As soon as Little Miss C saw a TV advert for Cutie Stix she was convinced that she needed them in her life. Since we've been sent them to review I can now see exactly why. Cutie Stix perfectly combine crafting and cuteness with jewellery, ticking the boxes as far as LMC is concerned. So what exactly are Cutie Stix I hear you ask. Well, a Cutie Stix is basically a rubber stick. There are three sizes in the set - in decreasing order, Mighty Stix, Cutie Stix and Teeny Stix. The idea is that you cut "slices" of the stix, and then put holes in them so that they can be threaded onto ... read more
I Love My Wok – Nicola Graimes
When I moved house recently a replacement wok was one of the first things I bought for my new kitchen. I've always used a wok loads for cooking a variety of different dishes in, and so I was quite surprised to read a press release for the book I Love My Wok describing it as "often... underused and undervalued". It's far from that in my house! I'm no great cook and have to admit that my wok based meals aren't really thought through as meals designed to be cooked in a wok, more that it's just the thing I choose to use in the kitchen. I was intrigued therefore to take a look at I Love My Wok ... read more
Easy Braids
I feel I should start this blog post with a bit of a disclaimer. I've never exactly been a girly girl. Yes, I do like nice dresses and shoes, and sometimes I've even been known to spend time getting my hair and make up right. But on the flip side I'm equally just as happy in jeans and a t-shirt with my hair scraped back in an elastic band - much as I am when sat here writing this. Little Miss C gets her hair tied back most days in either a pony tail or a plait, but, much to her disappointment, I'm not one for following long winded YouTube tutorials to be able to recreate fancy creations in her ... read more
Wobbly Worm
It's fair to say that my relationship with Wobbly Worm got off to a bit of a shaky start. Or maybe that should have been a wobbly start. I had great hopes for this outdoor toy and thought that it would be perfect to take along to Wine and Wigwams with me for a spot of evening fun after a bit of vino. I packed it in the car along with everything else, but rather stupidly didn't pack any batteries. The Wobbly Worm takes two C size batteries and strangely we couldn't find anything on the campsite that had this size batteries in it at all, so we didn't get any further than putting it together ... read more
Say Zoop! – Herve Tullet
As I'm sure regular readers know, one of my hobbies is collecting vintage children's books. There are so, so many things I love about them, but at the same time I also celebrate just how much children's books have moved on since my childhood. Back then books were just stories or factual. If your parents read you a bedtime story it was usually quite a old fashioned thing where they read and you listened. There were a few noticeable exceptions and I always remember the story my mum tells me about reading Wind in the Willows and how that book taught her about the sound of words. The use of ... read more
Review: Craft Time Mosaics
A recent house move combined with some grotty weather means I've been looking out for some small craft projects to keep the kids entertained on wet days at home. It was therefore perfect timing when I was sent a couple of Craft Time Mosaic kits to review. Little Miss C always loves anything crafty, and Master C's fine motor skills have been coming on in leaps and bounds recently, meaning that he too is actually now enjoying sitting down and completing something like this. We were sent two small kits to review - the kitten and the dragon. With the glittery mosaic stickers LMC wanted to ... read more
Brio Police Transport Set
It goes without saying that Master C loves trains and as I've said before, there's little that he loves more than being sent trains, or train related things, to help me review. Back in January I attended the Toy Fair in London and came home with a load of photos for him of the new Brio Police range that was due out later in the year. Ever since he's been asking about when he will get some "police trains" to review, and so I was delighted to recently be able to give him the new Brio Police Transport Set to test out. The concept of the set is that a baddie is trying to steal the gold on a ... read more
MOKURU – the latest trend hits the UK
When I was at school there was a girl in my A-level maths group who used to amaze me on a daily basis with her ability to twirl a pen on her fingers whenever she was thinking. In a way it was annoying, but it was just what Y did without even being conscious of it. She always use to tell me that it was something that everyone did back in Hong Kong, and strangely I'd forgotten all about it until a couple of weeks ago when I was sent a MOKURU to try out. This amazing wooden toy is perfect for anyone who has had enough of fidget spinners and wants to move on to the next craze that's sweeping ... read more
Ravensburger Bugs in the Kitchen #GoGadgetFree for National Unplugging Day
This Sunday (27 June 2017) sees us celebrating National Unplugging Day. A day on which parents are pledging to #GoGadgetFree and spend from sun-up to sun-down without technology. It's like a return to a previous time; a time when children weren't glued to screens all day long and played together either using their own imagination or playing a board game together. As part of National Unplugging Day we were asked to review Ravensburger's fantastic game Bugs In The Kitchen. Now I first saw this game when I visited the Toy Fair in London back in January. At the time I was blown away by how ... read more
Discovering Ciao Gusto at Ocado
This last week has been like living in the Mediterranean hasn't it? It has been so, so hot that I think everyone has wished they were on holiday instead of trying to get on with their day to day lives in the extreme heat. For me though, that holiday feel comes not only from the weather, but also from the food. Years ago I went to a conference in Sorrento in Italy and had one of the best food experiences of my life. Simple Italian food that was so delicious and plentiful that I still talk about that meal years later. I love Italian food and therefore it was a complete pleasure that I was asked ... read more