Hello Kitty Mini Playhouse Giveaway

Thanks to the lovely people at Toys R Us I have this lovely little prize to giveaway:

  

Hello Kitty 15 piece+ mini dolls house play set. Compact dolls house carry case opens out to reveal dolls house with bathroom and bedroom on upper level and downstairs living space. On hot summer days Hello Kitty can enjoy the outdoors with the fold out pool, sunbeds and garden terrace. Contains Hello Kitty, Mama and Papa characters and furnishings for you to arrange in her house.

I know that it's very early to be mentioning Christmas but this would be a great gift to put away and send to Santa. To enter just leave a comment below and then check out the amazing Toybox. 

Competition ends Friday, 7th October at 5pm. Winners will be announced after this time. 

The prize will be sent towards the end of the month and hopefully within 28 days.

Harumika Dress Form Set

The blurb:  The Harumika Designer Dress Form Set allows girls to show off their cool fashion sense and their designer aspirations. As with all the Harumika sets, no sewing required. Girls can create their own personal style with two stand-out designer dress forms, which are decorated with cool stamped art in an assortment of signature colours: pink and white or black and silver. Just use the colourful signature fabrics and fashion accessories as well as the stylus design tool that locks the outfits in place to create a new design every time.

Harumika is quick and simple and doesn't require any sewing, glue, or scissors. The secret lies in the silicon strip on the back of each mannequin which holds fabric in place.

This is a great idea that I’m sure most girls would like and I’m not entirely sure how I haven’t seen them before. In the set that we received were two dress makers dummies, material to make outfits, bling to dress it up a little and a poker:

You use the material to make all kinds of outfits, styles and fashions without any sewing or gluing at all. The only downside to this is that once you’ve made your fabulous creation you can’t actually keep it.  There is however a Harumika website which is really cool and you can upload pictures to the site to show off your outfits.

Chick is a huge fan of this set, as well as the website and gives it an 11 out of 10. She would have liked a bigger choice of fabric with it but you can buy extra packs or use other material that you have laying around and cut it into smaller pieces and use that.

We would both highly recommend it as we’ve spent ages together trying to outdo each other with our designs. Gotta love a bit of competition in the Brooks household. Available to buy from Toys R Us online and instore. Retails at around £19.99

Smelli Gelli Baff

The Blurb: Turn your bath into goo with Gelli Bath! Ideal for paddling pools and bathtime, Gelli Baff turns water into goo, and back again!

Simply run your bath, add Gelli Baff and watch in amazement as your boring bath water magically turns into a brightly coloured thick goo! When the fun's all done, simply add the sachet of dissolver powder and the goo disappears as magically as it appeared.

This was a lot of fun although we should have used less water to make a deeper colour and to make it more gooey!!  Ours was a lovely bright sunshine colour that seriously smelt like popcorn.

The crystals didn’t melt ever so well but actually this just added to the horrible stickiness of it all. Brilliant for kids to mess around in and for a fun bath time but definitely not for getting clean.....Chick had to have a shower after to clean it all off but massive amounts of fun!!

The second sachet is to melt the gunk so that you can rinse it away. It didn’t work quite as I thought it would but enough to rinse it away without any major traumas and also without any stains on child, towels, bath mat etc so that’s a bonus!!

Would make a great stocking filler or a little extra. Retails at around £4.99 available from Toys R Us online or instore. Remember to check out the Toybox for all the great reviews from the Toyologists.

Rio

Feel the rhythm...hear the beat... and let your spirit soar! From the makers of ICE AGE comes a high-flying animated comedy for the whole family. Blu is an exotic pet bird who believes he's the last of his kind. But when his owner learns about Jewel, Blu's female counterpart in Rio de Janeiro, they set out on the adventure of a lifetime. Even though he's never learned to fly, Blu befriends a group of wise-cracking city birds who help him find the courage to spread his wings and follow his destiny!

Chick and I are a teeny tiny bit excited to have been invited to a special Carnival party screening of Rio. It's being held at London Zoo and not only do we get to see the film, we also get a 'meet the macaw' experience. I say 'we' but obviously I'll be hiding away and just taking pictures of Chick. 

Sneak preview is below and I'll obviously let you know what we think of it after the screening!!!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules

Chick has been desperate to see this ever since it came out on the cinema and we just never made it. Imagine the bonus Mummy points I got when this turned up in the post before it was even out at the shops!!!

The Blurb: Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules follows the escapades of wise-cracking pre-teen Greg Heffley as he begins seventh grade at middle school with his 'un-cool' best friend Rowley Jefferson. Having survived the Summer holidays at the hands of his chief tormentor and older brother Rodrick, events take an interesting turn when they must deal with their parents' misguided attempts to make them bond. 

   Greg and Rodrick are bribed to spend time together with 'mom bucks' which they can trade in for real   money, and Greg's diary chronicles the trials and tribulations along the way. Forced to endure Rodrick's reluctant attempts teach him to play along with his band Loaded Diper, attempting to cover up a wild party that Rodrick throws while their parents were away and surviving his brother's romantic advice, can the pair ever reconcile their differences to become anything but sworn enemies? 

I can honestly say that we both loved this film. Chick watched it about 10 times during the first weekend of us owning it and I had to bribe her to watch something else. Greg and Rodrick are typical brothers in the way that they fight and are mean to each other but as the film develops and they are forced to spend time together, you can see that they do actually like each other too. The ending made my heart melt a little!

Chick’s favourite part of the film is before the opening credits where Greg is trying to impress the new girl at the skating rink and manages to fall over, get carried away by his Dad and fall into a birthday cake. Mine is probably the scene where the boys are visiting their Grandpa in the nursing home and Greg runs around in his pants! Hilarious!!

We both give it 11 out of 10!!! Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2 is available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray from Monday, 19^th September.

I Love London Lunchbox

DotComGiftShop recently sent me this rather lovely almost retro lunch box to review:

Originally I thought that I would let Chick use it but when it arrived it was more the size of a large sandwich box rather than what I would consider an actual lunch box and so couldn’t fit in everything that she needs to take for lunch.

It is however the perfect size for me. I can squeeze in my cracker bread, cheese and fruit. I love that it fits into my handbag so I don’t need to take an extra bag in with me.....I already lug around far too much rubbish. It’s also dish washer safe which again is a huge bonus for stressed out Parents everywhere!

It’s great as a gift or as a reminder of London and I may have to buy the matching tea towels!!! Available to buy from the DotComGiftShop at £4.99.

Tesco Books

I’m a huge lover of books, as most of your probably know by now, so when Tesco launched their new books blog I was very excited. As part of this Tesco are running an experiment and what they are looking at is grouping books by how they make you feel.....so ‘books to carry you away’ or ‘books to turn your heart in somersaults’.

I was sent a list of books to choose from and having read every single book in my usual category (books to turn your heart in somersaults *ahem*) I thought that I would strike out in a different direction and choose from the ‘books to make you think and talk’ list. Radical, huh??! 

So I chose ‘The Bookseller of Kabul’ by Asne Seierstad and a couple of days later this lovely package arrived:

Yes, I know I’m very lucky. The chocolate is A-MA-ZING!! It’s handmade and is dark chocolate with ginger.......as you can see I started it before I even thought to take a picture!! It's not something I would ever have thought of buying myself but completely delicious! Also a bookmark and a notepad.

What this space for my review of how the book made me feel.......although I can say that having read the first chapter it's already made me think!!!

Galt Nail Art

Although very much a science geek, my little Chick is also a girly girl so when we received this kit she was of course thrilled. We decided that we would make the most of it and have a girly pamper session together on a Sunday afternoon. The results of which you can see in the slide show:

I would buy and have bought Chick sets like this before. I was really impressed with this. It's great for parties and to give away as presents. The nail varnish is in fab colours and I must admit to being a fan of the sparkly....the silver may have disappeared to my make up bag!! 

It comes with seven nail varnishes, tattoos, an emery board, holographic stickers and nail gems.  Available to buy from Toys R Us online and instore. Don't forget to like the Toybox on Facebook so that you can check out all the other fab reviews.

Horrible Science Explosive Experiments Review

Chick has had a few of these kits now and she absolutely loves them. I thought that we would share this one with her Holiday Club to see what other kids think of the kits. They decided to make 'super snot' and really enjoyed themselves!!

I think the video tells you everything that you need to know about the kit!!! It's aimed at ages 10+ and retails for around £15.99.  Available instore and online from Toys R Us. 

The bloggiversary winners are.................

I used a random generator to pick the winners and they are as follows:

Day 1 - Casdon Toy Dyson:

The winner is Rachel Vreony

Day 2 - HMS Belfast Tickets:

The winner was Laura Pugh.

Day 3 - Fyrflyz:

The winner was Anna Aird.

Day 4 - Olivia Rubin Scarf:

The winners were Cupids Bow and Robyn Clarke.

Day 5 - £50 Argos Voucher

The winner is JoJo :-)

The winner of the £15 Tesco school voucher is:

ShelleyBird76

Thank you so much to everyone that entered. If you are a winner please e-mail me at adventuresofanenglishmum@gmail.com stating which prize you won and your name and address. I will then give you more information on when your prize will arrive.