Mother’s Day is fast approaching and it’s time to start your shopping, and fortunately Clinton’s has made that quite easy.  They sent us a range of gifts and goodies to review, so here are our thoughts.

We were sent a very pretty Sketch Butterfly Mug and Coaster Set (£7.99), which would make a lovely gift for a mother who likes mugs. The mug itself is decorated with butterflies and flowers and has a butterfly painted on the inside. The mug is not microwave or dishwasher safe, which is a bit of a pain, but it is very pretty. The coaster is cork backed, and has a lovely rose design.

The set comes wrapped in a cardboard box that continues the theme and the whole presentation of it is, as I said, very pretty.

The Sketch Butterfly Mug and Coaster Set is available with the word Mum, Grandma or Nana on it.

If you’re really close to mum, the Two Part Keyring (£4.99) might be more your thing. Basically you have two Me To You Tatty Teddies each holding half a flower in pink and blue, with the words ‘Mum’ and ‘Me’ on opposite sides of the flower.

Once again this is a really cute idea and it would make a nice little item to give your mum.  These are metallic keyrings with glazing on top and a little ‘Me To You’ badge on each key ring. It comes neatly presenting in a cardboard envelope with a window – although I’m sure it’ll be a much more impressive gift attached to new house keys or car keys or something. Hey, we can all dream.

The final gift we were sent to look at was an Especially For You photo frame (£3.99). These are very pretty glass photo frame tiles with a 3x3 inch photo space and the rest of the frame is pencil-style drawings of flowers and butterflies and a little princess (or a little monkey) with the text “To Mummy” and “From your little princess” or “ from your little monkey” written on it.

It seems to be really good quality and it is certainly well made. It’s also exceptionally well priced, I think!

So, whatever gift you give your mum needs to be accompanied by a card, really, so you can tell her how much she means to you, right? Well, Clinton’s have you covered there too.

They have cards available from 99p to £14.99 aimed at every female variant on the spectrum, including wife, Mother, Mummy, Mammy, Aunty, Godmother, Nan, Sister and even Stepmum. There are cards for every style too, from amusing, to sweet, to heart-warming and humorous and everything inbetween.

We received two cards, one sweet with the words “Happy Mother’s Day Mummy , from your little angel” on the outside and “You’re the best Mummy ever! Lots of Love! Happy Mother’s Day” on the inside. It’s also the pencil style drawings, so matches the photo frame quite nicely, although they aren’t an obvious set.

The other says “For a lovely Mummy from your little rascal” on the outside and “A monkey, a monster, a rascal – that’s me!  And you’re the best mummy that ever could be! Happy Mother’s Day” on the inside.

Both are really sweet and aimed at younger mummies and little ones, but there’s enough variety.

And of course, the final touches to the ‘niceness’ of a gift is the wrapping. Clinton’s have plenty of those too, and not all of it is on the website. They sent us two “Me To You” gift bags, one with a ‘real’ image of a Tatty Teddy and one with a drawing of the Tatty Teddy. Both bags are selling for £2.50 and neither is to be found on the website.

One of the bags also had a variety of tags, which I thought was great as it gives you the option of removing the ‘Grandma’, ‘Nan’, ‘Nanny’ or ‘Mam’ tags that you don’t need, personalising the bag a bit.

The Good

These are all lovely and they’re all good. They are pretty, they seem good quality, and they’re really good prices. Their variety and options are good and there’s plenty to choose from.

The Bad

I honestly can’t think of anything to write here. It’s not that I’m trying to be preferential or anything, but it’s all very sweet. Some of the things are a bit too trinket-y for me, but then that’s me – I’m not really a trinkets person. It’s certainly not a fault of the products.

The Verdict

If you’re looking for a token gift or something to let mum know you’re thinking of her on Mother’s Day, Clinton’s is a good starting point and it certainly won’t break the bank.

If there's one shop that really stands out on the high street at this time of the year, it is Clintons. The very open store fronts that all their shops have virtually pulsate with pink around Valentine's Day. It's probably the first place you think of to buy a card or pick up a little sappy trinket for a loved one.

So when Clintons asked us if I'd like to see a little bit of the new additions to their Valentine's Day range I said heck yes! Read on to see what they sent us, and more importantly, what I thought.

Click here to read more...

Have you ever wanted David Hasselhof to sing happy birthday to you? No? How about Teezy, The Saturdays, Alesha Dixon, Jay Sean, Ne-Yo, or Jerry Springer? Yeah. Now me, personally, I loved it when the David Hasselhof meme went about and ended up plastering no less than three office walls with the various jokes and funnies.

So, when I got the Clinton Cards Celebrity Video card to review I immediately chose David Hasselhof. I was going to send him as a birthday greeting but I found out that he does everything from ask people on a date to telling them to back off! Genius, pure genius.

I saw the David Hasselhof Christmas card and I immediately pressed Play to watch the preview. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. This is cheesy brilliance at its best. I immediately decided that this card was going to my brother who lives in South Africa and with whom I share a humorous love of The Hoff (and Knight Rider).

Getting started is easy, just follow the prompts and you’ll soon have your card personalised and ready to go. Sadly South Africa was not included on the list so I had to rethink the Hasselhof Celebrity Video Card and decided to send him to a really close friend instead. I just knew she would cackle like mad at The Hoff wishing her a Hofftastic Christmas.

The process of ordering, making and getting the Celebrity Video Cards from Clinton Cards is easy. Simple, fun and easy. There isn’t a huge range of slebs to choose from yet but you only really need The Hoff, right? All the cards cost £3.99 each and the range is impressive. I absolutely love this idea and will probably get this for a close friend. Expensive, yes, but fun, definitely.

I'm a Halloween grinch; I confess! If there's a festival/celebration/call it what you will, that's been totally hijacked, it's Halloween.  I loathe it and I will NOT be putting a carved pumpkin outside my door so that other people's kids can knock on it begging for sweets!

However, I appreciate I'm very much in the minority and that there are lots of kiddies and grown-ups, up and down the land, who are getting very excited at the prospect of dressing up and going out Trick or Treating.

Clintons - yes, the 'card people' - sent us a few of their Halloween bits and pieces which we duly handed over to one of our PlayPennies parents to try out.

 love the Boofle bags from Clinton Cards. It was the name that got me really. I have a thing for funny-cute names and isn’t Boofle just hilarious? Anyway, I got a Boofle satchel for my daughter recently because her old satchel for swimming and extra mural activities had died a sad and threadbare death.

Boofle himself (or herself) is a cute knitted dog-like creature who appears on the range of satchels on the Clinton Cards website. The range comes in a variety of colours, many of them in a neutral caramel brown, and styles.

The one I got is a stunning patchwork effect design that is in lovely colours of pink, red, blue, green and white. The Boofle logo is stitched onto the corner in fabric while the rest of the bag is wipe friendly plastic. However, the other bags are the same material and quality and they can be personalised if you fancy adding a name or two. That I really like as an idea!

It sounds unpleasant but, honestly, it is really durable. Perfect for messy kids and their stuff. Half eaten apples, weird damp items – all the things that kids stick in their bags can make them pong. This bag is easy to wash inside and out as it doesn’t have any easily damaged fabric.

The bag can be closed using the large overflap and the Velcro seals or/and you can zip up the bag for extra safety. There is only one compartment but it is big enough to store all your child’s swimming kit or to use as a school bag. My daughter isn’t allowed fun school bags (cry) so this is used for sleepovers, swimming and playdates.

The straps are adjustable, it can double-up as a nappy bag in a pinch, and you can buy this lovely thing for the fabulously low price of £4.99. Wahoo!

YIPPEEEE!

You know the end is in sight; you can see the light at the end of the summer school holiday tunnel when all the Back to School promotions start popping up, and Clinton Cards have a 3 for 2 promotion on Back to School things.

• Click HERE to go over to Clinton Cards

There are 37 items you can choose from in either the Boofle, Me to You and Tokyo Toys ranges.

I, personally, don't like the Tokyo Toys design, Me to You is ok but I'm utterly in LOVE with Boofle!

I even bought my husband a little Boofle teddy back in April - I must admit I felt a bit like  love-struck teenager buying him - in my defence, I've NEVER bought a teddy for anyone other than the kids - but that little knitted bear was just TOO cute to resist.

As with all 3 for 2 deals (well, all that I've ever come across) the cheapest item in your basket is the one you get for free

The cheapest item in the Me to You range is a ruler for 99 pence and the cheapest in the Boofle range is an eraser tin for £2.49 - you don't really need me to tell you that it's a tin containing various rubbers do you...?

The 3 for 2 Back to School offer will run whilst stocks of these items last; I imagine everything Boofle will sell out pretty quickly, so I'd grab them whilst you can.

Happy Back to School (it can never come soon enough!)

*** Competition now closed ***

Clinton Cards have given PlayPennies two stunning Mother’s Day bundles that they have delightfully called Little Treasures. The Little Treasures Mother's Day campaign is all about the little things that ensure your mum has the best Mother’s Day ever.

These two bundles of treasures might certainly help your mum (or you!) with that!

Each prize consists of a Boofle Mug, a premium stationary recipe book, a Forever Friends Special Mum bear, a butterfly photo album frame, and a wax lyrical vanilla candle. The sets are worth over £50 each and I think they will absolutely stun any mum who gets one on the 3rd of April.

If you are not a winner in the lovely Little Treasures competition you can still nab some lovely items in the range like cards, gifts and mugs. You can also find handy tips on the site to help you plan the perfect Mother’s Day for mum.

How to enter

To be in with a chance of winning you need to answer one simple question.

Question: What is the name of the Clinton Cards Mother’s Day campaign for 2011?

• Leave a comment in the thread below with answer (1 entry)

For bonus entries to the competition:

• Subscribe to the PlayPennies daily email update (1 entry)
• Tweet a link to this contest and leave your twitter link below (1 bonus entry)

Rules:

1. Contest ends on 23rd March 2011
2. Open to UK residents only
3. 1 type of entry per household
4. Must complete email verification when subscribing
5. Must include a valid email address if commenting
6. Admin’s decision is final in call cases

We'll try our best to get the prizes out to the winners before Mother's Day, but it may not be possible due to time constraints.

You've got twelve days to go before the world goes into lovey-dovey overdrive and Valentine's Day madness takes over for 24 hours.

Clinton Cards sent us some of their Valentine's Day gifts to review and we sent them on to PlayPennies mum, Louise to road test for us.

"Reviewing Valentine's Day gifts was actually quite hard, given that it wasn't Valentine's Day," confessed Louise, "surely part of the success of any Valentine's Day gift is the romantic impact of the day itself?"

So Cupid paid Louise, and her husband, an early visit this year with Valentine's Day taking place a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.

"The Clinton Cards Valentine's Day Gifts arrived in a large brown box, nestled in lilac tissue paper," Louise told us, "the first thing I saw when I lifted up the layers of paper was the I Love You Bear"

Some of us outgrow our love of cute teddy bears and you can be treading on very dodgy ground buying one for your Valentine, unless you're sure it's going to be appreciated.

"I'm not a cuddly toy sort of person, in fact I greatly dislike them as gifts for grown ups!" said Louise, "But this one totally melted me. He is incredibly soft, is a good size and is clutching a soft, velvety heart. If this was given to me on Valentine's day by my husband I'd be very happy indeed."

Louise also told us that she couldn't believe the price of the I Love You bear; you can buy him, and others similar,  for £4.99, Louise expected him to cost at least twice that.
The next Clinton Cards Valentine's Day gift Louise pulled out of the box was a book of X-Rated Love Cheques that retail for £2.99; she wasn't very impressed with it at all.

"The X-Rated Love Cheques were rather cheap looking, with no interesting design to it at all," Louise described, "There's absolutely nothing romantic about the booklet, in any way shape or form."

"It also fails on the 'naughty' side too!" Louise continued, "Although it is called X-Rated, the booklet sadly lacks anything scintillating!"

Oooerr missus, we were almost tempted to ask Louise what she felt would have been scintillating...but then thought better of it.

The cheques inside the (not-so) X-Rated Love Cheques book include: a Romantic Dinner for 2, a Special Treat of Your Choice, Dinner and a Movie, a Sexy Night In, a Sexy Massage, and finally A Big Hug. There are four vouchers of each type.

Louise had one final thing to say on the matter, "My husband could only comment that if he got one of those for Valentines he'd be deeply worried about the state of our marriage!"

Not all gifts HAVE to be romantic though and oozing with cuteness and kisses.

"The 'love' socks (£4.99) made me smile," Louise told us, "They come in one size, but look pretty large. The socks are black, and soft. I wrapped them up with a bow, and gave them to my other half over a candle-lit rose petal dinner. He quite appreciated the humour!"

The rose petals Louise mentioned are also part of the Clinton Card Valentine's Day Gift range, they cost £1.99 and come in red or white; Louise said they are just lovely.

"They look beautiful and made a lovely decoration on the table for a romantic dinner. What I really liked is that the box is sturdy, pretty to look at in itself, and the centre part where the petals are kept easily slides in and out. So you can use it to store the petals when not in use."

The final thing we sent Louise was an I Love You toast stamp which retails for £2.99.

"To be honest I've never actually used a toast stamp before. Luckily there are instructions on the back of the packet!"

Louise owned up to the face that she'd have probably done something daft like put it in the toaster with the bread!

"That sounds silly, I know, but then the idea that you could press into the bread and have it appear when toasted sounds a bit silly too! It is quite cute though and made breakfast time fun. I think it is something that will come out for lots of special breakfasts."

And finally...

On the whole Louise was impressed with the items we sent her from the Clinton Cards Valentine's Day Gift range.

She felt they all had romantic merit apart from the X-Rated Love Cheques, which got a very definite thumbs down from both her and her husband.  She also felt that the prices were perfect for being able to give a little something for Valentine's Day without breaking the bank.

All of the items are available from the Clinton Cards website.