The Memory Library

January 24, 2013 By Kate in Homing Instinct, Making, Paper Paper! Tags: bookplates, bookplates.library, crafting, diy, family, kids books, library, memories, play house, snow, snowball, winter 28 Comments

I come from a bookish family, enjoying an upbringing where reading was considered to be the ultimate sporting pursuit, and where every household nook and cranny was crammed with a life-history of books, from the trashiest novel to the most highbrow doctrines of Greek philosophy (our shelves were nothing if not egalitarian, and we relished them all).

Thus I learned the facts of life mostly from Judy Blume novels, and yet was extremely well-read about world history from our travelling-salesman set of Encyclopedia Britannica, the 90′s print forerunner of Wikipedia. Sadly, volume 12 vanished without trace at some point meaning that anything listed under ‘M: Malachite – Mycenae’ will forever be a gap in my knowledge.

It’s perhaps no surprise that Harry is showing signs of being a book-lover, who delights in being read to (and in pretend-reading to us). At 3yrs old he already has a small but precious handful of books which have marked the various stages in his life and which have been transient obsessions, and I wanted to capture those memories before they fade and get swallowed up into the general joyous mayhem of childhood. I designed some simple bookplates to stick in the cover papers of his favourite books, recording the memories associated with them, so that he (and we) can look back on these in the years to come…

Harry’s first ever book was a picture book by the inimitable Emily Grevatte, whose simply rhyming and repetition tickled the then 6-month old Harry and produced a chortle which turned into a full belly-laugh, and culminated in such hysteria that in time I only had to pick up the book for H to start giggling. Any new mum will tell you that whoever can make their babies laugh is a friend for life, so Grevatte’s books will always have a special place in my heart. The Gruffalo was another hands-down favourite..

The bookplates themselves were printed onto standard white paper and I then used a glue stick to paste them into the dog-eared and well-loved books. If you want to do this and don’t have the time or inclination to make your own, there’s a downloadable version below which you can simply print out and fill in (minus the picture of Harry, of course!)

Download by clicking on the attachment; I’ve saved this a PDF with 6 labels per sheet; these should fit most books.

Printable Bookplates

As I pack Harry’s old baby books into the loft for the next generation, it’s lovely to think that the family stories behind the storybooks themselves are captured and waiting to be rediscovered.

Other things… it’s been a snowy week here in Britain, with a huge blanket of snow falling thickly for several days. Nurseries and schools closed, fires were lit, and we took to the fields and hills to make the most of it. We decided to go to the local park (Windsor Great Park; home to the Queen and some stunning landscapes) just as dusk was falling, and we had the place to ourselves; it was indescribably beautiful..

We came across this couple, absorbed in the beauty of the winter landscape…

..and obviously in the early stages of a great romance…

We taught Harry the art of the snowball fight – something I’m sure we’ll regret before long – before heading home for crumpets, tea and to admire how beautiful everything looks in our snowy garden, including Harry’s new playhouse – a secondhand one which I spruced up with curtains, carpet and a weather vane; it was Harry’s 3rd birthday present and he’s very house-proud; even delivery men get invited in for a cup of tea and a story…

Rocket Man!

September 3, 2012 By Kate in Making, Paper Paper!, Reinvention & Renovation Tags: cardboard, cotton reels, crafting, diy, family, fun, Kids, play, projects, recycling, rocket, space, toys 9 Comments

Today the house is once again filled with swirling brick dust as our renovations continue, though it is eerily silent as the builders seem to have downed tools in search of sunshine, and have not been seen since Thursday. I’ve been forbidden from stepping in to finish the job, glue gun and apron in hand, so instead have turned my restless energies into creating…. a rocket!

Harry’s current passion is rockets and outer space, having discovered Wallace and Gromit and their adventures to the moon in search of cheese. With the challenge of only using items already around the house, I built this in a couple of hours and it has already been piloted on several missions (‘Let’s go whooshing Mummy! Put your seatbelt on and I will press the button!’). Making the rocket capsule was easy enough – I used an opened-out packing box from our recent move – but the domed roof gave me pause for thought. In the end, I used a fibre matting liner intended for the hanging baskets I never quite got around to planting this summer. Sprayed silver and with empty yoghurt pots glued on top it does the job just fine…

I cut out the viewing window by drawing round a plate and then using a craft knife. A polystyrene wreath ring makes a good porthole, especially when wrapped in scraps of brightly coloured paper. Cotton reels give a countdown to launch, and also provide the basis for an external control panel (below; I added one inside too for proper piloting of the craft after take-off…).

On the side of the rocket is this fuel cap and general gadget bar, made from old plastic lids and some stick-on alphabet letters

The captain needs a proper entrance, of course… Reels provide doorknobs on both sides, for pilot access and to firmly shut the door once inside, in case of aliens (or grown-ups). See how to make 3D stars like these here.

And finally our accessories; a spaceman lunch box (for cheese sandwiches and milk; the food of champions), a range of plastic tools in case of spacecraft malfunction – always possible when Mummy is the architect – and space goggles; this cardboard pair of 3D specs I saved from an old comic.

If you fancy making one of these yourself, come fly with us! Here’s a full list of what we used, though the beauty of these is there’s no ‘right’ way of doing it – use whatever you have to hand. A word on technique; I found that hot glue (from a glue gun) is the best way of ensuring everything stays in place, and craft knives – rather than scissors – are best for cutting corrugated cardboard like this without squashing and tearing it. Toys like this will take a battering if used to their fullest potential, so I’m armed with a big role of clear packing tape to add reinforcement and repairs when needed.

Like this project? If you’re a cardboard recycling fan, you might also like our cardboard train and our cardboard shop. And now you’ll have to excuse us; we need to prepare for a moon landing in 5… 4 … 3… 2….

How do you spell….

August 30, 2012 By Kate in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: clothes pegs, clothespins, crafting, families, fun, games, home schooling, Kids, letters, projects, spelling 14 Comments

One rainy day in early Summer, I spent an evening decorating plain wooden clothes pegs, intending to use them for a multitude of crafts, and wrote about it here. With a box of brightly coloured, perky pegs leftover, I was looking for ideas for how to use them and stumbled across this brilliant idea for creating a spelling game. As Harry is starting to recognise numbers, letters and enticing words (usually those relating to food or toys…), it seemed the perfect time to make him his own set of letters and words ready to practice his budding skills.

I decorated wooden pegs with scraps of gift wrap and washi tape, using double-sided tape to secure the gift wrap in place. I had a box of these wooden letters tucked away in my craft cupboard, but you could write the letters directly onto the pegs, or use rub on transfers instead. All you need to end up with is a set of pegs with different letters on. You can make an alphabet, but I found it was easier to start with the words themselves and work back to see what letters I’d need and how many of them – ‘m’s and ‘d’s come up a lot, whereas some other letters are hardly used at all.

I designed and printed out a couple of sheets with words I knew would be instantly recognisable to Harry and fun to spell. Because my wooden letters are all in capitals and I want Harry to recognise lower case too, I wrote the words out underneath so he can see how letters change in different settings.

I cut these up and laminated them by slipping several in a laminating sheet with space around them to cut between the words

Put them together with the pegs and hey-presto, you have a spelling game! I found a storage box to keep these in, and my intention is to keep adding longer and more interesting words as Harry’s skills improve. This is a great game to make because it can be as simple as using a pen to write letters on pegs, through to this more elaborate and decorative set – a lovely thing to make for a grandchild, perhaps, or for an older sibling to help you make for a younger one – not least because everyone can use a spelling refresher once in a while!

You’ve got mail!

August 2, 2012 By Kate in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: craft, crafting, envelope liners, Kids, paper, photographs, weddings 22 Comments

As a child, especially during school holidays when life seemed to move a little slower and distractions were fewer, I would feverishly anticipate the arrival of the daily post. At the rattling of the letterbox I would race, in the manner of a small eager dog (but with less drooling), to scoop up whatever lay on the mat, riffling through it eagerly. I probably only received letters about 3 times a year (birthdays, Christmastime, and an annual Child Savings Account update), but that didn’t stop me anticipating the kind of ill-defined thrills that only mail could bring. Possibly a national television network inviting me onto the Saturday night talent show, having scouted me covertly in the school play. Or maybe the Cadbury’s Chocolate Company announcing I had been selected at random to test all their new products, would I mind? It was a triumph of optimism over experience, but my enthusiasm didn’t dim for many years, lasting probably until around the time that the Student Loan Company began writing to me with some frequency about our longstanding and very one-sided relationship.

In a world where the daily post tends to simply bring brown envelopes and bills, with the loveliest messages and news often coming via Email, Harry and I have taken it upon ourselves this week to briefly reignite the joy of a letter, and have set about making a series of jolly envelope liners to slip inside otherwise plain envelopes, as a breakfast-time surprise to our unsuspecting relatives. It seemed like a fun accompaniment to the mailing of a periodic pack of family summer photos, but it also works really well for events where you’re making homemade invites or announcements – I’ve printed a couple of my favourite wedding photos to add to envelopes to send to Mr B. at some point (we do live together, I hasten to add; I shall have to leave them romantically on his pillow and hope that Harry doesn’t jump on them first…). Ideas and simple tutorial below for making your own template.

Head-shots shout a real ‘hello!” when the envelope is opened, but busier pics too can look very effective, like this one of us sheltering from a classic English summer

This retro shot of Harry at 6 months discovering one of life’s great pleasures – food – is one of my all-time faves

Play around with envelope colour once you’ve chosen your photo; white envelopes frame photos well but brightly coloured tonal ones like this can make them look even more vibrant

These two liners (above and below) were made from simple b&w photocopies of our wedding photos, but still look good. I edged the one above with washi tape (from Cavallini). The one below will bring a tear to my husband’s eye upon opening; of laughter, that is, as he recalls dropping me moments after this shot was taken…

Making an envelope liner template:

Choose a sheet of thin perspex or vellum and lay it over the top of the envelope you want to use. Draw around the outline of the envelope flap, about 1cm inside the flap itself (follow the lower line of the gummed edge for this; you want to leave this clear when you add your insert). Make sure the bottom edge of the perspex goes at least an inch below the bottom of the lowest point of the envelope (A), and then draw a dotted line where the edge of the envelope runs (B); this will be really useful when lining up your photos later and choosing where to position them.

Cut around the outside of your shape; voila, you now have a reusable template which you can position over photos. Slip it inside your envelope to check it fits properly, then let’s begin! Choose the photos you want to use, and make a rough printout first in draft or greyscale, to help with sizing. Place your template over the top to work out what you’ll see when you crop and use the photo, and what details you’ll lose; I had a great photo of Harry eating an ice-cream, but the ice-cream itself was lost in the final crop and it just looked very peculiar.

Print out your final photo onto high-quality inkjet paper (don’t use photo paper; it will crack or fold badly when you seal the envelope shut), then place your template over, draw around it in pencil and cut out. Slip into the envelope and apply use a gluestick to apply adhesive to the triangular section; stick it to the inner flap (you don’t need to stick the bottom half of the insert down; it’ll stay flat). Score lightly across the fold and ta-da!! you have a very cool envelope liner. If you’re making lots of these, use a colour photocopier to make copies – the quality might be slightly less good but no-one’s going to notice that. Now you just need to work out what you’re going to put in them…..

Keepers of the Flame!

July 5, 2012 By Kate in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: crafting, design, fabric paint, family, home, olympic craft, olympic rings, olympic torch, olympics, preschool, projects, role play 18 Comments

With less than 4 weeks to go until the Olympic Games begin, the torch is weaving its merry way towards the stadium here in London. 8000 torchbearers are helping to transport it along its journey, and having been inexplicably overlooked by the selection committee, Harry and I have decided to take matters into our own hands and create our very own Olympic outfit and torch, ready for a ceremonial lap of the back garden….

For the Olympic tee you’ll need….

1. A plain white cotton tee shirt or vest, 2. Fabric paints in red, green, black, yellow and blue, 3. Ring-shaped objects for stamping; we used Play-Doh lids, but toilet rolls work well too, though they produce thinner rings. Have a quick look in the kitchen cupboards and you’ll find all sorts of likely candidates! 4. Paintbrushes, to daub paint on your lids for a neat finish, and to fill in any gaps after stamping. Finally, a piece of card to place inside the shirt to keep the fabric flat and in position, and to stop paint leaking through to the back of the shirt. Oh, and wet wipes. A mountain of them, if your toddler is as frisky as mine. Now you’re ready….

When you’ve finished, fill in any gaps with a dab of paint, using your paintbrush, then leave to dry before fixing the fabric paint according to the manufacturer’s instructions (usually a quick iron under a protective piece of fabric) …and admire your handiwork!

For the Olympic torch you’ll need…

1. A sheet of gold card, any size you like, 2. A variety of brightly coloured tissue paper sheets 3. Paper fasteners or double-sided tape to hold your torch in place. Simply cut out flame shapes from your tissue, twist them together and fluff them out, then tape to hold in place. Roll your card into a cone shape and stick or hold with paper fasteners (I found these best as my sparkly card caused the tape to give up quickly). Put a dab of glue or piece of tape on the bottom of your flame bouquet and push it down into your cone – voila!

This would be a great crafting project to do with older children, who possess the hand-eye co-ordination to have a good shot at positioning the rings in roughly the right place. Whilst I made this vest and tee for Harry, he experimented flamboyantly with his own Olympic ring design using finger paints and toilet rolls, proving that there’s an Olympic craft for everyone. I expect his hands and face will still be stained lightly red,yellow,blue and green by the time the Opening Ceremony commences…

Outside in.

June 21, 2012 By Kate in Green Fingers, Homing Instinct, Reinvention & Renovation Tags: bedside table, cole and son, crafting, decor, diy, interiors, kids bedrooms, log, log table, making, tree trunks, wood 14 Comments

As we restore our crumbling, ancient home I’m continually drawn to natural materials and a muted palette, be it the newly laid wooden floors, the kiln-dried accent logs we’ve stacked high around our wood-burning stove, or the stone fireplaces we’ve sourced from reclamation yards. I recently papered Harry’s room in this beautiful winter Woods wallpaper from Cole & Son, aiming to create the aura of a nighttime forest, with a soft canopy of fairy lights. This week’s project was to create a tree stump bedside table (finished article above) on which toys, storybooks and a glass of water can perch whilst he sleeps.

Image courtesy of Cole & Son

To make the table I ventured down to the log pile at the end of our garden, home to every invertebrate known to man (including – mortifyingly – some which jump…) I’d love to boast that I fearlessly hefted a few likely logs into my wagon and strolled casually back, but in truth I wimped out and rustled up my husband to do the dirty work whilst I mutely pointed at the logs I wanted with a trembling finger, from the safety of the patio.

I chose a couple of level, even logs and let them dry out in the sunshine for a couple of days before chipping off loose bark and sanding until smooth. This latter stage sounds deceptively swift; in reality it’s relentless and dull and likely to cause your arm to go numb and induce temporary deafness. Still, it’s worth it (sort of). Once your log is really smooth, the final stage was to wax it; I mixed up 3 parts natural liquid wax (wood oil will work fine) to 1 part white emulsion, and applied two coats to give it this soft warm glow.

So now my first log project is complete and has pride of place by Harry’s bed, and his room is almost complete. The memory of the spiders, sanding, paint fumes and the sheer weight of the finished table as I dragged it upstairs are rapidly beginning to fade, and I’m already pondering what to attempt next… here are 3 gorgeous projects from elsewhere around the web which caught my eye; hmmm, which to choose?

Log pencil holder from strawberrychic.com

amazing log sofa from dornob.com

Log candles from etsy.com

Harry’s Ark

May 31, 2012 By Kate in Making, Reinvention & Renovation Tags: animals, crafting, diy, heirlooms, Kids, noahs ark, nursery, parenting, projects, toys 25 Comments

Most of the projects I do for and with Harry take minutes or hours; we are notoriously distractible and not genetically completer-finishers. Not at all. This one however was a monster; it began when Harry was just a few days old, and was finished a year later – at last, Harry’s Ark (with apologies to Noah) is ready for the rains to come!

In the early, fuzzy days of new motherhood I decided I wanted to make Harry a toy that he could play with over a number of years, that would look good even when it was retired to the playroom shelf, and maybe, just maybe, might become a family heirloom and entertain others in the future. I must have been mad; let’s blame the raging hormones and sleeplessness.

I settled on the idea of a Noah’s Ark, as a sort of boy’s equivalent to a Dolls House. My creativity may be strong but my woodworking skills are not, so I searched Ebay for old model boats or half-built and abandoned projects that I could makeover. I found the base for Harry’s Ark this way; a beautifully shaped, nearly complete hull of a boat that was discovered in someone’s late grandfather’s workshop. This gave an added poignancy to the project and I like to think he’d have been pleased to see it finished and put to use. I built the body of the ark using random doll house components bought online (pillars, doors and windows) and balsa wood for the walls and pitched roof. Miniature cedar shingles glued to the balsa create a folk-art style roof, and I used malleable stained glass leading for the roof top and edges.

I added eye-hooks along the hull and threaded a waxed washing line and curtain rings to give the impression of buoyancy aids (amazing what you can repurpose!). A cheap ladder from the pet store intended for budgerigar cages provided the perfect ramp for animals to board the ark. Stitched scraps of hessian filled with rice make good food bags / sandbags, and join straw bales and barrels to make a collection of props for Harry to use when playing. Harry helped me to gather tiny twigs through the winter, which I chopped and glued to fill the roof cavity and add a decorative top to the ark walls. I nailed a tiny model dovecote to the roof and added miniature birds and a weathervane (the forecast of course is always rain but you never know…).

I was determined that this should be a properly usable toy and not an ornament, so designed it to come apart into several pieces (above). When Harry was tiny he played with the base alone, then I mounted it onto castors and added a rope so he could pull it around. Now that he is 2 and more dextrous, he marches the animals in and out of the ark and positions them along the roof, slams the doors and zooms them up and down the ladder laden with buckets and miniature carrots and grain sacks. Being a boy, many animals regularly plunge to their doom in the sea, and the emergency services are frequently required to rescue lost dogs and sheep. Not very biblical perhaps, but great fun nonetheless.

We bought a few pairs of Schleich animals to start him off, which cost a couple of pounds each; I thought that in time this would be a good pocket-money investment, with Harry able to add new animals one (or maybe two) at a time, and find the odd one in his Christmas stocking. With that in mind, I customised an Ikea box using transfer paper, so we can document and then store each new arrival….

The ark is still a work in progress, and I suspect always will be; bits occasionally drop off after vigorous play, but more often additions are requested and made; our next project is a feeding trough and some nets to trawl the ocean; I’m thinking fishnet stockings might be the obvious candidate for recycling here but am pretty sure I don’t have any lying around (not these days, at least…)

What was your best-loved toy as a child, and has it survived? I give our ark a 50:50 chance of longterm survival, but actually it doesn’t really matter – sometimes the very best toys get loved to death and destruction, and that surely should be seen as a sign of their success..

Champagne on Ice, Dinner at 8…

March 25, 2012 By Kate in Homing Instinct, Making, Paper Paper! Tags: crafting, decor, dinner, family, friends, fun, lifestyle, paper craft, placemats, style, vintage 10 Comments

Some friends you just know are going to be in your lives for the long run, and our former neighbours fall firmly into that category. In the space of just a couple of years we’ve camped out in each others’ kitchens, set the world to rights more times than I care to remember, celebrated some of life’s great milestones and donned a myriad of fancy dress costumes whilst sinking an inordinate number of bottles of wine – all the usual stuff that bonds you and transcends the superficial differences in age and life stage. So it was a no brainer that they’d be the first people invited to dinner the moment the new cooker was connected, and last weekend we celebrated in style.

Of course, anyone who has ever had a new kitchen fitted will immediately recognise my amateur error above, namely to throw a dinner party without having even idly flicked through the 368 page cooker manual beforehand, and indeed such a laissez-faire attitude was foolhardy to say the least. The food was certainly eye-watering, but not alas because of its grandeur and finesse but because of the smoke which billowed from the oven and created an atmospheric if throat-constricting backdrop to the evening.

Still, the champagne helped, and the table decor distracted – I made these personalised placemats earlier in the day using a basic graphics programme and some vintage cutlery clipart, before adding a touch of silver leaf to the knife and fork to catch the light from the candles on the table. Stencilling the initials of our friends on these slate tags below with a chalk pen made for unique (and wipe-clean) napkin rings, into which I tucked a sprig of rosemary for a flash of colour and a hint of barely discernible scent. Tips and techniques below…

For the placemats (I used Powerpoint, but adapt these guidelines for your chosen programme)….

Draw a simple coloured square for your background colour, and choose font colour
I googled an online dictionary and copied the phonetic layout and invented appropriate descriptors for each guest
Either paste your clip-art directly onto the backdrop or carefully print, clip and paste on to each
I printed these onto UK A3 sized paper – using recycled paper gave a great matte finish, but normal copy paper would work fine
Rub the clip-art image lightly with low-tack glue (I used Pritt-Stick) and brush on a little silver leaf, using a dry brush to remove any excess.
Save the template – you can use it infinitely and just change names and descriptors each time – ta da!

Ahoy there M’hearties!

March 16, 2012 By Kate in Homing Instinct, Making Tags: crafting, decal, dress up, Kids, making, pirate chest, play, storage, toys 5 Comments

They say that marriage brings many surprises, and this is certainly true. When my boyfriend – now husband – and I first moved in together, he arrived with a pile of classic bloke stuff (flat screen TV, huge bag of sports kit, very little else), but also a large, scuffed box marked ‘fancy dress’. This he explained, quickly, was full of kit worn for various ‘work dos’ at which he had been required to play the role of Spice Girl, Madonna etc – always female, for some baffling reason which we won’t dwell on. I mentally assigned this discovery to the category ‘things to reflect on but not be unduly concerned about’, and forgot about it. He remains the only grown-man I know of who has his own dressing-up box. It pains him slightly that, as a sign of his growing maturity, this now contains a Santa Suit, the role he is most often called on to play at festive nursery events.

Watching 2yr old Harry waft round the kitchen recently in a carefully curated outfit of jeans, dressing gown, sunglasses and bike helmet, brandishing a play sword, I realised that genetics has once again leapt to the fore, and that perhaps each man in the household now needs his own dressing-up box.

I customised this old blanket box (ebay, £30) to produce a pirate chest befitting a mini-adventurer; I wanted to avoid paying a fortune for the the standard high street primary-coloured options, and also to make something more personal. I have visions of this being consigned to the loft for Harry’s teenage/early-adulthood before being whipped out dramatically to impress his own children ‘You were a pirate, Daddy???’ ….but I am of course getting way ahead of myself here. Tips and techniques below…

Once you’ve found a chest or box to customise, you’ll need some or all of the materials below:

1. Decide on what text you want to add to the front of the chest and print to your decal paper, following the manufacturers instructions; I used Lazertran, which requires a shallow water bath to release the paper from its backing.

2. Mark lightly in pencil where you want the lathering to appear and then apply; with Lazertran I brushed the surface area lightly with turpentine before applying each letter and coating again; this ‘melts’ away all the Lazertran without ink, so the great thing is you don’t need to worry about cutting out accurately and can leave some border to your letters before you apply

3. I then added giant upholstery tacks to all the metalwork to look like ancient studs, by snipping off the pins and then glueing the tack head to the chest.

4. Papering the inside was a case of trial and error, and errors were a-plenty; I used watered down PVA to coat liberally my maps and then pasted to the sides and lid of the box. Where possible, I tried the align the map parts together to recreate the whole, but I didn’t slave over this.

5. I’m still on the look out for a suitable buckle or clasp for the front to finish it off – as with all my projects, it will probably continue to evolve for a little while…

p.s. I’ve just been asked how to make the scroll in the second photo, so here goes…

Print your text onto a standard sheet of paper, wait 10 mins for the ink to completely dry out
Take it outside and hold a lighter against the paper to brown the edges, blowing out as soon as it catches light
For this bit, have a pail of water to hand, tie hair back, check wind direction; really, just the obvious stuff…
Rub a squeezed-out tea bag all along the edges to create an aged effect. Dab it across the rest of the paper for tonal colour.
If you want your scroll to lie flat, cover the damp paper with a tea towel and a heavy book until dry
When dry, curl the top and bottom round a paintbrush or pencil to create a scroll effect.
Admire your efforts.

A kitchen for the Mini-Gourmand

March 1, 2012 By Kate in Making, Reinvention & Renovation Tags: Baking, crafting, Kids, play kitchen, toys 28 Comments

It was when we were raising a glass to the completion of our new kitchen that we belatedly noticed Harry stalking around stroking the cupboards and muttering gleefully ‘My new kitchen! What is in my cupboards? I cook now!’

Never one to miss an opportunity to raise an enlightened metrosexual, it seemed an opportune time to focus on completing the toy play kitchen I’ve been making out of bits and bobs in the garage, but which has fallen off the priority list since our house move.

I bought a dresser top from Ebay (a bargain at £12) and painted it with leftover cream Eggshell, then raided the local Poundsaver store for accessories; the sink (lasagne dish), cups, utensils and bread board all cost less than £1, which is just as well as their life expectancy is already in jeopardy after some flamboyant, Heston-style dramatic gestures from the toddler chef de cuisine. The recycled taps and knobs were procured during a visit to the local dump after I wrestled them off an unwanted sink and cupboard, with the wrench and screwdriver I tend to carry in my handbag (ex-Girl Guides are always prepared…).

Harry may be a dab hand in the kitchen, but he is still inevitably a small boy, so guests; be warned that top of the menu is Slug Soup and Worm Sandwiches. At least you know he’ll have pretended to wash his hands before dishing up…

The finished play kitchen, complete with accessories…and the original Ebay find (below)