Jennie Maizels Clothes Plasters – Competition

The lovely and talented author Jennie Maizels has recently launched a new product called Clothes Plasters. I have been lucky enough to receive a sample of these to review and give-away!

Clothes Plasters are effectively embroidered patches for ripped or worn areas in clothing.

The concept behind them is simple and clever, and ever so slightly retro. I remember my mum sewing on patches to my brothers' jeans or jumpers when we were young, back in the early '80s. However Jennie's concept is ideal for the modern mum, many of whom are working part/full-time and haven't got time to stitch a patch on. Clothes Plasters are designed to be ironed on! Even the worst seamstress (my sister) can manage that surely?!

In today's 'throw-away' materialistic world where children's clothes can be bought in supermarkets alongside, and at the same price as a bottle of cola, these are a must! We are encouraged to recycle packaging and to re-use our designer jute shopping bags, but think about those other wasteful areas of our lives. Children's clothing is one such area. When little Johnny falls out of the tree and rips the knee of his jeans, it's so easy to just buy another pair of jeans for £2.50, but it is wasteful and unnecessary. A patch saves you money and does its bit for the environment!

The designs on the plasters are gorgeous; they follow the same stunning illustrations as Jennie's books, and have been manufactured to a high quality. They are also fun!

Girls' Clothes Plasters

Boys' Clothes Plasters

The little boys' stickers have robots, rockets and dinosaurs, while the little girls' pack has a gorgeous fairy and a fairy cake, amongst others. I think they would enhance the clothes, rather than screaming 'my child is a clumsy oaf!' The storage tin (containing 10 plasters) is also extremely attractive and, being compact, really quite practical.

In the range are; the aforementioned tins, plus smaller packs of individual designs containing one or two 'plasters'. View the full range of Jennie Maizels Clothes Plasters here.

Individual or pair clothes plasters

I am lucky enough to have several items from this range which I am giving away in a competition. The girls' tin of Clothes Plasters (worth £9.99), a pair of swallows plasters, a pair of cactii plasters and a love-heart plaster (worth £2.99 each) are all up for grabs!

In order to enter this competition, please specify which pack of Clothes Plasters you'd like to win in the comments box below. State either the Girls Tin, or the Swallows Plasters, or the Cactti plasters, or the Loveheart Plaster.

Extra entries are available if:
–  you follow me on twitter @TheBoyandMe
– tweet "I've entered to win a @TheBoyandMe competition for Clothes Plasters at http://www.TheBoyandMe.co.uk"
– subscribe to this blog (please note: this is now a different blog address to my previous one, you will need to resubscribe to this new site to qualify for an extra entry)
Competition ends 4th February 2011 at 8pm.
Open to UK entrants only.

Winners:

Having done a lengthy and complicated process of working out how many entries each person had, into which draw and whether to include them into that one or this one, I have come up with the winners!

Winner of the Girls' Tin is:
Helen (@jessies_online)

Winner of the Lovehearts plaster is:
AlliMarshall (@allimarshall)

Winner of the Cactii plasters is:
louise strachan (@bobbitty666)

Winner of the Swallows plasters is:
Jayne Crammond.

Thank you to all for entering the competition and good luck for the next one!

'Ping and Pong – Splash' by Amy Trevaskus

I have recently been lucky enough to be sent a copy of the children’s book ‘Ping and Pong – Splash’, written by Amy Trevaskus and illustrated by Alison Heath.

‘Splash’ is the first book in a series of ten about Ping and Pong who are brother and sister. Being very small, they have lived in the clock in Lucy’s hallway for as long as they can remember. When Lucy found them they were so happy, she looked like she had so much fun with her family and friends. In this book they clamber into Lucy’s pocket and go to play in the park with her, and then SPLASH in puddles!

“The remaining books will see Lucy and her best friends Ping and Pong learning through fun on their adventures. They will be discovering how to grow vegetables in the garden, learn about different animals at the zoo, and help Lucy’s mum and dad cook in the kitchen. Ping and Pong will also learn about recycling when they go to school in Lucy’s pocket.”

This is a delightful book; the story is innocent and reminiscent of stories from the 1950s when life was simple and children played in the gardens. Remember those days? Where children actually engaged in imaginative play with their toys rather than turning on their iPods or annoying their neighbours by kicking footballs in the street. I was very fond of Enid Blyton’s books (especially the faeries and Folk of the Faraway Tree), and this Ping and Pong book, to me, is of the same ilk.

The illustrations are beautiful; stunning pen and watercolour drawings.

On the left-hand page there is an illustration of the story on the right-hand page. On the page with the text, there is also a small accompanying illustration.

I have read an abridged version of this story in stage to The Boy (19 months old). Admittedly the book is not aimed at under 2 year olds, but he did enjoy it. He loved looking at the illustrations and we talked about the things that Ping and Pong were doing, obviously I was drawing from the story that Amy has written. I have also read it to my 5 year old nephew and 7 year old niece, both of them enjoyed it immensely. My nephew went outside and started splashing in the puddles straightaway, whilst my niece and I then had a little guess at what Ping and Pong would be getting up to next.

As a primary school teacher, I could see me using this series of books in the infant classroom. It would be an excellent starting point for a topic on the weather, or the world around us.

I think Amy Trevaskus has come up with a winning series here and I hope to her books in book shops, better still being read to children, very soon. In the meantime, Ping and Pong are available here.

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