DEBENHAMS BACK TO SCHOOL COMPETITION

My photo features my husband when he was about 5 or 6 years old, neatly kitted out in his uniform.

How life has changed during the last 50 years since this photograph was taken. Although the things around us are quite different, basically school uniform has stayed pretty much the same - we just have better materials  which are much easier to wash and kinder to the skin. Remember those woollen, hand-knitted, itchy jumpers? I certainly couldn't wear one today. This must have been summer as he was wearing his 'tank top', knitted by his Mum .... I don't think he would have looked this smart by the end of the day!

DadBen

Dad in his heavy cotton shirt and Ben with his polyester cotton shirt and easy care jumper - all much easier to wash and, if careful enough, non-iron - although I always like to run the iron over.

Ben thought his Dad looked quite cute in this photo!

Advance a few years to this teenage photo with the statutory woolly jumper and bri-nylon shirt - how I remember those, full of static electricity which made your hair stand on end!

Ben thought the jumper was horrendous - he doesn't like wearing jumpers at the best of times anyway.

Modern uniform   

Debenhams have some fantastic back to school clothes which are good quality and hard wearing. I managed to find all the items to create the look, complete with grey trousers and socks which were the norm back in my husband's day. Of course the socks then had to be darned when a hole appeared - everything had to last!

  

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Harris Victory Paving Brush Review

As I expressed an interest in this brush Harris kindly sent me one to try and the results were really impressive

I have been meaning to clean my block paved drive for a long time and this prompted me to make a start.

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• The overall length of the brush is 40cm and has a lovely, smooth finish.
• The pointed metal scraper attached to the top of the brush comes with a plastic cover for protection when not in use.
• The length of the wooden brush head is approx 10cm x 3.5cm width.
• A neat hole in the top of the handle is useful for hanging up after use.

As you can see, this area of the drive was particularly covered in moss and weed and I needed to scrape around each block to do a thorough job. Placing the triangular metal point in between each block and scraping along was usually sufficient and removed everything. However, in tighter fitting areas, or where there was a deeper rooted weed, I turned the pointer sideways to fit in between the blocks and that did the job.

A quick brush over with the wire brush completed the transformation.

  

  

Using the short handled brush I found it was more accurate and easier to use pressure in harder areas.                                                                            
This area of my drive was certainly the worst and after a good sweep up the results were impressive.

 

 

I still have some way to go - as you can see! But by doing a section each day I have found it really easy with the Harris brush, especially with the short handle to give me more control.

Priced at £6.99 this is an excellent buy and would certainly recommend.

AIR WICK - New Life Scents Review

Air Wick kindly sent me an exclusive hamper so I could be one of the first to try their new Fragrance Collection - Life Scents and what a beautifully packaged hamper it was!

A sturdy hat box, tied in gold net ribbon

Inside was lined with a black silky material with two layers of samples

The first package was an Automatic Spray Starter Kit in Lush Hideaway. A black plastic casing holds the Lush Hideaway spray can, which was very easy to fit and slid straight into the holder. After the supplied batteries were inserted it was ready to go and automatically sprayed approximately 30 seconds after being switched on. The round dial at the back has 3 settings - the first setting sprays about every 30 minutes and the third around every 10 minutes.

 

Lush Hideaway is a delightful fragrance with alternating berry, fresh mint and coconut water scents and certainly lived up to its name. It reminded me of walking through a warm tropical forest glade, picturing a waterfall surrounded by coconut trees.

I loved this scent in my lounge and the spray device fitted in well. We live in a bungalow and I could therefore smell this when I woke up in bed which was very pleasant.

The next spray I tried was Turquoise Oasis - a blend of drift wood, sea spray and warm breeze scents. This was by far my favourite, reminding me of holidays by the sea. 

Each can lasts approximately 60 days on the minimum setting and the fragrances are constantly changing.

             

 

The next package was the Double Plug-in and Summer Delights Fragrance Refill. The glass container was very easy to fit, just by unscrewing the top and pushing up into the plug-in. The amount of fragrance dispersed is controlled by a double dial on top, according to preference. As it is rather large I was concerned it would hide the socket switch when plugged in but it was still easily accessible.

Once in place and switched on, it immediately emitted a very sweet pungent smell. The Summer Delights fragrance is described as alternating white flowers, melon and vanilla orchid scents. To be honest I found this a little overpowering in the kitchen, although it would mask any strong cooking smells. It had a very strong sweet vanilla scent and my son remarked it smelled like a  strong version of a well known confectionery.

              

 

I placed the Reed Diffuser with the Summer Delights fragrance in my bathroom. Easily set up by punching out the centre in the top of the bottle and placing the reeds inside. Again a very pungent sweet smell filled the air, only reminding me of sweets and not the white flowers, melon and vanilla orchid as described.

This pack lasts up to 4 weeks.

            

        

There is also another scent belonging to the collection - Mystical Garden - with alternating wild strawberry, peony and sweet nectar scents but I did not have a sample of this.

I was delighted to try these new multi-layered fragrances and think the Turquoise Oasis and Lush Hideaway are fabulous . They create a constant refreshing fragrance and I would thoroughly recommend
However the sweet pungent smell of Summer Delights was not to my personal liking.

~ Thank you to Air Wick for giving me the opportunity to try these  ~

Homemade Halloween

Mummy!

This is the halloween costume I made for my son, which has proved a great hit and cost very little to make, just a little time and effort.

    

The idea came to me when I was clearing out first aid boxes and all the out of date bandages had to be discarded. It seemed a shame to throw them away so this sparked off the idea.

                           

First I used Ben's old green camouflage pyjamas and simply unwound the bandages and sewed each one horizontally around the outfit using a sewing machine. Each one overlapped the next to cover the stitching. The arms were quite tricky but I used some old tubular bandage for this.

Finally, for the head I used a skull mask (this was the only thing we had to buy at a cost of £1). Then I wrapped his head using a triangular bandage and also a loose bandage around his neck.

The outfit looked quite original and won him first prize in a fancy dress competition, simply because it was home made and for the effort put in.

It's easy to visit the supermarket and buy one off the shelf, where they all look virtually the same, but this was much more fun and saved us money too.

This article is being entered into Moneysupermarket's Halloween competition - see here for details:
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/halloween/homemade-halloween/

Entries can be viewed on their Pinterest board:
http://pinterest.com/moneysupermkt/homemadehalloween/

Happy Halloween!