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.

Living an ecological family life

Living an ecological family life
An environmental mindset has become stronger in society. Two main reasons are moral as well as cutting back on costs. For that reason, it is also the duty as an adult and guardian to demonstrate the importance of an ecological way of life at home and to pass-on these habits to others. The following tips may help families introduce some easy and some more sophisticated aspects in order to keep the home green.

Switch off the lights: Whether it’s forgetfulness or laziness, a lot of households aren’t too bothered with switching off the lights and multimedia devices when they leave the room. It can save a lot of energy which tends to grab people’s attention when they see how much they save on their electricity bill. With children, it is easy to raise awareness at an early age to make them care about resources later on as well. By regularly showing them to save electricity or water, by switching off the light (or turning off the tap), they will adopt this habit quickly.
Isolate the house well: When building or buying a new home for the family, it is sensible to look into the house’s insulation. Windows and walls alike should be strong in keeping the cold outside and saving the warmth inside. In that respect, heating costs can be reduced as heating won’t need to be used as much.
Separate the waste: City councils around the UK have implemented recycling into their waste collection strategies, so separating your rubbish is not a foreign routine. We know to separate glass, paper and plastic and – if possible – food scrapes for the compost. When everyone does their part to separate their recyclables properly, then we make the work of local waste management services more efficient. Labelling bins for children with images or colours showing what rubbish goes where is easy to do and also helps to train the importance of recycling. Going a step further by finding creative ways to reuse can also make for fun DIY projects as well. Sites like Pinterest have very creative craft sections for both adults and children, which heavily involve reusing and recycling. Careful though, there are so many ingenious projects that can make scrolling addictive!
Produce energy: It still might sound futuristic for some, but it is definitely possible to produce some energy with the right technology. As shown by solar businesses, an installation of their panels on the roof of your house is very energy efficient. As their technology has advanced over the years, they are now able to produce more energy than it makes to make them. This then makes the technology more appealing to purchase with their pros becoming a lot stronger than their cons.

Living an ecological family life Read More »

They grow up so quickly!

However, kids designer clothing is not about dressing children beyond their years: clothing from designer ranges is instead intended to be cute, practical, smart and age-appropriate. Take Roberto Cavalli for example, whose racy and eye-catching dresses have turned heads on the red carpet for many years. The designer has created a children’s range which will make children feel grown up, but not make them look beyond their years. Cavalli’s trademark leopard prints feature in the collection, but always look cute rather than tacky. A high-neck dress with a frill hem detail is perfect for a party, whilst the leopard print leggings will instantly jazz up any of your daughter’s outfits.

They grow up so quickly! Read More »

Win a Haven Holiday

Fancying winning a 3 night weekend or 4 night Midweek break with Haven Holidays? I thought you might…………

All you have to do is share a picture of one of your Haven holidays saying why you think nothing beats a holiday by the seaside using through Haven’s Facebook app before 14 April 2013.

Then Rory the Tiger will choose a winner and they can either have a 3 night weekend or 4 night Midweek break in a Deluxe caravan for up to six people before October 2013 (but this excludes July and August).
Now I know that I am lucky to actually live by the sea, so I am biased, but I also know that nothing beats a seaside holiday. There is something about the sea that makes me and the rest of the family relax and feel grounded. The boys adore the sea. They never seem to feel the cold of the water until they get out! They love digging and making sandcastles and honestly nothing beats fish and chips out of the paper at the seaside.

When I was growing up even though we lived by the sea, most of our family holidays were taken in our touring caravan at the great British seaside resorts. In fact look at the photos my brother found of one of our holidays!

I love the fact that no matter how hot it was my Grandad would be fully dressed!

I love reliving my holidays of past with my children, so why not enter and see if you can win a seaside holiday.

For full terms and conditions please see the Haven Facebook app page

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Keeping children entertained on car journeys

I also am a great planner and in the boot of the car I have travel packs for journeys. If you have ever been unlucky enough to have a flat tire or a breakdown with children in the car, you will understand just how much of a lifesaver having something they can do in the car is.

With this in mind I have we have activity packs in the boot of the car. I have folders with everything they could need for a specific activity. So if there is puzzle books, then I will make sure there is a couple of pens of different colours and also a highlighter for the wordsearches and a small dictionary for crosswords.

I tend to save all the crayons and pencils you get in restaurants and also all the little sticker packs and gift packs you get with children’s magazines. The pound shop is also a perfect place to get things for this too.

Other things you could include in the packs are:

Keeping children entertained on car journeys Read More »

Eggs decorated with washi tape

This is one of those craft activities that you can do whilst mindlessly watching the TV. Sometimes on an evening when I spend time with MadDad I have the urge to craft, but it needs to be be something that I can do whilst chatting about our day and perhaps watching TV or listening to music. These masking (washi) tape eggs really fitted the bill.

To make it even easier you could use polystyrene eggs rather than blown eggs and then you wouldn’t worry about pressing too hard either. All I did was place strips of tape length way on the eggs from heat to point and kept going over lapping each time.

They would look lovely hunt onto a branch as an Easter tree too, however, mine make me happy in one of my many cake stands and dishes.

Eggs decorated with washi tape Read More »

Pom Pom Bunnies and Chicks

Method – Chicks

Make a largeish pom pom in yellow wool for the chick’s body
In yellow felt cut out two shapes for the chicks wings and one for the chicks tail feathers. Also cut a small triangle for the chicks beak – in future ones I will make this orange to stand out more.
Stick the wings and tail to the pom pom using a glue gun.
Stick the eyes and beak on using fabric glue

Pom Pom Bunnies and Chicks Read More »

Affordable gifts that are Heaven Sent

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.

Affordable gifts that are Heaven Sent Read More »

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

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 »