Mr Fox who came to tea

One day, as we were about to sit down to dinner, the doorbell rang.

It was a curious fellow, with a bright shiny nose, long bushy tail and pointy ears.

He introduced himself as Mr Fox and he was a quirky sort of character, and very charming too.

We were all glad to meet his acquaintance and fell in love with him instantly.

I wrote last week about how I want to claim back our dining table and enjoy family time, every day, catching up around it. We're too used to rushing in the door after work and preschool, getting settled, putting the telly on and just doing our thing - with dinner usually on trays on our laps. Family life can be really busy but actually, it doesn't take that much effort to sit down together, at one table, and eat a meal whilst catching up about what we have all done during the day.

And if you have a nice table, and some nice tableware, then it really isn't a bother at all. Actually, it's rather lovely.

I always like to set the scene and create a welcoming environment. If I'm going to start a new habit, and keep to it, I have to get things just right so I decided to overhaul our dinner set and tableware, to something more fun and inviting, so that we can make our daily family meal something we don't want to miss out on.

If I have nice things to use, I will want to use them all the time. It's nice to have special pieces, but I have also decided that saving things 'for best' isn't always the best idea; because inevitably, 'best' doesn't come around all that often and it's far nicer to have nice things every day.

Don't you think?

That's where my introduction to Mr Fox comes in.

Mr Fox is a fun design from Scion Living - a bright, funky range of homeware, from tableware through to linen - and I instantly fell for the vibrant colours and stylish design.

I'd been first made aware of Mr Fox by a friend, who bought me a cream coloured milk jug with an orange Mr Fox on the side. I really liked the piece and it sits on my dresser, but it wasn't until I found Make International that I looked into this design and Scion in more detail.

I've come to learn that Make International has a whole range of British designer homeware available, including Jane Foster, who also has some cool character led items in her range.

To start with, it was the Mr Fox cream and orange mug that came to tea, followed by some matching bold placemats, a blue and orange cereal bowl and an orange Mr Fox glass tumbler, for Ethan. It was a lovely surprise to have these items arrive and compared to our plain, mismatched dining sets, they were far more fabulous so something had to be done.

It was a case of out with the old and in with the new, and so I started to add some other items myself to our Mr Fox collection - including three new mugs, in mix and match shades of pink, orange and lime.

Ethan's been using the Mr Fox bowl and tumbler - he likes foxes anyway (we went to see Zootropolis recently, which he loved).

It's nice to give him his own dinner set, a proper one now he's bigger and sitting at the table with us - and really likes meals times I'm sure because he gets to use these cheerful items.

Hubs likes the mugs (£10 each and in a variety of colourways), although has yet to pick his favourite colour, and we both agree that they make for the perfect cup of tea - just the right size, not too big and not too small either.

I really like laying the table - the Mr Fox place mats (£25) brighten things up and it makes something as simple and everyday as dinner time feel like more of an occasion. Just add flowers, a toddler with his toys and talk of our days' and plans for the week.

I like the fact that with the Scion Mr Fox products, you can stick to a colourway - the cream with orange fox is lovely and the blue variation is very bright and beautiful - or you can mix and match, which is much more my style and I'm sure we will continue to add pieces to our little collection in this way, as there's always new items coming out (the wallpaper also looks a lot of fun).

Speaking of mix and match, Make International, where my items have come from, also has a multi buy offer on at the moment on Scion items - I'm not sure how long this will be available for, so best be quick if you want to invite a new friend for tea!

Dinner time has never been so stylish or so fun since Mr Fox came to tea.

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* I was introduced to Scion and Make International but quickly added a more items to my collection and as ever, all opinions are my own.