Win a Selection of Thomas J. Fudges Savoury Biscuits!

In 1916, Thomas J. Fudge opened a bakery in Dorset. Fast forward 90 years, and that bakery is still going strong. They stock a wide variety of both sweet and savoury biscuits and they've very kindly offered three of my readers the chance to win a selection of savoury biscuits worth around £25!

Image for illustration purposes only. Actual prize contents may vary.

All you need to do to be in with a chance to win is fill in the Rafflecopter widget below. Competition closes on 11th Dec. Good luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

(Disclaimer: I was not financially compensated for hosting this giveaway. I did however, receive a sample of Thomas J Fudges biscuits as a thank you.)

Toddler Tantrums

C is now 14 months old and has already started throwing tantrums. Is this not what they mean by "terrible twos"? Have they come early? Or is "terrible twos" a whole lot worse than just tantrum throwing?

C has started throwing tantrums over literally anything. He is sick at the moment so part of me hopes it linked with that. He drops down onto his knees, bounces up and down whilst doing a mixture of screaming and crying and throws his head back. This worries me the most because he just doesn't care if he bangs his head or not. I want to target the tantrums and cut them out by not giving him any attention when he throws one but I always end up going over to him and holding him upright because I don't want him falling backwards and hurting himself. 

I gave him calpol and he wanted more = tantrum. 

I took him out of the bath = tantrum. 

I moved away from something he shouldn't be touching = tantrum. 

His dinner wasn't cool enough to eat yet = tantrum. 

I think you get the picture! The past 4 days have been so stressful with them. 

Are you dealing with toddler tantrums? 

How do you cope?! I need ideas!

Dream Toys 2013 - Monopoly Empire Review

With Christmas approaching, I'm sure your kids all have massive lists for Santa and you want to make sure that you get as much of what they want as possible and leave behind the stuff that will be a novelty on the day, but will get thrown to the bottom of the toy box never to be seen again. 

Just in case you haven't seen the list you can view the Dream Toys 2013 here at Argos.

As I am so lovely to my dear readers, I have been reviewing one of these fab toys - Monopoly Empire. 

I am a huge fan of Monopoly as it is so I was excited to see how this game would differ to the original. The aim of Monopoly Empire is to build your tower first. The first player to the top wins!

I took out all of the pieces and noticed that we had a few new additions as well as some omissions. Towers, brand tokens and Empire cards (Get Out of Jail Free, Just Say No - meaning you can play it when another player has something against you) are all new. We still have Chance cards and tokens (instead of houses) whenever you own a full colour set. The money only comes in 500k, 100k and 50k.

The brand tokens are all different sizes. The more expensive the brand, the bigger the token and therefore the quicker it will be for you to reach the top of the tower. 

Just like the original Monopoly game, you have a banker and each player gets 1000k as well as 2 Empire cards at the beginning of the game which you can play at any time. The towers have numbers on them so when you start placing tokens on them you will see a number above it. When you pass Go, instead of getting 200k, you get whatever number is displayed on your tower. If you have no brands, you get 50k. 

Another change in this game is the Free Parking space. In Monopoly Empire, you can either land on Free Parking and do nothing or pay the bank 100k to move to any space on the board. 

When you land on a brand that another player owns, instead of owing them the price of the brand, you need to pay them the number that is displayed on their tower. 

The die are a little different too. One of them has a symbol of two hands shaking. If you roll and it lands on that, you have the option to swap the top brand on your tower for the top brand of another players or you can just play on as normal with the number shown on the other dice. 

When we play the original Monopoly, the game normally lasts for hours and we end up getting bored. We played this game twice and the longest game only lasted around 45-60 minutes. It is definitely becoming one of my favourite board games and it WILL be out at Christmas for everyone to play. My sister even woke up the next morning wanting to play again!

You can purchase your own Monopoly Empire for a sale price of only £13.49 here.

(Disclaimer: This post is in association with Argos.)

Truprint

If there's anything I love more than personalised items, it's something that I can get my own photographs printed onto. 

Truprint is my idea of heaven. They have been up and running for 30 years and only employ the highest trained staff and the latest technology to ensure great prints and great service. 

Truprint offer a wide range of products from your regular photographs to canvases, coasters, calendars and many, many more!

I was lucky enough to receive a few items from Truprint's range of fantastic products. 

Canvas print

Isn't this gorgeous? This print is 12"x12" and is a price of £29.99. The quality is absolutely fantastic and it looks great hung up on the wall. As you can see, my photograph is placed on the front. It wasn't a brilliant quality photo so I decided not to stretch it as I didn't want it pixelated. I went for a black background and I think it works really well!

Photo book

This photobook comes with 20 pages of photographs and measures 11"x8". I love the hardback cover (you can choose your own colour too!). The process of creating the books makes it really easy to insert your backgrounds onto each page or you can automatically fill them. You can even add text to the bottom of each photo. The hardback cover and glossy pages definitely make it worth the amazing £19.99 price tag.

Coasters

These coasters are amazing! They are like nothing I've ever seen before. They are shiny and glossy and are printed on so I don't have to worry about the picture peeling off. They're thick too and give a lovely personalised touch to your dining room. Would you believe that they are only £9.99 for 6!?

Note cards

These are my favourite! From New Baby to Wedding, there are so many different occasions and designs to choose from. With Christmas approaching I had to opt for the Christmas cards. Again, they have a glossy cover and you are giving a blank page inside to write whatever message you want. They are available in a pack of 12 (with envelopes included) for £11.99.

Photo calendar

I'm always forgetting birthdays and appointments and I'm not a fan of the plain calendars that you can buy in the shops. I love the idea of having my own photos on my calendar. The boxes for each day and month are big enough to fill in whatever appointment that you need to remember. As with the photobook, you are easily able to put coloured backgrounds behind each photo. This 12 month calendar measures 11"x8.5" and is available at a price of £14.99.

Inserting your photographs into any of these products is so easy. There is an online editor and you are able to choose whether to upload your photos from your computer or you can import them from Facebook or Flickr.

I would definitely recommend Truprint and I know for sure that I'll be purchasing from them again in the future. The quality of all the products are fantastic.

You can find out more about Truprint at their website, Facebook and Twitter.

(Disclaimer: I received these items free of charge in exchange for an open and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.)

I'm a Shoplet Blogger!

The best thing about starting a new school year, for me, was buying stationery. I used to love choosing nice pens and pretty notebooks - I still do now! Imagine how thrilled I was to be chosen as part of Shoplet's UK Blogger network. 

Shoplet.com was originally founded in 1994 and are an American based company. Today, Shoplet in the number one e-retailer of office stationery and supplies, carrying a selection of over 400,000 business products, 20,000 of which are eco-friendly.

In June of this year, they branched out to the UK with shoplet.co.uk which is where I come in. As part of their Product Reviewer Program, I'm here to pass the word on about this fantastic company.

To ease me in, I received a welcome pack. I was so excited to see what was inside.

I received:

• 43g Pritt Stick - this is great as I love doing arts and crafts with C so will come in very handy. I will be doing a lot of Christmas crafts so I will definitely need it!
• Nescafe Gold Blend sachet - Coffee is not to my taste so I didn't use this - my mum enjoyed it though!
• 3pk Remarkable pencils - I LOVE these. It's very noticeable that these pencils are made from recycled materials and they're bright and colourful too!
• Sample of screen cleaning wipes - I own a laptop, iPad mini and iPhone and I will always be using one of them. I'm naughty and never clean my screens but this worked so well! 
• 5pk paper clips - These aren't like your regular boring metal paperclips. They are so colourful and make your work look fun!
• Shoplet catalogue - I had a good browse through this and wanted to buy almost everything in it!
• Address Labels - I have a eBay account so these labels come in very handy when selling an item. Usually I write out the buyers address on a A4 sheet of paper and cellotape it to my package. These labels cut down the time it takes to get an item ready for sending.
• Folder - my partner has claimed this. He's currently doing a course in biomedical and biological science so this is great for keeping his notes together.
• Notebook & pen - again, something that Chris has claimed for his course. Definitely coming in useful!
• Information leaflets 

As well as what I have received, Shoplet also offer A4 paper, cleaning supplies and even discount office furniture!

I really loved my welcome pack and I'm so excited to bring you more Shoplet news!