 

3. PamelaAngus

4. blota

My moodboard today is bittersweet as we say goodbye to our family cat, Berry. She lived a long and very happy life and I am reflecting on some very beautiful memories with a sweet little friend xx  

Thanks to the European Street Team members featured for their beautiful work :)

See more moodboards over at Star of the East's blog!

Have a lovely week everyone xx 

Our Creative Space: Preparations

As we've had a calmer week this week after the massive rush of orders throughout July, we thought we would use the time to do some rather exciting preparation work. The first thing that we had been wanting to find time for was some new pattern work. 

 

We couldn't possibly spoil the surprise by telling you exactly what we have been working on, but we are very pleased with our progress and we are hoping to perfect the pattern and release a NEW GARMENT in our shop soon! 

Speaking of new releases, we've got another set of new items that are all made and almost ready to be listed in the Etsy shop. New releases always mean photoshoots, and the children were blessedly helpful (especially when we plied them with bribes) so we were able to get some lovely shots which you will see in the shop next week.

 Vince helped to take some photos while Naomi helped Olive to prepare for her modelling session!

Other than new designs and pattern work, we have been preparing for an upcoming BABY FAIR by stocking up lots of our accessories. The fair, organised by Sophie of Under One Roof, is at the Phoenix in Exeter and will take place on Saturday 8th September from 10 am to 3 pm. This will be our very first fair and we are so excited to see how our items are received! This week we focussed on stocking up on our newborn size hats and our most popular bibs.

We love the size comparison of one of our newborn hats against one of our size 1-2 year hats!

 

Naomi had lots of geeky fun designing some new "Olive & Vince Money" vouchers that we will be using for the fair and other promotions. We're both really pleased with the way they turned out and look forward to getting the professionally printed vouchers back from our printing company :) It sure was a nice feeling to be printing our own money!!

Keep an eye on our blog for more news from our workshop, we will try to keep you regularly updated on what we've been up to in our creative space :)

Naomi & Nat xx