Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
As regular followers of TheBoyandMe will know, we recently redecorated the spare room for The Boy, moving him from his 'nursery' to his big boy bedroom. The room is decorated in shades of blue, and he now has a high bed with a play space underneath. One thing I was keen for him to have was a bookshelf up high so that he can easily reach his books in the morning, or if he needs a drink then he can easily access that.
Tidy Books came to my rescue with the 'Bunk Bed Buddy'.
After school this evening I rolled out The Boy's play rug on the patio and handed him his pot of toy cars and box of Playmobil people.
I took great pride and pleasure in designing The Boy's bedroom, aiming to make it an attractive place to be that was soothing and would nurture his imagination. It's painted in muted colours but still bright and attractive, and every leaf was painted with love.
We were recently asked if we'd like to receive some new bedding for his recently converted cotbed, and I was more than happy to select this beautiful toddler bedding with a farmyard design.
We love it! It fits perfectly in with the design of his bedroom; bright and colourful, fun and friendly.
Made from 100% cotton, the set includes a duvet cover measuring 120x150cm and a toddler/cotbed-sized pillowcase. The pillowcase is printed on both sides, the duvet on one side. It fits The Boy's bed perfectly and he is snuggly and cosy tucked up in side. Machine washable and easy to iron, this is an excellent duvet set which has replaced our previous Hungry Caterpillar favourite!
Children's Rooms.co.uk sell a range of toddler bedding with something to suit every taste: character bedding, gender-specific, gender-neutral, and a selection of plain colours. They also have a range of toddler beds and mattresses at extremely reasonable prices. I'm already eyeing up another set and contemplating The Boy's next big-boy bed.
We were sent these products for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.
One of the things that I was adamant with when setting up The Boy's bedroom when he was first born, was the window coverings. I was determined he'd have a black out blind and the linings on the curtains, as I didn't want him waking up at silly o'clock in the morning during the Summer, and I wanted him to have uninterrupted sleep during his afternoon naps. It's worked brilliantly and as a result is always something that I've worried about when we've gone to stay with friends and family, or gone on holiday. Most holiday homes have thin curtains which serve little purpose other than to throw a tinted hue over the room. I've been known to be pegging black out lining to the curtain rail in an attempt to darken it sufficiently enough for him to sleep.
Well, not any more!
Last week we were sent the Lights Out Portable Pop-Up Blinds to review, and they came at a perfect time as we were away for Easter weekend in a place that I knew had wafer-thin translucent curtains at the windows. These blinds are excellent. The pack contains two blinds and each one measures 1.2m x 1m. They fold down into a circular lightweight storage bag (measuring 45cm diameter) which took up barely any space in an otherwise cramped car!
Each of the blinds has a toggle through the middle of it with a suction cup attached to the one end. Simply position the suction cup and attach it to the window, pull the toggle and it holds the blind in place over the window, pulling taut to rest against the frame.
They overlapped perfectly and pulled tight to cover the wide expanse of window with no problem whastoever. Bearing in mind I'm not a 'follow-the-instructions' person, I had them up in the window within thirty seconds. For deeper window recesses there are extension rods to attach.
The left picture above shows the window to be covered, the middle shows it with the 'curtains' drawn, and the right hand picture shows the blinds in action. Apologies for the blurriness on the middle picture but I was taking the photo without a flash and had to stand still for thirty seconds to get the photo. I couldn't take a photo of the room with the blinds attached at first, as it was pitch black and my camera couldn't focus. I had to place my phone on the bedside table with the light on to give it something to focus on. As a result the slight light strip you can see is from the reflection of my phone not from the window.
One last point to note is that, despite many 'pop-up' items being nigh on impossible to 'pop-down' again afterwards, these were back in the storage bag within thirty seconds.
The Lights Out Portable Pop-Up Blinds are excellent! I would buy these in a flash because they work brilliantly, and I wish I'd known about them when I first had The Boy, so many holidays could have been more enjoyable with more sleep!
The kind souls at Lights Out are offering a set of the Portable Pop-Up Blinds to one lucky reader. Simply fill in the Rafflecopter form in order to enter.
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