MUMMY TO THE MAX

On Sunday the 15th of March it is Mothers Day. It is a day that I love to celebrate not only with Maxwell but also with my mum. Over the years I have gifted my mum some presents that she has really enjoyed however this year I was looking for something which I could gift her that was unique, thoughtful and something which she would love.



This year I wanted to gift my Mum something personal and I could not think of anything better than gifting her items from Truprint. Truprint is a online shop which lets you create unique gifts to others by using personal photos. Truprint has many gift ideas to offer and I believe there is something for everyone to enjoy on their website.

First of all I decided to pick a canvas to gift my mum. I came up with the idea of choosing several photos of Maxwell and creating a large display of them. I decided to make the photo's black and white and added a black boarding to the canvas to ensure they stood out. When the canvas came I found the canvas to be of great quality. The canvas had a sturdy frame and the pictures on the canvas looked crisp and sharp. The canvas came with hooks. I thought this was a great touch as it would enable my mum to hang the canvas on her wall straight away.


Next I created my mum a key ring. I know my mum has several sets of keys which she carries around so I thought it would be nice to create her a new key ring which would take over one of her outdated ones. I loved the key ring when it came and I shall be purchasing one for myself in the next few weeks.

Finally I decided to create her a notebook which featured a photo of Maxwell on. My mum often carries a notebook around with her to jot bits and pieces down as well as using a notebook to create a shopping list so I thought this was perfect for her. The notebook has a thick front cover and inside the notebook has lined paper.


This Mothers Day Truprint want to make as many mums smile as possible so using the code MUMINAMILLION you can claim a free personalised Mothers Day card.

Please be aware of the terms and conditions below.

Awards one free 7x5 folded card
Standard P&P charges apply (99p)
Ship to recipient not available
Complete with envelope
Code is One time use only
Strictly one code use per household.

Wilbers Hare Kids Costume (4-5 Years) - £3.01
I simply adore this costume and if it had been in Maxwell's size, I would have purchased it. I think this outfit would be perfect for any Alice In Wonderland fan. You can add accessories to it to make your child look unique.

Great Pretenders Princess Dress (Medium) - £4.25
Rubies Victorian Pick Pocket costume Victorian Pick Pocket (Medium) - £4.97 Witch Cat Costume Medium 7-9 Years - £4.99 Red and White Striped Children's Shirt (6-9 years) - £4.73

This year I've joined Team Honk to help change the world by dancing. We're doing that by dancing for six hours at Wembley at the Red Nose Day Danceathon raising money for Comic Relief next Sunday. Yes, six hours. Yes. That's a long time to dance. I'm thinking of it as five games of netball and that helps as does knowing the money Team Honk raise will help bring about lasting change.

Comic Relief does fantastic work across Africa, and they help people here in the UK too. This PDF from Comic Relief shows where money raised between 2009 and 2013 has been spent in the UK. In that time Comic Relief allocated £110m to over 5, 500 projects across the UK and they're one of the UK's biggest independent fundraisers. That's both shocking and great at the same time isn't it?

The Emigration Group was established in 1992 with the sole aim of helping people achieve a new life overseas. The Emigration Group are a UK company dealing primarily with British and other English speaking migrants wishing to emigrate to Australia and New Zealand.
Before Ben and I had Maxwell, there was always one thing which I dreamed of and that was emigrating to another country. I always quite fancied moving to Australia as I knew a number of people who had moved over there and the move had transformed their lives.

I was always interested to hear about the new places old friends had visited over in Australia and I was always interested to hear about what jobs they were in and how there lives were progressing. I heard many successful stories about how life changing their move had been.

Maxwell is now 3 and the dream of emigrating has been put on hold however one day in the future we will try and make that dream a reality. When we are ready, I will be getting in touch with The Emigration Group to help with the move.

To celebrate how wonder The Emigration Group are, Mummy To The Max has teamed up with them to offer one lucky Mummy To The Max reader the chance to win £20 worth of ASOS vouchers - a perfect amount to buy a new swimming costume or new swim shorts for the Australian weather! All you need to do to enter this competition is enter the simple rafflecopter below. Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Recently Ben and I have been trying to improve the look of our house. For month's now I have been wanting to tackle the lounge. I have been looking for a key item which not only is useful to us in our home but is also eye catching for when we have visitors around. After spending a while looking around I came up with the idea of  having the feature piece in our living room as a fire place.

When I was looking around at fireplaces I came across the Gardeco Amadeo Bio-ethanol Stainless Steel Fireplace from Hayes Garden World. After seeing it once, I knew it was the perfect item to have in my home. It would not only fit perfectly in my home in the winter to keep us warm and snug but it would also be a brilliant feature in the summer for the garden when entertaining friends.

I was sent a fireplace to review and I was extremely happy with it. When the fireplace arrived, I immediately set it up. I read the instructions of how to use it and I found the instructions to be clear. There were a lot of safety tips involved which I carefully took on board.

The Gardeco Amadeo Bio-ethanol Stainless Steel Fireplace was simple to put together. The Amadeo comes complete with stainless steel double walled burner and removable stainless steel flame snuffer. It comes with two panes of safety glass which are 6mm thick, the glass has rounded edges and looks attractive. It also comes with 500ml of Bio-ethanol so that you are able to use your fireplace straight away.

Over the past few months I have managed to get £60 on my Boots Advantage Card. I am saving my points up for a rainy day, either when Maxwell needs nappies/toiletries or for Christmas. You can use a Boots Advantage Card in-store/online and you are able to collect points on everything except for infant's milk, prescriptions, stamps, mobile top ups and gift vouchers. You can earn up to 4 points per £1 which is worth 4p. To get the most out of your Boots Card, here are a few ideas with how you are able to gain more points: Use the Boots ATM
In the larger boots stores you will be able to find 'Extra offers kiosk'. Before shopping visit it with your Boots Advantage card and you will be able to see lots of offers which are catered to you. You are immediately able to print out the discount vouchers and use them when you go to pay for your shopping.

Mega Points Weekends
Boots sometimes has 'mega weekends', either online or in-store where if you spend £50, you get 1,000 extra points (worth £10). If you are doing a big shop for example £150 worth split your shop into 3 so you are able to get the best deal.
I wait for these deals to stock up on things. I always have a stock pile of nappies and wipes which I manage to buy cheaper than the normal RRP.

Check the Advantage card magazine
Always look in the in-store Advantage magazine for points coupons or money off products. Recently I used a coupon to get a mascara for £2 yet it was worth £6 which saved me £4. The magazine is free if you have a boots card.

Join a club
Both the Boots Parenting Club and Healthclub For Over 60s send mail outs or give special offers for relevant goods. We are often sent deals to use against nappies, wipes and toiletries. The parenting club also gives 10 points for every £1 spent on baby products

One of my favourite days is around the corner, that day is Mothers Day. Mothers day is special to me as not only do I get to spend time with my mum and have a day with her but I also get to spend a day with Maxwell which makes the day even more so special to me.

As many of my readers know, I am a huge fan of entering competitions and I was excited to learn recently that the lovely people at Toxic Fox have a fab Mothers Day competition running. Their competition runs from February 18th to March 1st and there are 4 chances to win a £50 voucher to spend on their Mother’s Day collection. Their are 4 chances to win in total - one per social network Google+, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

To enter Toxic Fox's competition all you need to do is go to the http://www.toxicfox.co.uk/gifts-occasion/mothers-day-gifts browse around the fabulous Mother’s Day Gifts and Ideas sections and pick your favourite present. Once you have taken the time to browse, you need to share your favourite present on the social media channel of choice. To ensure Toxic Fox can see your entry please use the hashtag: #toxicfox when submitting your entry into this competition.
For full terms and conditions please visit http://www.toxicfox.co.uk/terms-and-conditions.

Pancake day has been highlighted on my calendar for a few weeks now and I have to say I have been looking forward to pancake day for weeks. This year is the first year that  Maxwell seems to have wanted to get involved and I was looking forward to him getting creative in the kitchen.


This year Abra-ca-Debora kindly sent us some of their ready-made pancakes to get creative with. Included in the box that we were sent were original dutch, sweet dutch and ‘diddy’ dutch pancakes. I knew instantly that Maxwell would love to get creative with the pancakes so we popped to our local supermarket to get some ingredients to add to the top of the pancakes.

Maxwell went for the sweet option whilst I went for the chocolate and fruit option. We set about warming the pancakes through and prepared for lots of fun! To prepare the pancakes all you simply need to do is stick them in the oven, pan fry them or pop them in the microwave. Each of these options are simple to do and your pancake will only take several minutes to cook.


Once the pancakes were cooked and Mummy had enjoyed giving them a little flip, the pancakes were ready to be decorated. Whilst Maxwell enjoyed piling on the sweets to his pancake, I thought it would be a nice touch to make Maxwell a special pancake using cutters. I created a bear cut out with stars above his head and as you are able to see, the pancakes cut well.

After creating some fun creations in the kitchen for pancake day we decided that we would enjoy some more pancakes for breakfast in a few days time and we would especially love to dunk the diddy dutch pancakes in some chocolate sauce.


If you are interested in purchasing Abra-ca-Debora's pancakes they cost £2 a packet for the original and sweet pancakes and £1.49 for the diddy ones which I think is a great price for good quality, ready made, tasty pancakes. 

Last month I was sent a Braun Satin Hair 7 Iontec Brush to review. Before Christmas I had seen them advertised and popped one on my Christmas wishlist however unfortunately they were sold out online and in local shops over the Christmas period and I never got my hands on one. When I was sent one to review I was thrilled.

When the brush arrived, it came in slick packaging. Inside the packaging there were batteries, the brush and instructions. The instructions were clear, I was able to add the batteries to the brush instantly and within 5 minutes the brush was ready to use.


Some of the features which I loved about this brush was that it was cordless and that it used batteries. This was a great feature for the brush as it meant that the brush can go with me anywhere and that it does not rely on using any power outlets to be used. Another feature which I liked was the fact that the brush has a automatic switch-off to prevent it from accidentally being switched on when carried in my bag.

You are able to purchase this brush for around £25 which I think is reasonable. Although it cost's more than your average brush, it has a lot more features than your average brush. Once again Braun has lived up to its well known name and have produced another item which I think is fabulous.

Shrove Tuesday is just around the corner and over the last few weeks Maxwell and I have been creating and trying delicious treats from Abra-ca-Debora Pancakes. Maxwell and I have now decided what toppings we love on our pancakes after trying many and in the next few days I will be posting a review of what we will be enjoying this pancake day!


In the meantime Abra-ca-Debora Pancakes are giving one lucky reader of Mummy To The Max the chance to win a delicious bundle of products to create there own treats. The hamper which  Abra-ca-Debora Pancakes are giving away includes the below items!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

It is half term next week and something which I love to do with Maxwell is get creative. This week's 5 for under £5 is craft related and features craft items which you can purchase for under £5!

I have not written a update on Maxwell over the last few weeks mainly because lots of things have been going on in life as well as we have both been poorly, however Maxwell is continuing to develop in lots of areas. We have had a busy few weeks and we have been on lots of adventures.

Mummy To The Max are massive fans of online retailers and one of the company's which we love the most is the House Of Fraser. Known for not only selling stylish clothing for adults and children, they also sell a wide range of beauty items, household items and electrical items.

Recently we have been making lots of home improvements to our house and we have been purchasing lots of new items to make it a little more homely. We have created a great upstairs space however we are looking to create a beautiful downstairs to match. At the present moment we are looking to redecorate our kitchen and we are looking for new items which all match. I have recently spent a lot of time browsing House Of Fraser for ideas and have found lots of lovely items that I would love to purchase.

Above I have created a wishlist for our kitchen. I adore the red and chrome look. I think it would brighten up our room and create a stylish look. One of my favourite items from my wishlist is the chopping board. I love the way it sits and how funky it looks. One of my other favourite items is the Morphy Richards Kettle, I love the shape of the kettle and I think the colour is very eye catching.

Mummy To The Max have teamed up with the amazing people over at The House Of Fraser and are giving one lucky reader the opportunity to win a Morphy Richards Elipta Traditional Kettle in red which is seen on my wishlist! To enter this competition all you need to do is enter the simple rafflecopter below! Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I am a huge fan of loyalty cards and one of my favorite's is the Nectar card. The Nectar card can be used to collect points in a few select places such as Sainsbury’s, Homebase and at BP garages. Unfortunately me and Ben shop at none of these places however over the last few months I have learnt other ways to collect points.

eShops
If you go to Nectar.com and click through to a shop say ASOS and buy something on the ASOS website, you are able to earn points on your nectar card. One of our favourites places to do this is Just Eat. Ben and I order a takeaway most week's and we find these points really do add up, no other website reward Just Eat customers so we love that Nectar do. Ebay is another place where we manage to collect point and although I tend not to buy much on Ebay, since linking my Nectar card to my Ebay account I have found I have gained a few extra penny's which always come in handy. I love that I can be rewarded for things I need to buy.

Nectar app
The Nectar app is free to download and can be downloaded to many phone/tablet devices. I personally have the app on my Iphone and my tablet. The app gives you the opportunity to opt in to special offers from retailers such as Sainsbury’s and BP, when you go to shop there you can gain 300 extra points for buying a certain thing. So far I have gained 200 extra points for buying a deodorant I needed which was on offer. Once I got the points back for it it made the deodorant free.

The app also gives you the chance to earn points by doing internet searches on your phone. You can earn one point for every two searches and can earn up to 100 points a month, this is great money maker if you’re often looking things up on the go.

Nectar Canvas
Nectar Canvas gives you the chance to answer surveys in return for points. I have done a few surveys however I feel they are a waste of time. You can click through half a survey and then are told you are not suitable for the survey. Instead of rewarding you with a few points they only add you in a competition to win lots of nectar points which is very unlikely when you think of the masses of people who do the surveys. On a plus side if you are suitable for the surveys I have found you can gain over 250 points at a time.

Nectar Toolbar
The nectar toolbar can be downloaded onto your browser on your computer. It allows you to earn points for doing internet searches. The toolbar works the same as the app it is one point for every two searches.

January was a slow month for me. I did not win as much as I normally win in a month due to the fact I barely entered any competitions and also I found that there were not as many competitions around as there normally are. The prizes that I did win, I was very happy with.

We were recently invited by Keepmoat to share pictures of Maxwell's first home.  Keepmoat kindly sent Maxwell a VTech Kidizoom Camera to help Maxwell create a little tour of our home and share what he loves about it. Here is Maxwell's video of what he loves about our home.