My Little Pony My Magical Princess Twilight Sparkle - Review

My daughter is a huge fan of My Little Pony, much like I was at her age and with the release of the new My Little Pony film later this month, I have a feeling that everything MLP is going to be on the Christmas lists of lots of mini folk this year.

The Magical Princess Twilight Sparkle is without a doubt one of the most extravagant toys we've ever had, it reacts to touch and sound and is as bright and colourful as you'd expect a pony named Twilight Sparkle to be.

My daughter practically squealed with delight when she got home and saw the box waiting for her, the fact I had forgotten to buy some batteries did dampen the excitement somewhat but also meant she got to just stare at it for a day which built up the excitement even more.

I feel that this toy is going to split opinion; on one hand for a child it is the epitome of cool. A pony that talks and moves, lights up and is generally everything they want, some adults on the other hand may see it as a little bit robotic as it blinks and talks at you and it detracts from the magic somewhat.

Twilight has over 90 phrases, tells stories and sings songs. If you touch her horn, which lights up and flashes, she talks about her magical spells. You can also change the mode via a button on her hoof, this changes between Friendship, Story, Singing and Spells.

With posable legs you can make her sit down or stand up, although it was a bit tough for my daughter to do and I felt like I was going to break her, though it does state on the instructions to expect some clicking sounds.

Twilight Sparkle has a long colourful tail and mane which you can style and brush and she even has her own tiara to complete the look. I think what sets this apart though is the fact that it responds to your voice and when you stroke her cheek she also giggles.

My daughter has enjoyed playing with Twilight and she is a welcome addition to our vintage and non vintage pony collection, her only one little gripe would be that Twilight seems to repeat herself and I have heard her saying to the pony, "you've just said that".

Magical Princess Twilight Sparkle has an RRP of £134.99 which is quite a lot of money, however with Christmas fast approaching I see this as the big one. For a My Little Pony fan it is the perfect gift and if you can find her whilst she is on offer then she'd make the perfect companion.

We were sent Magical Princess Twilight Sparkle to review, all words and opinions are my own.

A Creative & Crafty Blog Meet at Breadsall Priory

On Sunday, I was invited to a Creative and Craft event at Breadsall Priory in Derbyshire. It was a great chance to meet up with some other like minded bloggers for a chat and to find out about some great products and businesses in a truly beautiful setting.

On the day, I decided to go with a vintage look, with some vintage Ralph Lauren and Marks & Spencer glammed up with a joules top and accessorised with a Sun Jellies bag, shoes and necklace.

On arrival to Breadsall Priory we were shown to a beautiful garden room for a selection of drinks, before being shown to our table for afternoon tea. The afternoon tea was stunning, with beautiful cakes, sandwiches, and scones with plenty of clotted cream and jam.

Even me, with the sweetest of teeth couldn't manage all of the the cakes, thankfully though the lovely staff bought them to our room so we could finish them in the afternoon.

After tea and cake we made our way to the Morley room, a beautiful and bright airy room which I can imagine would make a gorgeous backdrop for a wedding ceremony, especially looking out into the stunning gardens.

First up, we had a talk by Annette from Weleda, a brand I already adore and have lots of time for. We got to try some of their bath milks, hand creams as well as learn about how they work. I bought some foot balm to help prepare my summer feet.

Then we got on to making and crafting, with some hoops supplied by Korbond and lots of scraps of fabric, we set about designing a picture on fabric. I am a real novice when it comes to something like this, I am normally found crafting with paper, glue and children in tow. So it was great to find something new to try.

We also had  talk from Jen from Lunar 21 and Alice from Bless Your Arts Boutique and Phil did a great talk on Polyvine, they do some great products so I will be looking a bit more into this.

It was a lovely few hours and I only wish it could of been longer, there was so much more to learn and craft and talk about so I look forward to the next one.

Thank you to Samantha and Kat for organising and Breadsall Priory for hosting us, and their wonderful little goody bags I am looking forward to popping back to use the leisure facilities.

The day raised £100 for the Mollie Makes Crafternoon For Comic Relief  too, so as well as being fun it was helping a worthwhile cause.

Blog Roll from Sunday

Kat
www.akraftykat.co.uk

Emma

www.lilyallsorts.com

Charlotte
www.englishgirlathome.com

Hannah
www.daintyandivory.blogspot.com/

Phil

www.fireflyphil.wordpress.com

Samantha

www.crafternoonteahostess.co.uk

Claire

www.ninjakillercat.co.uk

Alice 

Bless You Arts Boutique

Jenn
www.lunar21derby.org.uk

Ivy Cabin Review & Giveaway

A few weeks ago I was approached by the lovely people at Ivy Cabin to see if I would like to review one of their products. A quick look round their beautiful website and it wasn't hard for me to find several gorgeous items to choose from that I knew would fit in my home.

My daughters room currently lacks pretty storage, so I chose this beautiful bear drawstring bag for her dressing up clothes.

Arriving beautifully wrapped I was excited to open it, it was a lot bigger than I was expecting which is good and is great quality. It has a drawstring across the top and a hook so you can hang on a on the back of the door.

The perfect size for all my daughters dress up clothes and easy for her to open too.

I think it fits perfectly with the mixed vintage and modern styling we have in her room, and I am a huge fan of the bear print on the bag. It is well worth the money and I think £10 is great value for such a huge bag!

And finally the lovely people over at Ivy Cabin have given me one of these fabulous sacks to giveaway, just enter via the Rafflecopter widget below (T&Cs apply and can be found on the entry options). Plus if you can't wait to see if you win or see something you fancy over on Ivy Cabin's website then you can get 10% off until the end of May with code MUMMYDIARY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Brewhouse Yard Museum

During Nottingham Light Night, we got to visit Brewhouse Yard, I have been there many times before but it closed a few years back to the public and so we have never had chance to take the children.

This was a great opportunity to discover a huge part of Nottingham's history, the houses and caves are set below Nottingham Castle and are over 300 years old!

There were many uses for these caves, deep inside, they were used as air raid shelters in world war two, I loved the way this one was laid out. You can see the beer kegs in the next room, from when breweries were based here. Castle Rock, a local brewery, takes it's name from this very rock.

In this bedroom there were only candles lighting the room, it was interesting to be able to show the children how it would have been all those years ago.

Ye olde shoppe...

Looking at some old vintage classics, including can you spot them....Sun Jellies :)

I loved this beautiful old till, sat amongst a replica of an old chemist the ornate buttons and patterns were beautiful.

Looking at the old war posters on the walls of the caves...

Trying out some old puzzles...

All lit up, this beautiful row of houses looked stunning in the dark...

This is our Magic Moment this week, linking up to The Olivers Madhouse.

My Daughters Favourite Book

At the moment, my daughter has me reading this book to her every night. It was a charity shop find, I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to get it for her.

Not only is it by the renowned childrens author Enid Blyton, it is also about a mouse, and we love a good mouse story in this house.

I love the name plate in the front of the book, it's so 80s!

My daughter really enjoys reading this book with me, I think she enjoys both the story and the pictures! I love that I can read with her an author that I enjoyed so much when I was younger.

The drawings in this book are really beautiful and even though this book is almost 30 years old it is still as fresh and inviting as it was back then.

Do you have a favourite book at the minute?

Passing on the Past

I have a love for all things 80s and am lucky that my mum and dad kept some of my old books from when I was younger.

I have added to the collection with some fabulous charity shop finds and although these are only a few I wanted to share their magic.

So, do you remember any of these?

The top four are ones I have found, I loved Rainbow Bright, the Gummi Bears and the Fluppy Dogs the Care Bears are back now so that shows how timeless they are.

The bottom three were mine as a child, I remember buying The Nite Glo Gang at a school book fair, the front glows in the dark and it is so well read, even now the kids both love it. Snow White and Sleeing Beauty are classics and my daughter loves to look at them. 

I love that I can still read these books to my children and that hopefully I can pass them on to my grandchildren too.

We were going through some toys the other day to giveaway and it suddenly dawned on me that I should save some, my husband still has a box of cars at his parents house, from when he was a child, they always get played with our the kids go round.

It is these moments that are magic, magic because I had them and now my children are enjoying them too.

Beautiful France

The area of L'Aisne in France is beautiful, still mostly unspoilt the houses are traditional and full of character and beauty.

Here are just a few of the local and beautiful features, my favourite are the shutter holders which all have faces on them.

Nothing more quite says French than peeling paint on shutters, to me the peeling paint has more character and is more visually stunning than the perfect ones!

Beautiful Hydrangeas and so many vegetable and fruit patches in all of the gardens, the weather is ideal here.

This house had roses and tomatoes growing up the side of it, every piece of space is utilised to make the most of the sunshine.

We walked up to the local church and saw so many beautiful houses, the church itself although not old had the most beautiful sounding bells that rang at 7pm.

Bringing the Outdoors Inside Vintage Style

I had been looking at the pot plants in a local garden centre but with a high price tag I had to find another way of getting some pretty hyacinths into my home.

So on passing a small florist I spotted a pot of hyacinths at a fraction of the price and snapped them up with the intention of repotting them.

Using some of the vintage pots and bowls I have around the house I repotted them to have a selection of gorgeous plants to add to each room.

You could use some old tins from hot chocolate or golden syrup for example if you have got anything else, even a treasured Bonne Maman jar.

I can't think of a nicer way to bring a pop of colour (when they eventually bloom) into you home and plants always seem to bring a smile to your faec as you watch them grow...a bit like children :)

A Special Thank You for Teacher

I have been toying with ideas for a present for my sons teachers for a few weeks, a few ideas have popped up on Instagram and Facebook and then this week I decided on some gorgeous vintage stamped spoons from the lovely TangledSweetPea on Instagram.

They are really pretty and I am going to package them up in pretty little vintage style boxes from Home Bargains with some tea and biscuits all tied up with ribbon and a home made card.

The spoons are stamped with thank you, a perfect way to say thanks for making his first year at school so enjoyable.

Pretty vintage rose boxes

Pretty little pinwheels to add a special touch

Just have to hope they like tea, do go on over to TangledSweetPea's etsy page and check out her gorgeous stamped vintage goodies. Perfect for anniversaries, birthdays and other special occasions.

Cooking with Mother - Ladybird Tuesday

I saw this fabulous link up over on Being Mrs Cs blog last week and decided I would link up today with a recent purchase of a fabulous ladybird book.

Cooking with Mother is a wonderful book which goes through step by step how to make several simple  dishes, with instructions for what is in the kitchen to ingredients and how to make the dish.

I really think we should bring books like this back to give out in schools, not to just borrow but to keep.

With childhood obesity on the rise and so many children not even knowing what or where a carrot comes from I think books like this need to come back into fashion!

Who doesn't love a cheese and pineapple hedgehog?

I love this idea, if only I could get my son to eat tomatoes in any other form than tomato ketchup.

I love the ladybird series and think they should bring them back...in book form not as an app, reading is becoming such a thing of the past and I often wonder whether children really appreciate books and what they stand for.

I find it much easier to follow a recipe from a book than from a computer screen, but maybe that is just me?

I love finding books like this and reminiscing over the past whilst thinking about how it could help the future ;)

Bargain Books and a Whole Lot More!

This week has been a really good week for charity shopping, I have spent less than £15 and found some wonderful goodies.

First up is this Nigella recipe book which I think may just be my new favourite recipe book, it was a snip at just 75p, most of the books in the shop I found this one in were this price, guess it means a quick turn around.

I also found this fabulous Readers Digest book from 1977, Food From Your Garden it contains lots of hints and tips and how to's on growing food in your garden as well as what to do with an abundance of crop, perfect for discount fruit and veg. Another bargain from the same shop.

Next up I found this beautiful Hornsea Pottery tapestry pattern jug, it is actually quite big and I just love the colours, it was a little more than i'd normally pay but still at only £3.49 it is a lot of jug for your money.

Next up these two little Saxony potteries birds in Summer and Winter pose, I really love these although hubby wasn't sure so I sneaked them onto the shelf without him knowing ;) At £1 each I think these are a little bit of fun, very kitsch!

Finally my two bargain buys of the week, this gorgeous Pall Mall china tea set, the whole lot for £3!!!! One cup has a tiny chip but the rest is perfect and I love the simplicity and delicateness of this set.

And this Betty Barclay maxi skirt, just £3.50, although I wan't sure at first with a pair of clip flops and a vest it looks perfect for summer days out.

I really am becoming a charity shopaholic and was going to sell some of my extra vintage and retro goodies but having just looked at the Royal Mail postage costs don't think it will be possible :(

I am linking up to Magpie Monday on Me & My Shadow's blog.