The letterbox cake Review

When Baker Days contacted me asked if I'd like to review one of their cakes I knew exactly who to order this cake for!  My mum has looked after Max for the past 2 years for 2 days a week whilst we are at work, and what better way to say thank you - then with cake!

Baker Days have a lot of choices!  From personalised birthday cakes to personalised cupcakes and I've said before I do love items with my name on, Max's photo on and/or personalised messages so it should be of no surprise I chose a Thank You cake with Grandma on.

Review: Finding a Fancy Dress Outfit

For those who know us will know that we do like to make an effort around Halloween, themed parties and well let's face it - around any excuse to dress up!  So it's no surprise really that Max loves it too then is it? Therefore, I consider myself rather fortunate that I recently had the opportunity to review a Fancy Dress Costume from Jokers' Masquerade.

Jokers' Masquerade's fancy dress website has a fantastic array of costumes for not only adults but children's costumes too so I took great delight in receiving their Sherlock Holmes Outfit for ages 3 - 5.

Now Max is a tall lad and is 3 in a couple of months so I didn't think this outfit would be too big on him, but I must admit the coat does rather swamp him.  The belt helps with giving the coat some shape but the sleeves will definitely need tacking up - not a bad thing as it means he will get a couple of year's use out of it and the site does have a size guide to assist you.

The hat fits him lovely, but by looking at the boy in front of the costume... I'm not sure it should?  Anyway, my boy loves it and is happy to wear it.

The material is thin but feels good and sits well which I am very pleased about as we've had some costumes in the past years that have looked and felt, well a bit naff to be honest!  Also, and as you can see from my photos I would recommend having a good look at the garment before putting it on for your event - as this one does need a quick iron run over it.

Our boy practically lives in his Spider-man outfit so I was pleasantly surprised when there was no resistance from him to put on his Sherlock Holmes outfit.  The coat as I mentioned is nice and loose and Max is actually able to put this on himself.  I know this as he's been putting it on in the mornings since its first outing and going out in the garden to investigate bugs!

Holding his homemade looking glass

Sporting the no trousers look due to the amazing hot weather we're having!

The outfit Max is wearing currently costs £11.45 and for that, you get the coat, belt and hat (I love the hat!).  For a few extra pennies you can make your own looking glass.  I will be posting our detective craft made this week which included the looking glass shown or splash out on the real thing from the Early Learning centre.

Our homemade looking glass, binoculars and a secret box

Delivery is very quick and orders purchased today will be received tomorrow - this is ideal if you've left everything to the last minute which is usually what daddy does....

So, as I mentioned above, the website itself offers a vast array of costumes - far more than I've seen in any fancy dress shop that we've had downtown and - and quite possibly my favourite find on their site - ACCESSORIES!  Every girl should have a Shield Handbag!

All in all, I'm pleased with the delivery speed of our product, the value and the fact it gets a big thumbs up from Max.  October is my favourite month for many reasons and Max being that bit older now I'm looking forward to revisiting Joker' Masquerade and maybe picking out one of their Kid's Halloween Costumes

Mini Vampire or Mini Zombie - what do you reckon??

Disclaimer: I received the detective outfit from Jokers' Masquerade to review.

The above wording is all my own and not influenced by the product received

London Film and Comicon 2014 #LFCC

Mini Spider-man showing off his web shooter he was given by Aeronic Cosplay 

Oh yes, it happened.

Letters to my son - Aeroplane spins

Dear Maxwell,

You've had some fun these last few weeks, daddy's had some fun these last few weeks and mummy has aged about 50 years watching the pair of you.

The daredevil in you both has seen you spinning round on your first aeroplane spins with daddy.  You loved this and I'm still not sure which of you was more dizzy from the spins.  This is one of those moments that will stay with me forever.

And then........

One day you are at a local fun day with daddy and the MEGA SLIDE was there!  Now the size of this thing looked about 90 foot tall!  I have no idea how tall it really was as I wasn't there - if I was, I'm not entirely sure I would have been happy with our little 2 year old braving it.

Daddy knows you, and knows you can easily handle the mega slide and that mummy is prone to overreacting.... and he was so so right - on both counts.

My little daredevil

Love you my little thrill seeker

Lots of Love
Mummy
xxxxxx

The Canvas Prints #Review

#Gifted

Canvas Prints

I was recently asked by The Canvas Prints if I would like to review their website, service and product.  I am happy to review canvas products but in all honesty, I was a bit dubious as to how my canvas was going to arrive more than the print itself!  My reason for this is packaging in the past has left me a bit speechless, so I was so pleased to see Fragile all over the box, a lot of bubble wrap and a protective film over the canvas.

Canvas Prints

Canvas Prints

   

I sent Canvas Prints the image on the left and asked for it to be cropped as I thought there was a bit too much sea for a print of 12" x 18".  I do think the crop has worked well although, I must admit that I thought the canvas was darker than the original - it's not!!  I know it looks it but what makes the original appear to be brighter is the very blue sky and the pale sand around the edges .... which is now cropped out!

  

The print itself is great, it's clear, it has a good quality backing and now sits pride of place in Max's room. To get a custom canvas print you can visit their new website http://thecanvasprints.co.uk and select one of the 3 prints on offer:

screenshot of the website

Once you've made that choice you can then go on and decide if you want a gallery wrap, solid colour wrap or mirror wrap.  I do own a print (not by Canvas Prints) that is mirror wrap and possibly my least favourite of the options as Max's hand appears on the side as part of the wrap and is among balls so it just looks a bit odd.  I would say have a good think about your images before selecting what you think 'sounds great'.

Following this step, you are presented with several options to get your images uploaded and sent over to Canvas Print and I must admit my favourite has to be Instagram.  How cool is that? (Yes I do love my Instagram).  You also have the option to upload directly from your PC which I always find is the best option as it is usually where my originals and highest quality image sits.  I'm not sure on the quality of Google+ but if you are thinking of uploading an image via Facebook do remember that Facebook will reduce the image quality and you may get asked for the original by Canvas Prints if they feel the image is too poor quality.

Once you have your image uploaded you can play around with image effects after selecting your canvas size.  You really are spoilt for choice and with a preview, on hand, you can see exactly what you will be getting.

All in all, I have no issues with The Canvas Prints and found their customer service very polite and professional, the website easy to use and most importantly the canvas of good quality finish.

I do love how in this day and age canvas prints have become so much easier, quicker and cheaper to order now - don't you?

Custom Paint Jobs - The #Spiderman Car!

Before Max was born daddy bought a Lightning McQueen off eBay, sprayed it and covered it with new stickers.  It has since been tucked away in Max's keepsake trunk so as not to get ruined.

Since that day, daddy has been collecting and spraying Lightning McQueen cars and customising them for Max.  We now have 8 of these cars dotted around the house.  The image above is of the first 5 cars that he did before Max because of a Spider-man fan.

And then this happened.....

These are our latest editions to Max's collection - daddy did Spiderman and his boss did Venom/Black Spidey.

So what do you think?  I'm rather proud of him.

Paintz Mobile Body Repairs Facebook Page

Cartwheeling Chestie Nut #Bargain

At the weekend we ended up at a school vintage fate over in Chichester.  I'm still not quite sure how that happened other then we were on our way to Littlehampton Fun Day.... only to discover halfway there I had the wrong MONTH let alone day!  It may have been the advertising of vintage cars on the flyer that did it I think.

Anyway, we had a great time.  Max loved the playground and I got a wee bit emotional - not quite ready to see him playing in a school playground yet - he's not even 3!  We finally managed to get past the hopscotch and on to the field, and whilst we were looking around we came to a stall where Barbara Cluff was selling her books.  She is a lovely lady who is very passionate about her books and is a local to Chichester.

Max picked out the book he wanted and Barbara very kindly signed it for him... and then he wouldn't give it up!  I wanted to put his book away until we got home but Max had other ideas and promptly sat down in the sun and asked 'read daddy please'!

So we sat on the school field in the middle of a fate/vintage day - reading.  How fab!

You know this book is lovely!   Its marked up at £6.99 but we got it half price (and signed) - Bargain I'd say!  Its a thick book with beautiful illustrations (by Barbara and Roger Cluff) and tells the story of Chestie Nut and his adventures he learns about life.

Throughout the book is a little song that he sings and at the back of the book is the music sheet for the song.  A lot of thought has gone into this and Max loved it.  He often asks for 'Squirrel' when we're at home.

The only downside.... I learnt very quickly that day I can no longer do cartwheels.  I'm sure every single bone in my body shifted and rattled.  I got the message - I'm no Cartwheeling Chestie Nut - much to the amusement of the vintage car owners I'm sure!!

Don't you just love unexpected little gems and random days out?

Beach Shells #Craft

For those who follow my blog will know that we try and get to the beach whenever possible for some fresh sea air .... and fun, so after our last visit, it occurred to me that we are getting rather a large collection of shells.

At some point when I have a minute and (not 5/6 other projects on the go.... in my head) I want to decorate the plain little picture frames I have with them but for today I had an enthusiastic little boy, rain and a lot of shells.

So out came the craft kit.

* Blue card for the sky.
* Yellow card for the sun
* Blue tissue paper for the sea
* Glitter for sand and of course
* Shells for Shells.

For each stage, I was explaining to Max what we were doing, so when we were stripping bits of tissue for the sea, he'd repeat this back to me and really enjoyed decorating his card.

He loved covering everything with the glue and then picking out shells and covering them with glitter.

Once it was all done we placed it on the table to dry and it now sits pride of place on his craft table.  As we could not go to the beach we brought the beach to us.