Bizzybee Gloves review

As any mummy knows, or daddy for that matter, children come hand-in-hand with mess. Whether it be muddy shoes, toys strewn over the floor or little puddles of water over the bathroom floor after their bath - us parents need to be on our toes, ready to sort it out! Little messes I can cope with, but any that require cleaning fluid (like mopping the floor, wiping down the sideboards, even washing the windows!) are part of my nightmares! You see, my skin is really dry, so wearing rubber gloves irritates them, and I don't know what it is about the smell - it's just something I don't like.

So, when Bizzybee sent me two pairs of gloves to review I hoped they would help rid me of my scares!

The first pair, moisturising gloves, I was looking forward to using the most. On the Bizzybee website, they are described as "A brand new glove with built-in TLC" and I really couldn't agree more! 

 As soon as I put them on, I noticed the difference between them and normal rubber gloves. These were softer, it was like they had a velvety lining inside. They are also latex-free, which is great for all those who suffer with the allergy!

They were so lovely to wear while washing up. I'm not usually one to wear gloves whilst doing the dishes, but I will be from now on! They were so comfortable, so soft, and I couldn't feel the heat of the water either! Perfect for washing Baby B's bottles in!

The only downside to these gloves are they're not available in any size except medium. They were perfectly sized for me but would be no good for anyone with big hands, including the Mr., even though it'd be a struggle to get ANY gloves on his hands! *chuckle*

The second pair, scouring gloves, seemed a god-send. Come on, hands up, who has left a pan on the stove for a little-bit too long? Who has burnt something in the frying-pan?  I'll admit it if you do! In fact, I'm the master of leaving pasta in the pan for too long! Ask the kids, they'll tell you - mum always gets distracted when cooking pasta - nothing else, just pasta! Do you realise just how hard it is to get burnt pasta off the bottom of a pan?

For the sake of this review, I did the unspeakable. I left the burnt pasta in the pan for 48 hours. Shock! Horror! Arghhhhh! Yep, I did just that. I'm not proud of it, I hate foodstuff left anywhere, let alone in a dirty pan on the sideboard in my lovely new kitchen. Yes, 48 full hours or torture! Of course, it was no problem for the Mr. and the kids, they didn't even see it there. But I knew I had to do it to test these gloves out properly!

Disgusting, 48-hour old burnt pasta!

And what a shock I had with the results!

They fitted comfortably, these are available in size large, so better for the bigger handed. The scourers were over the palm and fingers of the right-handed glove so, again, no good for the Mr. (being left handed) but, again, no gloves on his hands!

The first and second finger had scourers that went over the tips, perfect for those corners that are hard to reach!

All I added into the pan was a drop of hot water and left it for a minute to soak. Even without any washing liquid, the burnt pasta came away so easily! I didn't even have to scrub hard, so minimal effort for maximum result!

These gloves are amazing, a mother's work is always hard, but these make it that bit easier!

All sparkly clean!

So, thank you Bizzybee! You gave me something I will cherish for a long while! They might look like just a pair of gloves to you, but they are my helping-hand!

Disclaimer: We were sent the two pairs of gloves for free to review. However, our opinion is 100% our own.

How to..... enter Rafflecopter competitions!

After the last competition ended, I was quite stunned to have to disqualify no less than 11 entries picked as a winner. And that was without going through every single entry!!

It occurred to me that maybe people don't understand how to use Rafflecopter. Most comps hosted through RC are easy, some have just one entry, others can have hundreds. But, however many ways, they can help in the way to winning.

So here's my guide to entering Rafflecopter comps!

Using Rafflecopters own giveaway (click "See Rafflecopter in action"), I'll show you how to use it correctly!

• Firstly, you DON'T have to be a Facebook or Twitter user. You can sign up with just your email address. But you may have to have one or the other for a mandatory option (if any) so please remember to check!
• Many have a daily entry, some have a few daily entries - check & bookmark!
• Check to see what options, if any, are mandatory - if it says "you can earn X more entries today, it normally means those showing are mandatory.
• ALWAYS read the T&Cs - obviously this goes for all comps, not just RC - the T&Cs should clear up any queries about daily entries and any mandatory options, as well as inform you about the age / location etc that the entrant must be.

If you go to the Rafflecopter comp - you'll see it asks you to sign in. You can either sign in with Facebook or email.

On this particular comp, there is one mandatory entry - which mean you have to answer that question before you can enter for extra entries. This is a nice simple Rafflecopter comp, but still people get confused. Especially with the Tweet (often daily).

When you click on the button next to "Tweet about the giveaway", it'll come up with a box.

 Now, this is where people are missing out. You MUST click the little "Tweet" button in the box - which will bring this up:

Then click on the "Tweet" and wait for the screen to change to this:

Now you can do one of three things.You can click on "View it on Twitter" - this will bring up your tweet in a new page, where you can copy the link. If you're not quick enough, just go to your Twitter profile, find the tweet, right-click the time stamp (where it says "8s ago", "5 mins ago" etc.) and copy that link. Or you can right-click on "View it on Twitter" if you're fast enough, and copy that way. Then all you need to do is paste the link in the Rafflecopter. 

Another big mistake on Rafflecopter is that when it comes to comments on Blog posts, follows on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram - is that people sometimes don't use the same name. Many blogs use different comment options; Disqus, commentluv and the like. Make sure you know your username of which one you used!

Same goes for Twitter and Facebook usernames. They are both so simple to find yet many get it wrong! Go to your homepages on both and you'll be able to find them easily! Twitter is the name that comes up when you tweet or the one that people add when they want to talk to you - mine is @thecrazperfblog for example. Facebook is a little more difficult, go to your homepage and copy the web address - it should look something like www.facebook.com/TheCrazyPerfectBlog or it'll have a series of numbers instead of words .com/xxxxxxxx - if you're having any trouble, give me a shout and I'll help!


I've done it, used xxclarexx as a username on something but put my real name in the Rafflecopter form  Massive fail on my part because if I was lucky enough to be picked, the promoter wouldn't be able to link my username with my real name. Such a simple mistake but so often done 

Don't let the number of entries put you off - at the end of the day, it takes one entry to win. And with some RC comps, there are 100s of entries available for any person, so it doesn't truly reflect the amount of people actually entering!

If you do still struggle, feel free to comment - I'll help whenever I can, or check out Rafflecopter's Support page 


Hopefully there'll be less disqualified entries next time  

Where has the year gone?

It's October. Almost the second week of it in fact. Where is this year going? The kids are growing too fast, Baby B will be 28 weeks tomorrow, yet it feels like just last week I was holding a little baby in my arms, snoozing 18 hours of the day. Now I have a cheeky, talkative, little monster in the walker giving me little "I'm a good boy really" smiles and blowing kisses!

I have to admit, I love babies at this age - they start to build their character, no longer "boring" as my dad says, they don't just sleep, drink and poop! Of course, they still do all those but with other traits added into the mix! The only thing I am really not liking is the amount of dribble. You see, you can almost guarantee that at the precise moment I pick Baby B up for a play, or go in for a kiss, he has plenty of dribble to pass over to me. I get soaked, I may as well have gone for a bath! It's all down to his teething, he didn't dribble at all with his first two teeth, but since the top ones have started coming, his mouth is like a little waterfall! Apart from the amount of his clothes I've had to wash this week due to wetness, I'm glad he's following suit of his sisters and brother. They all teethed really young and had all their teeth before 9 months old. I think they all teethed for around 6 months, so they didn't suffer too long, I just really hope Baby B is as lucky.

Back to it being October. Today is the 6th, which means it's my dads 50th birthday.

In just 81 days it'll be Christmas day. I can hear the gasps of horror! Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? I have, but only because I was lucky enough to win some shopping vouchers last week. I've promised myself I won't be going overboard with presents this year as the kids have so much stuff. Between buying and winning things, their bedrooms are full of toys, clothes and goodness knows what else! Time for another clearout I think!

DC Super Friends comic review

J was sent a copy of DC Super Friends comic to review.

J is a massive fan of the DC characters, his favourite are Batman and the Green Lantern. As you can see from the picture, he loved it! He spent hours looking through before I could get anywhere near to take some pictures!

The comic is priced at £2.99 - compared to other comics that J enjoys reading, I think is very reasonably priced. You can subscribe, which is cheaper, at a price of £33.00 for 13 issues (saving 15%) or £7.80 a month (saving 20%)!

There is a free gift every issue, we had communicators with this issue and J loved that he could change the pictures in them!

J and C read the comic together, J's reading skills are slowly improving so he needs his sisters to help, C said she enjoyed reading it as much as J. There's plenty to do inside when they've finished reading - activities, colouring, cut-out and keep, even a competition!

Playing with the Cut-out and keep mask!

Hello??

Even Baby B got involved!

J's already begged me to buy the new issue when it comes out, which I will be doing. It has so much to keep him entertained through those common "I'm bored!" times.

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of DC Super Friends for free to review. However, our opinion is 100% our own.

GTA V - what are your thoughts?

I am a big fan of the Grand Theft Auto series. My favourite one has to be the London version - back when it was "top-down" gameplay.

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

As the years have gone on, games in general have become better developed. You can play online with friends, keep fit with different platforms' motion sensors, you can even play some games in 3D!

Grand Theft Auto is a big title in the gaming industry. When GTA V was released last week, it was estimated that over 1.5 million copies were sold in the UK in the first three days alone! On the weekend this report from Metro states that £1 billion worth of copies had been sold!

So what makes it so popular?

Picture courtesy of Rockstar Games

That's a question I can't answer personally. The reason I enjoy it is because I see it as a great outcome from stress. You spend all day doing housework, the kids come home from school and take 2 minutes to ruin your spotless living room! They decide they don't want what you've cooked them for dinner and they WON'T do their homework. They're too cool for a bath, bedtime is after 11pm and you feel like screaming from the rooftop! STRESS! Anyone with girls that are pre-teens will get what I mean! Playing on GTA, driving around, shooting whoever I want relieves my stress. I don't smoke or drink, a stress ball wouldn't last me long, so doing something I enjoy (gaming) helps - with the added bonus of building up my gamerscore of course!

"But the violence?!" I hear you scream.

There have been so many news reports about the link between the GTA games and violence. This report from last week shows a prime example! A man was attacked 80 minutes after picking up his copy of the game. Cue the outcry! "That's why it shouldn't be allowed!", "That's awful, the developers must pay!", etc etc. But is it really the developers fault? Is it the game's fault? I don't think so! Just because I can willing pay a prostitute then beat her with a baseball bat in the game doesn't mean I want to do it in real life! I certainly don't go around pinching cars, running people over, smashing through hospital windows in real life. And I certainly don't run away from the police! A few family members enjoy playing it too, they're not out doing that either! So why the bad stigma? The game was centred in that report, as well as many others, when they also stole a watch and phone from the victim. If further reports are true, they are 14, 16 and 17 - why was a 14 year old at 1am? What were his parents doing and why didn't they care or know their son was out on the streets?

These games have an age rating of 18+. The problems lie when parents don't take note of this and buy the game for their 7 year old. I wrote a post a while back about it then and I am going to mention it again now. If you are a parent and your child is asking you for a game, please do some research on it first! Because, yet again, in Asda yesterday, there was a young boy with his mother (I can only guess) buying GTA V. Even though I think the relation between the game and violence is exaggerated, I won't let any of the kiddies play on it! I don't even play it around them. But that's down to the fact of the language that's used, for which you'd expect on a game such as this. I wouldn't want J to repeat one of the words used whilst he was in school!! I'd be mortified.

Do you think the game is to blame? Or is it just parents too oblivious? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Opinions wanted!

After a quick chat earlier today with a few other bloggers, I've been wondering...

We were talking about the subject of reviews and sponsored posts (a sponsored post is one that you receive payment for, as such).

So I wanted to ask you, my readers, if you read any reviews or sponsored posts? What do you think about them? How many times have you bought off what you've read or heard?

I would love to hear your opinions!

Dresses, dresses, dresses!

In October we have a family wedding, so I've been looking for some dresses for my two girls to wear. C is really tall for her age, so we normally need to buy adult clothes for her and, of course, having to pay more for this privilege!

But after looking on the New Look website, I've found a lovely selection of dresses that I am struggling to choose from for them both!

For C, age 12, I picked this lovely skater dress.

She looks lovely in this colour and with her figure, this dress would sit perfectly. It's a bargain at just £14.99 too!

For T, age 10, because she is chunky, I've chosen this Floral layered dress.

The black top will slim her down to her hips, which she unfortunately inherits from her mum (sorry babes!), and the ruffles will disguise them.

There are so many beautiful dresses on there, I dare say I'll change my mind again before the wedding!

Now just to find mine!

This post was sponsored, we received vouchers but that did not change our opinion.