Today we have been printing stars as part of our series of activities linked to Oliver Jeffers’ book How To Catch A Star.

This year is the 10th anniversary of this touching tale of a boy who loves stars and tries to catch one of his very own.

We love stars in our house.

Esther’s name means star and Baby Tilda, Matilda Mae, is our star of the sea.

Today’s activity was really quick and simple to set up but was incredibly effective. We have made some wonderful abstract art for our walls that we are all really pleased with.

So what did we do?

I chose four colours of paint.

Purple, Gold, Blue and Red.

I mixed each paint with a generous sprinkling of glitter.

This gave each printed star a certain magical sparkle.

We then used a mix of metal and plastic cookie cutters as printers.

We dipped them in the paint and stamped them on the page.

We had great fun trying out different ways of using the stars.

We overlapped stars, lined them up horizontally and vertically, we tried to make trees of stars and shooting stars.

We printed and stamped and painted and splashed.

It was great fun.

And here are some of our celestial results.

We were sent one copy of this 10th Anniversary Edition of How To Catch a Star to review

With about 10 weeks to go until The Baby Tilda Barn Dance preparations and plans are under way.

We have a date!

Saturday 31st May 2014

We have a venue!

The fabulous Millennium Hall in Egerton, Kent. This is where David and I had our wedding reception. One of the happiest days of my life. I am so looking forward to creating another special setting there in memory of Matilda Mae.

The Barn Dance will start at midday and finish at about 6.30pm.

It is going to have a festival feel and is absolutely an event for all the family.

We have an amazing band, Tapestry, featuring the rather wonderful Fi from Child Care Is Fun and her lovely husband. They will be performing their versions of some Indie classics including songs from mine and David’s wedding and a very emotional version of Starlight for Matilda Mae. I am definitely looking forward to dancing and singing along.

We have a fabulous trio playing live music and calling the dances. This is led by the man who called the dances at our wedding and I have faith in them that they will be brilliant and family focused. The first dance at our wedding was set to Nellie The Elephant and all the little ones loved it!

The amazing Classical Babies will play beautifully for us during the afternoon tea being provided by Beaubray Caterers. A company that again we know from our wedding.

The afternoon tea will consist of

Unlimited fresh brewed pots of tea
Freshly made ‘dainty’ sandwiches
Scones with butter and strawberry jam
A selection of cakes to include mini victoria sponges, mini treacle tarts, mini chocolate gateaux and fresh cream chocolate eclairs
Bowls of strawberries on the tables for guests to pick

Beebies Baby Store are working really closely with us in the run up to the barn dance. They have kindly agreed to sponsor the venue for us and are also setting up a rather wonderful children’s play tent (marquee) where we hope to also provide a place for baby and toddler snacks and drinks.

I am also hoping to have a sweetie buffet for the grown ups too!!

The hall is set on the top of a hill overlooking the downs and it is beautiful.

There will be a raffle on the day and we are now collecting prizes. We have already had some great donations from companies such as Munchkin UK, Snoob, Ellie Illustrates, Livie and Luca, Minnies Macaroon, Appletree Bags, Mia Tui, Ruby and Ginger, Lilly and Sid, Kyna Boutique, Tiny Discoverers, Itsy Bits, Niteo Jewellery, Zu3D, Bibee Dresses, Music Bugs and Princess and the Frock.

We are still on the look out for more raffle prizes so if you would like to donate something please get in touch. My email address is jennie@edspire.co.uk

We would also love to have more companies involved as sponsors of the event.

The more companies that we have on board the more of the cost of the tickets we can give directly to The Lullaby Trust.

And that is the aim of the day, to raise money and awareness for The Lullaby Trust and to have lots of family fun in honour of Matilda Mae.

It had always been our plan to have a barn dance in our back garden for TIlda’s first birthday, sadly, we, she, did not get that far.

This is going to be an emotional day for us but also a lot of fun and we hope to see lots of you there.

Tickets will be going on sale on 2nd April. Tilda’s 14 month anniversary and one month away from her second birthday. We will keep the ticket prices as low as we can and we hope to see you there.

I have created a Facebook Event page for the day and you can join it to keep up to date with all the latest developments.

We are hoping for another magical Matilda Mae day!

If you would like to get involved as a sponsor or can donate a prize for our raffle then please do get in touch.

You might just help to save a little life.

Thank you x