Squirrel is loving artist Jan Keenan!

There’s always a birthday, anniversary or something crop up when you least expect it (OK when you’ve forgotten it!) and I needed some cards. You know the sort of thing really nice quality cards with lovely pictures but blank inside so that I could write a short note or my own greeting.

The cards will sit in my drawer at work, so when you get the “Ahhh Happy Birthday Cathy” as someone walks in and you think – oh crikey…I forgot!! You craftily write a card and pop on her desk as if you remembered all along! Or is this just me?

Anyway…

I was mooching around the Net and found http://www.jankeenandesigns.co.uk/ . There’s a selection of cards at £2.50 each, all with designs painted by the artist AND they are excellent quality. So I got great cards at a good price and supported an up and coming artist rather than a chain of card shops.
Incidentally I took a look around her site and she also does excellent pet portraits – this girl can really paint animals. Now that could be an idea for a special present.

Oh and the picture on this blog here - is the card I bought by the way - cute isn't he?

An end to sleepless nights

I have a problem boyfriend, don't we all I hear you cry??

He suffers with dry heels, no I beg your pardon I suffer with his dry heels and boy do I suffer!! He wakes up in the night saying "I can feel my feet drying out, I can't sleep" Now some of you may well be laughing, but at 3am himself moaning about dry feet is no laughing matter, I can tell you!

....actually if any of you know himself, can you not let on that you now know about his funny feet, he'll kill me!!

So, I have been on the prowl (well he can't be, he has funny feet) to find a solution. I have purchased, again from Boots (this was quite a spree I went on!!) E45 Endless Moisture Replenishing Care Body Cream. £6.84 so quite pricey but that did give you a full 100ml so not too bad.

Saying on the packet 'Intense moisturisation that lasts all day" well, lets see if it lasts all night.... log back in for an update on his feet later in the week....

And be glad tonight when you go to bed with a man with normal feet.... tata for now

Nubbly skin on your arms?

Hands up who has that horrid nubbly skin on their upper arms? Well maybe hands up is the wrong phrase, you you want to keep your arms safely covered!!

It's a woman thing apparently, no men get this (great eh?) So what's the answer? Well I[m sure cosmetic surgery is a great answer but this is a super-saver blog so no ££££ for surgery here!!

How about a remedy for £3.49 instead?

Palmolive Pure Cashmere Exfoliating Shower Scrub?

I bought my little indulgence yesterday, on a shopping spree round Boots. Got it home, flipped the lid (the lid of the tube, I ddin't flip my own lid you understand...not like I'd been over-charged or anything like that!)

Aaaaanyway, on flipping said lid, I smelled the most gorgeous scent, the fragrance of this product is simply to die for, stunning, can't say enough good things about it.. It smells like a £20+ product if I'm honest.

To give my skin a new lease of life I exfoliated with my Palmolive Pure Cashmere Scrub. It says its enriched with extracts of natural cashmere and exfoliating mini pearls, and is the perfect post-winter treatment for your body.

Gentle enough to be used every day it massages the body and exfoliates away rough dry skin, washing off to reveal a new softer smoother layer, helping give your body a radiant glow. Which is all true! I was pleased with the look and feel of my skin after just one use, then I used it again this morning and 'himself' commented "Mmmm... you smell nice!"

Well that was a thumbs up from himself too then, sigh...means I have to hide my scrub now else there'll be none left. Although at £3.49 that's not so bad if it keeps him smooth too!

Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down...

Picture the scene, you have a bored seven year old, he’s been cooped up indoors since Monday – yes I realise it’s only Tuesday but have you ever been stuck indoor with a seven year old?? It seems longer – trust me…

It’s raining again outside, so what did I do?

I’ve discovered PlayMais! Totally safe and eco friendly – cos it’s made from corn and dyed with food dyes – so even if the little fella eats it he’ll be OK! Except maybe a funny coloured tongue for a while.

PlayMais ‘glue’ to itself by the addition of a small amount of water, so no actual glue involved, plus it sticks immediately too so no hanging around – less likely to get bored…

It comes in loads of colours, and each box has an ideas booklet, we made lions and giraffes, a bear, a wolf and a huge crocodile too – it’s great!! Seven year old loved it and stayed happily at the kitchen table all morning, and I got rather involved too.

I’ve seen it on Amazon and it’s also sold in John Lewis and The Entertainer. Prices start at £4.99 for a medium pack, but to be honest once you get going you really want a large box so you get loads of each colour to play with!

Now, once your little treasure has show you his models and you’ve had them on the shelf for a week proudly displayed, then what do you do?

Well, PlayMais is 100% biodegradable so either pop them out with the recycling, or sit them on the compost heap, they’ll dissolve when it rains, promoting heaps more discussion in the household!

We ended up with birds having a little peck at ours so we looked up Maize/Corn on Google to learn more – it ended up being quite a lesson!

See www.playmais.com for more information.

Each toe a different colour?

I needed a treat…

It was my birthday and I aged yet another year so needed a treat. I’m racing towards mid-forties instead of early-forties now, it’s hard…

Being a little short of cash this month, I was pleased to discover some Barry M nail polish in my local Superdrug (I thin it’s also in Boots too). The new collection is only £2.95 per pot – can you believe?

I bought Block Orange, Fuchsia and Mint Green. Now, I fear Mint Green was a mistake as I look like I’m dead with it on. SO least said about that one the better!! However, I currently type with my fingers racing across the keys, looking nifty with Bock Orange nails. The orange is really a bright, acid tangerine on speed colour, it says “I’M ORANGE AND YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE IT OR I'LL TANGO YOU!!”

Great for cheering up mid-forty year olds…

The Fuchsia is just as good; it’s a pink that says, “If you blushed this pink, you’d keel over due to lack of blood to your internal organs.” It’s a mightily fine little pot of summer fun.

I’m figuring that for my total cost of £8.85 I have three fabulous pot of colour, and alternate toes in with zany nails will be just right for flip flops as the sun comes out – or even if it rainy outside to cheer me up.

Other colours were Acid Yellow and Electric Purple – which I feel may be on next weeks shopping list.

Hmmm…. Now that would give me five new polishes, one for each toe….

Coming back to my delicious orange fingernails though, I painted them on Saturday morning and off I went out looking for new leatehr biking trousers. If anyone has ever had to try these on in a small changing room they will know it's not easy, there are very heavy. My nails lasted all day with zips being zipped and velcro being err...vecroed and me swearing when I couldn't get into a size 10.

Nails in tact!
Well nearly, one slight chip on left index finger. So after a quick touch-up Sunday bought, boating onto the agenda. Sailing up the River Nene.... opening locks, making tea for willing helpers you name it - this polish stayed on during it.

I'd say as a purely techinical comment "It's no cheap tat!!"

The colours are delish and the staying power is second to none, you don't need to shell out a fortune on Jessica this summer!

Don't hide your bag for life! Or do!!!

Are you like me? You have all good intentions, you recycle at home, sort out the card from the plastic from the paper… and with all this eco-warrior-ness in mind you go shopping.

Taking care not to buy anything with too much packaging, looking for the recycle logo when and where you can. Then, you get to the check out and in your hear a voice says “Oh **** I’ve left my bag for life at home!”

Yep, more or less every single time for me, sometimes they make it to the boot of the car, but hardly ever to the check out queue, so all my hard work is undone.

Last week however I discovered Envirosax!! Check out http://www.envirosax.com/ to view the range. I bought a Candy one. It’s lightweight material, a little like a kagoul (you know those bright orange pack-a-mac type things). And is very, very strong, I had my potatoes in one actually.

The beauty of these little friends is… they roll up! Very much like a Kagoul in fact. Each bag rolls and then clips and becomes a tiny tube shape. So now it sits in my handbag, just lurking at the bottom, waiting and wondering when it’ll be pulled out at the check out. Niftily impressing those around me that I managed to remember my ‘bag for life’!

Offers!!

Well it's been an interesting day, I took charge of a new Crock Pot which I can't wait to use!! I'll add some recipes on here soon and give you the details. It was only £19.99 and it meas you're able to use cheaper cuts of meet cos it cooks them slowly adding flavour and tenderness.... yum!!

Then I had an email through with some inside information on it.... read on..

From 14th April to 5th May all washing & bathing products are half price in selected Tesco’s stores...plus from 15th April to 10th May all butters are half price in selected Sainsbury’s stores.

Then I get another snippet telling me Aldi are doing a 99p special on loads of products, however no news on those yet as I intend to hot foot it to my local store with shiny pound coins in my pocket and do some road testing... will report fidnings soon!

Donate money to charity ? In this economic climate? Are you mad??

Hands up anyone who donates to charity? Whether it’s a standing order each month or just dumping all your loose change in a bucket someone waves under your nose on the high street, things are getting tighter.

I for one have less money spare for charity, which saddens me but needs must and as a family we just don’t have the spare cash at the moment.

So recently I was introduced to www.everyclick.com – a website search engine that donates to charity every time you do a search! How cool is that?

The owners say – “Everyclick is a search engine like Google – but users can choose any UK charity to donate to when they use it. It doesn’t cost them or the charities a penny – all the money is sourced from advertising (as with Google), with money going to charity with each and every search.

Alongside the search function, you can also donate directly to charities (many of whom don’t have online donation facilities), gain sponsorship, send e-cards and shop online – with % of your purchases going to charity. In fact much more goes to charity than with Justgiving.com. Everyclick has equated that if just 10% of the UK’s online population used Everyclick.com, we could raise more than £76 million a year for UK charities.

Everyclick is the UK’s 8th largest search engine and has already raised over £690,000 for UK charities and has over 140,000 registered users and over 1 million unique users.”

I gave it a go and found it easy to use. The results were different to Google, I searched for wooden toys on both Google and on Everyclick and had different results on each, which I guess is a good thing, as I saw more retailers by doing it on both.

The Blue and Red Stripy cartons revenge..

Some may think us mad but Pete and I like to spend an evening ‘taste testing’ - OK well not really as that would be just sad and we’d need to get out more. We really do have a life, honest…

I digress… when I met Pete I knew he had a penchant for saving money by buying own brand products, quite the opposite of me who was Miss Trusted-Label and fell for all the advertising spiel that own label stuff was bad, high priced designer labels = good.

Did love conquer all? Did I talk him into coming to the dark side? Did I heck – the recession hit and I decided to curb my designer dreams and get Value Shopping…

Now, I don’t know if you’re the same, but value own brand ranges just seem, well, inferior. The stark whiteness of the packs with a low-key (cheap looking) logo affixed onto them like a beacon in your trolley. Lets take Tesco as a good example, those little white cartons with the blue and red stripy label – lots of those in your trolley scream “I’m poor!!” don’t they? Or are we all changing our buying habits and blue and white stripy is the new designer label?

Taste Test Number One

Tesco kicks off our taste test round up…

I like Philadelphia Cheese, nothing better than Philly, on wholemeal bread and a tomato – as sandwiches go, totally yummy. At around £1.49 a tub my Philly habit was expensive.

Last week, Pete was let loose at the supermarket and bought, horror of horrors Tesco Value Cream Cheese – yuk!!! I was horrified and vowed to do the 14 mile round trip back to Tesco to change it.

He suggested a taste test, so dutifully I put on the blindfold (yes indeed you get so far into a relationship and silk blindfolds are only used for Tesco Taste Tests…sigh…).

Firstly I tasted spoon A, a lovely cream cheese taste, sucked from the edge of a teaspoon. It was creamy, and had a pleasant taste to it, all in all very nice. Then for spoon B – totally creamier, much smoother without the acidic edge to it. I knew spoon B was the winner.

Pete let me rant on for a while about how good spoon B was and how I would NEVER change from a trusted brand name, and how dare he make me try…

Yeah you guessed it – spoon B was Tesco Value.

At around 45p a tub, it goes well with ‘humble pie’ ……

More taste tests to follow soon.

The Saving Squirrel

The Saving Squirrel is coming to the rescue....

This new blog is being written by a normal (well I think so...) 40 something, with 2 kids and a partner to feed - but more of them later.

We're an 'Average Joe' family, with, we think, an average income, too low to splash out on loads of foreign holidays or horse owning etc.... but considered too high to have any benefits from government - so just getting by as best we can.

So, reason for the blog? In making ends meet we're coming across - new products, money saving tips, bartering and swapping, eBaying - all sorts really, we're even doing our own 'blind taste tests' with Value products from the supermarkets (results of these to follow...)

Hopefully, you'll enjoy the read and maybe pick up some tips for your own family along the way too. Just read and enjoy!!