Yorkshire Dales Ice Cream Parlour scoops MooBaaStar for super cool birthday parties!

This year we have celebrated quite a few birthday parties at the Yorkshire Dales Ice Cream Parlour in Halton East, (including hosting one of our own) and each one has been fantastic! 

For £10 per child you get exclusive use of the party room for 1.5 hours, a very good quality party tea (choice of sandwiches or hotdogs...we LOVED the hotdogs, think 'proper' sausages not those bright orange cylinders masquerading as food that kids are sometimes fobbed off with at venues) plus crisps, crudités, soft drinks and finished off with what else, but the all important ice cream! Kids go up to the indoor ice cream van in the party room and choose two (big!) scoops of ice cream and loading up with sprinkles and sauces. (It's worth adding that they're happy to cater for special dietary needs such as lollies and sorbet instead of ice cream if dairy intolerant)
 
There's a sound system in the room (which is just off the walk way towards the fabulous retro diner, so kids can see what's going on outside in the play area with the added bonus of being just close enough to the loos!) with music provided or if your little one has specific tastes, you can bring your own! The space is big enough to do party games if you like and there's certainly enough room to pass a parcel, pin a tail on a donkey or have a bit of a dance! The maximum is ideally 20 kids but they can accommodate more if you give a call to talk through what you want to do in advance.
 
We found the staff all really helpful and friendly when making arrangements and they were really good with the children. They provide printable invitations in advace and can provide balloons on the day or you can bring your own. The space can be decorated with your own decorations or banners if you want to as long as they don't damage the walls. You can also bring your own party bags, so your imagination's the limit when it comes to what each little reveller takes home. Apart from memories of a top day out in the Yorkshire countryside! It sounds cheesy but it's true; we're big fans of the Yorkshire Dales Ice Cream parlour (and our kids quite like it too!) It's clean, modern, with a really quirky style and a fantastic outdoor adventure playground that's innovative and unique to the area. 
 
We can't say enough, that the food and facilities here are really great for kids, second to none. Oh, and for the mummies and daddies, you can bring your own cake to serve them as well as setting up a tab for adults drinks...watching the kids have fun can be thirsty work!
 
And if you're not considering it because your child has a winter birthday, they promise us that with the new indoor play facilities parties can continue through the winter months! The whole new undercover play area features four new wooden play structures - a fire truck, a school bus, digger and truck plus new ride-on trikes for the little ones! For the bigger thrill-seeking kids there's a massive straw adventure with rope swings, slides, tunnels, climbing and rope ladders. Sounds fab to us!
 
To book your party (min £50 deposit) or to find out check out their website www.yorkshiredalesicecream.co.uk or call them on 01756 710685.

New clothes from old as a local mum gets creative with her innovative business!

At the start of any new year, many of us are throwing out the old and looking towards the new. But one innovative local children’s clothing business is cleverly using the old to create something new!



Qualified dress maker and mum of two girls Rowan set up her business eco-dinky a couple of years ago, when trying to find fun clothes for her children to play in. She now makes fantastic creations for girls aged 6 months to 8 years old using old fabrics, buttons and threads and also offers a custom-made service.

Rowan explains: “I dusted off my sewing machines and got busy. I started to make fun, playful, clothes for my own children. Neighbours and friends then started to ask me to make things for their children, then their friends would want some too and it just grew from there.


“The environmental side of my business just sort of happened really. I just naturally gravitated to making clothing from things that were already in existence; old clothes, table cloths, chair covers, fabric which was damaged and roll ends. I bought threads which had already been used then thrown away to make way for the next season’s colours, bags of mismatched buttons. started unpicking zips from clothes with holes in, chopping the good parts of fabric away from the worn out bits etc. It just was how I wanted to make things. There is far too much waste in the fashion industry and I really didn’t want to add to it. “My customers also really appreciate this ethos – they often have an item of clothing their child has grown out of which they loved and can't bear to get rid of. They send outgrown baby grows or clothing from their children, or baby slings they no longer use, or even items of their own they can no longer wear, and I incorporate the fabric into a new item for their child.”



Rowan has been a qualified dressmaker for over 15 years and, before having her daughters Bunny and Frankie, worked mostly in women’s wear, makings all sorts from bridal to club wear, also costumes, corsets and dance wear. She now works from home in East Morton in West Yorkshire to suit the needs of her family. She adds: “Working from home also means Bunny and Frankie get to see what it means to work and to see the process of something being made from start to finish, which is actually a rare thing these days. For her 5th birthday Frankie drew me a picture of a beautiful dress she wanted me to make (the sleeves came out of her head in the drawing but we worked around that!), she told me the colours she liked and instructions on how much the skirt should twirl and where I should sew on jewels. She then saw the drawing become a pattern, the pattern become pieces of cut out fabric, and finally the fabric being sewn into the dress she had designed.”




 This is a service Rowan now offer to people for their children – they love designing their own and get very detailed and involved. She continues: “My most popular dress design though, is the wing dress. This is a very versatile dress as the basic design can be made in any colour, and any designs can be sewn on as decoration. For example, I once had an order for a pair of wing dresses for identical twins. One liked spaceships and the other liked fairies. I did a silver spaceship dress for one and a gold fairy dress for the other.” 

The age range for pre-made clothing tends to be 6 months to 8 years, with the ages split up into 6-12 months, 1-2 years, 3-4 years, 5-6 years and 7-8 years. Dresses range in price from £20 to around £35 depending on the design. Custom made clothing can be made in any size. Rowan explains: “I’ve had everything on the spectrum! 5 year olds as tall as a 7 year old but as thin as a 4 year old, short, wide 3 year olds, giant 6 year olds. If a child is local I will tend to measure them but I am happy to take measurements from relatives over the phone or just give me an idea of what size clothing they normally wear eg. A size 3-4, or like the above example where they are 7 year old height but 4 year old width. I can work with that.”


Prices for custom made clothing range, as above, from around £20 - £35 to make up the garment with the additional cost for pattern cutting which is usually about £15 - £30. A custom made item can take anything from a couple of hours or up to a couple of days but Rowan discusses time frames with all her customers – especially if they have a specific occasion in mind for the outifit.


For more information visit Rowan’s website at www.eco-dinky.com

Love is in the air!

We love Coffee and Clay on the High Street in Skipton and it seems they're loving the MooBaaKids gang too...they're offering a brilliant £20 pottery prize to one of our lucky users (they don't take bookings and there is no studio fee, just go along and paint, for more info on last entry last entry or to see how buy they are just give them a call on 01756 792132). 


And seeing as there's so much love in the air, we're running the competition in time for you to redeem it for 14th February and make something extra special with your little ones for their Valentine! 


Simply tell us what local family event or activity you're most looking forward to this year and details if we've not already included it on the website. You can enter by emailing us at moobaakids@hotmail.co.uk with Coffee and Clay in the subject header or by writing on our facebook wall.  As always, the more entries you submit, the greater chance you have of winnning and the winner will be selected at random. Closing date is Sunday 29th January 2012 at 10pm. 

Coffee and Clay caters for people of all ages and abilities with the focus on getting creative and having fun! Spend your prize decorating anything you fancy from a plate, a mug, a bowl or even a scary dinosaur, using a special range of 20 different coloured paints. There's a wide range of stencils, stamps, sponges to inspire you and friendly staff are at hand to help. Once you have decorated your piece, it is glazed and fired in a special kiln and it is ready to collect within a few days. 

For more details - including their fab children's parties - visit  www.coffeeandclay.co.uk