I've worked with HARIBO quite a lot recently, partly because they've brought out a whole range of vegetarian sweets which I can eat too! They asked if I'd be interested in sharing the #HARIBOFestiveFun by making a gingerbread house and decorating it with HARIBO sweets. I replied that I was already planning to, so it couldn't have fallen better really...


Gingerbread houses are synonymous with Christmas, even though there's no law that says you can't eat them year round. Those festive flavours and the spectacle of a gorgeous sweet treat in the middle of the table are just perfect, and ridiculously easy to make. Trust me.

illooms are the world's first LED latex balloons and I think we've been buying them since their launch in 2008. Each balloon has a fixed LED light inside which illuminates the whole balloon, and the effect is brilliant.

I'm delighted to be working with illooms, and one of my readers can win 5 x gold and 5 x silver illoom balloons - perfect for any celebration or party.


illooms balloons are very easy to use - simply pull out the tab before inflating and tie off as normal. You can fill them with helium, stick them to the wall or string them in rows like any other balloons. You can even play that most popular party game with no name, keepie-uppy.

We thought it was bad the year the oven broke on Christmas Eve, but then the universe said "Hold my pint" and we had Christmas 2018.

Last year was our best Christmas yet since losing Elspeth. We were doing Christmas. We'd decided to do an 'Advent' with the LEGO and built an amazing LEGO Christmas Village sprawling across 3 tables. It was ready for 1st December and it even had lights. It looked great unveiling a little more each day on Instagram.


We had an awesome real tree and for the first time in years we had put up a second tree by the window. With the 1970's ultra-flammable decorations on the ceiling and bookcases covered in tinsel it was epic. My partner even had 3 extra days off before the kids broke up from school, so we had tons of time for preparations for the big day.

We had bought or collected loads of stockingfillers, but only a couple of main presents. This will be important later. It would all be wrapped at our leisure, with Christmas tunes on the TV and warm mince pies.

Until now we used Bunch O Balloons for solely outdoor play, but that's all changed with their brand new Bunch O Balloons Self-Sealing Party Balloons. Inflate up to 40 balloons in less than 40 seconds without even breaking sweat! What's more, they don't need to be knotted and they even come with ribbons already attached...


We're working with Zuru Toys and Tesco - who will be stocking Bunch O Balloons Party Balloons from this week. They've sent us the Party Balloon Starter Pack With Pump to review, plus some extra Party Balloon Refills (and I'll also have a giveaway on Facebook so that one reader can go and buy some for themselves!)...


Packaging is mainly card with a large plastic window for the balloons, and it's not ideal to keep for storage. The balloons with their ribbons and rubbery hollow sticks are packaged carefully to avoid tangling without using lots of tape - nicely done. Easy to open and you can use it instantly.

We've got a really exciting giveaway today - and it's about as festive as you can get! Gardensite sent us a bundle of Christmas Decorations worth over £100 and one of my readers can win the same! Apologies if you don't like what we chose, but we let the children write a big list of things they liked, honed it down to the options that didn't need a stepladder or a huge display area (sorry light up Moscow) and chose 5 items that can really add a bit of sparkle this Christmas...


Outdoor Acrylic Penguin Family (£33.99) was chosen by our 10 year old. In fact his wishlist had 6 items and 5 of them were penguin lights - I think he's trying to tell us something!


Suitable for indoors or outside and mains powered with the plug and transformer included. The cord is just over 1m long, which is long enough to be helpful for most jobs. There are 48 LED's in this set and the tallest penguin is 9 inches tall.

If you watched Blue Peter any time between 1998 and 2007 you'll be familiar with longest-serving female presenter Konnie Huq. Konnie hasn't given up crafts and this Christmas has teamed up with the Institution of Engineering and Technology to bring us a series of easy and fun STEM toys that you and your child can make at home very inexpensively.


Head of Education from the IET, David Lakin has highlighted a significant shortage of engineers in the UK, which is posing a threat to the economy. The STEM toys of Christmas is designed to inspire children’s natural curiosity about how things work and why – a key principle in engineering. We were asked if we wanted to have a go at one of the projects and as soon as I saw the list, I knew which one I was choosing.

If you follow me on Social Media then hopefully you caught my #LEGO12DaysOfChristmas photos. I built each of the LEGO 24in1 Advent Calendar models during advent, and at the end a friend suggested I try the 12 Days Of Christmas. I could see it was a challenge that was ever increasing in work and possibly difficulty, but it was such a good challenge that I had to at least start...


Day 1 was easy enough. A Partridge In A Pear Tree. Believe me, by day 4, I knew a lot more about birds than I did to start with...

The Card Gallery are a Shropshire based online company selling personalised cards and other stationery. They started out 11 years ago catering for Weddings and Christenings, and now have a massive range of personalised products for all occasions including birthdays, thank you's, new babies and pretty much any event you can think of - including Christmas - and cards start at 70p each.

The Card Gallery also create personalised stationery and other products for business and schools. They even print iron-on name labels and personalised gifts for your child's teacher.

Last Thursday we were invited to a Magical Christmas Party at the Disney Store in Manchester Arndale Centre, to find out about their new charity initiative, which is taking place right up until Christmas this year.

"Take a festive photo in one of our stores, or dig out a classic from the family album and share it through Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #DisneyStoreFamily."

For every treasured moment shared, Disney Store will donate a soft toy to children's charities. This year their chosen charities for the UK are Great Ormond Street Hospital and In Kind Direct. If you don't have Twitter or Instagram, you can also share via The Disney Store's page on Facebook.

That's not all though, each family that submits a photo will be entered into a competition to win a family trip to New York, including a private shopping spree at the Disney Store in Times Square. It's a huge prize for someone, and so we gave it our best efforts to win while we were there!

At some point in our lives we've all believed in fairies, and if you are lucky you still do. Strange, beautiful swirling and swooping creatures who dance around and leave a trail of glitter, much like your average 5 year old girl. The Magic Door Store lets you invite them into your home, but not just fairies, all magical friendly little people are welcome, including elves.

xxx

Before you throw all of that cardboard and paper into the bin, it's worth thinking for a minute if it can be of use. Fortunately now most of our waste is recycled rather than thrown in landfill or simply burnt, but it's still often better used instead of buying something new.


It's 12th night and my decorations are coming down, and I've miles of Amazon delivery brown paper and torn used wrapping paper that is perfect for wrapping up those precious glass Christmas baubles. Don't have printed sides of brightly coloured paper next to decorations in case they get damp with condensation and stain. Brown paper works brilliantly and will also help if your loft or storage isn't the driest environment in the world, as it will help to keep your treasure moisture free.
Sachets of silica gel that are found in all kinds of boxed and bagged gifts can be re-used to protect your valuables - they're dangerous when dry as they absorb an immense amount of moisture, so make sure they're well away from anyone or anything who might try to eat them.


Bubble wrap that came with deliveries before Christmas is also useful for lining boxes of precious things, and creating layers between glass baubles.


Don't recycle your cards! Put them away with the decorations and next December get them out and cut into strips to make paper chains. You can glue them, or you can cheat and staple them. Because they're card they last far better than paper and can even be reused for a couple of years. Some cards can be cut into amazing strips, with fantastic festive pictures, bright colours, glitter and even Christmas messages. It also has a level of nostalgia, I can look at our paper chains and remember who sent a few of the cards they were cut from.


It goes without saying that all of the sweets, biscuit and cracker tubs and tins can be reused. Perfect for biscuit and cake storage and all manner of other things, they can also be great outside the kitchen. We've used some for Children's toys - my young sons cut out pictures from a Christmas catalogue so that they know what is inside.


The colourful streamers in party poppers can be used as pretty padding for breakable gifts next year.
 
Nut and egg shells can be used to discourage slugs and snails from crossing your vegetable patch or eating your flowers.

Cardboard boxes from food, egg boxes, cardboard tubes from foil and a host of other things are great for junk modelling and nurseries are often very pleased to take them off your hands if you can't use them.

Mince pie foil trays can be strung together and make an impressively noisy garland - or a bird scarer for the garden to protect seedlings.


I've left out the obvious.....regifting.....because none of us would do that now, would we?

At a time when bin space is at a premium, it's very satisfying that rubbish doesn't always have to be thrown out...and whenever you don't buy something new you save money and do a tiny bit for our planet...

I try and be crafty, but I'm not a natural and I have to think about it for a long time before I start as experience has taught me I'll end up wasting loads of lovely materials otherwise.

Cartridge Save have solved my problem by creating a whole host of free printables that you can make with your children ~ including loads of Christmas ideas for decorations and activities. I was asked if I wanted to try them out and they even sent me a bag of goodies to use...







There's a template to cut out, and you can fit 5 trees onto a piece of A4 sized card if you're careful.
2 trees make one 3D tree, and if you use paper or card that is only decorated on one side, you will need to put 2 pieces 'back to back' to give full colour.
 



While the glitter and decorations were drying we decided we'd make angels next. I love these because they remind me of being at infant school myself. We always made them in class. They're incredibly simple.





The card itself is made by taking A4 card and folding it in half, then taking coloured A4 paper, cutting it in half and trimming the edges slightly, so that when you stick it onto the card, you can see a white edge. We didn't trim ours enough really, and my sons choice was perhaps a bit pale for a Christmas card, I'd like to make the next one bright red or green. We decorated ours with lines and dots of glitter.






 





Before you fasten the second end of your cracker you need to fill it. These are totally personalised, so anything that fits can be used as long as it won't spoil or won't break if it falls on the floor when the cracker is pulled!I think adding some Christmas sprinkles and maybe a sweet or two makes it fun too.




 

I always had an artificial Christmas tree until I met my partner. He always had a real tree. I didn't like the idea of cutting down something so beautiful, but after looking into the ecological impact of real trees, I agreed with him that it does the Earth no harm as long as you do it right - in fact it can be beneficial because young trees synthesise more Carbon Monoxide than older trees and th old trees can be used for mulch and woodchippings, rather than burnt or buried like in the old days.

Every year we've all wrapped up and gone to choose our tree. This year we couldn't take everyone because we could only take one van and we need to have space for the tree on the way home, so we took the youngest 2 and off we went...