Modern Parents Vintage Ways

We bake every weekend and then invite a friend or two over for afternoon tea. (Ok, you got me, it’s not EVERY weekend – sometimes life happens instead). We’ve had a few not so great looking creations but here are a couple of our more successful efforts. I like that we’re teaching Miss Four about the importance of family time and about how lovely it is to host friends. We’ve even gotten to know a couple of the neighbours quite well through Sunday afternoon teas. I hope that this practice sticks for us

I came across this article today by The Centre for Independent Studies about unstructured play. It really got me thinking. So often I feel that if activities aren’t planned (even if it’s just some simple craft or baking), that I’m failing to ensure Miss Four (yes! she has had a birthday!) is getting the most out of her childhood. The article says that:

Tomorrow will be the last day we officially work with Cheeky Tales to bring you a great special. We thought tonight we’d explain why we’ve been giving Cheeky Tales and other businesses out there all the shout outs lately.

Here at MPVW we focussed on our retail side for many years, we loved bringing you great products but found that we had so much more to say on a wider range of issues under the Modern Parents Vintage Ways theme than a simple retail shop allowed. We decided to start expanding how we worked and made the retail part of MPVW just one of the things that we offer. We’re still working on how we can best bring value to all of you out there, but one of the things we really love to do is track down products and businesses that fit within our philosophy and let you know about them. We look for businesses that are small like us, that have similar values to us about kids, the environment, how to do business and, importantly, customer service. Cheeky Tales is one such business and that’s why we’ve been working with them!

If you ever want to know more about why we’re posting about a particular product or business – or have a suggestion about who we could work with or give a shout out to – or even have an idea about something a little different we could write about – please let us know. Our email address is enquiries@mpvw.com.au, and we’re also on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest.

Stay tuned to hear more about the Cheeky Tales special tomorrow

As you know, we’re working with Cheeky Tales at the moment. We’ve let you know previously about the Cheeky Tales sale on Green Kids products (which by the way is still going!) and we’ve told you a little about what Cheeky Tales is all about…

This weekend Kathleen from Cheeky Tales is going to be a guest admin on the MPVW Facebook page!

Please make her welcome and feel free to chat to her about all her great products and her shop…and of course take advantage of some of the discounts up on the Cheeky Tales site at the moment!

I was reading something the other day about keeping the bathroom clean by spending 5 minutes a day sprucing it up…I rejoiced…it sounded so easy! Alas, so far I am failing. One of the things I find hardest to keep clean are the toys that live in our bathroom. Mould grows on them and unlike other surfaces I refuse to wash them with anything harsh. I’m considering throwing them out and starting again out of impatience (yes, I am a bad person). Does anyone have any tricks or tips for keeping toys that never quite dry out nice and clean?