Last week I wrote a feature on funky things to do for free for Valentine’s Day and I got a lot of emails from people who loved the hairstyle idea in the piece. In fact, so many people responded to it that I thought I’d deviate from the Valentine’s Day drama and head for a feature that looks at some of the best hairdo sites on the web,

Of course, I didn’t just choose these sites because they had cool hairstyles for girls, I chose them based on their level of practicality and the expense involved in getting the equipment needed together. For almost every single hairstyle I have found here you can do it with a rat-tail comb, hairbands, a hairbrush, bobby pins and a spray bottle. Nothing more. Although hairspray never goes amiss… and this excludes accessories like ribbons etc. All easily achieved on a budget of under £10.

This very pink and pretty pack of princess hooks and a heart shaped photo board is down from £12 to only £6 at Tesco. And if you don’t fancy paying delivery charges you can arrange to have it delivered instore for free collection at your leisure.

• Click here to get photographic with Tesco

The Princess Hooks and Heart Photoboard set is the perfect way to display those all important accessories. The heart photoboard allows easy presentation of pictures of friends and family, drawings, and any other essential items a girl needs.

The princess hooks make a great addition to any little princesses’ castle with pink calligraphic handwriting of the word ‘princess’ on four of the hooks which are ideal for hanging clothing, hats and accessories such as jewellery. The maximum weight these chaps can take is 5kgs and they are not suitable for kids under the age of 36 months.

The picture really doesn’t help you visualise what they are selling here but it’s basically a kit to help keep a room tidy but with lots of pink added in.

Thanks to wishihadadonkey at HUKD!

Lynley’s feature on how to create utterly awesome Valentine’s Day cards got me thinking. I am not a fan of the day either but I do like the idea of using it to do something creative and fun without spending money on cheesy cards or sparkly rubbish. So I decided to find some brilliantly unusual ideas that could make great Valentines gifts as well as translate into other presents for birthdays or Easter or Mother’s Day.

I loathe enforced holidays. Like New Year's. I hate that you're told you have to party. I'd much prefer to party because I feel like it, not because I am told to.

It is the same with Valentine's Day. Why all this emphasis on just that one day? Having said that of course, there's something really quite sweet about exchanging cards and telling people that you love them.

If you want to avoid the whole commercialism of it all, then make your own card. It also means something a little bit more, or at least that's what I think anyway. I've look around the internet and been amazed at some of the truly beautiful ideas that people come up with.

Click here to read more...

This is a great deal from Argos with the 1500 piece craft activity set marked down from £29.99 to only £12.99. That’s less than half price for a ton of cool bits and pieces that you can use to make all sorts of ace things.

• Click here to get crafty with Argos

The 1500 piece craft activity set is perfect for stimulating young crafters and getting them to explore their creativity. Included in the set are pipe cleaners, pom poms, glitter glue, white glue, foam shapes, tissue paper, mask, confetti stars, straws, feathers, pop sticks, and sequins.

You also get googly eyes, beads and polyballs. The set description says it is suitable for kids over the age of six but I remember crafting with my daughter when she was only three and she loved it! While this is one messy pressie, it is really good for spending quality time together and having lots of fun at the same time.

Thanks to wishihadadonkey at HUKD!

The Harvester has some ace deals going down this January so if you happen to live nearby one of these tasty spots, then you should really like them. The first is to get two selected meals from the takeaway menu for £10 and that includes a free salad. The second is a free Sundae.

• Click here to get eating with The Harvester

If you fancy a free ice cream sundae the Harvester Sundae Best deal is back. You get a delicious Cornish ice-cream dessert drizzled with raspberry, strawberry, Belgian chocolate, white chocolate or Devonshire toffee sauce for free. You only need to download a voucher, order a meal and you’re sorted.

The two selected meals from the takeaway menu for £10 is for around six different meals and this expires on 07 February, so hurry up and spoil yourself if you want to take advantage of this deal. So, there you have it. Tasty discounts (there are more on their site) for January that the whole family can enjoy.

For those of you who’ve not yet bought a Trunki, this set may be what you need. For £44.99 you get the Trunki six piece accessory set instead of the usual £99.99. As this is an expensive gadget at the best of times, this price is very reasonable for all these goodies.

• Click here to get travelling with Argos

The Trunki six piece pack includes Terrance the Trunki, a Trunki holster, a tote bag, a saddle bag, a sticker pack and a wrist purse. Trunki is, you probably already know, the world’s first ride-on suitcase and these extras make it even more fun.

The comfy saddle bags can hold things kids need as they sit and wait in long queues, the tote bag is for those other little extras, the sticker pack will keep them entertained for a while and I have no idea what a Trunki holster is.

I think that the kit is great if you have more than one child and only one Trunki already in hand. That way there are lots of carry extras, enough for two kids. Otherwise I don’t really see the point of so many bags and things, they would just get in the way.

Thanks to manya6020 at HUKD!

You are going to hate me, I just know it, but it is less than a month until Valentine’s Day. So before you start throwing roses at me, this is a good time to start planning what you are going to do about it. Unless you don’t believe in it, at which point, “Move on, nothing to see here…”

I went out to find brilliant ideas for you to make this day of hearts and flowers really special, without spending a lot of money and here they are…

This would make a great little creative gift for a birthday party out there this month. Down from £7.49 to £3.99, the Mould & Paint Glitter Mermaid Plaster kit looks like a lovely idea and something to keep little fingers busy in the cold months.

• Click here to get mouldy with Amazon

The Mould & Paint glitter mermaid kit lets you make your very own glitter mermaids. The pack comes with a single mould and six different mermaid designs and materials to make six magnets or badges.

You mix the plaster and pour it into the moulds and wait for it to set. Then you use the included paints to decorate the mermaids and then sprinkle some glitter on them to bring some sparkle to the whole affair. And that’s it! Lots of mess a little bit of fuss and plenty of fun.

These sets are suitable for kids over the age of five and would make great presents for the round of 2012 birthday parties.

Thanks to mKc88 at HUKD!

As you know, I dove into the murky waters of Christmas cake making a month back and have been feeding no less than six Christmas cakes ever since. Yes, six. Everybody wanted one. I did try to explain that I had never made them before and that they were high risk but nobody seemed to mind.

So, after patiently feeding my cakes for four weeks it was time to wrap them in marzipan and icing and make them look fabulous. However, this task really worried me because I am not very good at that sort of thing and often the instructions on websites don’t really tell you everything you need to know. And they didn’t…

First off, nab some readymade icing from your nearest retail store. You can make your own, of course, but I honestly don’t have the time or inclination for such a sticky endeavour. For those of you that really, really want to make your own icing this is a great recipe right here.

You’ll also need some marzipan, a rolling pin, apricot jam, baking paper, icing sugar, a knife, a pastry brush, and some coloured icing or decorations. And some brandy.

I have been looking for a lovely Christmas cookie cutter set for ages. It sounds like something easy to find but strangely it has turned out to be something of a nightmare. They were either the wrong size or too expensive or both. Then I discovered this kit from Swift which has seven Christmas cookie cutters for only £3.99 including free delivery.

• Click here to get some cookies with Amazon

The Swift set of Christmas cookie cutters isn’t marked down by that much really but it is one of the best sets I’ve found yet that isn’t made from plastic. I much prefer using metal cookie cutters as the plastic ones can stick and end up looking a bit rubbish.

The Swift set of Christmas cookie cutters has a candy stick, Santa, an angel, a reindeer, a bell, a star and a Christmas tree included in the kit along with some recipe and icing ideas too. These cookie cutters look wonderfully good and the price is darn near perfect.

Ok, so this is a deal that I would like as a Christmas pressie. A Salter slim design electric platform kitchen scale for a mere £8 including delivery. What a bargain. My poor old scales have become somewhat tired from excessive use so this is a must for me!

• Click here to get weighing with Amazon

The Salter slim design kitchen scale is black with a silver plate in the centre. It is very slim – perfect for people with small kitchens that have limited baking space. The item is half the original price at £8, usually costing about £15.

The Salter kitchen scale has an easy to read display with 20mm high digits and metric/imperial conversion. The platform is stainless steel and other features include an aquatronic liquid measure function and an add/weigh feature. The scale measures 160x180x2mm and is powered by a CR2032 battery which is included in the price. It also comes with a 15 year manufacturer guarantee. Brilliant.

Thanks to djq at HUKD!

Poundland is selling this ace Christmas Cracker Making Set for a mere £1, which is pretty darn good when you consider how much Christmas crackers cost now days. This kit lets you make up to six mini Christmas crackers for only £1, this means you are only paying 16p a Christmas cracker.

• Click here to get making with Poundland

The kid’s Christmas cracker making kit from Poundland includes six crackers that are white so you can colour them in like a colouring book and really personalise them. The crayons to do this are included in the set.

The Christmas cracker making kit also has six snaps to make the bang, six hats, six jokes and several curling ribbons to really add some shine and sparkle to your designs. You also get a pack of assorted sequins and gems, some stickers and some pencils.

I wouldn’t advise this Christmas cracker making kit for anyone under 36 months as they’ll probably eat everything, but overall this is a pretty good deal for anyone who fancies doing something a little different this year.

Thanks to FoX5 at HUKD!

M&S has a special offer on their Christmas card multipacks where they are currently selling them for half their usual price. This is rather brilliant when you consider that Christmas hasn’t actually arrived yet and you’d only expect cards and sundries on sale from January!

• Click here to get some Christmas cards at M&S

The 50% off multipack Christmas cards offer appears to be only for this week, although I can’t find any confirmation either way. There are a lot of different styles of Christmas card on offer here as well so most types and tastes are accounted for.

With the 50% tag, many of these packs that usually cost around £4 are down to £2, and the ones that cost £2.50 are down to, well, half that and very little indeed. The luxury packs are really the best buys as they cost only £2.50 instead of £5.

I really like these Christmas cards and, seeing as my current batch is already used up, I’m definitely going to be nabbing some of these today.

Thanks to lynn44 at HUKD!

This year I’ve been on a mission to find the best priced Christmas products with the best tastes for your table. My first taste test took me to Aldi where I got the Luxury All Over Iced Christmas Cake for £6.99. This is a very reasonable price for this sized of cake and weighs in at 58.3p per 100g. Compared to the £8.50 of the Tesco Iced Rich Fruit Cake for the same weight, it is considerably cheaper.

This year I’ve made my own Christmas cakes, they are my benchmark. How will these pre-made Christmas cakes fare against the traditional Delia recipe I’ve used? Well, pretty good actually. The cake is well packaged and easy to unwrap and get into. The layer of marzipan and icing is definitely NOT stingy, and the lovely decorations are a delightful touch.

The fruitcake is rich and moist, lots of nuts and fruit so no stinting there, but, for me, it is overly sweet. This opinion was not shared by the other people I gave slices to, however, with everyone else commenting on how it was pretty much spot on.

Overall, I’d have to say that the Aldi Luxury Christmas cake is surprisingly good and one I would definitely purchase. The next thing on the list from Aldi was, of course, their mince pies. The packaging looks inviting and rich and doesn’t leak sugar everywhere – a big plus.

These mince pies are alright. As a mince pie fanatic I am very fussy and unfortunately the pastry is not firm and crumbly enough, it feels too soft. The filling is divine but the pastry lets the side down. However, when you compare their lovely 99p to the £1.50 of the Tesco range, well, the pastry isn’t that much of a hindrance – you can always bung them in the oven to crisp it up a bit first.

And if you head on over to their Facebook page they are giving away £100 vouchers in their Trolley Dash competition which you can, obviously, spend on Christmas cake and mince pies!

Is there anything better than getting a parcel in the post wrapped up in brown paper and tied with string? That's how the items from MakeDo arrived.

I love making stuff out of things that are around the house. What I lack though is the expertise to know how to do it. Enter the MakeDo system, new to the UK. MakeDo is a connector system that enables materials including cardboard, plastic and fabric to easily join together to form new objects or structures.

The system can also be undone, so you can take it apart and build something new. Kind of like Lego, but without the sharp edges, square shape restrictions, and if Lego bricks were instead everyday objects that people throw away all the time. So nothing like Lego at all then! Other than this is a construction toy.

These connector systems will also come in handy at Christmas, when you're awash with all that packing left over from opening presents. Now the kids can construct their own inventions out of it.

I received the MakeDo Find & Make Robot, and the MakeDo Cup Critter. There's other kits in the Find & Make range - like ones for making cars for example. The range also includes Makedo Freeplay, a tub full of the connectors.

Click here to read more...

We recently got this ace exclusive PlayPennies discount from Reader’s Digest, just in time for Christmas, and this isn’t the only one either, we have two other lovely discounts waiting for you tomorrow and in December. This book, the Cookbook for Children, has been reduced by Reader’s Digest to only £8.99 instead of the usual £19.99.

• Click here to get cooking with kids and Reader’s Digest

The Cookbook for Children is a spiral bound book with tons of lovely recipe ideas. I love the fact that this is spiral bound actually as it means that the book is much easier to manage while cooking. The recipes come with simple and illustrated instructions that go step-by-step through each process.

The Cookbook for Children also has helpful tips so that even first time cooks will find it easy to get cooking and they will learn how to do things like boil an egg and decorate a cake. Recipes included are Salmon Fishcakes (yum!), Ratatouille with Butter Bean Mash, Strawberry Shortcake, and Chocolate Fudge Brownies. Sounds yummy.

We got this deal because Reader's Digest asked us to choose what we wanted them to reduce for us and they gave us a hefty 50% off on this ace cookbook. We chose, they reduced, everybody won!

Christmas is approaching fast with under two months to go until the big day and, with all the belt tightening going on, there are many ways you can whip your home into festive shape without spending a lot of money. Here are some simple ideas for decorating the home this Christmas. 

Christmas is less than two months away now and if you haven’t already bought all your Christmas gifts, then now is the time to start planning and sorting them out, especially if you are thinking of making them yourself. Leaving it any longer will just leave you frazzled.

This year I am on a huge mission to really cut enormous Christmas corners without making it look like I have. So, no big, shiny gadgets or fat gift vouchers and expensive bath treats from my family this year but I want the gifts to still be cool. You know, so people don’t open the present and go, “Oh yay, homemade scratchy socks…” And here are five recipes, ideas and thoughts that won’t cost a lot to make and will turn into yummy and lovely Christmas gifts.

If you happen to live far away from helpful grandparents and friends, or you have unhelpful grandparents and friends, then you probably live by the babysitter. And finding a reliable babysitter with good credentials, especially if you’ve moved to a new area, can be a nervewracking experience. Well, Findababysitter.com is a site dedicated to linking up qualified professionals to desperate parents. The fantastic PlayPennies exclusive voucher code that we happen to have is a tasty 50% off registration with either the monthly or yearly packages.

• Click here to use the Findababysitter voucher code

All you need to do is enter the voucher code below and you can shave off a hefty slice of the price AND get yourself a much needed, reliable, babysitter.

• Discount: 50%
• Voucher code: PLAYFAB
• Expires: Wednesday 19 October 2011

The voucher isn’t valid for very long I’m afraid, so if you fancy having access to carers, background checks, and help and advice, then it is best to nab this deal fast.

Findababysitter.com is the UKs only childcare search site that offers both background checks and parent references and includes the contact details of local babysitters, nannies, au pairs, childminders, housekeepers and more.

This is an ace discount and I highly recommend the yearly product as you will pay only £37.50 for an entire year. Bargain.