Baby toupees - you've GOT to be kidding me!!

As is part of my PlayPennies remit, I was mooching around cyberspace yesterday looking for something random to tell you about when I stumbled upon babytoupee.com - I've been bemused by them ever since.

Now I know I can be quite traditional when it comes to parenting - I'm not one for giving in to demands for designer this, that and the other and I'm ALL for stashing away embarrassing baby photos for blackmail purposes during the teenage years but ABSOLUTE humiliation of your child...?  I'm really not a fan of that at all and can't see that anything else would come of them wearing a baby toupee.

Help me out here, please!  Have I just lost my sense of humour?  I know people who LOVE dressing up and pull out all the stops when it comes to attending fancy dress parties; I wonder if they'd see these baby toupees as just another prop in their fancy dress arsenal?

There are four styles of baby toupee: Lil' Kim (whoooo?), Donald Trump, Samuel L Jackson and Bob Marley and I'm sorry to say that I have some bad news for you if you were thinking the Bob Marley sounded great - it's SOLD OUT!  I kid you not; crazy!

Aimed at babies aged between one and nine months these baby syrups sell for $21.99  and international shipping from the US will set you back another $24.95 - that should put you off.

But just in case you were seriously considering a baby toupee, I have a request - PLEASE save your money; put it in a trust fund or something or give it to a homeless charity!  Anything but subjecting your child to the indignity of being dressed in one of these baby toupees!

I'm getting to be a bit of an expert on children's costumes. My son loves dressing up just that much. The nicest, loveliest, most gorgeous costume I've ever seen for children or for adults is in his wardrobe. It is this Wizard Costume, and I have to say that the photos there just don't do it justice.

For one thing, they make it look blue, on my computer screen at least. Whereas it is in fact a rich, deep purple. I do have to warn you though that it is also the most expensive dress up outfit he owns as well. The costume costs £29.95. But the quality is well worth every penny.

It really does depend on your child. If you have one who is just in love with dressing up, and really gets into character, then it is a joy to find costumes like this one. It arrived in a large, sturdy box, shaped rather like a pizza box. The sort of box that a heroine in a movie opens to find a gorgeous, expensive evening dress.

The costume was beautifully wrapped in tissue paper. When he saw it, my son's first words were "oh I quite like this". Which actually surprised me because I was sure when I first saw it in the box he'd pronounce it as too girly to wear. Just goes to show you never can tell!

We haven't work it to the party yet. The Witches and Wizards party he is going to is on Monday, and he doesn't want to wear it out until then. But it has spent a lot of time on my son, as he has played around the house. Other costumes can look frazzled after a few games of jumping off the sofa and rolling across the cushions placed on the floor, but this one has held up well.

It is available in two sizes, 3 to 5 years, and 6 to 8 years. The website is called Swimbabes, which I found slightly confusing as it really is all about that - swimming with babies. However, there is a section for the fancy dress costumes, and I did really enjoy browsing through the lovely outfits they sell.

The website describes the costume as a cloak. However, it does have a button to fasten on the front. There's a silver brocade collar, and silver trim on the cuffs and bottom of the cloak. There's a silver and embroidered bat on one side of the front, and a moon and star on the right-hand side.

The hat has a silver brim, and the peak is fairly stiff, so stands up quite well. But is soft enough to have that authentic slightly floppy look that's just so cute.

As is so often the case with boy's fancy dress costumes, I wish they would not use so much pink. The label is attached to the costume with a pink ribbon, and the embroidery on the detail has a pinkish hue. If your child loves the costume, as my son did, then it probably won't matter. I can see though that for some boys it will be instantly off putting, as that whole gender colour thing is pretty big at this age. That's the only fault I could find with this costume though. Overall, I just wish I was small enough to wear it too.

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.

If your daughter is aged between five and seven years old and is into dressing up, then pop over to Argos and pick up of these Goldilocks dressing up costumes for her; they're selling them for half price, £6.49 instead of £12.99.

• Click HERE to go over to Argos

My mum would be horrified if I'd bought anything like this for my daughter when she was small, not because she has anything against dressing up but because she always used to MAKE our dressing up outfits.

In fact, she's a bit of a costume making whizz - the wardrobes are full of various fancy dress party outfits that she's made and they are seriously awesome.

However, if you haven't got a fancy dress costume making fanatic mother like I have, then this Goldilocks dressing-up costume is for you...unless, of course, YOU are a whizz with the sewing machine and can whip things up yourself.

You're little girly will be able to dress up in a yellow dress with puff sleeves, an apron with three bears on the front (of course) and a headband with a bow on it.

This isn't included in Argos' 30 day money back guarantee, although this doesn't affect your statutory rights.

The Goldilocks dressing up costume is available for free instore collection or home delivery, which will set you back £5.95.

Thanks to bitsnbobsbuyer at HUKD

OOOH dressing up!!  I loved dressing up as a kid!

• Click HERE to get all dressed up with Mothercare

The amount of photos from yesteryear that my mum has of me and my brother dressed up in various guises is quite amazing!  We lived in a little village and every year the school had a summer fete with a fancy dress competition - I've been a hula-hula girl, a flamenco dancer, my brother was covered in green grease paint and won first prize as the Jolly Green Giant.

But that was the late 1970s and times have changed.  Dressing up is no longer the reserve of quaint village summer fete competitions, it's just something to do if one day your little one wakes up and decides they want to be a fairy or a doctor (nothing wrong with a bit of future medical career role play I say!)

Not all of the dressing up outfits are half-price so I've listed them for you in case you don't want to wade through all the others which are nor - most of the half price ones are a fiver and a couple are £6.50.

• Nurse
• Doctor
• Vet
• Fairy
• Winter Fairy
  
• Racing Driver
• Astronaut
• Policeman
• Cowboy
• Elf

Other than spending over £50, or perhaps popping in to your nearest Mothercare store, there's no other way to avoid being hit with the rather extortionate £4.95 standard delivery charge.

I wonder when companies like Mothercare will catch on to the benefits of offering free delivery? Perhaps they should have a nice chat with our good 'free delivery friends' Amazon et al, it doesn't seem to have done their business models any harm does it...

Thanks to Little_em00 over at HUKD!

This super-cute kids deal is a Princess Peppa Pig dressing table with stool is £16.99 at Argos right now, down from £29.99, saving you a rather lovely £13.00.

• Click here to take a closer look

The brightly coloured dressing table will delight little Peppa fans but seems really functional too. It comes with a battery-operated hairdryer and loads of other accesories, too.

It also features a light-up mirror, and it plays fun Peppa Pig sounds as well as the unmistakable Peppa theme tune. I predict that could get seriously irritating to parents, though children are bound to adore it. It requires 5 x AA batteries which - impressively - are included so I suppose you could always, ahem, 'lose' the batteries if all the noise gets too much.

There are 9 reviews by Argos customers and they're all positive. They score the item 4.7 stars out of a possible 5 and most seem to agree that it is delightfully easy to assemble which is always a plus.

At £16.99 it seems like a good price for an item that is both fun and functional.

It's suitable for ages 3 years and over.

The alien costumes from every little boy's favourite cartoon series, Ben 10, aren't usually what I'd call affordable but right now you can pick them up for a fairly decent price at Play.com.

• Click here to take a closer look at Swampfire's outfit

Usually £16.99, this Swampfire costume is now just £10.49 with free delivery, saving you £6.50. That's more than enough for a giant vanilla latte and a cinnamon bun, and maybe even a trashy magazine, too. And once your little darling is all togged up in his Swampfire suit, you might even find yourself with 5 whole minutes to yourself to enjoy all that.

Swampfire is apparenly a plant-like alien with a flaming head (!) and his powers include super-human strength, regeneration powers, the ability to control plants and shoot flames from his hands! Apparently the powers don't come with the suit but it guarantees you'll look the part.

Like most parents I generally try to limit the amount of aggressive skulduggery that my kids watch but my boys assure me that the aliens in Ben 10 are goodies and that they only beat up the baddies, so, um, that's alright then.

As I've said, these costumes don't come cheap but this is about the best price I've seen.

This is a one piece suit with mask, and it's suitable for kids aged 5-7.