BOYS IN TIGHTS!

Did that get your attention? Who doesn't like tights though? I am also thinking why should the girls have all the fun (and warmth?!) I had already bought a couple of pairs from Slugs and Snails and was very happy when the lovely people at Little Titans sent me a pair for Stanley to test out. First up cut and fit are perfect. Stanley is wearing the size 1-2 years and they fit him great, with I'd say plenty of room for growth. They are made of gorgeous non itchy material and have excellent non slippy feet. As Stanley likes to say when pointing at the soles of his tights "Stanley no fall over", so they have his seal of approval.... And as if to prove it he's a running shot of him on our wooden floors!

They come in a cute box too so they'd made a lovely Christmas gift. Please go check out their website, it's beautifully designed and as you know I like to support these small companies making a mark competing against all the big guns out there. We have the Stripe Grey, but I'm thinking the Superhero tights are pretty spectacular!

There will be a Stanley Style post tomorrow to show off the Little Titans tights in all their glory!

tights from slugs and snails

I would highly recommend checking out both companies for your little boys that need to be kept warm and snug as well as still look as manly as is possible in tights. Plus you know me and my quest for all things unisex, I reckon that girls would be more than happy in any of these beauties too.

Robin hood, robin hood, riding through his glen...

CHEEKY WIPES

So those of you following my blog for a while know I'm a big fan of re-useable nappies as well as most things eco. I already purchased a mini set of Cheeky Wipes way back when I first decided to cloth nappy to go alongside them. Heck, if you are going to be washing nappies, you might as well save money, time and the environment and wash wipes too? Anyway I loved them straight away - they are a great size, have the texture of a flannel and remove all sorts of delights much better than a disposable wipe, which as I'm sure you know has sometimes the tendency to smear.... (Sorry to those of you eating lunch.) Anyway, as I loved them so much I decided to make my own wipes for clearing up faces (sometimes my own) and the high chair at mealtimes. I didn't want to use the same ones we used alongside the nappies and mix them all up. I'm sure it is totally fine, but you know, I just felt weird doing it! So my make shift muslin cloths did the job ok but weren't great like the Cheeky Wipes. So when the lovely people at Cheeky Wipes asked if I'd like a second complete set I jumped at the chance!

The set up is oh so simple, and I must have saved myself an absolute fortune as well by not using disposable wipes. It doesn't matter if you are not using cloth nappies, you can use these wipes and wash them alongside your/their clothes.

So you have yourself two boxes, a clean one and a mucky one and two essential oil blends. 25 lovely soft baby wipes. Two waterproof bags for out and about and a mesh bag for the 'mucky' box. All you do is put about 2-3cm of water in the Fresh Wipes container with a few drops of the essential oil blend then pop your wipes in to soak up the water.

Put some water in the Mucky Wipes container and some drops of the other essential oil. Hook the clever little mesh bag over the green hooks and Voila! Away you go!

They can be washed anywhere from 30-70 degrees and then you just chuck them back in the box and carry on. I mainly wash mine with Stanley's clothes on a 30-40 wash and they seem fine to me! Every now and then I might throw them in with my towels or bed linen on a higher heat just to keep them hygenic.

Seriously though they are that easy. It's the sort of thing I'm surprised I don't see more people doing. I don't know about you but as a Mum there isn't a lot of spare cash floating around and I'd much rather be buying myself a nice coffee when some little thing ::ahem, that's you Stanley:: has woken me up at 5 am than waste my money on another pack of disposable wipes! So please check out their website and put it on yours or your child's Christmas list! Hohoho!

see, this is us enjoying cake instead of wasting money of disposable wipes....

hmmmm, messy business this cake eating

phew! all clean and back to playing thanks to cheeky wipes 

This IS a sponsored post, but I hope you know me well enough to know I only review products I have, or like, and that fit in with the ethos of my blog. All opinions are my own. I'm real clever like that :)

"BEING ECO"

Firstly, yes, we have a well organised garage. One of the plus sides of buying a 1930s house (unlike the Victorian one I would have really liked) is that it came with more space, and more importantly if you are my husband...a garage. Not for storing a car mind you, oh no, oh no... This garage is for storing food, wood, his many vintage bicycles and all our Ecover refills. In fact probably enough things that someone would be very happy living there for a month or so as long as you are into cleaning and eating dried and tinned foodstuffs. Make no mistake this is a sponsored post but I wanted to show you why I'd made this my first one. We are no stranger to the Ecover products as you can see from the photos. We've used them for many years for the very simple reason that they work and they are good for the home, us and the environment. I have never had a problem with them not doing the job. There are so many clever natural ingredients that it is a no brainer that they do as good a job if not better than the chemical alternitives....and they smell good! So when Ecover wanted to send me their newest line called Ecover Zero I was more than happy to test them out. As we still cloth nappy (Stanley is now 20 months) and have done since he was about 8 weeks old it follows with our ethos of having a house that doesn't impact too much on the environment. When I fell pregnant and read about the shocking statistics of how many nappies a baby uses in it's life time I was horrified. It didn't take much to switch to cloth, it was really just a matter of realising that cloth worked better than disposables and were the better option for all. The same can be said for using Ecover, just getting my head round the fact that of course natural ingredients were better in so many ways than chemical and voila - happy household! I think sometimes it feels like I am in the minority with using cloth nappies and using environmentally friendly cleaning products - like I'm some sort of saint for doing it. But really it just makes more sense! Right?!

The Ecover Zero products are great for me to wash Stanley's clothes and nappies with as they can help reduce allergic symptoms and I'm particularly aware of this with Ben suffering with eczema and my brother and Dad suffering so badly with psoriasis their whole life, that I feel very strongly about how chemical washing agents affect the skin. The other thing I like about Ecover is that it's not just the products that are environmentally friendly, their factories are as well, and the products that came to us were packaged fully in stuff we could afterwards recycle. I think that is really important which is why we have always bought the huge refills, to save again on packaging. 

All ok, only recyclable packaging. No plastic in site. Well, except the bottles of course!

Lovely products in a handy canvas bag

Checking the ingredients carefully to see all is ok...

Happy customer!