Flower Power
I was recently sent a lovely flower pressing kit by my buddies at BigJigs to review. As an expert flower grower I had plenty of choice of pretty flowers to pick in the garden and see how they looked once they pressed. Read on to see what I thought of the flower press and what you can make from your pressed flowers…
A pressed cirsium looks like a funny moustache!
The kit from BigJigs is made of a lovely wood with some pretty flowers and bugs painted on the front of it. It comes with some cardboard pieces inside to help you do your flower pressing, just add some parchment paper in between the cardboard and the flowers.
The BigJigs flower press kit
First you need to cut some flowers. You may need to ask a grown up to help you with bit, partly because they may not want you cutting off their prized roses but also because scissors and secateurs can be dangerous if you are not an expert like me!
Be careful with those snippy snips!
Once you have chosen a selection of flowers, lay them out on your cardboard pieces ready to be pressed.
Lay your flowers out in your flower press
Next you need to tighten the screws really tightly and leave them to flatten – I left them overnight.
Tighten those screws really really tight!
The next morning I had some really pretty, really flat flowers to see!
Opening the kit the next morning was really exciting!
I decided I would like to make them into a bookmark so I chose a piece of card and then glued my flowers on to them.
My squished flowers looked really pretty!
Other ideas include making cards, decorate the front of a notebook, make pretty gift tags or just make a lovely picture.
I made a pretty bookmark with my pressed flowers
It was a lovely thing to do during the summer holidays and a great way to preserve your pretty flowers. You can of course just use a large, heavy book to do your flower pressing but the kit is really handy, can be used again and again and is not expensive.
The flower pressing kit is available from BigJigs for £5.49.*
Happy pressing!
Lulu x
*Price correct at time of publication
19 Great Ideas for Summer Fun in the Garden
The summer holidays are stretching hazily out far in front of us. There’s no school (nursery) for weeks and weeks. There will be late nights and long lies. Playing with friends. Days out. Picnics. Now, I don’t want to be hearing any murmurs of “Muuuuuuuuum, I’m bored”. The garden is your oyster and I have loads of cool things for you to do outdoors this summer….
Have fun in the garden this summer
Stargaze at night…
With no school to get up for the next morning you have the perfect excuse to stay up late and look at stars on a clear night. You could maybe persuade an adult to camp in the garden with you one night too…
Quoit a lot of fun…
Quoit a lot of fun!
Garden treasure hunt…
This is a great game you can ask a grown up to make so that you and your friends can play at being detectives in the garden. They just need to take photos of some plants and features in the garden and print them on some paper so you can see if you can find them. See if you can remember the plant names too.
Set up your own garden band
Shake, rattle and roll!
Open air theatre
Try some open air theatre… Drag the dressing up box outside and put on a show. Who knows, next summer you could be putting on a Fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival!
Have a Snail Race…
We have plenty of snails which we can race!
Make a miniature garden…
Find some fairy gifts…
Anyone for croquet…
Anyone for croquet?
Make magic potions…
Blow bubbles…
Flower pressing…
Flower pressing is great fun
Make a sand pit…
Play a game of skittles…
Cute skittles are great fun
Start a garden journal…
Make a garden crown…
Chief Lulu and her magic crown!
We’re going on a bear hunt…
I’m not scared! Well I’m definitely not scared of the cute bears we look for in our bear hunt anyway! Ask a grown up to hide a selection of your toy bears all around the garden so that you and your friends can hunt for them. Watch out for the thick oozy mud!
Make a den
Make a den from a clothes line, pegs and sheet and set up your own camp site. Make sure you set strict rules as to who can enter your den of course!
Crazy about golf
You don’t need to have a lawn like a fairway to enjoy some golf at home. Tilda and I love this crazy golf set for hours of fun in the garden! (£24.99*)
You don’t have to be crazy to play crazy golf. But it helps!
So there’s absolutely no excuse to be bored now these school holidays. Now, get outside and build a den…
We’re Going On A Bug Hunt
This week is National Insect Week so there is NO better time to get outdoors and go on a bug hunt. Not sure where to start? Well, read on to find out how to go bug hunting and some great kit to use…
A bug hotel, there’s got to be LOTS of bugs living here!
What you need:
- A clear container to pop your bugs into for a closer look
- A net to catch some flying bugs
- A spoon to help dig for bugs and a brush to gently get them into your jar
- A magnifying glass
- A notepad and pen to help keep note of what you have found
My lil sis Tilda loves to go bug hunting too!
Where should you go?:
Bugs can be found pretty much anywhere. Have a look in your own garden and you will find all sorts of things from butterflies to beetles, lacewings to ladybirds, slaters to snails. Head off to your local woods to see if you can find something different lurking deep inside. Or I LOVE to visit Jupiter Urban Wildlife Centre which is great for bug hunting and pond dipping.
A brush can help you gently get a bug into your jar to look at
What to do…
Well, remember to be quiet and gentle when you are bug hunting so you don’t scare any bugs. Also, be careful where you are going so you don’t get stung by any plants or bugs. Under stones and old logs are great hiding places, look under leaves of plants and in their flowerheads and have a dig in some soil.
Look under old logs for bugs
Things to think about…
- What colour is it?
- What size is it? Is it as big as a coin?
- How quickly does it move around?
A magnifying pot is perfect for a closer peak
- What do you think it likes to eat?
- Does it have wings?
- What sort of creature is it?
- And what is its name? I like Leia the Ladybird.
Nets are great for helping catch flying bugs like butterflies
Consider making a home for some of the bugs you find. Bug hotels are great fun to make with lots of materials you will probably have lying about the garden.
You can do a lot of bug hunting using old spoons and containers from your kitchen (remember to ask your parents before you start digging in the soil with their best silverware!)
Remember to takes notes and draw pictures of what you find
My favourite items to go bug hunting with are from Big Jigs Toys:
Magnifying Glass, £8.49*, perfect for taking a closer look at all those bugs
Magnifying Pot*, £3.99, A great way to keep bugs safe while you have a good look
Bug Net*, £7.99, great for catching flying creatures like butterflies
Bug Box*, £5.99, perfect for looking closely at those flying creatures
If you are interested in reading more about bugs then visit our other blogs:
Happy bug hunting everyone!
Lulu xx
*Price correct at time of publication
Grass-ias
We all want the perfect lawn in our gardens. A lovely, flat, weed-free, green space for playing and lounging on. But it isn’t very easy to achieve with all the weeds flying about and our wet weather and heavy soils. But, to help you get closer to that dream, I have collated my top tips for a lovely lawn this summer..
Lulu loves lounging on a lovely lawn!
Scarify your lawn
You can add a moss killer to your lawn but you don’t need to. Just use your muscles and a good garden rake to get the moss out of your lawn. I used my Twigz rake which was perfect for the job (£8.99*)
You need good muscles to rake up your moss
You can put the moss into your compost bin. My Twigz wheelbarrow is incredibly sturdy and perfect for this job (£49.99*)
Collect your moss and put it on your compost bin
Weed Your Lawn
Lawn weeds can be a real pain. You can buy weedkiller to put on the lawn or you can use old fashioned muscle and dig up the offenders! Regular weeding is key so they don’t take over and leave no space for the grass to grow.
Tackle those weeds using a trowel and some muscles
Aerate your soil
If you have a heavy soil and a compacted lawn it makes it hard for the grass to grow well and thatch starts to build up. You can buy special tools to aerate your lawn or you can just use a garden fork to create the holes.
Tilda is an expert at aerating lawns!
Add a top dressing
You can add sand if you have clay soil or just a lawn improver to your lawn which will go into the holes you have made and improve the soil making the grass grow better. Use a brush like the Twigz garden broom (£8.99*) to spread the lawn improver around. You can add some grass seed to bare areas while you do this and some fertiliser too to give your grass a wee helping hand.
Brush your top dressing into the holes
Cut your grass
It’s always tempting to cut your grass very short to make it nice and neat but it’s not good for your lawn. Raise the level of your lawnmower and just give it a gentle trim or it will look bare and weeds will thrive instead of the grass. Little and often is the secret. How cute is this Flying Bee Lawnmower from Bigjigs? I love using it on my lawn and Tilda loves the bee which flies off into the air. (£32.99*)
Don’t set your lawn mower too low when you cut your grass
Grass-ias! If all that seems like a bit too much hard work and you would rather just lie back and enjoy your garden while others did the work for you then contact us to arrange a quote for us to do your lawn treatments and grass cutting for you!
Lulu xx
*Prices correct at time of publication
Sow Sow Yummy!
The sun is shining (or at least it was when I wrote this, it is probably snowing now knowing Scotland!) so it’s the perfect time to sow vegetables in the garden. Don’t know what to do? Well, lucky I am here to show you how and to tell you about some wonderful tools I used along the way…
Soon you could have a barrow full of amazing leeks just like mine!
WEED YOUR VEG PATCH
It’s important that you have a weed free veg patch and that you have good quality soil. Add some new compost or fertiliser if you need to.
Weed your veg beds before you start sowing your seeds
PREPARE YOUR BED
Once you are weed free, take a few minutes to make sure your veg beds are nice and flat and even. It’s a bit like making your bed in the morning, you have to make it nice and neat and ready for bedtime! I used my Twigz rake, perfect for this job. Maybe not so much in your real bed though!
Rake out your veg beds and make the nice and even
MAKE A DRILL
Not the tool kind silly! It’s a little line in the soil where you can sow your seeds into. Use a cane to help make sure your row is nice and straight.
Make a row to sow your seeds into
SOW YOUR SEEDS
Carefully pour some seeds into your hand and sprinkle them into your row, making sure they are evenly sown. Gently cover them over and water them in. If you are sowing seed potatoes or onion sets, gently push them into the soil to the depth stated on the instructions.
This ickle onion will grow nice & big, just like me!
KNOW YOUR ONIONS
It’s important to remember what you have planted where – you don’t want to be making chips out of your shallots – so make sure you carefully write your vegetable names on a plant marker. I like to draw a picture too – here’s my rocket!!
Zoom zoom, a rocket!
Now you just need to sit back and watch your seedlings pop up. You will need to “thin them” which means removing some of the smaller seedlings and give some bigger ones space to grow. Keep your seedlings water and weed free and before you know it you will be picking fresh veg straight from your garden.
TOOLS
Good tools are the back bone of any good gardener and I have found some wonderful ones to use in my garden. To do all of the above I used:
- Twigz tool set (to weed and mark out my drills) £19.99*
- Twigz rake (to make sure the veg beds were nice and flat) £8.99*
- Twigz watering can (to water all my lovely wee seeds in with) £10.99*
- Twigz wheelbarrow (to barrow away last year’s leeks I dug up!) £49.99*
Twigz do a wonderful range of garden tools for children
I thoroughly recommend the Twigz range of gardening tools for kids. They are great quality and can even last the rigours of a professional like me! They are a little pricier than some alternatives but the quality and durability makes it worth it. They get a big green thumbs up from me!
For more seed sowing inspiration read my other blog Sowing The Seeds of Love.
Love Lulu xx
*Price correct at time of publication
Product Review: Twigz
As you all know I have very green fingers (and not just when I have been painting!) I love trying out the latest plants, products and books on the market and telling you what’s worth buying. Recently I have been trying out a range of garden tools aimed at cool kids like me. Here’s what I think of them…
Twigz do a wonderful range of garden tools for children
I was sent a colourful range of products as you can see from the pic I took above in my own sunny garden. There are certain requirement for children’s gardening tools – here’s what I look for:
- Good quality. The tools need to be properly robust if they are going to survive the hard work us mini gardeners put them through.
- Good fit. Extra thought needs to be given to make sure the products fit children, are the right dimensions, feel comfortable etc.
- Look good. We may be gardeners but that doesn’t mean we look any less cool when we are out in the veg patch!
Metal Bucket
Watering Can
Hand Tools
Mini Greenhouse
Gardening Gloves
