Hillcrest Live

| December 24, 2024

Decluttering This Holiday Season: Tips for a Stress-Free and Organized Holiday

The holiday season is often associated with festivities, family gatherings, and, unfortunately, clutter. From gifts and decorations to seasonal items and wrapping paper, it’s easy for your home to become overwhelmed with excess. However, the holidays are the perfect time to clear out the clutter and create a peaceful environment that allows you to truly enjoy the season.

Nasreen Badrodien

| November 19, 2024

Spring Tips for a Lush Summer Lawn

Give your lawn a little TLC now to make it summer-ready, ensuring it stays lush, green, and happy! By prepping it, you'll boost its resilience against pests, heat, and diseases, ensuring a lush, green garden centrepiece.

| November 19, 2024

Dopamine Décor – The Uplifting New Home Trend

With a more optimistic outlook for the new year, thanks to stable repo rates and loadshedding suspension, now is the perfect time to consider a home refresh. The latest décor trend, Dopamine Décor, is taking the interior design world by storm, offering an uplifting way to transform your space.

Linda Christensen

| September 17, 2024

Wedding trends – what’s in, and what’s out

All weddings are unique in their own way but everyone wants theirs to be the most memorable of them all! Nicola Woodgate, Weddings Executive at ANEW Hotels & Resorts, shares some inspiration for the current top wedding trends to ensure that your wedding is fresh, modern and innovative:

| August 19, 2024

Raising Cheetahs: How the Right Environment Empowers Gifted Children

As educators and parents, we often meet children who don’t fit neatly into traditional moulds. These children may struggle in conventional classrooms, not because they lack ability, but because their abilities far exceed what standard environments can accommodate. Gifted children frequently display traits like ADHD, Autism, OCD, and anxiety—elements of their experience but not the whole picture. Many are twice-exceptional (2E), meaning they are both gifted and face learning challenges. Sadly, they’re often misdiagnosed and placed in remedial schools that fail to nurture their unique potential. But with the right environment, where support and enrichment are appropriately tailored, these challenges can be managed effectively, allowing the child to truly flourish.

| August 1, 2024

Ladies… You’re More Than a Ready-Made Meal

We've all been there – running around like headless chickens, grabbing whatever food’s quick and easy just to get through the day. In this mad rush, we've let ready-made convenience trump nourishment. This Women’s Month, home cook turned bestselling cookbook author, Chantal Lascaris, helps busy women everywhere rediscover an easy entry point to self-love – and it just happens to be through the kitchen door. I’m as guilty as the next person: Too busy to pause, to cook, to nourish my body with what feels good – and so it’s not surprising that I spent much of my startup career subscribing to the proverbial grab-n-go culture. Until I course-corrected a little (maybe a lot!), and I realised that in order to change my relationship with food, I had to change my relationship with cooking first.

| April 10, 2024

14 Interior Design Secrets Which Make A Big Impact With Minimal Fuss

It's said there's a world of difference between a room designed by a professional interior designer and one done by a home decorator, but this needn’t be the case.

| April 8, 2024

Explore the Diverse Palette of Chalk Paint Hues

Chalk paint has taken the world of home decor and DIY enthusiasts by storm in recent years, and it’s easy to see why. Its versatile and easy-to-use nature has made it a favourite among those looking to revamp their furniture, home accessories, and even walls. One of the most exciting aspects of chalk paint is the wide array of colours available. In this blog, we’ll take you on a colourful journey, showcasing some of the most stunning chalk paint colours that can transform your space into a work of art.

| March 28, 2024

Six easy DIY projects to get cracking with this Easter

Easter celebrations are upon us, a time filled with fabulous feasts, quality family time, and loads of fun for all! The Easter holidays are also the ideal time to hop into creative mode and try your hand at some fun DIY Easter crafts. From bunnies and flower bouquets to the sweetest treat gift boxes and baskets, there’s no limit to the egg-cellent crafts you can make this Easter.

| February 5, 2024

Navigating Vehicle Maintenance: Choosing the Right Service for Your Car

Keeping your vehicle in peak condition requires careful consideration of its maintenance needs. At service centres like ours, you’ll typically encounter two primary service options: the Minor Service and the Major Service. Each of these services is designed to address specific components crucial for ensuring your vehicle’s optimal performance.

| January 9, 2024

Five top design and décor trends to look out for in 2024

We live in a world where our homes and living spaces have transformed into sanctuaries of solace, where safety, self-soothing, vibrancy and personal expression are pride of place. As we prepare to step into 2024, this holistic approach to design is likely to continue - blending a harmonious balance between aesthetics and well-being in our homes.

| January 8, 2024

Home Resolutions For An Improved And Uplifted Living Space In 2024

Every new year, many people embark on a journey of self-improvement by making New Year's resolutions, but this needn’t be confined to personal goals; homeowners can also leverage the tradition to cultivate a positive living space that promotes comfort, organisation, and well-being.

| August 15, 2023

Garden Allies: The Unseen Heroes

Of the millions of species of insects in the world, few are actually harmful to garden plants. In fact, many species, known as beneficial insects, support gardens by feeding on particularly harmful insects, states the gardening team at Granny Mouse Country House & Spa.

| July 12, 2023

Healthy soil is the key to happy plants

Whether you're about to create your first garden from scratch, or beginning to prep existing beds for the coming growing season, take the time to check your soil and make it the nutrient-rich home your flowers, vegetables or shrubs definitely deserve states Sean Granger, General Manager of Granny Mouse Country House & Spa.

| June 13, 2023

Selecting the perfect bridesmaids dresses

Bridesmaid style has come a long way and gone are the days of everyone wearing the same bridesmaid dress. Today, brides are mixing it up with mismatched dresses, creating truly unique outfits featuring gorgeous ensembles with different styles, fabrics, hemlines, and colours.

Making more from your small space

Are you living in a place that has a tiny backyard or small balcony and feel like it needs some sprucing up? Granny Mouse has some super smart ideas on how to make your smaller areas more welcoming. Sean Granger, General Manager of Granny Mouse Country House & Spa states “even the most compact spaces can be arranged in a way that makes them both functional and more enjoyable to be in.

Winter warm vegetables

When shopping for vegetables in winter, remember the golden rule - shop with the season and know which vegetables to get.

Pick the right herbs for the right dish

When it comes to cooking, many of us worry about how many herbs we should be adding to our recipes, and which herbs go with a particular meal.

Start your own herb garden today

Growing herbs is an excellent way to utilize your garden harvest in creating fresh and nutritious meals. Herbs are easy to grow, whether fresh or dried, and are essential for enhancing the taste of your culinary creations.

| April 3, 2023

Secret kitchen ingredients that can help your garden grow like crazy

Who would have guessed that items in your kitchen could get your garden flourishing? The team at Granny Mouse Country House & Spa have a few tips that will astound and amaze you, with items that you use and consume daily helping you reap the rewards for you and your garden.

| March 16, 2023

#breakingstigma: It’s Okay To Not Be Okay

South Africans are pushed to their mental health limits near daily and Janssen South Africa highlights that it’s okay to not be okay.

| March 3, 2023

3 Ways Kids Develop Meaningful Friendships

Have you ever wondered why it’s so critical for kids to make good friends, and understand the value of friendship from an early age? We’ve put together an interesting article for you, with 3 Ways Kids Develop Meaningful Friendships.

| March 1, 2023

Planning your wedding for 2023?

There are so many jaw-dropping wedding trends that are set to be huge this year, which include fresh ideas for your ceremony and reception. This allows you to break away from the stereotypical wedding ideas of the past, which is very exciting.

| February 15, 2023

End of Summer gardening to-do list

The end of the Summer season is only a month away, but the heat has been turned up and our beautiful gardens are starting to be seriously affected by it. Because we are getting into the hottest month, we at Granny Mouse Country House & Spa want to make sure that you give your garden the chance to stay happy and looking sensational.