Home made icy poles & Freezer Pods

One of the biggest sellers at the Perth Baby Expo last year for me was the Freezer Pods.  These nifty silicon food storage solutions weren’t around when my kids were bubs just learning to eat but the other week I decided to use them to make home made icy poles.

I don’t know if you’ve looked closely at the ingredients of icy poles that come out of a box from the supermarket but they generally have more numbers than my bank balance!  So to avoid all the colours and additives we make our own.  It is so easy and the kids love to help make them.

I don’t have a recipe that I follow, I just kind of mix a few “icy pole” ingredients together until they look about right and then freeze them!  They are “fly by the seat of your pants” icy poles!

I generally include whatever fruit we have at home or the girls would like to use but the standards are any type of berry and mango is also great too.  Then add about a tablespoon of honey, some yoghurt, coconut milk or coconut cream and a frozen banana.  Whizz all the ingredients together in a food processor, pour into the moulds, add popsticks and freeze.

Do you make home made icy poles?  Do you have a favourite recipe?

The Freezer Pods can be found here on the website and retail for $19.95 each.  They can be used for more than just pureed baby food!

Perth Baby Expo 2011

So 2011 wasn’t my best blogging year(!) and I never got around to blogging about a few major events during the year.  The first being the Perth Baby Expo.  Thought I’d share a few photos of it with you.

I met some lovely eco-parents and eco-bubs at the expo!  Definitely the biggest seller was the Freezer Pods.  Could hardly keep them in stock!

A huge thanks to my family and friends for all your help getting organised, the set up and helping at the expo for the 3 days

School Memories and Decluttering

I don’t know about you but after school finished for the year my daughter came home with a truckload of work books and artwork.  I put it in the corner of the family room and there it stayed until this week.

Coming from an admin background I like to be organised and the lack of organisation when it came to school work has been slowly driving me insane for about 4 years!  So, I decided enough was enough and came up with a revolutionary idea about what to do with it all.  I filed it!  Yep, that age old organisation strategy that I have spent the last “almost” 20 years doing in my other jobs got a workout today.

I bought both the girls a lever arch file and some dividers and labelled a divider for each year.  Then I pulled out all the artwork, books, school photos, reports and merit certificates and put them into piles for each year.

Once I had them all organised into piles I started at “Kindy” and filed the school photo, reports and merit certificates.  At the end of the section I chose a few pieces of art and anything cute or funny that they have written.

Once we had finished I pretty much threw the rest in the recycling bin.  As much as I’d love to keep everything my kids do this year is about decluttering so I had to be ruthless.  All the good art has been saved and filed, the rest has gone to be recycled.  Other ideas of what to do with your children’s art/craft is to use it for wrapping paper, have some special ones framed and use them as real artwork on your walls, take photos or scan them and file them away electronically.

Have you done anything special with your children’s art?  Got a fab idea with what to do with the growing pile of art work in your house?  Let me know!

Twenty-Twelve!

A new year…a fresh beginning.  I love the whole new year process.  A new start, a renewed enthusiasm about being healthy(!), plans being made for the next 12 months.  I don’t really do new years resolutions but rather try to come up with a few things that I’d like to achieve and if I don’t…well, no biggie!

Here are some of mine for 2012, both work and personal.

1  Eat well and healthy

2  Blog once a week!

3  Learn to crochet

4  Make our plans of moving to the country a reality (eek!)

5  Keep up the running and going to yoga

6  Get newsletters out on a semi-regular basis (like more than once every 6 months!)

7 Declutter and simplify

Happy new year!

Chunky Chooky

chunkychooky specialises in unique eco friendly softies, rattles and childrens toys made from organic cotton/hemp and remnants/offcuts from local Australian designers.  The rattles have a very loud rattle inside for a little baby to shake, and a lovely wooden handle to suck and chew on.  The eyes are made from eco felt (recycled from plastic bottles) and the softie is stuffed with organic cotton batting that has been hand shredded.

chunkychooky was born in 2007, when, not content to gaze at the baby for the whole 12 months of maternity leave, Cath began to sew again.

She is vertically gifted, opinionated, does not suffer fools and can often be found drinking tea and trying to convert un-crafty friends into crafty lovers…She loves to blog and walk in the forest.

Cath lives on some acres on the edge of a little town called Bellingen, Australia. She lives with her daughter and husband and their large black dog. They have a a really bad driveway, a composting toilet and a big vegie garden.

Her super cute rattles are now available here.

Perth Pregnancy, Baby and Children’s Expo – August 2011

Well, I’ll be back at the Perth Pregnancy, Baby and Children’s Expo this year with a bigger stand, more products and hopefully more organised!!!

Some of my suppliers have put together some awesome expo discounts so make sure you visit to see what is on offer.  I’m really excited about being there this year and am hoping to meet lots of eco-mummas!!!

Tetra Tea Tree Organic Snuggle Bed

The Tetra Tea Tree Organic Snuggle Bed enables your tiny newborn or young baby to go straight into a cot without entirely losing the intimacy of the womb from where they have spent 9 formative months. It has become a popular choice instead of baskets and cradles.

The Tetra Tea Tree Organic Snuggle Bed is lightweight and can be placed on any flat, safe surface so that mum or dad can take baby from room-to-room or house-to-house and at every destination provide baby with its own familiar sleeping environment.  Tetra Tea Tree know from 20 years of feedback of our classic Snuggle Bed that this all means baby settles faster and sleeps more soundly, the holy grail for parents of newborns.

Each Tetra Tea Tree Organic Snuggle Bed base and sides are filled with natural Tetra Tea Tree Flakes on which baby can sleep soundly. They are made with 100% certified organic cotton and have a velcro access point for easy removal and cleaning (additional covers may be purchased separately).

Tetra Tea Tree is naturally breathable, anti-allergy, anti-bacterial, cool in summer and warm in winter.  It is made with 100% certified organic cotton and is 100% biodegradable.  The tea tree is sustainably sourced from wild harvest and made with chemical-free manufacturing.  The organic Snuggle Bed comes in chloride free re-usable packaging and is made locally which means lower transport miles.

Priced at $176 and found here.

Fremantle Children’s Fiesta

Fremantle Children’s Fiesta

Sunday 7 November

10am – 3pm

Samson Park in Samson

Cnr McCombe Ave and Sellenger Ave, Samson

The Children’s Fiesta is a world of family fun in the idyllic bushland surrounds of Samson Park. This year we will see Erth’s Dinosaur Petting Zoo thrilling children and adults alike at 10:30, 12:00 and 1:30. This is a must see prehistoric event and not to be missed!

The Kids Clothing Swap will be taking place at 12:30. To be involved all you have to do is bring along three items of clean children’s clothing and hand them in to …our volunteers in the morning who will arrange them on racks. Go off and get yourself a well earned Frosty Fruit and come back at 12:30 to swap, swap, swap for some fresh threads. All unswapped clothes at the end of the day will be donated to the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.

The main stage will be graced by The Joy’s of the Women, who will be celebrating their 20th anniversary. This Italian choir hope to inspire a feeling of togetherness through traditional Italian folk songs. Los Trios and the Foggy Memory Boys will be bringing their banjos and fiddles to add a little swampiness for our tadpoles and the Commedia Academy will be performing their hilarious modern retelling of a medieval story of a smelly prince and his quest to find a magical fruit.

WA Circus School will astound you with their performance and will be teaching you the tricks of the trade. The String Beans and Fremantle Children’s Choir will be showcasing their prodigious talents and Kakarook are bringing their contemporary Indigenous dance moves along.

In addition Buster the Fun Bus will be rumbling in with the Fremantle City Library’s Toy Library, a bouncy castle, a climbing wall, a lightning carnival, guided bush walks, stalls, fundraisers and are you tired yet? At the end of the day you will be but in the very best way.

So come along and bring your sun hats and learn about the wonders of our unique environment and how we can care for it in this free family day.

A percent of proceeds from sales made on the day at my stall will be donated to Transform Cambodia

Get Ready for Summer!

Skincare

Hydrate

Summer Reading

Beach

Reduce ~ Reuse ~ Recycle

Mums

Bubs

Kids