Hello my name is Lydia and I work here at ecofective. Like most people, I’ve been shocked and saddened by the recent COVID-19 news and as our country goes into lockdown and our amazing NHS work hard to fight this disease, I’ve been wondering how I can make the most of spending time with my family whilst we stay at home.

I have three very beautiful, very young and very strong willed little girls. Keeping them well entertained from dusk till dawn (and I really do mean dusk) is going to be key in our family, but Spring has come at a perfect time. We’re going to spend as much time as we can in the garden. I confess my husband is the gardener in this household but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it. I love pottering around, playing with the kids and making the most of the warmer days (usually with a gin in my hand). So whilst I enjoy spending more time with my tribe I’m going to try and document some of the activities we do in the hope it may help other families who are looking for simple ways to keep kids entertained in their gardens.

Today was all about perfume, a fun activity I remember doing with my own grandparents many years ago. I can’t promise your kids will come out smelling like Chanel No.5 but I can assure you they’ll be really proud of their creations. We went around and picked some pretty flowers in the garden. We chose our favourite coloured flowers, ones that had fun shapes and ones that made us smile. We also cut some lavender leaves for the smell but any hard storked herb would work.

Once our bowl was full I poured boiling hot water over the contents and left it in a safe place for an hour (leave longer for a stronger smell).

Then the kids decorated their own perfume bottles. There’s a strong rainbow theme going around at the moment to encourage us to ‘Stay at Home’ so we thought rainbow stickers would be fun. This is where the kids can get really creative and adventurous.

Then it was time to decant the scent. We used a sieve to catch the petals and poured the perfumed water into a jug. We then poured the perfume into our beautifully decorative bottles and taaadaaa our very own homemade perfume.

The kids were thrilled and have proudly put them on their bedside tables ready for mummy to wear in the morning. Plus with such early risers in this household the activity was completed before 9.30am, hmmmmm now what can we do…?