Home and Garden – Page 5

Decorating the tree should not be stressful???

Fess up! Do you let your kids help decorate the tree and then rearrange the decorations once they’ve gone to bed? I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to things like this. It may be the Libra in me, everything has to be balanced. Prior to having kids my tree wasn’t perfect, like Michelle Obama’s, but all my decorations were colour coordinated and strategically placed.

However, since having my daughter, the first couple of years were fine, as she was too little to get involved and was happy staring at the shiny bulbs and flashing lights. But for the last 2 or 3 years she has been fully involved with decorating the tree including making her own decorations, resulting in a tree that looks like it’s had decorations thrown at it from across the room, causing me a mild amount of inner angst. If I’m honest, the first couple of times she helped I did do a bit of rearranging when she’d gone to bed.

I’m pleased to announce and without therapy, I have not moved a single decoration this year, now that she is 5. But I have to confess, it may be because she did a rather good job herself and not that I have chilled out; maybe she’s inherited my obsession.

And on a side note, does everyone else have difficulties taking decent photo of a Christmas Tree?

Disclosure: The Warm Cone Lights were Compliments of Notcutts

Finally, some help in the kitchen!

I’m no Super Ninja Mum, I do like to cook from fresh but on occasion I need a bit of a break and am always up for a bit of a cheat sometimes. I want to let you in on a secret; I’ve got someone helping me in the kitchen and she’s come to my rescue on a few occasions recently.

I don’t know how many times I have tried to make Roast Potatoes, I’ve tried goose fat, par boiling, knocking them about in the colander etc and they never turn out brilliantly. Recently, I’ve discovered Aunt Bessie’s Frozen Roast Potatoes. Some of you may be grimacing but honestly they are quite good and I can’t be bothered with all the effort of pealing and working out the timings and temperatures.

This weekend after a couple of wines in the pub I thought it was a good idea to invite friends over for an impromptu roast as I’d left one in the oven. Luckily, my freezer was stocked full of Aunt Bessie’s stuff: Homestyle Gravy, which is much nicer than the granule stuff, Roast Potatoes, Yorkshire Pudding and Apple Pie. No one complained and I almost looked domesticated! :-)

And another discovery I’ve made, Aunt Bessie’s Casseroles are suitable for slow cooking with instructions on the pack. All you have to do is put 300ml of water in and your set to go! As I said, I like to cook from fresh normally but they are great for a mid week meal and were surprisingly nice. Another bonus is that they have less than 5 Weight Watcher Proplus points so I can have dumplings as well!

I’ve been having a chat with the people at Aunt Bessie’s and they’ve kindly offered 3 prizes so you can try them for yourself. £10 may not seem like a lot but you could probably buy all the accompaniments for a roast with them. Simply enter by using the Rafflecopter form below. Competition Closes on the 27^th of October at midnight (EST).

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a selection of products complimentary.

ThePrizeFinder – UK Competitions

Brand Bails out Blogger!

I don’t want to dwell too much on the company that let me down but I’d rather spend my time ‘Bigging Up’ the company that came to my rescue.

Where it all went wrong

However, to better understand the situation you will need a bit of background. On a Friday night, I run a small Twitter quiz. A company offered me 3 prizes for the winners. The competition went well with a lot of exposure to the brand. I contacted the company to inform them of the winners but then it went deadly quiet for a few weeks. I emailed numerous times, tweeted and even tried to phone but there was no phone number on the website. I had a very bad feeling about it all.

The winners, were incredibly understanding and said ‘Chrissie, don’t worry about it, it’s fine’. But sorry, in my book, if I promise you something, I will deliver even if I have to pay for it myself. In the end, a light bulb went off and I thought. Why don’t a contact someone who offers a similar service and see if they would be willing to help me out of a pickle. So, I contacted a company that I’ve worked with on a couple of occasions (see picture), explained my plight and was fully expecting them to politely decline as it was in no way their problem.

Knight in Shining Armour

But when I opened up my email first thing in the morning, I was pleasantly surprised; there was a response from Mark from Hello Canvas offering to help out. Within 30 minutes the winners each had gift certificates for a photo on canvas with the size 16 x 24 inch/40 x 60 cm. As another blogger said ‘this speaks volumes for the company’s ethos’ and I can’t agree more.

I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to Mark and the team at Hello Canvas for bailing me out of a tight spot and if you think they’re as fab as I do please feel free to tweet them @hellocanvas telling them how wonderful they are.

As for the other company, after a very harsh email from myself and a bit of pressure from a few of my twitter friends I did get a response and they did in the end uphold their end of the bargain. Apparently, they had an intern, who was responsible for this but has now been fired. They were very embarrassed by the whole situation, but in the end I still feel it’s the company’s responsibility. Sadly, I will not be able to recommend them in future.

I’m tired of tidying up her room!

My 4 year old daughter is really into dressing up at the moment.

So, I bought her a basket to store all her costumes in.

However, every time she wanted something this is what happened.

So in the end, I had one of these made. What do you think?

I originally came across it on Ana White’s Homemaker blog via Pinterest, with all of the instructions and dimensions. So, if you or someone you know is handy with tools you could knock one up easily with a bit of MDF. However, I am not, so I had a local carpenter make it for me. It was very reasonable, I had it in a day and he gave me a discount as I offered to paint it myself. He is interested in doing more.

Ours is a bit girlie, but you could have an under the sea theme, pirates or whatever strikes your fancy.

We gave it a coat of MDF primer and then two coats of satin. I found the letters (£1.50 each) and mirrors (.99p) at Hobbycraft. I hung the mirrors with those No Nails strips. Fingers crossed they don’t fall off.

If you’re local to St Albans and would like one, drop him an email at christophe.laget@hotmail.fr. Do tell him I sent you!

How to stop your cat urninating in the house…..

I did not kill my cat, but to be honest I was really close! For the record, I’m a cat lover; I can’t remember when I haven’t had one. Currently we have two, a brother and a sister, they’d been abandoned in a box next to a river with their mum, we’ve had them for 5 years but recently the female has started to wee everywhere and when I say ‘everywhere’ I really mean it.

She’s ruined over £500 worth of footwear (I like expensive shoes), when a friend came to visit from South Africa, amidst making up her bed the cat jumped up and peed on it, one night after I’d been out I came home saddled up next to hubby and the cat jumped up and peed all over the both of us and one morning hubby was all suited up for work it backed up to him wiggled it’s tail and wee’d all over him.

To be honest I was at my wits end, nearly in tears and the cat was minutes away from being taken back to the RSPCA. Many people suggested that she may have cystitis and I should take her to the vet, but I watched her closely and it wasn’t a matter of being incontinent and unable to get outside but more of a behavioural issue.

Basically, we have a normal cat flap and all the neighbourhood cats come and go as they please, we also found a dog ball in the house which was full of scent and she has a nervous disposition hence why I think she is peeing everywhere, just marking her territory.

We bought some Felaway spray which is a pheromone that is supposed to relax the cat and it did. It worked brilliantly for a few days and the weeing stopped immediately but sadly it started again.

A few people recommended chip cat flaps but I misunderstood them. I thought they meant the ones with the magnetic collars. Our cats won’t keep collars on so this wasn’t an option but in the end I worked it out and I love gadgets so I was all over this one. Basically the cat flap works on the identity chip that is implanted in the cat. Both of our cats had one implanted when they were spayed and neutered.

The Sureflap Microchip Cat Flap was a bit pricey (approx £90) but when you work out the damage, the amount we save on lost magnetic collars and feeding all the neighbourhood cats it really wasn’t that bad. Installation was a breeze but persuading our cats to go through it was rather challenging. Once you install the cat flap you have to put it in learn mode and then pass your cats through the cat flap. I have to say they weren’t convinced but with a bit of gentle persuasion (brute force) they did it.

But the most important thing…………….she has stopped weeing in the house, she now feels safe and secure as the neighbourhood bullies can’t get in.

Thanks to @cocabeenslinky for the artwork. It’s amazing what a bit of port and wine can produce!