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Inspiring stories: Allison from Asolon baby clothing

March 24, 2015

I’ve been thinking about doing some interviews for a while. But I didn’t want to just chat about products or brands, I wanted it to be something more than that. I wanted get to know the person behind any venture and to talk to people who were truly inspiring and could teach us all something. Then it came to me – I would interview people who have overcome something to get to where they are. Simple as this may sound – it’s not. Once you read the the interview below you will know what I mean.

If you have ever found yourself wallowing in self pity over the smallest or even big things (I know I do) then this interview will really inspire you. If you find yourself making excuses not to do something because of your circumstances, then just keep reading because anything can be overcome – it’s all about the attitude. It’s about accepting the situation and making the best of it no matter how bad. And in this instance, out of sheer determination despite such a massive struggle, was born a gorgeous baby clothing brand. More about that below.

Meet Allison Tovey who is the founder and designer at Asolon – a beautiful baby clothing and baby gift brand.

Tell us a few words about you?
I’m Allison, a one-handed New Zealand designer whose mind never sleeps!

What has been your biggest struggle so far?
When I was 25, thinking about quitting my full time job and working full time on my own womenswear brand, I had a major stroke. After surgery and four weeks in a coma I woke up to find my speech missing and my right side paralyzed. I spent another six months in hospital learning to speak, learning to walk and learning to function without the use of my dominant arm. After five years of countless physio, OT and speech sessions and all the rehab tools in the world – I’m back running my own business, doing what I love but in a different way to what I expected six years ago. Now I still walk with a stick, my right arm and hand are not functional but I’m still working on my rehab. I have a quote on my desk to keep me on track – ‘anyone can be cool, but awesome takes practice’.

Where and how did you find the strength and determination to carry on?
People ask me this all the time and I have yet to come up with a strong answer! Before my stroke I was a very independent, determined person. Then when I had my stroke and came out of my coma I wanted to know how I could get back to my old self. I couldn’t hold on to the ‘what if’s’ and ‘poor me’ – I just had to get on with life and deal with whatever came my way. I was determined not to let my stroke define me and I just accepted it as part of my journey.

A lot of people in your situation would have given up. Did you ever feel like giving up? And how did you pull yourself out of those dark moments?
As most people do, in the beginning I had my pity parties especially when I wasn’t able to do the normal things that other people don’t realise they do all the time (e.g. communicate) – it was a real emotional roller coaster. I would cry with frustration but luckily I had my extremely understanding father and boyfriend (now husband) at my side to bring me back to reality and help guide me back on my path.

Tell us about Asolon, your baby and kids clothing label?
Asolon is a baby clothing and baby gift brand selling mainly baby bodysuits, sleepwear, tops and baby gift sets. I design and create the entire range which is all about classic styling with a strong focus on quality. Every piece is individually hand-crafted using natural fabrics – NZ Merino wool, organic cotton and cotton. Perhaps most importantly, a great deal of love and care has gone in to making my garments so I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.

So many kids clothes designers say their inspiration came from their kids. I know you don’t have any kids (yet) so how come you chose to design a baby and kids clothing range?
My stroke affected every part of my physical body but my creative brain was still intact. I’m not good at having nothing to do, so when I finally got home from hospital my dad got me a shiny new Mac with all the design software and I spent all my time learning to draw and design again without using my right arm. This became my rehab tool!

Soon after I was invited to a baby shower. I was still very much a shell of my old self and finding it extremely hard to communicate but I wanted to show my friends that deep down I was still the same creative person I had always been. This led to me creating my first handmade gift set ‘The Hare and The Tortoise’ and with that Asolon was re-born. As my recovery has progressed and my skills have developed my range has expanded more and more in to what you see today.

As creatives we are always looking for new ideas and ways to make them a reality. Tell us us how you look for inspiration and how do you turn that in to a piece of clothing?
So many inspirations, but I guess my main inspiration for Asolon is fabric. The feel, handling it, colour and the limitless items these fabric could become! My mum was a seamstress and ever since I can remember we were always found in material shops dreaming of what we could make that weekend. As you have probably guessed now I’m a fabric hoarder! Merino is my favourite fabric to work with – simple and natural but it’s a super fabric. I can’t understand why everybody doesn’t dress their baby in merino!

What’s the best part of running a small business?
In my case, the best part of running a small business is that I can have a life of flexibility. My business can fit around my life, especially my rehab.

The world of kids clothing is incredible. There is so much beautiful choice out there for any budget and taste. Apart from your own, who are your favourite kids clothing designers? High-end and high-street?
There’s so many great brands that I love – Gray Label, Moi, Mini Rodini, Oeuf… the list goes on!

What’s your best piece of advice to anyone who has suffered a really big setback in life?
A cliché I know but ‘your past cannot be changed, forgotten, edited or erased; it can only be accepted’ – you have to move on and make the best of what you have today!

Would you change your past if you could?
Normally people would say ‘I would change nothing’ but I would say if I was to go back in time I would STRESS LESS!

What’s next for you – both professionally and personally?
All though my recovery I had to learn to do everything in a different way than I had always known so I have started a blog of my creative adventures from a one handed person’s point of view. It’s called one handed crafter. Hopefully I can inspire other young people who may be in the same or similar position and show them that you can have a creative life even if you are one handed (or indeed have any other struggles). And as for Asolon the opportunities are endless, watch this space!

Thank you Allison for sharing your incredible and truly inspiring story with us. It really puts things in perspective, at least for me. They often say ‘where there is a will, there is a way’ and Allison has shown us just how true that is. What I loved most about getting to know Allison was the incredible lack of self pity – there was not a hint of it. As she explains, you have to get that out of the way quickly and look forward to making the most of what you do have. So she has completely accepted her fate and despite her big setbacks has achieved her goals. Do take a look at the gorgeous baby clothes that Allison makes – very classic, very practical and very stylish. There are lots of stripes in the collection but also some brighter pieces that perfectly compliment the stripes. Some of my favourites include the deer print leggings and the orange poppy print ones.

P.S. If you have a story of overcoming a set-back (of any kind) and would like to share it, please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you (only requirements are that you are a parent with or without a business but if not you have a baby/kids related business). You can get in touch privately through the contact page or send me a private facebook message and we can chat more to see if it’s something you would like to share.

*I’ve linked up to Honest Mum’s brilliant blog posts.

10 fun Easter egg decorating ideas

March 23, 2015

I can’t believe that we are just two weeks away from Easter. I feel like the year has just begun but it’s already nearly April! Easter is probably my favourite holiday not just because I love bunnies, eggs and chocolates but also because Easter takes me back to when I was a kid. We always, always did some egg decorating and I loved it – right from learning how to empty eggs to painting them and of course breaking many along the way. I’d like to do some egg decorating with Anya soon so I went looking for Easter egg decorating ideas and I found so much inspiration. From simple coloured eggs to really fun faces painted on, there is so much you can do with the humble little egg. Here are 10 of my favourite finds:

How gorgeous are these Easter eggs? I love the simple colour scheme of just two colours and the faces are just so sweet.

These Easter eggs have been dyed in various pastel shades and look so pretty. You can of course choose any colours you like but I love the soft tones of these.

For something a bit quirkier try making these colourful easter egg sculptures. They’d make such a fun and unusual table decoration for an Easter meal.

These Easter eggs have been decorated with felt tip pens and they look so great. I especially love the chick and bunny ones and the polka dotted ones. So easy to do with any pattern you like.

I wish I had thought of putting mini party hats on to Easter eggs – the eggs look so darn cute! To make these easier I wouldn’t bother with the bows as the hats are more than cute enough.

I love a bit of glitter and sparkle for any occasion so I’m loving these glitter filled eggs. The metallic colours look great with the other colours but of course the egg colours are entirely up to you. I ‘m thinking lots of different metallic shades like copper, bronze, gunmetal and pewter.

Instead of an elf on the shelf, make an egg on a shelf! I love how this egg is given so much personality just by adding legs and a body. Any kid would love making this Easter egg craft.

These bouffant hairstyle Easter eggs are just fab. When I saw them, they instantly brought a smile to my lips. For eggs that are a bit different from bunnies and chicks, these are my top pick!

Love these Easter eggs! I’m not sure I have a steady enough hand to paint something as neat and perfect as this but a messier version will be just as fun to make. In addition to the versions above, I think a Queens guard version would look so cool too.

Last but not least are these fun circus eggs. They come with free printables for all the circus bits so you just have to paint the faces and then dress the eggs.

These are my favourite Easter egg decorating ideas – some are more involved than others but they all look really fun to do. Will you be decorating eggs with your kids this year? Which one do you think you’ll make? And don’t forget to check out my super cute free Easter bunny card printable.

Kids room inspiration: indigo and petrol blue

March 19, 2015

With my current house renovation project I seem to be spending half my life on interiors sites, pinterest and browsing through interiors magazines. I’m definitely not complaining! Recently I’ve noticed a bit of a trend for using deep, dark blues in interiors like indigo and petrol blue. These deep blues are not colours you find everywhere so they are still quite unusual and really stand out. While they look great in dining rooms and living rooms, I think these blues would look equally fabulous in a nursery or kids room – for boy or girl. So I felt inspired to put together a mood board for a kids room using various shades of deep blue with touches of lighter blue.

One of my first ports of call for finding cute things for kids rooms in the UK is Petit Home one of my sponsors. It’s run by a French lady who has a real mix of styles in her shop so there is something for every taste. From quirky pieces like that rabbit light to more understated things like the bed linen she has. I picked a few of my favourite pieces and mixed them up with with some others to create this blue kids room moodboard. Here’s where you’ll find everything:

The best photo filter apps

March 18, 2015

Last Wednesday I started a new photography series on my blog and today it’s time for the next feature. Last week I shared lots of great tips on how to take better iphone photos of your kids. This week it’s all about the best apps for adding filters and effects to your photos. With so many photo filter and editing apps out there it can be really confusing to know which ones to use. So here I’ve picked the ones that I would say are easiest to use and are great to tweak and enhance your everyday photos. I have focused more on getting quick effects with a range of filters than on editing functions as I’m not a pro photographer and this series really is about enhancing our everyday photos, not about turning pro! With the right app and the right filter an ordinary photo can look extraordinary and a good photo can look awesome. Here are my recommendations for the best photo filter apps around:

1. VSCOcam
This is my favourite app for adding filters to photos. VSCO has the largest range of filters that I have come across and they are fantastic. The filters are the most natural looking of any app and are all quite beautiful as you can see from the range above. With VSCO you can also take photos within the app and then experiment with the filters. It also has loads of other editing functions like adjusting brightness, adding a grainy effect, sharpening or fading and lots more. This is definitely the photo editing app I use the most but one word of caution – it’s addictive! I can spend ages playing around and trying out different filters as there are so many. The basic filters are free but to get all of them it’s paid but most definitely worth it.

2. Retrica
If you are into your selfies, you’ll love Retrica. It’s a simple app that allows you to choose from a range of filters and effects to keep your selfies interesting and different. What I especially like about Retrica is that any filters and effects are done before taking the selfie. So you get a live preview of exactly what your photo will look like before you click. Once you click you can instantly share or send wherever you want including Instagram of course. The free version is more than good enough unless you hate seeing ads on your apps, then you’ll have to go premium.

3. Dash of Colour
This simple app does what it says on the tin and it’s free. Strictly speaking this isn’t an app for adding filters – there are some basic editing functions and filters but the main purpose of this app is to add a colour effect. Or what I most love it for is that I never manage clean, crisp white backgrounds to my photo’s and this app helps me get much closer to that. You simply convert your picture to black and white and then add the colour bits back in by using your finger as a paintbrush. This allows you to make a certain part of the picture pop like the example with Anya wearing those blue glasses. And also as you can see from the leggings photo – my original picture was quite yellow so I turned the photo to black and white and added back in the bit of pink tape. So much better!

4. Simply B&W
I’m a big fan of black and white photo’s and this is an easy to use app to apply black and white filters to your photos and again it’s free. While there are many apps that will convert photo’s to black and white, there are normally only one or two pre-sets to choose from. With this app, you can not only play around with a bigger range of black & white filters but also within each filter you can adjust the effects like the strength of the filter and more. So the same black and white photo can look completely different as you can see in the pictures above – from giving it a really old, dated feel to a much sharper looking photo.

5. Afterlight
Afterlight is a filter lovers dream. It offers an in app camera too but I don’t really use this – my iphone camera seems just as good. What I do like about Afterlight is the big range of filters and that they can be layered on top of each other to create even more effects. Too much of this and your photo will end up looking very unnatural but if you did want to create quite distinct effects you can. My favourite bit of this app is the fun shapes which can be filled with your photos like the examples above which I love. From bold capital letters to script letters to shapes like hearts, stars, sun and more. You can be so creative with these without needing to learn how to do it from scratch. Afterlight isn’t free but costs just £0.79 or $0.99 so it’s definitely worth it for what you’re getting.

These are my most useful phone photo apps for being easy to use, for creating a range of effects and adding lots of different filters. And the best part is that most of them are free. They help easily take an average photo to a fab one without getting in to the technical side. The best way to use these apps is to experiment with them and try out different filters and effects – you’ll soon learn which are your favourites and you’ll also discover all sorts of tricks to make your photo’s really stand out.

Do you have a photo filter app you love ? Do share in the comments so we can all try it out.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out last weeks article on taking beautiful iphone photos of your kids.

Free printable Easter Bunny card

March 17, 2015

With Easter fast approaching (how did we get to March already?!) it’s time to think Easter crafts. Anya loves all kinds of crafts but I know that Easter crafts are her absolute favourite – eggs, bunnies, chocolate – what’s not love? So today I have these adorable free printable Easter bunny cards for you. Anya’s already made loads to give to her friends – they’re super easy to make and look so cute!

These free printable Easter cards have been created exclusively for my readers by a super talented graphic designer and architecture student called Annelies. I stumbled across her site and I fell in love with her work so we collaborated and here are these cute little cards. This is the first part of the collaboration – there’s another part coming soon.

To make these cards simply print out the templates provided and cut them out. Stick the envelope part with glue or invisible tape, pop the card in and you’re done! I have chosen to use pastel coloured card as these colours remind me of Spring but of course you can choose whatever colours you like. I would suggest using something heavier than regular printer paper like thin card for best results. Once printed, write your message on the back and give them to your friends or you could even make an Easter bunting by hanging these bunnies on to string. They’d also make great gift tags and so much more.

I am so glad I discovered Annelies’ work and we managed to collaborate. If you like pattern and design then don’t miss her blog A pattern a day where she creates beautiful new patterns every day. Annelies is only 22 so I can’t even begin to image what great things she will get up to in the coming years! And don’t forget, this is part one – part two of the free Easter printable is coming soon.

Here is the PDF – Annelies has created a few versions of the bunny cards each with slightly different patterns. Print and enjoy for your own personal use:

Bunny-envelopes-cards

{all photos by ebabee}

11 of the most thoughtful gifts for new mums

March 16, 2015

If you had walked in to my home in the days after I gave birth to Anya, you would have been forgiven for asking if I had suddenly turned in to a florist. You could not move for the beautiful flowers I had. While I adore giving and receiving flowers, I think there are many more useful things that you can give new mums. I often get asked for ideas and so I thought why not share a few of my favourite new mum gifts on here.

Sometimes it’s hard to think beyond the obvious gifts like flowers, baby clothes, toys or anything for the baby. But chances are the baby will already have everything it could possibly need and much more so I think with a little thought you can give the new mum something that she really needs and something that may just help make those first few weeks and months a little bit easier. Here are some of my favourite ideas for some unusual and thoughtful gifts for new mums:

1. One of the biggest things new parents lack is time. Time to look after themselves and that includes not being able to eat well-balanced meals. So instead of a gift for the baby, you could give them a week’s worth of fresh meals cooked by you. But if that’s not possible, you can still give fresh meals from somewhere like the Food Stork who have ready made boxes of lots of different meals that you can have delivered.

2. Another lovely and personal gift for a new mum is a pamper treatment – a facial or a massage would both be a much appreciated gift especially at a time when you’re not feeling your best. This would have been top of my list of gifts to receive. Think of how you felt in those days and weeks after a birth and then imagine escaping for a couple of hours to be pampered in a quiet, tranquil environment. Pure bliss!

3. Thinking on from pampering gifts for the new mum, you could even gift the new mum a baby massage session. It’s a thoughtful gift that gives both the mother and baby some special bonding time that’s just for the two of them. And the new mum will also get to meet other new mums around her. There are many places that offer these but if you’re in London, The Portland Hospital has weekly sessions open to everybody.

4. If you really do want to give something for the baby, then think about clothes in bigger sizes like 6-9 months or even 9-12 months. The baby probably has more newborn clothes than she could ever wear so bigger sizes are much more likely to come in good use. An alternative to clothes is a baby journal which is more of a gift to the parents but it’s something that will be kept and eventually be given to the baby. I remember my mum giving me my baby journal and it was so great to look through and read.

5. New mums want advice, especially first time mums. So I love the idea of all her friends and family (who already have kids) each writing down their best piece of advice in a beautiful journal. It will be something fun and meaningful to read especially during those endless night feeds and it may just turn out to be the most useful parenting book ever. This is what a friend of mine received and even though her son is now 5, that journal is something she will keep forever.

6. If the new mum in question has an older child or children you can buy little gifts for them to keep them occupied. Things like reading books, colouring or puzzle books, board games and small toys will distract the siblings for a little while at least.

7. Another thoughtful gift for a new mum with older kids is to offer to look after them or take them out for an afternoon so that the new mum can spend some one on one time with her baby.

8. One of the things I regret not having done properly is taking enough photos in the newborn days. At the time I felt too camera conscious but I regret it now and I’m sure I’m not alone. Newborn photography is very popular and it’s a wonderful thing because those fleeting moments will never come back. So the gift of a photo session with a photographer who visits the new mums home is a wonderful thing to give as the memories will last forever.

9. This may sound a bit impersonal at first but a voucher for the mum to buy something for herself is a thoughtful gift. It could be a voucher for her favourite clothes store or an amazon voucher if she loves reading or a voucher for her favourite beauty brand. As a new mum it’s a treat to take a few minutes out and browse the internet looking for something you want that’s not baby related at all.

10. One of the best gifts I received as a new mum was a 1kg box of the most divine chocolates ever. That box of chocolates became my reason for being. Every night, I looked forward to the time when my baby was asleep in between feeds and I could open that box and get my daily fix. So the gift of a box chocolates or sweets or cookies, depending on what the new mama likes will be a sweet little gift and from experience I say the bigger the box the better!

11. Last but not least, becoming a mum, especially for the first time, is a huge mix of experiences – some good and others not so good. Loneliness is definitely one of the not so good things so instead of spending money on your friend, why not commit to visiting her once a week or more often if you can. Once the dad has gone back to work, any new mum will cherish a bit of adult company over coffee and some conversation to help pass those long days. This gesture will go far beyond any gift can.

Whats the most thoughtful gift you received as a new mum? I’d love to hear in the comments.

This post is brought to you in partnership with The Portland Hospital – UK’s leading private paediatric and maternity hospital. All content, words and ideas are my own. Thank you for supporting my work with partners that support this blog.

Friday chat: To sleepover or not to sleepover?

March 13, 2015

Yesterday Anya was invited for a sleepover and my instant reaction was she’s only just turned six. How can she go for a sleepover? It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about because the situation has never arisen so it never needed any consideration. But now I have to think about it. I did a quick google search on sleepovers and came across a thread on netmums where they were discussing what age is right and some mums had happily has sent their kids for sleepovers at four and five. On the one hand it made me think that maybe I’m being over-protective but on the other I’ve always believed in trusting my own instinct as a mother. And what is right for one child doesn’t mean it’s right for another. At least that is what I told myself when reading the thread.

But on thinking about it further I know that Anya is mature for her six years. She is well behaved and doesn’t get up at night. She is respectful of other kids parents and is a very social child. Given all this my rational mind tells me that she is more than ready for a sleepover and will have a fabulous time. So if I’m being honest, the real question is am I ready? And the answer is no. My emotional mind is screaming ‘NO’ not yet! She has never spent a night away from me, ever. Would it be selfish to not let her go because of my own feelings? Richard felt exactly the same as me – no, not yet! Thankfully we are both very much on the same page when it comes to parenting our child.

I don’t think that there is a right age for a sleepover (within reason of course) – it depends entirely from child to child, where they are going and how the parents and the child feels about it. As the parents we need to be absolutely comfortable with it and confident that our child will be fine. But my dilemma is different. I am confident that Anya will be fine, I see no rational reason to stop her apart from my own feelings. She would not be going far so if I was needed for any reason I could be with her in minutes. I know what I probably should do but the question is will I be able to do it?

What would you do? Have your kids been for sleepovers and at what age? I’d love to hear your advice and thoughts.

5 fun and creative toy storage solutions

March 12, 2015

How do you keep your kids room tidy? Whenever I tidy up Anya’s room, it’s a complete mess a few hours later. It really makes me lose the will to tidy. I’ll admit that before we moved house I had reached the stage where I just closed her room door so I couldn’t see the mess and i would leave it like that for days and sometimes even weeks. Now that we’re renovating our new home and Anya will have an all new room, I want to make sure that it remains tidy and not like the mess in the picture below (I can’t believe I’m sharing this pic but this shows how bad things got!)

Apart from looking at the mess which troubles me, a messy room means that we often spend hours looking for stuff – especially things like little toys, game counters and lego pieces. With our fresh start I want to ensure that her room is neat most of the time and I also want to make sure that she is the one who tidies it. The best way to do this is to have a specific place for everything and so I’ve been seeking out fun but useful toy storage solutions. Anya’s new room is quite small so I also want toy storage ideas that work for small spaces. I’m not a fan of plastic boxes or anything modular and also I thinks toys should be tidy but visible because they add fun and colour to a room so I’ve had to dig a bit deeper to find some quirky and fun storage ideas. Here are 5 that I’m loving:

This is such a fun way to store those soft toys. Wire baskets cost pennies so you can have as many as you need and they also make really quirky wall decorations. I love these circular ones but you could get bigger rectangular ones which will store even more soft toys. So much more practical then lining up the toys on the bed which is what Anya used to do and then each night they were thrown all over the room!

You know all those teeny tiny toys that always get under your foot and seem to make their way in to every single room in the house? Yes, those annoying little toys can be housed in a shelf like this. A shelf with lots of little shelves and you can even wallpaper the backs to make it pretty like they’ve done here.

Nothing beats toy storage sacks and storage baskets. You can get such cute ones which look great in a kids room and the best part is that they allow you to tidy up in a hurry. Also they are great for all those toys that you can’t find any other home for. I will definitely be getting at least a couple of these for Anya’s room and I’ll be getting them from here.

Coat hooks aren’t just for coats – you can hang so much stuff on them. In a small room, instead of having a dressing up box that takes up floor space, coat hooks are a great alternative. They can hold a lot of stuff and the stuff is all very easy to get to. And I love the idea of having the cute dressing up stuff on display.

Using an outgrown or unwanted piece of furniture like an old cot is another fun idea for storage in a kids room. Even a moses basket that is no longer in use would make a great storage solution. You can use it to keep so many things like soft toys, games or books. And it looks so much cooler than boring chests of draws or plastic storage boxes. Even if you don’t have one you could find a vintage crib in a junk shop which will look even better than a modern piece.

With all these fun and creative toy storage ideas, I am really hoping the days of mess will be behind us. I’m especially loving the coat hook idea and the wire baskets for Anya’s room. They save space leaving more floor space to play and they add colour and character to the room. Do you have any ideas for keeping your kids room tidy? Do let me know in the comments.

How to take great photos of your kids with an iphone

March 11, 2015

Want to improve your iphone photography? This post has so many handy tips for anybody who wants to improve their iphone photography. This is part of a whole series of photography posts so do check them out – there are some links at the end of the post. But for now, if you want to improve your iphone photography skills, read on.

I am so excited to have the super talented photographer Julia Arif sharing her tips on how to take better photos with your iphone of your kids. Many of us want to learn to take better everyday photos of our kids and this is exactly what Julia is showing us how to do. All of Julia’s tips are easy to action and you can start trying them out today. Julia is a professional portrait and lifestyle photographer who is also mum to one adorable little girl. It was when I discovered Julia’s beautiful instagram feed that I knew I had to ask her how she does it. All the photo’s on her instagram are taken with her iphone only which is quite unbelievable when you see the stunning photo’s. Julia has agreed to share her top tips with my readers so if you want to learn to take better photos on your iphone get reading these tips. After reading we can all get more creative with our iphones! Now over to Julia.

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Caramel Spring Summer 2015

March 9, 2015

A quick start to the week today with this beautiful new Spring Summer collection. Possibly one of my favourite UK brands for kids, each and every season their new collections don’t disappoint. Classic, understated looks that are so stunning in their simplicity. The collections for boys and girls are both equally beautiful. With the boys I’m loving the vibrant colours mixed with neutrals and also the range of cool, summery trousers on offer. If I had a boy, I really think Caramel would be high on my list of favourites for him. And for the girls it’s classic cut dresses and some beautiful separates too. Now all we need is Summer to hurry up and arrive!