Jen Walshaw | Mum In The Madhouse

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Author name: Jen Walshaw

Mum-in-charge Jen Walshaw runs the UK’s top parenting blog Mum in the Madhouse, and she describes herself as a “fat, feisty and over 50” Northerner. Based in North Yorkshire, she’s mum to young adults and a big believer that family life is messy, creative and fun. In 2009 a double mastectomy gave her the nudge to start blogging; with two boys under three she needed an outlet and a digital scrapbook to capture their chaos.Jen’s posts are a mix of crafts, kid‑friendly recipes and honest parenting, peppered with northern humour. She’s happiest when up to her elbows in tea, fabric and pizza dough – sewing and making homemade gifts – before sneaking off to write about it. As a proud Northerner she warns PRs that a “quick pop down to London” isn’t quick at all. Her blog has earned her a stack of accolades, including the Cision #1 Mummy Blogger title in 2024  and consistently topping Vuelio and Tots100 parenting‑blog charts. Whether she’s advocating for diversity and body neutrality or sharing tales of parenting teens, Jen keeps things chatty, real and refreshingly down‑to‑earth.

Affordable gifts that are Heaven Sent

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There is a real trend for shabby chic at the moment and although it is not my style, there are some aspect of it I love. However, sometimes shabby chic, is not shabby cheep and you can be charged through the eye for this style.

So when I saw these fab items from Heaven Sends at Gifts from Handpicked I thought they were great value.

I love these you and me hooks which are one of the more expensive items in the range at £29.99. These would be fantastic in our conservatory for the boys to hang their dressing up outfits on. But they would also make a great coat hook too.
I adore this Portraits de Famille Box (£22.99), which is brilliant take on a photo album, which holds holds 288 photographs across 12 labelled holders. I think this is a super way to look at your families photos rather than just keeping them digitally. It is beautiful enough to keep out, rather than put away in a cupboard and just think of all the memories you could keep in those albums. This is something that we seriously need in The Mad House!

Now this Heaven Sends Carte Postale Chalkboard would look perfectly at home in Cass from The Diary of a Frugal Family’s Kitchen or entrance hall. I really love that it comes with three mini pegs so you can hang the chalk up and other important things such as pretty postcards etc! Even better it is only £12.95, so I will have to remember that when it is her birthday.

I also like this wooden Heaven Sends Laundry Drop Your Pants Sign, which is less than £6 and would be perfect for our fulility room (the name for our unity room as it is never ever tidy).

I also adore this Heaven Sends I Love You To The Moon and Back Sign, which reads “I love you all the way to the moon and back again” and is £6.95. This is going on to my wish list for Mini’s room as it is something that we say to each other every night before bed. It would be the perfect new baby gift or even baby shower present if you do not know the sex of the baby and really reasonably priced too. I love that it is not to babyish and will last a long time and not date like some nursery decoration does.

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Smartie Birthday CakeSmartie Birthday Cake: A Colorful and Fun Recipe for Any Celebration

5 Comments / baking / By

It has become something of a tradition that Maxi always has a chocolate smartie cake for his birthday. This year I decided to try and do something a little more eye catching. I love baking, but find icing larger cakes something of a chore. So this cake is very forgiving.

Cake Ingredients

6 oz of butter or marg
6 oz caster sugar
5 oz of self raising flour
1 oz of coco powder
1 teaspoon of baking powder
2 eggs
half teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of milk

Method.

Cream together the marg/butter and sugar. Then add the rest of the ingredients in and mix well!

Put in two 7 inch cake tins (I line the tins with parchment and grease) and place in to a preheated oven of 180 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. You can tell if the cakes are cooked if when you press the top it gives slightly but springs back.

Remove from oven and leave for 2 minutes before removing from tins and placing on to a wire rack to cool.

Icing Ingredients:

1 block of butter (250gm of 10 oz)
450 grams icing sugar
50 gms of coco powder
half teaspoon of vanilla extract
4 tablespoons of milk
Method

Soften the butter in a mixer before adding the other ingredients. Make sure you start mixing very slowly so you do not get icing sugar everywhere. If your mixer does not have a splatter guard then cover with a tea towel.

Assembling the cake

Sandwich together your two cakes with icing and then apply the remaining icing around and on top of the cake. You are going to use the using around the cake to stick the chocolate fingers to the cake, so make sure you have enough at the sides.

I applied the fingers and then refrigerated the cake overnight, before covering the top with smarties the following day.

Smartie Birthday CakeSmartie Birthday Cake: A Colorful and Fun Recipe for Any Celebration Read More »

Get the Basics Right in Your Kitchen

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Get the Basics Right in Your Kitchen

We would all love to have a more impressive kitchen but what if you don’t even know where to start? Will you need to spend a fortune on completely overhauling the place?

Before you start splashing out big sums of money on expensive changes it is best to think of the basics which can make the difference.

The Right Kind of Lighting

The type of lighting you use in the kitchen is vital to making it a pleasant room to be in and to cook in. Your first step should be to check out some ideas using chandeliers, recessed lighting, under cabinet lights and all of the other kinds which are available now. Once you know what the options are you can work out which ones would fit in best to your room. In general terms, a mixture of different types of lighting is best, although this might not be the case in a particularly small kitchen.

The Pots and Pans

Of course, the kitchen is a room we cook in and this means that you need think about the basics required for doing this right. A good example here comes with the saucepans from Lakeland. Buying a few of these will give you practical pieces of cookware and will also ensure that you have attractive pots in the room as well. You will find other ideas for useful basic items on the site at Lakeland.co.uk. By stocking up well on these things you will make it a nicer room at little cost.

The Colour of the Walls

There are some highly popular colours used in many kitchens and others which aren’t so highly recommended. The exact tone you would be best using will be determined by factors such as the style of the kitchen and the size of the room. If you aren’t sure which colour to use then a good idea is to buy a few of those little sample pots and paint small areas of the walls with different colours. After you have lived with the different tones for a few days it should a lot easier to work out which one to choose for the whole room.

The Space

One of the most common complaints which people make about their kitchens is around the lack of space. If your kitchen is too small or cramped then cooking is probably more of a problem than it should be. This might seem like an issue without a solution in some cases it could be but there are some tips to help you get a bigger working space in most types of kitchen. The first and simplest one is to clear out anything you don’t use on a daily basis. This can make a lot of space and help the room look better too.

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Free things to do in London over the Easter break

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As you may know London is Mini’s favorite city in the whole wide world (his words, not mine). So we can often be found hopping on the train when we can grab an inexpensive fare and doing some sight seeing. Also one Maxi’s school friends still visits a Dentist in London to have their invisible braces looked at (they used to live there) and they are going back over Easter and we are possibly going to London Zoo for an event too, so will need some other things to do too.

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Spring Clean your Children’s Wardrobe

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taking place.

I have a list of items that the boys need for next season or even in the next size in the back of my diary and I keep an eye out in Charity shops or any other shops that are having a sale. I work on making sure that each boy has at least 10 pairs of underpants and 14 pairs of socks (school socks, boot socks, trainer socks and regular socks!).

Now the boys are both at school they need much less clothes that what they did as preschoolers. They have at least five of each of their school uniform (trouser, shirts, jumpers and three pairs shorts for the summer.

The only time that they really need lots of extra clothes are during the holidays. I only wash twice a week and Mini is certainly a muck monster. So he needs more clothes that Maxi.

Now is also the perfect time to keep an eye out for thermals for next year. Both the boys wear thermals during the winter and they wear under layers when playing football in the winter.

Also why not keep an eye on the charity shop for winter coats for later in the year, as many people will be doing a spring clean and sending their children’s outgrown clothes to the charity shop, making it the ideal time for you to stock up.

Ella at Purple Mum has recently done a great post on how many clothes a child needs. I have top admit that I am guilty of over buying for both the boys and this is something that I am going to tackle this year.

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A birthday treasure hunt

2 Comments / Birthday / By

These are the clues we used, which I took from the Real Treasure Hunt website.

Refrigerator
A clue to find where you keep things cold
Where to go next is what you’ll be told.

Computer
Letters, a screen, and even a mouse,
look around, you’ll find it somewhere in the house.

Bed
When it gets late and you turn out the light
This is the place you’ll be found each night.

Socks
You’ll need to think hard to solve the next clue
Find a covering for your foot, but it’s not a shoe.

Oven
Turn up the heat it will help you bake
Cookies, casseroles, even a cake.

Shower
A place where water falls down like rain
after it falls on you it goes down the drain.

Microwave
A metal box with numbers is usually the norm
For this thing that helps us get our food warm.

A birthday treasure hunt Read More »