Posting handmade orders with Davpack

Now many of my readers will know that I have a small business, both on Etsy and Facebook.

With the Etsy shop especially I am often posting off orders across the country, as opposed to the Facebook page where it is more local orders.

My most popular items are the frames I make, mainly the baby name ones and the wedding lovebird ones. Since selling on Etsy I have been on the look out for a sturdy box to fit the frames as well as the bubble wrap layer too, most places I have found sell them in large numbers so I have always been reluctant to buy just in case I got the measurements wrong-especially with not ever having the biggest budget going.

So when I was contacted to try out some packing from Davpack I jumped at the chance.

I managed to find a box that fits the frames nicely, it is actually classed at a Brown Pizza box in the size 290 x 290 x 50 this is the perfect fit for the frames I use.

With the pizza style boxes I can now pack up  my orders much, much quicker. Before I was saving old cardboard boxes and cutting squares out to sandwich the bubble wrapped frame, and then covering with brown paper and lots of tape. So I now save a lot of time and also a lot of materials too!

I had a double layer of bubble wrap on the frame and as you can see the box still just about closed, ideally I could do with the box being about half a cm deeper so as not to be quite so snug but really that's just a personal preference for the items I sell.

I did cover the box with a cellophane bag, more to protect the frame inside from possible water damage, but if the product had been something else I would be confident in sending it with just tape along the open edges as the box itself is nice and sturdy.

If you have your own business and post off lots of orders I would definitely recommend Davpack, they have a huge range of products perfect for small and large businesses.

I now I have the confidence that my products will look more professional, which is always great when you have your own business and I am so pleased I have finally found something to fit my main product.

I received some of these boxes to review however all photos and words are my own

Find the best gift this Christmas with UncommonGoods

Now I don't know if it's just me but I find gift giving extremely difficult, especially at Christmas time when there are so many gifts to try and find (and in our family just after a lot of birthday's too). That's why websites like UncommonGoods come in handy for those special and maybe more quirky gifts, especially when they are a company with great morals both environmentally and socially.

The hardest people to buy for? Men!! If the men in your life are anything like my Husband, Dad, Father in Law or Brothers then they often just buy what they want even before Christmas-highly frustrating!

That's when Christmas gift guides come in very handy on websites, especially when there is a whole 'men' section to look at with over 400 gifts to choose from.

Both my brother's and actually my Mother in Law play guitar, so something like this guitar pick punch would make unique and useful gift.

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/pick-punch

If you know someone who likes spirits like my father in law then these granite disks would be a great idea to keep the drink cool without the need for ice. 

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/on-the-rocks-set

For more Men's gift ideas click here.

Now, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to treat their Mum at Christmas. 

Jewellery always goes down well with my mum, I thought these parent nestling necklaces were really sweet! 

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/parent-nestling-necklaces

Of course I'm a mum too, and jewellery and kitchen things are always a good thing to buy me! How pretty are these butterflies on this necklace?!

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/butterfly-cloud-necklace

I really like to bake when I have the time, this time of year I am found baking many birthday cakes in our house, often these days I find it loads quicker to find a recipe online rather than flicking through books, so this would be perfect. With the utensil section it is also useful when not being used to hold the tablet too. For more gifts perfect for Mum's click here.

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/kitchen-utensil-and-tablet-holder

I hope this helps with some Christmas shopping this year! 

This is a sponsored post but all words and views are my own.

Zoflora product review

With two young boys and a husband who works in the building trade the house is often a mess if I am honest!

It was more so in the summer when the boys were constantly in and out of the garden and raiding the kitchen cupboards!

So when Zoflora contacted me to try out their products I jumped at the chance to try it out.

We received one 120ml disinfectant in the 'Green Valley' scent and one 250ml disinfectant in 'Citrus Fresh'.

As they are concentrated you have to dilute the disinfectant with water, I think this is great as it makes it last so much longer, I put my diluted solution in a spray bottle to make it easy to use when I needed it.

I will say I have mainly used it within the kitchen, it's always nice to know that 99.9% of bacteria & viruses are being killed, odours eliminated, and all day freshness achieved. I've been really impressed with the disinfectant, I was worried that the smell might be too overbearing, as sometimes I do find these sort of products that way but actually it is fairly subtle but lasting enough to notice when you come back in the room hours later.

I would say that my favourite scent of the two is probably the 'Green Valley' one as it just leaves a lovely, lush, fresh smell, the citrus one I prefer for bathroom cleaning as I didn't overly like the citrus smell in the kitchen.

I keep it in the kitchen as it is the room we mainly enter into and out of the house from our backdoor so our floor is in often need of a quick clean, that and two messy eaters who like to drop their food on the floor. It is really good to use on the worktops after cooking too and leaves the room looking and smelling so fresh.

You can use the Zoflora undiluted as well, but only on certain surfaces such as ceramic, metal sinks, drains and toilet bowls.

I would definitely recommend this product for use in the home, it lasts for such a long time when used diluted too. Just remember to always read the labels and keep the product out of the reach of children too.

The one thing I might suggest to Zoflora is that I would prefer the product to have a lid that was more child proof rather than a normal screw cap.

Zoflora can be bought from many shops, and for more information please look at their website:    http://www.zoflora.co.uk/




I received the products mentioned for this review, all words are my own. 

Now TV kids pass review

Our kids were a little bit miffed when we recently cancelled our Sky subscription to help save a few pennies, so when we were asked to review the new Now Tv kids pass I jumped at the chance.

We already have a Now Tv account and use it on our Roku box so setting up the Kids pass was super easy, only taking a minute or two to add the code.

For £2.99 a month you get 6 live Tv channels: Cartoon network, Nickelodeon, NickToons, NickJr, Cartoonito & Boomerang, as well as being able to choose and watch the shows at different times, you also get box sets from Cbeebies, CBBC, and Milkshake. 

NowTv have worked with children to help design the new interface for the Kids section, I think it works really well, my 6 year old used it without any help and actually my 3 and 1/2 year old figured it out really quickly too-I found this out when he swapped shows half way through watching TV one morning! 

I like the fact they have added auto play so that the next episode shows without having go back to any main menus and choose again, especially for those times when us parents need a little break or to get some work done (come on we all do it don't we...)! Although this does sometimes make it a little harder trying to get the kids to come off of it!

If your child loves a certain programme it gets added to the top of the page in a favourites folder, as you can see my two like Paw Patrol like I'm sure many kids seem to!

I will admit Sam can be a bit of a telly addict, so when he was poorly this past week and off preschool whilst I had some craft orders to complete NOWTV really came to the rescue! He loved watching it from his awesome space rocket tent snuggled under his blanket with his special pillow too-so thanks again NOWTV :)

Alex hasn't had much of chance to watch it after getting a technology ban for some naughty behaviour/a very messy room, but I have a feeling it will probably get quite a bit of use over the summer holidays!!

If you wanted to try the Kids pass out, there is a 14 day free trial, more details on the website...

The Snowman™ and The Snowdog Great Festive Bake Off Blog Tour! #SnowmanSnowdog

We had a fantastic opportunity to receive and review some Snowman and the Snowdog products, a popular Christmas item for many families any Christmas! I know I always loved watching it as a child and you can get the chance to again this Christmas with his new companion as the Snowman and the Snowdog will be shown on Channel 4 again this Christmas.

We received a beautiful 'The snowman book' hardback deluxe edition, £12.99 from puffin books. Perfect for story telling and for letting your child's imagination run free, and a chance to reminisce for the parent's too! This would make a wonderful present, or a treat for the family before Christmas if you can't wait until the 25th! A large book as it measure approx 24 x 29cm and is full of illustrations in the style of the original film.

 Unfortunately our chocolate that was sent to review didn't have the best ride in the post by the looks of him! The poor snowman got a little broken!

However here is a photo of him in one piece, and he still tasted delicious as you'd expect from Thornton's chocolate. There is a whole range available on their website and in store.

Now I will admit, I do find it hard to get overly festive until after Sam's birthday on the 9th of Dec as he is the last out of us 4 (we have all 4 of our birthday's between 20th Nov and 9th of Dec!!!), and I will also admit to slightly being a bit bored of baking after my mammoth bake last week, but it was fun none the less and made a yummy pudding for us all!

The boys had a good time making the biscuits, and using our Snowman and Snowdog cutters to make the shapes. We used the recipe on the back of the cookie cutter packaging which was a little sticking to roll so we did have to add a bit extra flour to help. The cookie cutters are great and are available in John Lewis and Party Delights for around £3.

Recipe

350g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

125g butter

175g light brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp golden syrup

Preheat oven to 180C.

Add the dry ingredients to a bowl, mix. 

Add butter, mix, stir in the sugar. 

Lightly beat egg and syrup together and mix with the other ingredients.

Knead dough until smooth and cover and put in the fridge for approx 15mins. 

Roll dough to about 0.5cm thick and cut out shapes. 

Place on baking paper on a tray and cook for around 12-15 mins. 

After they cooled, and we'd finished our dinner I got our icing and decorations out, we each decorated a Snowman and Snowdog and then I let the boys run wild with the rest which they found fantastic- I will admit I can be a tad OCD when baking with kids, I just can't handle it so I think they were enjoying no panicky and fussy mum!

Alex's aged 6

Sam's aged 3 (nearly)

My attempt, we had no black icing so had to improvise which makes them clown like!

The boy's creations together! 

As this is a blogtour it would only be fair to mention who is next, please check out Jenny's blog the-gingerbread-house.co.uk tomorrow for her #SnowmanSnowdog post. Search #SnowmanSnowdog on twitter to find all the posts so far too

Green bean and radish warm salad with Peter Rabbit #Tastytales

I've been invited to take part in the Happy Feaster Blog Tour by Ladybird Books and The Happy Foodie.   We have been asked to take storytelling from the page to the kitchen by creating a Spring recipe inspired by the Tales of Peter Rabbit!  I've decided to create a green bean and radish salad with my little bunnies (Alex 5 and Sam 2). 

For more Spring recipes, inspired by Peter Rabbit and friends, why not head over to The Happy Foodie and discover how celebrity chefs and their children are joining in!

As part of this campaign we were given 3 brilliant Peter rabbit books to inspire our ingredients or ideas behind our recipe. 

Peter Rabbit: A big box of little books RRP  £9.99

Sam and Alex both like this selection of short board books, with brief short stories of the main characters in the Peter Rabbit tales. we love that the reverse of all the books create an image if put in the correct order-we only discovered this a few days after we had first read them!

The world of Peter Rabbit: A pull-out pop-up book RRP £5.99

I love how this is a great decoration/backdrop as well as a short story too.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit: Penguin edition RRP £9.99

A special edition for Penguin's 80th anniversary. A really lovely story-we didn't have any Peter Rabbit stories beforehand (I must ask Mum if she kept my collection I had as as a child!) and Alex and Sam have both sat down and listened nicely to the story.

It was the original Peter Rabbit tale where we got our recipe inspiration from:

Peter Rabbit is partial to pinching some of Mr McGregor's radishes after all!

"First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes"

Green bean and radish warm salad

A small bag of green beans

1 small red onion (diced finely)

2 cloves of garlic (diced finely)

1 tsp of grainy mustard

1 tbsp olive oil

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

salt and pepper to taste

A small handful of radishes

Method:

-Chop the ends off the green beans and put on to boil for 4-5 minutes.

-Slice the other vegetables finely.

-In another pan sweat the onions and garlic for a few minutes, meanwhile mix the oil, mustard, and lemon juice in a small jug, season to taste.

-Add the onions and garlic to the oil dressing.

-Drain the beans and mix with the radishes, toss with the dressing.

-Enjoy!

This dish will be the perfect side dish to barbecues, we enjoyed it last night with chicken and sautéed potatoes.

If you've enjoyed this then why not stop by Over 40 and a mum to one tomorrow to check out what delicious Easter ideas she has for enjoying with your families. 

Also follow the hashtag #tastytales to see what other people and bloggers have been inspired to make. 

We also did a quick bunny bake last night, now I am sure if you have little ones you would've sung the song 'Peter Rabbit's got a fly upon his nose'...

Well with that in mind we a quick batch of biscuits-with cinnamon cranberries for the fly upon his nose! I don't think the people at Biscuiteers have got anything to worry about as it's not a patch on the surprise Peter Rabbit biscuit we received-we haven't had the heart to eat it yet as it just feels wrong as it looks so good!

Review: Gousto meal box

We had the pleasure to review one of Gousto's meal boxes for two last week-and what a treat it was!

Not heard of Gousto? Well they are a brilliant company that deliver food boxes right to your door, similar to veg boxes you can get from other companies however Gousto's boxes include everything you need to make the meals.

Everything was packaged nicely in the printed box. I must admit I was intrigued as to how it would be packaged with such a variety of ingredients! 95% of the packing is recyclable and from renewable resources which I think is a great thing for companies these days, the meat and cheese was kept cold with a couple of large ice packs and everything protected by a bag of wool which also helped with keeping it all cool. The box was in to compartments which stopped the vegetables and fruit from getting bruised. The only slight problems we had were that the spring onion looked a little limp and the vinegars had very slightly leaked from their pots and bags, but to be honest I wouldn't know a better way to package these. 

It was very exciting to have all the ingredients ready to go for the meals, I am very much an 'open the cupboards and see what dinner I can make from it' kind of girl normally! As I said all the ingredients are there, the only things we needed extra for our meals were house essentials such as milk, butter, salt, pepper and oil.    

We had a box which was for 2 people, which included 3 separate meals:

Steak and blue cheese

Pork and braised apple

Sausage and bean mash

Each meal has a menu card, showing clearly the ingredients needed, quantities (as you can get boxes for 4 people too), time, cuisine, and calorie count per portion. What I really liked about these recipe cards is the easy step to step instructions with photos for each stage, now I am relatively ok with cooking but if say my hubby or my brother was cooking a meal they may need these photos a bit more than I did (shh I didn't say that about them)! I also came across a video icon on one stage on the pork and apple meal which lead to a short tutorial. 

I'd say each meal pretty much took the same amount of time said on the card, I liked that they were all cooked within 15-30mins each, I think I have always been of the thought that tasty meals took ages to prepare and to cook!

All three meals were great, the stilton (which I don't normally like) was delicious, the pork and leek sausages were the best sausages I have eaten in a long time, and I think the pork and apple meal was our favourite out of the 3. 

Gousto box prices are:

• Meat box for 2 people - £34.99 per week
• Meat box for 4 people - £49.99 per week
• Veggie box for 2 people - £33.99 per week
• Veggie box for 4 people - £47.99 per week 

If you ever need to cancel or pause you can do so, you just need to make sure you do it before noon on a Sunday before the delivery. I have also discovered you can do a monthly delivery from reading on their website 

Now if I am honest we couldn't afford to get one of these boxes weekly at the moment what with having just moved. But having said that if we did have enough money I would definitely be considering it as it takes the stress out of deciding what you want to eat when on the food shop, everything is ready to go and the meat and vegetables were all of a brilliant quality. 

"Our sourcing team channels an unfathomable amount of effort into finding the best possible quality for you. Not that we're complaining, it keeps us in shape! Our smoked fish, for example, comes from a smokehouse in Wiltshire. Our meat is 100% British and always will be. Take our chicken, it’s supplied by a family owned butchery in Lancashire (and they get it from Cumbria). And our eggs? They come from a free-range farmer called Steven Rowbottom – you couldn’t make it up! He’s based a mere 2 miles away from our warehouse, in egg miles that’s less than a stone (or egg’s) throw. And if all that’s not enough, our sourcing team also do their utmost to buy from ethical suppliers like Suma and Mr. Organic, and family-run businesses like Direct Poultry. Phew!"

Also I am not sure about you,but do you end up cooking the same old meals every week or two? Gousto have a nice range of menus and I know from looking at them there are many things I normally wouldn't cook (or even really try as I tend to stick with what I know) so it brings a bit of variety and an eating experience too. They bring out new menus each week for you to choose from so there is always something new and exciting. 

Now what I want to know, is there a pudding option somewhere on the horizon too? (Sorry- ever the sweet tooth)!

We recieved one Gousto Meat box for 2 to review, but all opinions are our own. 

  

  

Christmas favourite wines with Waitrose Cellar

You may have seen my post the other day on the handy Christmas dinner calculator from Waitrose, well I have had another fabulous opportunity to review some of their wine selection too!

Christmas is a busy time of year where pretty much everyone is either entertaining or going somewhere to be entertained, and whether you drink or not it is often polite to have or bring a bottle of wine for the people who do.

With that in mind I think that Waitrose's 'Our Christmas favourites' selection is a great one to buy for this time of year, as it has something for everyone. Or you could even split it up and give the bottles as gifts-if you aren't to keep them at your own house of course! At £50 I think it is a very good price for the 6 bottles included.

Reindeer's not included!

The set includes:

1 x Villa Vincenta Prosecco NV
Veneto, Italy

1 x Waitrose Sauvignon Blanc, Villa Maria
Marlborough, New Zealand

1 x Laurent Miquel L'Artisan Chardonnay
South of France

1 x Cave De Roquebrun Col De La Serre
South of France

1 x Malvirà Barbera d'Alba San Michele
Piedmont, Italy

1 x The Cubist Old Vine Garnacha Pablo
Spain

So that's 1 bottle of something sparkling, 2 white wines and 3 red wines-perfect for our families who love reds but have older relations who prefer white.

We took the Italian red bottle over to James' parent's yesterday as we were having an early Christmas meal before they go away. Unfortunately the wine was corked, just one of those things I guess!

We've not had the chance to try any of the others yet due to not being able to find our bottle opener (thanks to the impending house move)! But I am sure the others will all be lovely-they have certainly called to me the last few days with the house packing stress!

We received one 'Christmas favourite wine selection' for the review, all opinions are our own as always. 

Christmas dinner planning with Waitrose

Many people stress at Christmas time over the all important Christmas dinner, especially if they have more people over than they would normally cater for.

Now I must admit to never having cooked a Christmas dinner, and if I let you in on a secret I rarely cook a roast as often find them too much work-even if it is one of my favourite dinners! However when I do cook a roast I often get the quantities completely wrong and often go way over board with the spuds and not enough of the veg!

This is why Waitrose have come up with a handy tool for Christmas-The Christmas Dinner Calculator.

The Calculator suggests quantities of the popular and traditional Christmas dinner ingredients depending on how many guests you select on the bar at the top. You can choose between a couple and a group of 25 guests.

Now part of our review was to cook an early Christmas meal based on the quantities shown on the calculator chart, although there are 4 of us, I know that Sam doesn't eat much and the boy's aren't the biggest veggie eaters so I did a calculation for a family of 2 and for 3 to suit their likes (knowing that the calculations are based on adults and Sam's portions being teeny) excluding the pigs in blankets which I calculated for a group of 4!

With this is mind our calculations are:

Turkey: 1.5kg (our turkey ended up being 1.8kg as couldn't find a smaller one)

Bread sauce: 150g

Brussels Sprouts: 200g

Roast potatoes: 495g

Red cabbage: 200g

Roasting Veg: 300g

Gravy: 300g

Cranberry sauce: 60g

Stuffing: 225g

Pigs in blankets: 12

All the right weight of food (except for the slight extra on the sausage and stuffing)!

Now when I was preparing this I really thought that there weren't enough potatoes or vegetables, however once cooked I was proven wrong there was plenty between us. I don't think all of us had our biggest appetites this evening but I think on the whole the chart was pretty much spot on, we did have a small amount of red cabbage and sprouts left, and had a lot of turkey left (but bare in mind it was 300g more than the chart said).

Forgot to take a photo with gravy on too due to hungry kids!

 Personally though if I had guests around for dinner I would much rather have a little left than not enough, and who doesn't enjoy a turkey sandwich later in the day? We did admittedly have extra cooked of the pigs in blankets and the gorgeous stuffing which has been nibbled on since the dinner!

This is a very handy tool, I think especially more so for when you have a larger group to cook for than normal as it is very hard to guestimate the quantities for so many mouths! The only thing I did think was a bit odd were the weights for the gravy and bread sauce as this isn't something I would personally measure in grams and would opt for measuring in a jug instead. 

Going forward for next year I think it would be very handy for Waitrose to have a Christmas dinner timings linked to the calculator's quantities and perhaps a few simple recipes that you could click on directly from the 'cabbage image' for an example rather than going to other pages on the site.

If you are planning a party over Christmas there is also a handy Festive Party Calculator too.

This is nothing to do with the post, but we also let the boy's choose items for pudding from Waitrose and they were delicious! 

The icing on the reindeer is to die for! Mmm...

This is a sponsored post but all views and opinions are my own. We received a £60 Waitrose voucher to buy our food and also a few lovely Christmas decorations which will look great in our new home.

12 days of Christmas with The Snowman and The Snowdog: Blog tour

I have always been very fond of The Snowman, in fact I think I remember having a 5th party roughly themed around it-I certainly remember watching it on a video my Mum had borrowed for the party at home!

Now years on (it was first shown on Channel 4 Christmas 1982), it has become a bit of a tradition to watch it every Christmas!

So when I was contacted to review a new The Snowman product I was delighted, of course in recent years The Snowman has a new companion in The Snowdog and he is featured in their new products too.

We received a lovely 'The Snowman and The Snowdog finger puppet book'. I wasn't surprised to find it really good quality, it has thick board pages perfect for young hands! It simply tells the story of The Snowman and The Snowdog, the finger puppet part makes it more interactive and fun for the little ones.

"A boy built a Snowdog, and the Snowdog came to life! Wiggle your finger to play with Billy and his friends in this adorable and playful finger-puppet book. Featuring beautiful artwork from the animation, The Snowman and The Snowdog, this is a brilliantly fun book children will treasure. For children aged 3 and over."

For the RRP of £7.99 from www.puffin.com this would make a great addition to your Christmas goodies, perfect for a stocking filler, or as part of a book Advent calendar. I know ours will join our Christmas box of stories that I put out in December.

To follow along the blog tour tomorrow and see some other wonderful new Snowman and the Snowdog products do visit the lovely blog The gingerbread house and follow on twitter using #SnowmanSnowdog over the next 12 days!

*We received one finger puppet book to review but all views and opinions are our own as always.

Superphoto photobook review

It's so great being a blogger when you get to review something you really, really love.

I am a massive hoarder of momentos, I love to look back at photos and could happily sit for hours doing so. I love how a photo can kick start a memory in your brain and you start to remember all the other stuff from that day, outing, or era!

In this day in age I think it's fair to say a LOT of photos get kept in the digital format, I know I for one have over 2 years of photos still to be printed...which is why I think it is important to try and print the photos as soon as possible and photobooks are a great way of doing so, especially as they really take up little space but can hold so many photos inside. 

Luckily this photobook review from a new company Superphoto came just at the right time for us, I knew it would be the perfect size for our mini-moon photos.

We only went away for 2 nights, so we didn't have too many photos, but it is so lovely to look back on those few special days we had after the wedding, child free, stress free and still in our own little bubble of happiness!

I couldn't have been happier receiving this product through the door, the quality is really great, the photos have come out sharp and the colour doesn't appear to be affected unlike one other company I have used before. 

There are many sizes you can choose from, as well as the outer material. Once you decide you find your way to the design part of your account. It is very similar to other photobook sites I have used in the passed, in that you can easily add pages, there are layouts and backgrounds to choose from, or if you prefer you can choose you own layouts to suit your wants.

Once you find your way around after playing about a bit, you can work out what the other features and buttons too. Like with all these sort of projects I suggest saving after every page as photobooks can be very timely to make. I always find it takes me a couple of pages to really get into how everything works!

I am so pleased with the product that I am already in the process of making our parent's photobooks for their Christmas presents this including our wedding photos. At some point I will get around to doing our own too!

We received one photobook for the purpose of this review but all views are my own and 100% honest.

Wooden Kitchen and Food Review

Now it is no secret that I love wooden toys-I always think they look a lot better than their plastic equivalents!

So when I was contacted to review some toys from the new Wooden Toy Range at ASDA Direct I jumped at the chance. 

I have wanted to get the boys a play kitchen for years now, but never had the space, seeing as we are moving soon I thought it would be a great opportunity to try out the Deluxe Kitchen. 

For £40 I think it is a fantastic buy, it is a product that has so many play opportunities and would make a really lovely present or addition to your children's toys.  

The ups 

-Cost: It is a great product for £40

-Easy to follow instructions (I managed to make it all by myself with a pen knife as couldn't find a screwdriver in the house! So if I can make it anyone can)!

-Cute unisex design (It can be relatively difficult to find a kitchen that isn't girly for a similar price)

-Sturdy

-Great for role play

-Not too large, but large enough (it measures approx 89x30x60cm)

The downs

-I think it would be better if the hob rings and washing bowl were secured too (I may just get the hot glue gun on my pieces to stick them down)

-The clear sections on the oven and microwave were a little marked and I think they will mark quite easily after a bit of use. 

-There were a few places around the edges where the paint had slightly chipped (not enough to notice once it's all made though)

We also received the wooden food crates to review which are very sweet and a great addition to the kitchen. I think they would also be brilliant with the wooden play shop & cafe. 

The food is really well made and painted brilliantly, for £10 you get 11 groceries and 2 wooden crates to keep them in (which are also brilliantly made). 

So why not treat your little ones to something wooden this year?

We received these products to review but all opinions are 100% and our own.

*** UPDATE***

We found this to break quite easily, my husband has had to fix the door of microwave and one other by drilling a new screw in, since that the other door has fallen off and also the tap and drawer handle are loose/have fallen off. So although it is sturdy but be prepared to have to do some repairs to make it more durable!