They have tshirts for just about about every kind of childhood character, from Roald Dahl to Horrid Henry.

How about encouraging a great taste in music? Why not try one of these tshirts from their Amplified collection. We're big fans of these Guns n Roses and The Who tshirts.

Fabric Flavours bring best loved characters to life via tshirts. There designers apply all the tools of the trade to create these premium quality t-shirts with techniques including foil printing, hand-stitching, cut hems, felt appliqué and diamante stones. The tshirts are pre-washed for extra softness. These tshirts would make ideal gifts for any occasions or just simply bought as a treat for the little one in your life.

I totally forgot that our electricity was due to be off for the day thanks to the electricity works that have been going on in my area for the last few months. I'm pretty sure its my fault it needed to be turned off for the day, I was just saying to the other half that I'm surprised they hadn't turned off our electricity yet when a note pops through the door saying that from the hours of 8.30am to 4.30pm we would be without. Typical.

And being the muppet that I am, I totally forgot. Queue jumping in the car to go to local soft play area to save both mine and Oli's sanity - we've had enough with finding activities to do at home what with being snowed in and then being confined to the house thanks to chicken pox. Oli's at the age now where I can pretty much leave him alone to run off and play when its quiet, which it usually is at tot time. He's a good boy when it comes to playing with others and usually will just chase or laugh at the bigger kids. So its not him I have to worry about, its the other kids.

Usually problems involving other kids mean simply fighting over a ride on toy, something simple where the parent simply tells the child that the one kid had it first and to share, the usual stuff. But there was one kid today that wasn't like the other kids, this child was nasty. From the moment I saw him chucking balls in other kids faces I knew I couldn't leave Oli to play alone. So much for me settling down to drink coffee, eat cake and watching some naked chef who was on some morning program with all the other mothers who were dribbling away.

I'm not a big fan of boring things, I like being surrounded by fun and quirkiness. So when Mirrorin asked if we would like one of there funky mirrors to try out, I couldn't resist picking one of the splash mirrors for my bathroom wall. Was hard choosing though, they have a great range of bathroom mirrors like the engraved bubbles bathroom mirror.

The website is easy to navigate around and to use, the menus are easy to access and picking what you want and checking out is a simple process. Everything you need from contacting them to delivery information is clear to see.

We were impressed from the moment our splash mirror arrived and saw how well it had been packaged, last thing you want is to be opening up a broken mirror! Just think about the bad luck the poor postman will receive! The mirror had protective filming to prevent any scratches and to keep it in perfect condition until it was ready to go up on the wall.




I love it and it just looks fantastic in my bathroom, adds that little bit of uniqueness to the room.


The tough mirrors are strong, shatterproof and lightweight which is just what you need when you have a toddler/children in the house. This makes them ideal for children's rooms and there are plenty of designs for your little ones to choose from.




How about sticking a mirror in another room of the house? or even use them for learning? I plan on getting the butterflies to jazz up my dressing table.




The great thing about Mirrorin is that they are affordable, not over priced so can easily afford to decorate the whole house with the wide range of mirrors on offer.


You can also find Mirrorin over on

When you other half suggest a tester pot before buying the actual paint, it is a good idea and should be done.

Wearing your partner's old clothes in a sexy way does not work for anyone especially when they are not actually old clothes.

Baby wipes cannot be used as masking tape.

Paint can look different on the wall to what it does in the paint tin. So when you're after a light colour and the colour could pass for black with the light off, you've made a BIG whoopsie.

Falling backwards into the bath tub can hurt.

Don't think it will be ok because after painting for a few minutes you will decide that you hate it but have to pretend to like it just so you don't hear 'I told you so'.

The toilet seat cant take my weight.

Coming down after 5 minutes of painting to google 'how do you paint' does not fill the other half with confidence.

Ever since I can remember, like way back before I had Oliver and long before I was even old enough to be a Mother. I always swore that no future child of mine would have a play toy gun or toy knife as a play toy.

Now I'm actually a mother I still stand by what I said and feel the same way about giving children weapons as toys. There's just something in my head that sees it wrong for a 5/7/10 year old playing with a toy version of something which isn't very pleasant at times. I love the imagination children have and think encouraging it is great but by giving them a toy gun to pretend to shoot somebody? I just don't see what is normal about that.

I don't have anything against real guns at all, I believe they can do good in protecting our armed forces and the police when needs are necessary. I even process marksmanships in shooting a .22 rifle and a L98, most weekends I could be found down the shooting range. But this was when I was a teenager knowing that what I was doing was for sport and was in safe, controlled environment.

You probably think I'm being silly, and that surely they're just pieces of plastic that cant do any harm. I know as much as the next person that giving a 5 year old a toy gun to go 'bang bang 'with isn't going to turn him into some mass murderer. We live in a country where guns are not popular household items so its not like they will get there hands on a real gun and try to role play with it. But still are we not to teach them that guns are bad and are not to be touched? So why do we stick a plastic one in their hands?


I remember my brothers playing with these kind of toys when we were younger and I hated them then, I hated the fact my mother bought them and encouraged them to role play games such as lets point this toy gun/knife in my sisters face and pretend we want to kill her. It used to upset me that they played in this way, I know kids cant always be innocent but the moment my mother let them have them as toys she let them believe it was ok to 'pretend' to shoot me.


What do you think about toy guns? Harmless fun or not?

If your little one is into cuddly toys then why not head over to your nearest IKEA store where they have the cutest selection of soft toys on sale.

Oli got sent from IKEA a Fabler Krokodil, Fabler Mus, Barnslig Alg and Gosig Bulldog to put to the cuddle test and to see what he made of them. By far his favourite is the rather large Fabler Krokodil which has been cuddled, wrestled and even slept with!

Little Miss Fabler Mus went to the house of Oli's little girl-friend where she is now taking part in little tea parties and having girly cuddles. She would make the perfect gift for any little girls birthday.

The Barnslig Alg or the moose as we call it in English takes pride of place on Oli's highchair, I guess Oli wants it to keep his seat warm for him. Its amazing how he has bought out his imagination to place his cuddly toy here, he's attempted to feed it peas which he is somehow convinced is moose food.

One new friend is the Gosig Bulldog which he sees as a great cuddly toy. This somehow keeps making it up into my room, Oli keeps sneaking it up there. I've been trying to teach him that its a woof woof and that we stroke dogs, actually got some progress on calling it a woof woof but instead of stroking it Oli finds him to be more of a rather comfy seat.

Recent findings from a research report called the playreport from IKEA from that 89% of parents agree that play is important to encourage their child's imagination. Which as a mother of one toddler I have to totally agree with, everyday I find Oli using his imagination to play with his toys in a different way. Just as I noticed the way he turned his new IKEA soft toys into objects of play by using his own creativity.

IKEA has created an engaging new Facebook application called '' which offers kids the chance to interact with a range of characters to create their own story. Me and Oli had lots of fun sitting at the computer to do it together, I wrote and made the story and read it out to him. If you have older kids why not let them write and create there own story. You also get the chance to print it out and share it with friends and family at the end.

Here's a screenshot from the story we made together, to play Toy Stories with your little one head over to and click on the Toy Stories tab.


If like mine your children like drawing and you have a fridge overflowing with drawings (or scribbles in Oli's case!) then why not upload your child's artwork to the Fridge Door - where they have the chance of winning a weekly prize of a IKEA art set.