Life is hectic at home at the moment

I am typing this one handed with a baby to my breast

And while I would not change my Rainbow Baby for anything in the world

Having a newborn baby is more challenging than I remember

Put that with postnatal illness, a holiday home with no wifi

Four year old twins getting ready for big school

And all the confused emotions that come with a baby in the sky

My writing is a little behind schedule

But I could not ever give up my blog

It is my space

My place to feel free

To say what needs to be said

And it brings great opportunities for escapism

Like this one

Being an ambassador for Asobi Toys

And creating a magical tree house from Calafant

Seeing the imagination and magical smiles

Of my eldest baby girl

Our Calafant review will be in two parts

Building and Playing today

Painting and Decorating tomorrow

If I can persuade Esther to paint it

She loves the model just as it is

The tree house she helped to create

For her woodland, jungle and magical creatures

You can create anything with Calafant!

I chose a tree house as it looked magical

The design is also quite detailed and intricate

Not something I could make from a large cardboard box at home

Well worth the £23 it costs to buy

Esther was very excited when she saw the box

She soon lost interest in trying to put the model together

And wanted to play straight away

I am not very good at making things

Daddy is the maker in our house

However I was determined to give it a go

The pictorial instructions were quite simple to follow

Even for me and I much prefer words to pictures

I made the tower or the trunk of the tree

And the main part of the house quite quickly and easily

I then started to struggle

The product is made for children aged 6 and above

The thick card is scored making it easy to fold in the right places

The tabs make a click and lock type system

The end result is a model that is sturdy

Built to last

But I did start to struggle with the build

So I stopped and enjoyed watching Esther play

She was having a wonderful time

With her Playmobil animals

The tree house has lots of windows and doors

Esther loved finding the right sized creature for each of the openings

She was making up stories and it was really really lovely to see

And lovely to be part of

It was a magical moment of mummy and daughter calm

In the midst of the chaos of our playroom

When Esther was ready for the tree house to be completed

We asked Daddy to finish the build

Which he did with ease and in good time

He is, after all, the maker

And the tree house is now standing proud

Standing strong and brilliant white

Ready to be played with

Inhabitated by magical creatures

And decorated by over enthusiastic preschoolers

With their mummy who is searching for a little escape

Perhaps this could be

Our magic faraway tree?

It can be whatever we want it to be

Whatever we imagine it to be

I don’t believe in things like that – fairies or brownies or magic or anything. It’s old-fashioned.’
‘Well, we must be jolly old-fashioned then,’ said Bessie. ‘Because we not only believe in the Faraway Tree and love our funny friends there, but we go to see them too – and we visit the lands at the top of the Tree as well!
Enid Blyton, The Folk of the Faraway Tree

We have had great fun with our Calafant creation already

We are looking forward to making the model our own

And using it in our play

If the sun is shining tomorrow

We will take the tree out the garden

Where a tree house should surely be

TREE HOUSE
A tree house, a free house,
A secret you and me house,
A high up in the leafy branches
Cozy as can be house.
A street house, a neat house,
Be sure to wipe your feet house
Is not my kind of house at all-
Let’s go live in a tree house.
― Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein

Please come back tomorrow to see our painting and decoration, for links to reviews by the other Asobi Ambassadors and to win the chance of escaping with a Calafant creation of your very own

We were sent one Calafant tree house for the purpose of this review