Happy Halloween!

The dancing vampire baby

Saw this baby vampire outfit in M&S yesterday and couldn't resist buying if for Evie. Ever since putting her in it, she has since been dancing around the house and scaring the cats. A new favourite outfit? Most definitely. Enjoy the Halloween festivities with your little ones this weekend!

Vampire blood...with a little help from mummy's make-up bag

Vampire baby says 'Have a spooky Halloween weekend!'

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Two new pop-ups: Paul Smith Junior and Caramel

It's war of the kid's pop-up shops next week as Paul Smith Junior opens one in Harrods' fourth floor children's wear department and Caramel chooses Selfridges. Smith's pop-up will home his collection (for 0-14 year olds) of punchy classics such as berry cords, Fairisles sweaters and stripy knits while the Caramel's pop-up will focus on party frocks for girls and gorgeous winter accessories. Both open on Monday. Looks like it's going to be an eventful week for CLB, what with Stella McCartney Kids launch on Wednesday. Evie and I can hardly contain ourselves!

Paul Smith pop-up shop, Harrods children's department, 87-135 Brompton Rd, LondonSW1X 7QN (020 7730 1234, www.harrods.com) Mon Nov 1.

Caramel pop-up shop, Selfridges children's department, Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street, London W1C 1JS (0800 123 4000, www.selfridges.com) Mon Nov 1.

Scarf by Caramel

Bonnet by Caramel

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Peak Princess - the latest designs

Finley Oskar long-sleeve shirt in Liberty Tom's Jet

I am so in love with the new collection by Peak Princess, the label specialising in handmade Liberty print garments for little ones. I particularly like the way its designer/maker, Lissa Cook, makes boys' clothes with charm. No boring grey or black but unusual Liberty prints worked into shirts, jackets and dungerees in the most creative way. The range starts at around £30 for a top. Another one to bookmark for your online Christmas shopping spree...

Bella Luella puff sleeve dress in Liberty Nina

Hugo Alexander denim jacket lined in Liberty Mark

Freya Bean blouse in Liberty Capel

Caty Beth pleat blouse in Liberty Pauly's Parrot

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A mummy treat: Ushvani spa

The pool area

I have been lucky enough to visit many a London spa in my time. I love Elemis facials, The Berkeley's pool area and Harrods' Urban Retreat where you can get a complete top to toe make-over (yes please). But recently I visited Ushvani, a discreet, Malaysian spa, located not far from Sloane Street, and I was quietly blown-away. Housed in a wood-paneled Edwardian town house and flanked with immaculate pale marble floors, it feels more secret and sumptuous than most other day spas out there. The pool, steam rooms and changing rooms feel just that bit more indulgent. Chelsea mums can also take their little ones to baby massage sessions here (Mondays at 10.30am) or book in for one of the yoga or Pilates classes. I can highly recommend the signature message (from £180 for 90 minutes). After an hour of firm, purrr-inducing massage, which targeted all my tense shoulders and upper back, I was practically nodding off. You know you've had a good treatment when you start to dribble. A fabulous gift idea for any mummy who loves her pampering.

Ushvani spa, 1 Cadogan Gardens, SW3 2RJ (020 7730 2888/www.ushvani.com) Sloane Square tube. 10am-7pm Mon, Fri; noon-9pm Tue, thur; 10am-6pm Sat (hours vary)

One of the treatment rooms

The Asmara Suite

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Sisters Guild: a wonderful new website

It's not often a website launches and CLB thinks, wow, I want to buy everything. Sisters Guild, which launched today, also had me properly thinking about Christmas shopping for the first time this year. Stuffed with covetable objects for the home and children, it's a style savvy mummy's dream. But it's also teaming with personality and quirkiness. Founders and sisters Carla de Reyes Mezbur, 32, and Bekka McCarthy, 34, have collected together all their favourite children's fashion, accessories and home labels and presented them on this elegant, personal, easy-to-navigate website. This is just the kind of e-commerce site that Chic Little Baby adores: homegrown, original and selling independent brands. Read their story below...But before you do that, check out Chic Little Baby's top Sisters Guild finds:

Hucklebones ripple stitch sweater, £49

Leila Lou Nicole mouse, £18.50

Felt houses by En Gry and Sif, £34

Belle & Boo dino wall stickers, £59.99

Hop, Hop, Hop bird necklace, £61

Sisters Guild: the story

Carla, an architect assistant has two daughters, Sophia, 4, and Oona, 1 while Bekka, a web editor has a son, three-year-old Gabriel. 

Describe when the lightbulb moment to start up Sisters Guild came?

Carla : It was Christmas, all the family were together. Sisters Guild was a project that had been on our minds for a while, and this year with a little time before any more babies arrived we decided to make it a reality. Before we knew it, the idea had grown and we had a vision of all these collections in one beautiful place. 

What happened after that?

Carla : We sketched, we coloured, we researched, we sat up late drinking tea, eating cake, throwing ideas back and forth, often with quotes from our own children. Finally we felt ready to get ‘it out there’. 

Bekka : We got very excited. I realised Carla had a vast knowledge of the finest things for children and home, and I let her take us on the ride to find these fantastic collections. Then I buffed up my web-design skills and persuaded my husband to become the in-house Illustrator. 

How is the website different to what's out there already?

Carla: We wanted a boutique that WE would love to shop in, one that felt like a wonderful shop you discover on a little lane somewhere – away from the high street. Sisters Guild wants to offer a place which becomes synonymous with new collections, with new designers and all those pieces that you treasure, hand down and tell stories about. 

Bekka : We feel the site itself is a visual treat and gives people a bit of a different experience to other online shops. We have also created a space where we can celebrate all the creative ideas of other mums, bloggers and makers. People can step beyond the façade of the website and contribute ideas and stories. 

Describe the dynamic between you two. Who does what in the business?

Carla: *laughs* I’m like the wild horse, excitedly galloping round whilst Bekka is that calm and steady influence. Bekka keeps me grounded. 

Bekka: Carla is definitely the one with the imagination – with great ideas and words - whilst I pull all the pieces together.
How have you sourced the items on your site? 

Carla: We explored exhibitions such as Bubble for inspiration, but to be honest a lot of it found us. Mini McGhee is a good example. We wanted Scottish hand made baby blankets, then there they were - in a studio whilst pulling together one of the girls collections and I went with my instinct. They were perfect, and yes, they’re hand made in Scotland and 100% pure wool.
Bekka: I relied on Carla’s extensive knowledge but also stumbled across some things myself through blogs and other sites. There’s such a fantastic network online and we hope through this we will find more and more inspiring things to add to the shop.
Anything exclusive?
Carla: A Parisian label called Hop Hop Hop and it’s so simple, wearable and colourful.

Pick your favourite three items from the site
Carla: So hard. But on my list for Christmas I’ll definitely be wishing for a Maileg pixy, a fabric covered box for all my ‘bits’ and some bright melamine for my Christmas table.
Bekka: The Miller Goodman Playshapes are amazing and will keep my son busy and creative for hours. I adore the hop necklaces (hint-hint husband!). And the Belle & Boo wall stickers are stunning too.
Describe Sisters Guild in five words 
Carla: A rollicking ride of colour and whimsy, wrapped in a blanket of joie de vivre. Oops, counting is not my thing.
Bekka: It’s also a captivating, time-honoured home of relaxed elegance.

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COMPETITION! Win a beautiful Hucklebones dresses and cardigan

           

WIN this beautiful Hucklebones frill jersey dress from the a/w 2010 collection

 

I am delighted to announce this month's competition: the chance to win an exquisite Hucklebones jersey dress in lake blue and lambswool cardigan in violet from the current collection. The dress features a pretty ruffle and navy buttons while the elegant ripple stitch cardi (below) has pretty pearly buttons. Worth over £100 in total, this is a fantastic chance to own two pieces from the lauded London-based label that specialises in 'children's clothing designed for little girls and to inspire the design conscious'. One of Chic Little Baby's favourites (see previous article here), Hucklebones create dreamy, vintage-inspired clothes that you'll want to keep as family heirlooms.

The winner will be able to select the size: 2 years, 4 years, 6 years or 8 years.

To enter the competition, please post a message below with a line about your favourite childhood item of clothing. The competition ends on Oct 31 at midnight and the winner will be selected at random and announced on this blog. IMPORTANT: Please leave your email address if it doesn't feature on your Blogger profile, otherwise I will not be able to contact you if you win.GOOD LUCK and thank you for entering!

Hucklebones violet ripple stitch lambswool cardigan

Hucklebones lake blue jersey dress

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Halloween ideas...

Ghost towel, £35, Couverture

Not long until Halloween. If you are going to a party, I highly recommend Angels Fancy Dress for brilliant outfits to hire or buy for you and your children. Marks and Spencer also have a great range of kitsch, affordable Halloween outfits for your little babes that make me chuckle. Alternatively, a bit of DIY costume making can be heaps of fun. Here are a few Halloween-related products I've spotted from some of Chic Little Baby's favourite web sources. I could resist adding Meg and Mog's classic book - a favourite from my childhood and still available to buy. Have a spooky one!

  

Cat cushion, £35, Donna Wilson

Kaspa ghost lamp, £64.95, Glow.co.uk

Big Toe Ugly Joe, £8.95, Snuglo

Witch biscuit, from a selection at Biscuiteers

Senor skull dress, £29 (£22 for CLB readers QUOTE discount code: SENORSKULL at check out), Bread and Jam

  

Spooky 'Under Your Bed' baby moccasins, £18, Moocis

Personalised trick or treat bag, £6, Not on the High Street

Meg and Mog, £4.99, Amazon.co.uk

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Mou calfskin booties = mwah

Calfskin booties, £30

Been looking for the ultimate animal skin booties for your babe? The search may just stop here. Mou, the London based natural shoe company set up by Shelley Tichborne in 2002,  has the cutest range of sheepskin and calf booties Chic Little Baby has come across in recent times. Cosy, stylish and ultra-tactile they are on Evie's Christmas list. LOVE.

Mini Nanuk, £125



Mini Eskimo boot, £100



Lambskin baby booties, £30



Mini blizzard boots, £125



 

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Two new scrummy mummy cook books

If you have an incurable sweet tooth like me, you'll be thrilled to know about two new books out this week. The first is  'The Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits' by Harriet Hastings and Sarah Moore, the creatives behind the stylish hand-made Biscuiteers biscuits. Inside are step-by-step directions to re-creating the exquisite biccies with eight pages of cool templates, including kid-friendly toyshop shapes and cowboys and Indian shapes. Huge fun. £14.99 at www.biscuiteers.com. The second is 'Ultimate' from organic chocolate company Green & Blacks (one of my all time favourite brands). Micah Carr-Hill, head of taste at Green and Black's, has asked his best culinary chums for their top chocolate recipes. The tantalising list includes Prue Leith's Chocolate Roulade and Mary MacCartney's Chocolate and Coconut Rice pudding but it's the various choc-stuffed cakes that have me drooling. £16.99 at Amazon

Baby biscuits by Biscuuteers

Green & Blacks mouth-watering new cook book

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Kate Spade pop-up shop opens today!

Exciting retail news: Cult US fashion brand, Kate Spade, opens a pop-up shop for one month only in a Covent Garden town house. With a devout following over the Atlantic, Kate Spade became famous for creating stylish, take-me-everywhere handbags. Now, under the creative direction of Deborah Lloyd, the label also offers jewellery, clothing and bed linen. Chic Little Baby had a good nosey around yesterday and can confirm the shop is well worth a visit. Actually, this mama wanted to move right in. Set over two-floors, each room is painted in classic Kate Spade bold shades including grass green, tangerine and yellow. Downstairs a whole wall is covered in bags, adorning the walls like paintings, while upstairs you'll find the jewellery, bed-linen and natty clothing collection which include sumptuous cashmere knits. Over the pond Kate Spade is famous in mummy circles for its super-elegant baby changing bags (see a selection below) and rather thrillingly they assure CLB that they will be shipping over a selection to arrive in store next week (you'll also be able to order them via the website from Nov 10). A permanent Kate Spade London shop is due to open by next summer - we'll keep you posted.

Kate Spade, 7 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8PW (0757 262 9105) Open Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Thurs until 9pm, Sun 10am-5pm. open until mid-Nov 2010.

 

 

 

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Perfect autumn day out: Waterlow Park and Highgate Cemetery

I know it sounds a bit morbid but cemeteries are excellent places to get inspiration for baby names. I remember seeing the below grave in Highgate Cemetery about ten years ago, with the name Evelyn elegantly inscribed in gold and thinking how pretty it sounded. When my husband suggested we name our daughter this, I thought back to it and it swayed me. Today, in the glorious autumn sunshine we decided to take a trip to Highgate, starting in the beautiful Waterlow Park, a 'garden for the gardenless' given to he public by Sir Sidney Waterlow in 1889. The park has plenty of running space for toddlers, a small playground, ponds, elegant formal gardens and stunning views of the city. Evie was in her element and had a fleeting romance with a 2-year-old French boy called Matisse (it was love at first sight). Around the corner in Highgate Cemetery, having taken in the graves of Karl Marx, artist Patrick Caulfield and Jeremy Beadle (!), I listed a few of the more unusual names that may (or may not) inspire future generations (see below). All in all, a beautiful day.

Girls
Floretta
Lillian
Lilla
Mercy
Tryphena
Ada
Elenora
Minnie
Mabel
Cora
Lena

Boys
Harold
Earl
Clarence
Ernest
Herbert
Jesse
Eugene
Leopold

There were lots of Elizas, Mary Anns and Florences while for men it seemed John, William and Albert's were around in abundance in Victorian times too...

Tim and Evie in Waterlow Park

The grave of Evelyn Muriel Dray MBE

Husband and babe walking through the dappled sunlight in Waterlow Park

Rusty-hued autumnal leaves

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