Mini Mart - MiniModels

Supplier: MiniModels
Website: Etsy Store

Products:

Furniture and ornamental accessories in a range of scales. I heard about them through my mum who had bought a sideboard for her 1/12 scale dining room. A lot of the bigger furniture pieces are non-opening, so no good for me, but there are tons of awesome chairs, vases and coffee tables.

I bought the cross oval wooden coffee table (£28.66) last year for my 1/6 scale sitting room. It's really nicely made but may prove too big for the room, ultimately. The trials of miniaturism! 

Post and Packing: £5.02 from Israel.

Nipper Cards Review

We were asked a few weeks back if we would like to review Nipper Cards, a deck of positive affirmation cards designed to help children talk about their feelings. As Marianna seems ever more disposed to apparently causeless tantrums I was really excited to give them a go.

Designed by Janthea Brigden of Nipperbout Event Childcare, the cards themselves are lovely quality. There are 13 vibrant animal designs, each with 4 affirmation cards based around the animal's theme. Dolphins, for example, are a 'breath of life' while horses represent 'power and wisdom' and hummingbirds 'joy and love of life'. My favourites are the 'dreaming' lizard cards. :)

The instruction card in the deck reads: "Each card has an animal that represents a quality - and each animal has four messages which reflect both sides of that quality. The opposite of fear, for example, is courage. Often the things we most dislike about others are in ourselves, and the qualities we most admire are those we already have. Shuffle the cards, and ask the child to pick one card. Find out how they feel about the card they have picked. Talking about, and naming feelings, enables children to understand their emotions and learn to balance them."

We jumped straight into it and Marianna picked out a horse card which read 'I am wise and caring'. Then proceeded to have a massive meltdown of a tantrum over it. (The cards, thankfully, were tough enough to withstand her attempts to crease a few into obliteration.) Clearly a different approach was needed! 

Next time I got the cards out we simply played snap with them, first matching animals and then numbers. This proved much more agreeable and we played a couple of games before I gingerly introduced some discussion about the messages on the cards. Marianna was a little more willing to engage with them this time, but I didn't push for anything too involved.

Since then we have used the cards a few times to play snap and I've asked Marianna to pick out her favourite cards which we have then discussed. She still tends to get quickly frustrated with being asked to talk about the messages, but I think that will change as she gets older. I've spent some time looking through them and have actually found them really helpful for working through some of my own emotions - mostly my fears about all the things I'm doing wrong, etc. 

I think these cards have the potential to be incredibly useful, both as conversation starters and a tool for self reflection, and as Marianna gets a little older I hope she will engage more fully with them.

The cards are available on Amazon for £9.99.

Mini Mart: Dolls Flowers

Supplier: Dolls Flowers
Website: Etsy Store 

Products:

Super realistic 1/6 scale flowers and greenery. Seriously, the flowers weren't the purpose of my order but I couldn't resist getting a daisy (£5.20) to check it out. The detail is amazing! I'd love to get a whole bouquet one day.

My main reason for ordering, however, was the retro style wooden chairs (£9.20) the seller makes as a sideline. I've been meaning to get a couple of chairs for the kitchen ever since I swapped out the Sindy set for a table by Sixth Scale Studio. It only took a year... I love them so much though; they're excellent quality and really true to scale.

Post and Packing:  £7.50 from Russia. Shipping took about six weeks and everything was very well packaged, including a little free gift of a milk jug. ♥

Personalised Bottle Labels Review

A few weeks back I was sent a personalised Prosecco bottle to review. As I had the personalisation done in Anthony's name it seemed only fair that he do the actual reviewing! :)

Anthony:

It was only a little while ago that you couldn’t go to any event without being offered a glass of Prosecco, networking event, business lunch, or at anything to do with the arts, you were guaranteed to get a complimentary glass of Prosecco. Prosecco was the In Drink, although I couldn’t help but think that most of the cheap stuff you got handed as you walked into whatever function you happened to be at that week has a resemblance to grapes that had been fermented in battery acid.

So when Jessica handed me very own personalised bottle courtesy of Personalised Prosecco I was slightly taken aback, the design of the bottle was actually rather elegant and it was slightly novel to my own name printed on the a bottle, but as someone who is no stranger to decorative booze I would quite happily have had the bottle on my shelf as a conversation starter, and may well keep it.

However to my mind the proof of a good drink is in the tasting, and I’ve mentioned before my experience with prosecco has tended to lean more towards the severe heartburn type. But my fears proved to be completely unfounded. What was apparent from the first sip of this bottle was a crisp and clear taste that wasn’t overpowered by its own alcohol content. It had a real freshness to it that surprisingly hit the spot as a thirst quencher, which isn’t something you find with many wines. And what may be unique in my experience with prosecco is that you could actually taste the grapes that it came from. Personalised Bottle Labels has really got themselves a great product.



Me:

I think this is such a cool gift idea, especially as even after drinking the contents glass bottle are great for displaying all kinds of stuff. (My favourite is sticking in one of those sets of fairy lights with the batteries in a plastic 'cork'.) The labels are professional quality, and there are tons of different options to choose from, up to and including adding photographs. Although we reviewed prosecco, Personalised Bottle Labels actually offer everything from port to vodka to champagne, and with regular sale events and discount codes on top of already good prices you can pick up some real bargains.

They also sell personalised bottles giftboxed with a newspaper from a particular day, or chocolates, or a rose, etc, making it a perfect gift for any occasion.

Mini Mart: Sandie's Little Gems

Supplier: Sandie's Little Gems
Website: Ebay Store

Products:
Great selection of handmade 1/12th scale haberdashery and paper products, like bunting, Christmas decorations, and tiny pretend cross stitch sets. I bought one with little orange flowers for £2.30, measuring tapes (5 for £1.50), air mail envelopes, and the cutest paperchain for £2.85. I would never have the patience!



Post and Packing:You only pay postage for one item; the discount is applied automatically.

Mini Mart: Mini Bazar UK

Supplier: MiniBazarUK
Website: >Ebay Store

Products: If there's a type of miniature I can never resist, it's books, magazines, comics, and other ephemera. I must have tried out almost every supplier in the UK by this point, and quite a few from further afield! These caught my eye a while ago and I kept telling myself I did not need more 1/12 scale comics. But these are thread bound. And retro. And I'd never seen The Phantom in miniature before...

So, I gave in, and brought home three awesome comics. The print quality is good, with enough detail to see the smaller panels, and they also came with a free gift of some cover only contemporary magazines. As I've still not put my 1/12 house together, the 1/18 scale pose Skeletons stepped in to model the merchandise. :)

Post and Packing: Combined shipping is on offer if you request an invoice. Ebay refused to let me for some reason, so, in the end I just went ahead and purchased anyway. The seller got in touch to ask if I wanted a refund or an extra comic, which was really nice of them!

Mustela #IWantNatural

Before I became a mum my main concern when it came to skincare was a) how good it smelled, and b) how nice the packaging looked. Afterwards I started caring a whole lot more what was actually in the stuff I was going to be slathering all over my baby's skin.

French brand Mustela have been working hard to make choosing baby skincare stress free. The normal skincare range is based around avocado perseose, described on their website as 'patented, biomimetic natural active ingredient that hydrates and helps the development of a baby’s fragile and immature skin barrier'. 95% of their ingredients are of natural origin, and this is reflected in the wide range which can be used from birth.

Sometimes I really wish I had started moisturising from birth!

Being serious though, #IWantNatural for Marianna and I'm glad that Mustela can provide.



I love that it's not simply one size fits all either. They also have full ranges of products for dry skin, very sensitive skin, and atopic prone skin, built around schizandra, beeswax, and sunflower oil respectively.

The other great thing about Mustela is that they aren't only concerned with the here and now, but are passionate about the future of the children using their products too. The ingredients for their products are sustainably and ethically sourced, and the resulting formulas are designed to be biodegradable and safe for the environment. This commitment carries through to the packaging, which again is sourced from sustainably managed forests, printed where possible with vegetable oil based inks, and is 100% recyclable.



We already use Mustela gentle shampoo and body lotion, but for this post we were sent a few extra products to try out. The cleansing gel is particularly great, and the world can never have enough nourishing lotion. Marianna's favourite thing was the face cream though, because she loves any opportunity to be like mum and rub lotions and potions on her face.

She has made sure to put some on every night before bed. Here she is demonstrating the process - including admiring herself in the mirror! :)