Product reviews





HOT DOTS JR

My daughter and I were lucky enough to be able to test and review Hot Dots Jnr from Learning Resources . So, what just are Hot Dots exactly. Well, its basically an interactive learning game for children to aid numeracy learning. Its a useful little tool that comes with its own talking pen to tell your child whether they have the answer right or wrong . Basically your child is learning through play without even realising it! So what comes in the pack? Well, there's a snazzy talking, beeping and flashing pen! If your child gets the right answer then the pen tells them they've done a good job etc!



Also in the pack are the learning cards that the child uses with the pen. There are a number of them ranging from simple mathematical games, such as counting how many objects are on the card, to 'what comes next' cards. Excellent for motivating your child to start thinking about numbers.

 

This is a great little resource and FD enjoyed using it. Perhaps a bit too young for her despite her learning difficulties she still had a lot of fun with it. FD does really struggle with number work so it was nice to have something a little bit different to kick start some learning without her even realising that's what was happening.

 

Learning Resources are running a competition on their Facebook page. Check it out HERE for a chance to win a Hot Dots set. The closing date for the competition is Friday 16th November 2012.

 



HELLO CANVAS

HelloCanvas produce Canvas pictures from photographs sent to them, thus producing a lovely personal piece of art for your home. I was delighted when Mark from HelloCanvas approached me and asked me to carry out a review for them. I was asked to provide a photo that I wished to be made up into a canvas. Because my son is a bit of an amateur photographer I wanted something that would show off his talents, as well as having something that had a lovely memory for me too. Immediately a particular photograph sprang to mind. It was a lovely photo of our dog as a puppy playing in a meadow.

So, I emailed a photograph to HelloCanvas. The photograph had to be  from 250 kb in size to 25 mb and of good quality.  HelloCanvas can print the photograph onto the canvas in colour, sepia, or black and white.

The photograph I had selected was quite arty as part of the picture was in soft focus and part of it was quite bright with vibrant colours to emphasise the flowers the dog was playing amongst. Anyway, have a look at the photos below and I'll let you make up your own mind. I am thrilled with the finished canvas. The photographs I have taken really don't do it justice.

 

This is a photograph of the finished canvas when it arrived today. It came very well packaged and only took a couple of days from emailing the photograph to HelloCanvas to delivery. The canvas was 20x28 inch/50 x 70 cm  in size.

 

 

 

 

This is the canvas hanging in my hallway. It looks so good and brightens up quite a dark space.

 

 

As you can see, the canvas is finished to a very high standard.

 

 

This is a closeup of the quality produced by HelloCanvas. None of the colours where compromised at all and my son's talents in photography were reproduced beautifully.

 

 

HelloCanvas can be found at http://www.hellocanvas.co.uk/ and you can also follow them on twitter @hellocanvas and facebook https://www.facebook.com/hellocanvasUK

 

*I received the canvas free of charge in order to take part in the review but this did not influence the review in any way and all reviews are honest and only promote products I am genuinely happy with.

 

EPIC STRAWS

We were lucky enough to be given a chance to play around with Epic Straws from Cravendale milk and Britmums. Epic straws are a fun way to get funky with your milk. Kids will adore them! Adults will have a bit of fun getting creative with them too! Have a look at some of our creations. Please don't laugh!

We did attempt to make the Bottle Burglar but FD decided she was just going to do her own thing so who was I to argue! So.............this is her first creation.......with a bit of help from me.......errr and I'm a bit useless but...........

And then we got a little more adventurous.......................

Afro Boy decided he was going to have a go too though I suspected he wasn't going to be drinking milk with his so it was confiscated for us to use with our milk! You can find out more about Epic Straws on 24th September. A great way to get the kids more interested in drinking their milk. Great for those rainy days too. Keeps the kids occupied for ages! And the mums!

 

SMENCILS

What are  SMENCILS I hear you roar!? Well, in a nutshell, they are smelly pencils! And not just any old smelly pencils. They are Robinsons Fruit Shoot smelly pencils and really do smell good enough to eat! When the Smencils arrived my brood were like bloodhounds, sniffing them out! My 11 year old stepson is a Fruit Shoot addict and totally loved these funky new pencils. My daughter loved them too and immediately set about testing each and everyone out, commenting on the 'yummy smells.' They were an instant hit as she loves all things arty and has a collection of pens, pencils and notebooks that would put a stationery wholesalers to shame!

So, whats so special about these great pencils? Well, apart from smelling absolutely divine, and looking really great, they are made from 100% recycled newspaper! Pretty cool I thought. Small packs can be bought for individual children or larger packs can be also be bought for those in the retail business or for teachers wanting to use them in class. Just check out the LINK . I loved these pencils and have hidden one away for myself!

Want the chance to win some Smencils. Well now you can! Just clink on the link Here for Facebook competition . The competition ends on 7th September 2012 so be quick!

 * I did not receive any payment for writing this review but did receive a packet of Smencils for the purposes of the review, provided by Learning Resources.


THE CUPCAKE COMPANY

Well, I'm very excited to be writing my first product review!! I hope its the first of many but we shall see. Because FD just loves to spend time in the kitchen baking buns I jumped at the chance to review a product from The Cupcake Company. Now, it should be noted that whilst at school, my Home Economics teacher uttered the words, 'God help the man you marry because you can't cook, sew and definitely can't bake'!! Those words haunted me as I opened the parcel from The Cupcake Company! What could possibly go wrong!

Held within the slim little box that arrived was a bag of ready made cupcake batter, icing, instructions, icing bags, nozzles, sweeties to decorate the cupcakes and bun cases! I was so excited about trying this out that I had kinda hoped that FD would leave me alone so I could play by myself, but no, she wanted to bake! So bake we did.

What was in the box!

The instructions in the little booklet were pretty clear and we emptied the bag of batter into a mixing bowl as directed. FD really enjoyed squeezing the batter out of the bag as she said it was 'squidgy'! She did however try to eat the batter so it was a case of keeping it out of her mouth and making sure most of it went in the bowl! All we then had to do was add 2 eggs and mix! Simple! FD really enjoys the cracking eggs part of baking so that was a huge success. She stood for a few minutes with her whisk and happily mixed her batter!

The Cupcake company had provided in their box of delights, some lovely big bun cases and of course everyone knows that the fun of baking is slopping the mix into the bun cases. This proves a huge hit with FD every time and she spends ages methodically trying to get the same amount of mixture into each case. The only snag we hit here was that in our instruction booklet it recommended we use a muffin / pudding tray .I had neither so just put the bun cases in a bog standard bun tray.

Once in the oven it is very hard not to keep checking on whether the buns are rising. The smell was lovely and it was so tempting to open the oven door! Once they came out of the oven we had the agonising wait for them to cool so we could decorate them.

I was quite pleased with how they came out because I cannot bake to save my life!!! They were lovely and spongey!

When they had cooled suitably we attempted to do fancy swirly icing with the piping bags and nozzles. Now this is where I hit a snag. I've never used piped icing before in my life and as you can see from the pics, it shows! But the most important thing out of it all was that FD totally enjoyed doing it. Yes we messed up and yes Delia would have had a heartattack at our piping efforts but we enjoyed ourselves immensely and I think this was surely the whole point of the exercise! Maybe with a bit of practice we can make our cupcakes look professional! Just didn't happen this time. More down to my lack of skill rather than the product! Those of you who are really good at baking are probably laughing at my efforts! Please have pity! And, of course, the cupcakes passed the taste test. Lovely with a cuppa or a big glass of milk! FD found the lemon icing a little too zesty but I thought it was lovely! Would love to try the strawberry icing next time I think and decorate with real Strawberries. Yum!

Now, a little about the Real Cup Cake Company. They can be found at www.therealcupcakecompany.co.uk where their kits can be purchased online. The kit we were provided with was from the NICE range and had Lemon icing. which was very zesty!!! Was scrummy! This one was priced at £9.99. Other kits start at £4.99. Pretty good value for money I thought as I had bought some similar cupcakes a few weeks ago from a bakery and they cost me a fortune! I would really recommend buying one of these kits. The company offer a great range of products so go and check them out! The website offers great advice / instructions with videos too! Its all pretty cool! Their products are dairy free so ideal for those with specific diet requirements. Real fruit is used and there are no artificial colourings or flavourings. Sounds pretty perfect to me!

*I did not receive any payment for writing this review. The kit was provided by The Real Cupcake Company.*