Showing posts with label school days. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school days. Show all posts

Monday, 27 August 2018

BACK TO SCHOOL ESSENTIALS

Well, somehow we have almost made it to the end of the Summer Holidays - I know I say this every year, but where did the time go?! The long heatwave of June and July seems like a distant memory and now I'm seeing posts about Halloween and Autumn pop up on my social media. (It's still summer!!!)

Elliot is due to start in just over a week and will be going into year 1. Unlike last year when I was a bit clueless and just bought EVERYTHING I thought he'd need, this time round we feel like we know the score. My back to school shopping has been quite painless and even the trip to Clarks for new school shoes wasn't so bad!

If you're panicking a bit about the imminent school year, take a look at my essentials list and hopefully we will have you covered!


Yazoo Milkshakes - No Added Sugar
My kids love milkshakes and I was really happy to see that Yazoo have launched a No Added Sugar version of their popular flavours. These would be ideal for lunchboxes or even an after school treat. Also good for Mums - my favourite is strawberry ;)

Bacofoil - Zipper Bags
As a parent, I can't get enough of zipper bags and they come in useful for so many things especially packed lunches! They are tear proof and water resistant and come in a variety of sizes. I like to pop Elliot's sandwiches in a zipper bag and then he has something to put all his lunch rubbish in once he's finished - it makes cleaning his lunchbox so much easier.

Personalised Name Labels - Petit Fernand
I've tried a few different types of name labels including iron on ones, sticky ones and even sew in ones (who has time for that!). Petit Fernand labels are the best I've found by far, you can design the label right down to the colour of the font and I love that there are so many different images you can add to your labels. I personally buy the stick on ones as they are super quick to use and pretty much stay put even with rigorous washing.

Ace - Stain Removal Products (Can be purchased from your local Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose or Sainsburys)
I would never have put this as an essential prior to my son starting school but I didn't realise just how dirty he would get!! His lovely white tshirts were coming home grubbier and grubbier but this stuff literally is Ace, and so good at removing stains. I find that roast dinner days are the worst - I will pop a pic up at the bottom so you can see for yourself! (And it came up like new with a bit of Ace!)

School Uniforms from Pep&Co
When you think of Poundland, you wouldn't automatically think of school uniforms but did you know they have their own fashion label, Pep&Co? They have some fab school bits and you can pick up an entire uniform from £6 which is one of the cheapest on the market!

Able Labels - Personalised Pencils
When I was at school (erm...a few years back!), I was always envious of the children who had personalised stationary. Able Labels do lovely pencil packs which would be ideal for pencil cases and they are all hand personlised which gives a beautiful finish. I'm totally envious of Elliot's new personalised pencils!

Sistema Bottles (Various prices and can be found in all of the big supermarkets)
We've been through quite a lot of water bottles this past year but Sistema is the brand we keep coming back to. I love the fact they are sturdy and don't leak, but they are easy for little hands to open too. My kitchen is starting to look like a Sistema shrine because we have a bit of a collection of them, all in different sizes! 

Fluffy Llama notebook - Ryman (£5.99)
I love stationary and I remember being so excited about going back to school because it meant new pencil cases and notebooks! Llama's seem to be in fashion right now so this fluffy notebook would make you instantly cool and popular with your school friends. I'm wondering if (at 37) I'm too old for a fluffy llama notebook.....

I hope you're feeling organised about the new school year started. Do you have any essentials I may have forgotten?! 

Roast dinner lunch day - when stain removal is very much needed!! 



Tuesday, 26 May 2015

Why I became a blogger...


I've been reading a few posts here and there about how people got into blogging and it made me think, this time last year I hadn't even thought about starting a blog!

I've always enjoyed writing and as a teenager I wrote a few things for my school magazine including a behind the scenes report of the Smash Hits Roadshow...I daren't read it back, I think I'd cringe too much!! It did get featured in our local newspaper though and my face got featured not once but twice! Sadly a career at Smash Hits never happened and after leaving school and college, my writing got put on the back burner.

Ahem....yes that is me with Peter Andre!!!

Elliot was born in 2012 and I read ALOT of blogs in my spare time...well I say spare time, it was mainly when I was doing the night feeds or trapped under a sleeping baby. I had no idea that so many parenting blogs existed and it was a great way of reading about other people's experiences.

A friend of mine, Jeni decided to start her own blog Poole Mamma in September 2013 and I enjoyed reading about her experiences as a mum and what her family were getting up. At that point the thought of writing my own blog hadn't even occurred to me and I was happily reading other people's. It wasn't until the following July when I had a particularly rantworthy trip to my local shop that I thought about setting up a blog to write about it. And so Entertaining Elliot was born!

To be honest I was totally clueless at the start but Jeni came round and helped me with the basics and slowly I began to get the hang of things. I never imagined how big the parent blogger world is and what's involved in getting your blog seen. And I had no idea how much of my time would be used for blogging!

Over the last 10 months I've gradually built up my readers and I think I've found my blogger identity. In the early days I did a bit of everything on the blog but now my main inspiration for blog posts is fun days out we have and the places we visit. We try and get out lots with Elliot so I usually have something to write about each week, and lots of photos to show the world!

I've also been lucky enough to work with some brilliant companies and had some fantastic opportunities like our Bluestone Wales break and our Mister Maker meet & greet!

I think it will be great for Elliot to look back on the blog when he's older and see all the lovely things we did and all the fun he had. He's only 2 now so I'm pretty sure he won't remember much of it but at least he can look at all the photos and see just how we entertained Elliot!


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