dawniebrown

dawniebrown

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Posts by dawniebrown

30/366

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P113

I love seeing the lounge looking this tidy, all happyland people in the correct place (although I am missing one train driver and it’s driving me mad!). Of course it will only look like this until I pick the terrors up from nursery.

And yes it is 30th January, I am an accountant and I’ve had time to clean the house today :) That’s because all self assessments and dec VAT returns are all filed. Tonight I’ll reward myself with a large G&T!

29/366

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P105

Sofa gymnastics

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The Day I Became A Magazine Star!

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If you’ve seen a copy of Tesco Magazine which came out in January, then you may have recognised a familiar face – of course I can’t blame you if you didn’t as I barely recognise myself :)

If you haven’t seen it yet then it’s here >> Tesco Magazine

It all started a few months back when I put myself forward for a makeover and was selected. I had my hair done by Neil Cornelius on the Monday, got a whole night to myself in a hotel with no children and then on the Tuesday we had a really fun day with hair, makeup, clothes and a photo shoot. My little sis from Mummy Loves came down with her son Maxwell for the “reveal” and you can see a video (I sound awful and look rough without makeup!) here I had an absolutely lovely time and it was a great experience :)

Glamour Puss!

ooh get me!

A sneaky shot of the photo shoot in progress

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Please Show Some Respect

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Dear Companies & PRs,

I would really appreciate it if a few of you would show a little more respect for my blog and my time.

My blog is a personal site and not a business. I run competitions if I feel the prize is of interest to my readers. I write reviews because I enjoy it. I charge for advertising and sponsored posts as it helps to cover the costs of running my blog and attending blogging events.

When I write a review, it takes me time to try your product, take photos, write a detailed review and post it. Please bear in mind I also have a business to run, a full time job, two small children, a husband and a house which all take up a lot of my time! Therefore please respect the time I am taking out of my busy life to write your review.

It has taken me 18 months of hard blogging to build up my readership and my followers to what it is now so if you expect me to write reviews yet are only willing to send me £3 of products then please don’t expect me to be happy about it. If you expect me to write “guest posts” for free including links then please don’t be offended if I say no!

My blog is NOT a free or cheap advertising platform for your company and if you feel my time isn’t worth anything then please feel free to be offended when I tell you to sod off!

Kind Regards

Dawn

(steps down from my soap box and stops ranting – but thank you for listening!)

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28/366

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P98

Riding the horsie horsie in town :)

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My Favourite Kitchen Gadgets

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I’m a bit of a gadget freak and I’m a bit obsessed with having gadgets in the kitchen so I thought I’d share with you my favourite ones :) These aren’t paid reviews and I’ve paid for all these items myself, I just thought I’d share my kitchen gadget love :)

The first item that I cannot live without is our Tefal Quick Cup – if you haven’t heard of these, they are basically instant hot water dispenses. Put a mug under, press a button and a few seconds later you have hot water. Now the water isn’t boiling with these and so it isn’t suitable for baby bottles etc but it is perfect for cups of tea and coffee and there is no waiting round for the kettle to boil. It also saves energy as you’re only paying to heat the water you use. We’ve had our original Quick Cup about 4 years and it’s still going strong but looking around the best alternative I’ve seen currently available is this one on Amazon which sells for around £50. Breville VKJ318 Hot Cup with Variable Dispenser If you’ve never considered one, then next time it comes to replacing your kettle, I highly recommend you consider one.

The second gadget is a very recent addition, in fact it was a christmas present for my husband and it’s a Philips Senseo Coffee Machine. We got this model Philips Senseo Viva Café HD7825/60 Black Coffee Machine with Pod System and it has been a huge success. I’ve never been a fan of coffee really but I’m now fast becoming a coffee addict. I love their mug sized Americano coffees, the cappucinos are lovely except they only come in single cup size, as do the hot chocolates. I love waking up every morning and being able to get a nice proper coffee at the touch of a button :)

My third and favourite item was also a christmas present (yes I know – we were really romantic this year buying kitchen gadgets!) and it is of course my lovely breadmaker. I seriously cannot imagine life without it now. I opted for this one Morphy Richards Premium Plus 48319 Breadmaker, Stainless Steel as I liked the sound of all the extra features it has such as pizza dough settings, gluten free settings etc. I use this machine pretty much every day now. It’s so easy to use, we’ve used it for packet bread mixes, maderia cake, pizza dough, cheese and onion bread, white bread, wholemeal bread and everything has turned out brilliantly so far. Zara and Oscar love fresh bread and it has the added advantage that I can use low-sodium salt in it and so I’m not filling my kids with salt and additives that you find in processed bread. I also love the 12 hour delay so I can load the machine at night and wake up to fresh warm bread in the morning. My life is truely complete :)

*all links in this post are to items on amazon through my affiliates account, they are not sponsored and if you ended up buying an item through one of these links I would get a little bit of commission :)

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27/366

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P22

There’s a pheasant in my garden, I think I’ll call him Phil. He really is a friendly chap and I quite often find him on my front doorstep!

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Tomato, Artichoke Hearts and Butterbean Pasta Soup – A Slow Cooker Recipe

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It’s been a while since I’ve added any new veggie recipes to the blog, but I’ve been experimenting with my new slow cooker over the last couple of months and thought I’d share with you a delicious recipe that I’ve adapted from one I originally found in Slow Cooking for Vegetarians. With most of the recipes I try, I tend to find they need a fair bit of tweaking in order to work for us. This recipe is for a lovely thick soup/pasta casserole which when served with fresh bread is absolutely delicious!

Ingredients:

A little olive oil (for frying the onion and garlic)
1 onion (white)
2 cloves garlic
2 tins chopped tomatos
1 tin butterbeans
1 tin/jar of artichoke hearts
900ml of vegetable stock – I use 6 veggie oxo cubes in 900ml of water as I like it very strong
2 tspn dried Thyme
3-4 handfuls of pasta (I like to use mini pasta bows)

How to cook:

1. Chop the onion and garlic and fry for a few minutes in olive oil until they are just softened but not browned

Fry onion and garlic until just softened and not brown

2. Add in the stock, tomatos, drained butterbeans, drained artichoke hearts, thyme and season with some black pepper

3. Bring just to boil and then transfer to slow cooker and cook on low for around 5-6 hours

Pop in slow cooker and then relax for 5-6 hours!

4. Half an hour before serving, chuck in the pasta, stir and bump up to high setting

And that’s it! Serve in bowls with fresh, warm bread and butter! Sprinkle a little grated cheese on top to garnish if you like! Zara and Oscar love it!

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Organic Baby Wipes and Biodegradable Nappies from Baby Patisserie Review

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In our household we get through an extremely large volume of nappies and baby wipes each week, with two children still in nappies. When Baby Patisserie contacted me to ask if I’d like to review some bio-degradable nappies and some organic baby wipes, I of course said yes. I admit I’ve tried reusable nappies before and we didn’t really get on with them but I’ve still got a large guilt complex for the amount of waste we are contributing to landfill and with most disposable nappies taking centuries to dispose it’s a terrifying thought.

Baby Patisserie sell Beaming Baby nappies which are biodegradable and disposable with the majority of the nappy degrading in just 4 years, compared to the 400 years of other leading brands. Beaming Baby nappies mean that your baby and their skin is exposed to less chemicals every day and the nappies last up to 12 hours. Since the baby nappies contain less chemicals than ordinary nappies when wet they do not emit the nasty chemical smell that you may have experienced from other brands.

We were given a couple of size 5 nappies to test on Oscar and Zara (they are both currently in the same size nappy). My first impressions of the nappy were that it seemed a bit bulkier and papery than the Pampers that we usually use. Once we put the nappy on, it fit great and both babies were happy in them, they didn’t seem as bulky once they were being worn. As for performance, well it’s hard to give you a complete opinion of them as we’ve only used 2 and only during the day so I didn’t get chance to put them to the test overnight. I can say that I didn’t notice any difference in performance to Pampers. Both Zara and Oscar had dry skin once the nappies were taken off (an issue I had with reusables was that their skin felt damp all the time) and the nappy did just what it was supposed to do.

The Beaming Baby nappies sell for £8.49 for a pack of 34 on the Baby Patisserie website which is more than you’d pay for Pampers, in comparison a pack of 27 Baby Dry nappies in the same size is £6.49 at Tesco. That works out at 25p per nappy for the biodegradable ones and 24p per nappy for Pampers so actually it’s not that much more really and 1p more a nappy to reduce your landfill guilt? Sounds good to me. If like me, you are considering ways to make a difference, then it’s worth giving these nappies a try and seeing how you get on :)

We were also given a pack of Beaming Baby Organic Baby Wipes to try out.

Beaming Baby wipes contains over 95% organic ingredients and are certified by the Organic Food Federation. The highest quality ingredients mean that these best selling organic baby wipes are incredibly soft and gentle on baby’s skin. Each pack contains over 90mls of Organic Aloe Vera (30 times more than any other wipe!), which heals, moisturises and nourishes sensitive skin. Beaming Baby organic wipes are free from: Chlorine, alcohol, paraben preservatives, sodium laureth sulphate and they won the Mother & Baby Bronze Award – Best Skincare Product for 2009 & 2008.

Now I have to admit that I found these wipes a little on the expensive side, selling for £2.99 for a pack of 72 on Baby Patisserie but as far as baby wipes go, they felt soft and the kids didn’t mind me scrubbing away at their faces with them after dinner. I do like the idea of using organic baby wipes but I have my reservations about the cost seeing as we get through wipes by the truckload in this household. I tend to normally use tesco fragrance free baby wipes and because neither of my children have had problems with using them, I’m not sure I’d switch.

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Win Kaspersky One, Internet Protection worth £79.99

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There’s no doubt about it, the Internet is taking over the world, which means it’s getting harder to protect yourself and your family online. With this in mind, Kaspersky are offering one of my lovely readers the chance to win a copy Kaspersky ONE, worth £79.99, ahead of Safer Internet Day on February 7th.

Kaspersky ONE Universal Security is the easy, one-license solution to protect your PCs, Macs, smartphones and Android tablets. Based on award-winning Kaspersky Lab technologies, Kaspersky ONE delivers real-time protection against dangerous Internet threats with security optimised for each device. So no matter which devices you use to bank, shop, surf, or chat online, you know you’re always safe.

For more information on how to stay safe online, check out these top tips from Kaspersky Lab’s senior security researcher, David Emm

1.     Got protection? This may seem obvious, but security software is the new“black”. It helps you stay fully protected against malware, spyware, hackers and identity theft. And don’t forget to perform regular updates and scans.

2.     Password strength matters. Use secure passwords – a different one for each Internet service. Set passwords to include 8-14 upper & lower case characters and numbers. Don’t use any words that are in the dictionary—they’re too easy for hackers to guess.

3.     Protect your family. You stop your children from talking to strangers on the street– you should do so online too. Be aware of the potential dangers of the net from online bullying to paedophiles. Take parental control over the sites you don’t what your children to look at by using the parental control feature in your online security product – it’s an easy way to avoid disaster.

4.     Click with care. If you’re checking your email or talking over instant messenger, make it a practice to avoid clicking on links in messages from people you don’t know. These links could lead you to a malicious website and result in malware installing on your computer.

5.     Practise safe online shopping. When you’re going to buy those new killer shoes or the latest toy for your tyke, make sure you purchase from a reputable online retailer. You always look for a URL that starts with “https” and has the lock symbol when entering your credit card details or other personal information.

6.     Socialise safely. By now, we’ve all had a bad link or two sent to us over our favourite social network. Utilise your social network’s security settings to their optimum level. Do you really need to display every detail about your life? And perhaps more importantly – do your children?

7.     Keep your privates, private. A good rule of thumb: Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of your local newspaper! This includes your personal phone number, email address and street address, your holiday plans– and maybe also your bikini-clad, beach holiday pics.

8.     Stomp out spam. Most Internet Service Providers & security software programs have anti-spam technologies. The spam blocker will help prevent fraudulent emails from showing up in your Inbox tempting you with fake lottery wins or promising certain body-part enlargements.

9.     Be careful how you surf. Open wireless networks are called ‘open’ for a reason: anyone can connect, including hackers. If you do have to use one, use a password manager to store passwords and enter them for you automatically. This will prevent data being captured by cybercriminals using a keylogger.  And only enter personal information on secure sites –look for the “https”

10.  Handle personal information with care. Beware of online sites that ask you to enter too much personal data. Read the small print – they may be selling on your personal details to third parties resulting in even more email spam and cold calls.

About Kaspersky ONE:

Kaspersky ONE Universal Security is the easy, one-license solution to protect your PCs, Macs, smartphones and Android tablets. Based on award-winning Kaspersky Lab technologies, Kaspersky ONE delivers real-time protection against dangerous Internet threats with security optimized for each device. So no matter which devices you use to bank, shop, surf, or chat online, you know you’re always safe

So if you’d like to win Kaspersky One, here’s how to enter -

You can do all of the actions below or just 1 of them but please make sure you leave a separate comment for each action you take or your entries will not be valid & please make sure you leave a way of contacting you either email or twitter, Thank you x

* Leave me a comment telling me you’d like to be entered

* Like Me on Facebook http://facebook.com/kneesupmotherbrown (there is a link on the right sidebar!)

* Follow me on twitter @dawnie_brown

* Tweet the following “I’d like to win Kaspersky One with @dawnie_brown in this FAB giveaway at http://wp.me/pWTCL-WD “

Good luck! UK entries only please. The winner will be drawn by random.org on Tuesday February 7th at 8pm x

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