The British Homemaker - One day at a time

The lovely Perry Perkins: If you don’t know Perry Perkins, you are seriously missing out! Read on for his intro.. Heyya peeps! So, first of all I'd like to thank Debs for the opportunity to be a guest blogger here on The British Homemaker! A quick bit about me: I'm a work-from-home dad, a freelance writer, and a passionate foodie. I'm a third-generation chef, and am trying to pass those skills on to a fourth generation (Okay, she's only 3, but where starting early!) Today we're gonna talk about a few tips I have for "Raising an International Gourmet" ( and maybe learning a few new things ourselves! ) I have gone through the following steps with children as young as five and, with a little flexibility and patience, it can be a lot of fun. Note: when it stops being fun, stop. You're not teaching at the Le Cordon Bleu, so tell your inner Iron Chef to lighten up! Forcing a kid to cook will only get you the opposite of what you're shooting for.....

This last week I’ve was challenged to sort out my craft room. You know when they say ‘don’t buy a car from a mechanic’ or ‘a house from a builder’? Well, dont expect someone who comes to sort out your clutter and storage solutions to have a sorted, workable craft room!   At the end of day 1 this is what my landing looks like:   What you don’t see is how none of the 4 doors on the landing cannot be got to, nor the stairs that go up to my room! The only route is from my craft room door and down the stairs!   A lot of this will not be going back in, a good portion of this is storage solutions which will go to some of my clients {trust me, when coming to storage solutions most often we only need look in our recycle bins to find what we are looking for} to save them £££’s on unnecessary spending!   So, more on this room in a day or two….if I survive!   Debs  p.s. It's that time again, folks....time for some awesome guest bloggers. Star...

I love wall art. I love words. When they both go together then I’m very excited I found three printable word art posters over on Sugar Doodle that particularly got my attention. Now I am on the hunt for frames that I can put them in! Feel free to print them off and do something fun with them Debs

Did you fall for the New Year Resolutions and now find that you missed that first hurdle? Maybe you managed a week or two then ‘forgot’ about it? Me too! I have to confess, I really don’t like working out, it’s gruelling and tedious. I used to work at Fitness First, years ago and we’d get free gym membership anytime we liked. Sometimes I would take advantage of this in my lunch break, other times I’d do it after my shift, but to be honest, I just never really got into it. So I got me a personal trainer, Steve. He was good, motivational, listened and wasn’t afraid to work me. But it only lasted as long as the job. So after moving here to the Forest of Dean I accidentally took up walking. It was a great time for me to walk with the dog, listen to music/talks/scriptures on my ipod, let my thoughts wonder and figure out a worry or challenge in life. So many of them have been calmly figured and concluded in those trees! I’ve prayed to my lil hearts content, I’ve figured out what I w...

I have a client who has over 2000 car/motorcycle magazines that are neatly lined up in date order on a handmade unit in his hallway. When I saw them I was glued to the sheer volume! When I found out they were from all over the world, dating back years and years I figured he must be totally wacko or a professional driver of some sort. Wrong. He’s a milkman . Always has been. I have always enjoyed magazines, I love homemaking ones, diy ones, craft ones and psychology ones. I don’t go for these celebrity or real life stories but ones that feed my general creative interest. At one point I would spend around £20 a month on them, sometimes more. When I purged my craft room I was stunned with how many I’d gathered over the last 2/3 years, it was that point I decided I just wasn’t going to buy them anymore, well the odd one here and there! Ok, ok I buy Sew Hip each month but that's cos I actually USE it! I gave a lot to my mom, a few I kept (I limited myself to 20 which is a...

After doing the majority of refunds on Saturday I was getting confused why the total amount wasn’t going down. It wasn’t till I checked my email that I found that the donations/sponsorship money was being returned back to me! The over all decision was that I was being urged to keep hold of the money and use it to donate to any charity I chose. I was very touched and very humbled. 18 lovely people left messages of support and apologies for the breakdown of this event. Previously it was friends that called to ask what happened but soon I didn’t want to get into it, the attitude was not productive. My Facebook friends are the ones that reminded me that all is not lost and there is still something I can do, just without the drama and abuse from Daisy’s mum. So I’m going to spend a few days thinking out what the next move can be and who the money’s shall be going to. Thank you so, so much for your generosity, I underestimated the readership here, my friends and business contacts s...

Do your kids watch tv at bedtime? I know this is a controversial subject but I’ve always been ok with it myself, all 4 of them have been happy to snuggle down and generally doze off without too much fuss. So when my 6 yr old announced he was giving up bedtime tv I was shocked but figured we’d just wait and see. He’s on day 6 now and he still has no intention of changing his mind. He is reading his favourite books, trying to write a journal and quietly playing with some of his lego men. When asked why he made this choice he was very clear: I need to get as good as I can with my reading and I need to learn my scriptures. I couldn’t really argue with that eh? I must admit though, he does settle down quicker and seems to be totally ok with his decision. For years the tv has been a controversial issue with many parents, but to me it is whatever we make of it. There was a time when our tv was on all the time, often no-one would be watching it but still, it was on. For the...