Next dress for Christmas competition

Next... I love it! Its my favourite shop to go for the kids clothes and I quite often go there first when I'm looking for something for myself. On Christmas day we always have new outfits, I just think it helps to make it extra special when you have 'posher' clothes on, as well as being a great excuse to wear a dress! I've been browsing the website and there are quite a few things that take my fancy! Having 3 children I spread it out and I have already bought my 2 year daughter this beautiful dress, I actually bought it in October before it disappeared off the shelf!

party dress

It was £24 and next have some really nice neutral tights to go with it. I know I'm already going off Christmas day, but I've just seen these and have to get them for Millie! I just love them, I'm sure she will as well!

tights

As for the boys who are 6 and 4 I usually dress them the same, which they love by the way! But this year Leon seems so much more older than Toby and has his own things that he likes. He's really into waistcoats at the moment!! I think he would look great in these:

 

 

Waistcoat  turn up jeans shoes

Toby who is 4 is a bit more a of a cheeky chappy and to be fair doesn't really care what he wears! He's one of those little boys that look stylish in whatever he wears and can pretty much get away with wearing anything! I like this outfit:

shirt jumper jeans shoes

As for me, I like to wear something simple and comfortable but dressy at the same time. I love wearing crisp new clothes on Christmas day. I'm usually in need of new clothes at this time of the year as well. I have my eye on these:

dress leggings shoes
As for Dave, well i can't choose what he wears can I? But I can certainly influence him!! I really like this, its fun and stylish. Holidays are coming t-shirt.

t-shirt

Now I know this is supposed to be for clothes but how nice is this, I love it.

bark wreath

This is an entry to Northern Mum blog, thanks for hosting the giveaway.

P.S. I have no idea why my pictures turned out blurry, or how to do fancy things with pictures!

My winning weeks :)

Recently I have won some really good prizes from all different types of entry methods. Firstly I won £100 Morrisons vouchers  in a competition I saw in compers news magazine. There was one winner per store and you had to purchase a Heinz product and send off the coupon found in store.  Not long after I got a call to say I had won.

I won a fantastic prize bundle from the princess and the pickle blog. Our prize bundle was worth over £100. I donated £5 to enter the competition, you should head over and enter their new competition and donate to the charity whilst your entering. More info here. 

Next I won a Halloween bundle from my homemade Halloween blog post. We won the group's category and bagged a fantastic prize bundle including 4x cinema tickets, 4x Alton Towers tickets, £100 marks and Spencer vouchers and a £200 haunted happenings voucher.

Last week I won a £100 voucher from Argos over on their Facebook Page, you had to donate your unwanted toys to banardos through Argos take a picture and summit it onto their Facebook pages. This is a picture I won with:

The competition is still open and you can enter here. Make sure its a picture of you saying Good-bye to your toys, some people have summited any picture. Admin have said on the wall it needs to be a picture saying bye-bye to toys! Closing date is 27thNovember.

 

Winning these prizes is definitely going to make Christmas a bit easier this year! I'm so pleased I have won £100 a week for the past three weeks ,it goes to show when you put the effort in it pays off.

Postcard comps......

I'm sat here writing out postcards to win competitions for all different prizes. I find myself wondering so many things. This year I haven't won a postcard comp, in fact I think the only postcard comp I have won is a bottle of mouthwash from what I can remember. I try to match up with the theme of the competition, so if its to win a car i use a car card, if its a shopping comp I use a shopping card etc.

I've cut up my birthday cards to make eye catching entries. I find myself wondering does it really matter what they look like, does the promotor really put all the entries in a pile and pick one out? I must enter about 20 per month. I suppose this is very little compared to some people. This doesn't include entry forms.

When a company offers entry via text or postcard do you have a better chance with a certain entry method? I have been a subscriber to style at home magazine for the past year and I have entered at least 2 entry form competitions with them per month (sometimes they have more). There is also entry methods via phone or text. I always feel they would prefer the entry form as it proves I read the magazine.

Have people stopped entering postcard competitions because the price of stamps have gone up? I know i haven't because I think if less people are entering then I must have more chance of winning!! I don't have any friends that comp so I don't really have anyone to compare to.

So what are your thoughts on postcard comps?

Homemade Halloween how to make a bride, a groom, a bat, a robot and a ghost!

Halloween is one of my favourite times of year and my children are getting to the age where they can celebrate it to. We have had a great time this year making decorations and different types of Halloween food. we invited a few people round and had a little halloween party.

 

This was my best costume ever! My mum made the dress and I modified it. My mum is a seamstress so always has plenty of scrap fabric. To make this you need to start by making a long white dress, sew a bit of lace on and it will automatically look like a wedding dress. Then for the blood i used water and red food colouring. I made it look dirty with grey and black paints from the kids bedroom. As for the flowers... they were a birthday present and I left them to die!! The whole thing cost nothing. You could easily re-create this, you could buy a long white dress from a charity shop or ebay quite cheaply.

 

Now dave's costume was a little more 'expensive'!!!! The suit and tie cost £4 and the white shirt he had in his wardrobe unworn for years. We used the same red food colouring and grey paint. We just ripped and teared parts of his suit. Both costumes have gone to new homes after selling them on ebay, its really nice to know that someone else would have enjoyed them this year.

 

This year I wanted the kids to be comfortable with what they were wearing and enjoy wearing them so we decided to let them choose, apart from Millie, as she has only just turned 2 she doesn't really know whats going on. I made a ghost outfit for her. Leon isn't keen in all things scary and opted for a bat costume, and Toby wanted to be a robot!! I told him this wasn't 'halloweeny' but he insisted!

 

So Leon's first ,he doesn't like facepaint or hats so his was really simple! All you need is a long sleeved black t-shirt from the sale rail in Matalan and a pound shop umbrella.

 

Take off all the other parts and just leave the long metal bits in.

I glued in the metal bits in the ends and then you need to sew them to the umbrella near the top. I also put duct tape round the top ends so they woundn't poke him.

 

 And there you have it bat wings, this isn't the best picture as he was to shy to have it done proper!

 

Next is toby's which is super easy. All you need is a box, dryer duct, kitchen foil, grey spray paint. Obvisouly this is really easy to do, we added some hazard tape for extra effect. once you have made the box, glue the foil on, add some hazard tape. We had some old dryer duct we never used and cut it to size for the arms and legs and sprayed it, once he had the costume on we cable tied the arms to the box. You will need spares for when they need the loo! Face painted and all ready to go!

 

 

Millies dress was the first ever dress I have made, it was so easy! The great thing is that for halloween outfits it doesn't have to be perfect. This was made from 20cmx100m pieces of old cotton sheeting (again from mums) but you could use an old sheet, curtains, as long as it white! I sewed it all together and sprayed grey spray paint around the arms and bottom of the dress. Added cobwebs from last years Halloween decorations and all ready to go!

 

And here she is... the biggest camera lover of the family!!!

 

 

We made these outfits mainly from things around the house! Here's our total costing:

Leon - black t-shirt £2 (matalan)

            Black umbrella  £1 (poundland)

Total cost £3 plus other things around the house needle, thread and duct tape.

 

Toby Kitchen foil 79p (instore)

Total cost 79p things from sround the house hazrd tape, cable ties, dryer duct

 

Millie £0

 

We had a fantastic Halloween and everybody loved their costumes! This is a entry into the moneysupermarket.com homemade halloween competition.