As if you needed any incentive! 2 Gingerbreadfolk House kits up for grabs!

You would be forgiven for thinking I've gone a bit gingerbread crazy this past week (what, with my TWO houses and my gingerbread recipe!) because the truth is....I HAVE!....I have had to physically restrain myself from making a gingerbread village because my brain seems to be always ticking over ideas about how to decorate a gingerbread house!

Now you can do the same because I'll be choosing 2 lucky subscribers to the Frills in the Hills Newsletter (out tomorrow people, hurry up!) to design their own gingerbread houses.... with a kit from the gingerbread folk!  

Now if you want some tips to make your own - the gingerbread folk are doing some demonstrations where I am sure you'll be able to buy your own kits:

- next Sunday demo in the test kitchen at The Chef and the Cook's 'test kitchen' 11-12 for all to see. They'll be putting together one of Gingerbread Folk's gingerbread house kits.
- Or you could pop into the Chef and the Cook's stand at MasterChef Live on Sunday 12th of December.

Or, you can order/buy them from their many stockists listed here.

So if you don't subscribe, do it here - and if you do, sit tight!!  I'll announce the winner IN the newsletter which goes out tomorrow around lunchtime!

(psst here's a little preview)

Cutter winners and Gingerbread House Mark 2!

Yes, I have been busy!

Garage sale on the weekend, gingerbread house making and some recovery!

This gingerbread house is a bit bigger than the other one, and has options for a gable.  I got my act together with a few more red and white things:

Skittles, jaffas, kool mints, large candy cane, chocolate santas and red licorice and let's not forget the marshmallow gables on top - so easy - just cut marshmallows into 1/3rds and stick straight on - no need for icing - oh and attach onto roof before placing on roof before placing on top of house.

With a sifting of icing sugar over the top (sorry no picture - yet!) it does loo

I loved reading all about your lovely traditions, and there are some great ideas for those of you looking to start your own!

Here are the winners!  Don't forget to email me your address so I can get them off to you ASAP!

Alisi's Mummy
CamillaS
Candice
Keren
Kylie @ The Rockgarden 
Kym 
Petra Aitken 
Renee 
Nic
teegan 

Cuuute addition to the stocking - and there's TEN sets to win!

Aren't these cute?  These are mini cookie cutters - and are great for making tiny christmas cookies for your childs' friends (if you have 7+ year olds, get them to make them, ice them and package them - something to keep them occupied!) or do what I will be doing with them, use them to decorate cupcakes and my gingerbread house - punching out orchard icing)!

I've got 10 sets of 2 (one of each, candy cane and snowflake) to giveaway - and it ends this Friday because I want to get them off to you guys next Monday.

There's a VERY good chance of winning, so enter, enter, ENTER!

So, what you need to do is

• Leave me a message telling me a favourite Christmas tradition of your family (as a kid or with your kids) to be in the running!
• I'll give you an extra entry if you tweet it too! (I want to win these cute cookie cutters http://bit.ly/filZLt  in the Frills in the Hills Christmas stocking (via @frillyhills)

You can enter once a day by comment or by tweet! Only open to those with Australian postal addresses - sorry!  Ends midnight AEST 26th November xx

Ikea Duktig and Duplo Pet Shop winners!

Sorry folks, I wanted to announce these last night - but got a bit tied up - sleeping.  I think my weekend caught up with me because I was in bed before the kids last night. I feel a bit better for it this morning but I'm thinking another early night might be on the cards tonight too.

Do you ever do that? Zonk out?

OK onto the winners!

Our wonderful friends at Ikea who shared the play report (very interesting I might add) will be sending a set of the new kids Duktig play sets to....

SadieandLance
JodieD
Mrs Richo
Shell Fay
Megs

Congratulations!

And the very popular Duplo Pet Shop set winners are:

Candice
Kym
Jen


Congratulations to the winners - please email me via the contact me tab at the top to let me know your address!

Now, those who didn't win, take heart - there will be another something Lego in the stocking this Christmas, standby.... come back tonight for something (not Lego) in the stocking though!)

There's something(s) from Lego in the Christmas Stocking today!

Our house is a little mad for this stuff.  We love Lego, and specifically Duplo at present. It's something that will keep our girls amused for literally hours, in particular my Laura who I swear is going to be an engineer of some sort when she grows up.

Like my Lego family?  Make yours here

They say that Lego and construction type play is good to develop the same skills that kids will use for reading so not only is it fun, but it's school preparation that I don't even have to put that much effort into, in fact I don't need to put any effort into!

Sometimes I can't help myself though and my OCD will come out when I want to make something that is not only sound, but colour co-ordinated or patterned.  I seem to have passed this on a little to Olivia but I'm working very hard with her to 'let it go' as much as I want to agree with her.  This only makes me realise we always need more Duplo.  Good marketing strategy Lego!

The latest Duplo offerings we've been playing with is the Caravan and the Pet Shop.

These hold pride of place in our loungeroom and having made it to the integrated Duplo box - over a month later.  And for almost five year olds, this is pretty good!  On the side is the legend of how many pieces of what goes in each box and they like sorting it out between the two boxes.  mmm maybe I have no control over the OCD aspect?

Now how is this for Lego overload - playing Lego and watching Lego on TV?

I've also just joined Lego club for $19.95 a year and we get exclusive Lego offers, quarterly magazine and email newsletter.  I think that's pretty cool, and might make a great Christmas present for a Lego enthusiast you know!

There are times I wish we lived in Melbourne or Brisbane - because.... they have the Lego education centres - I'd love to go and I think this might be something we do as a family !

How easy would a Lego/Duplo birthday cake be?  Mmm I might have to work on convincing Laura and Olivia they want a Lego themed birthday... right?

[image]

Don't know what the difference between Lego and Duplo is?
Basically Lego is the smallest type, duplo is double the size (better for smaller hands and mouths) and quattro is double that again!


Now, today in the Christmas stocking Lego is giving away THREE of the Duplo Pet Shops valued at $49.95 each!


To enter:

• Leave a comment and tell me WHY for WHO you want to win!
• Extra daily entry if you tweet about the giveaway 'Great Duplo giveaway at Frills in the Hills http://bit.ly/d1TqnP (via @frillyhills)' 
• Extra entry if you post (once only) on the Frills in the Hills Facebook wall why you want to win!

Entries close 21st November, midnight

Open to those with Australian postal addresses only

A creative beauty in the Christmas stocking this week!

Hello lovelies!

I hope you've had a wonderful weekend!  Today I've got the perfect giveaway for the Mamas who love home decor and design.  I have long lusted over Creative Neesh's poster designs - she designs fresh and funky poster designs for our kids rooms and playrooms - but without too much of the blergh factor.  You know, the blergh being the way you look at it in a few years when you realise it's too babyish or just not suitable anymore.

The brains and beauty behind Creative Neesh is Nisha Agiasotis a Mum of two boys who started her business mainly from compliments from the design work done in her own house as she had been frustrated with the lack of design elements for boys.    Nisha started doing custom name posters which catered to both the child's favourite or room colours and what their interests were.

The great part of Nisha's design is the palette is large, and if you don't like the colours or want something co-ordinating, she's happy to accommodate!  She understands that you want it to complement/match your existing room!   Make sure you go and visit Nisha at her blog - it's hilarious - her boys otherwise known as 'seek' and 'destroy' are absolutely adorable, but they do get up to a lot of mischief. She sums here blog up so well - create, covet, chaos, cranky and of course, CHECK OUT!

So what have we got today?  We are giving away ONE poster this week - of your choosing - it can even be a custom name poster! What a great Christmas present right?

What do you need to do?

• Go over to CreativeNeesh and come back and tell me which one you love and why!
• You can enter once a day!
• Open to those with an Australian postal address
• Ends midnight 14th November 2010

In the Christmas stocking today - all about imaginative play.. with a giveaway!

Hello again!

I'm a bit rhymy today aren't I?

Well today I'm sharing some news from my friends at Ikea.    They have today released the Play Report, the largest global study into child development and play, which reveals how Australian parents, and kids feel about the world today and the effects of play on family life.

I've had a read through it and found the following parts quite fascinating:


FAMILY AND FOOD

• 68% of Australian kids would prefer to spend more time baking with Mum and Dad - yet only 50% of parents see cooking or baking as good for creativity.
• 85% (58% strongly) believe that it is important for the development of their child/ren for the family to eat together at mealtimes.
• 91% (59% strongly) believe their children should learn about food and nutrition at home
• Time pressured working Mums though placed slightly less (by 2%) emphasis on meals together

Are you surprised by any of these results?  Do you think Masterchef has something to do with the first statistic or is it that kids want to spend time with parents doing what they think is fun?

PLAYING WITH OUR KIDS

• Almost half (46%) of parents feel that they don’t have enough time to play with their children
• Over half (52%) of Aussie parents say that they often feel guilty that they are not spending enough time with their kids
• 70% of Aussie parents would like more time to just ‘chill out’ with their children
• But most interesting (to me anyways) was that 74% (that's almost three of any four of us!) feel that they should be doing more to encourage creativity at home.  

Are we too afraid of mess (I know I have a intense hatred of glitter....) or is that we've forgotten how to play with our kids?  How down and dirty do you get?  Do you bake or cook with your kids or is that something that worries you (in terms of danger in the kitchen or mess again)?

Ikea and I would love to hear your thoughts on the two questions I've just asked - so much so Ikea are going to give away 5 of their NEW Duktig 14 piece vegetable sets - (Something for you to play with too!)

So...

• Answer one of the 2 questions above (or both in separate comments for 2 entries!)
• Share this post on Twitter or Facebook for an extra entry*

Entries close this Sunday 7th November at midnight

Entries open to those with Australian postal addresses only.

* please quote @frillyhills on twitter and post on the Frills in the Hills Wall or the Ikea Facebook Wall so we can Identify the entries.

What's in the stocking today? Something LOVELY to giveaway plus discounts for all!

Hello again - two months until Christmas today!  Don't freak out - I've got something LOVELY for you! x

When I say a LOVELY giveaway and discount today I am not kidding!

Lovely little parties is a gorgeous little store, that's getting bigger by the day!    Today we are starting a little giveaway with some wonderful Christmas-inspired party gear that could be used any time of the year!

PLUS an exclusive discount code!  Read on!

What we have up for grabs is a gorgeous pack with:

• 20 x brown kraft lolly bags
• 20 x Katy Jane Christmas tags
• 1 25-pack of red/white retro stripe paper straws
• 1 50-pack of candy stripe cupcake wrappers

The package is valued at $30.40 !

What do you need to do?  Easy!

• Go and visit Lovely little parties and come back and tell me what you like!
• Extra entry if you like Lovely little parties on Facebook too (make sure you write on their wall you're entering the giveaway so we can count it!)

Enter by this Sunday (31st October 2010) and ensure you have an Australian postal address - you can enter once a day!

Now, want to go shopping?  Of course you do!

Use the code FRILLS on check out between now and midnight 7th November, and get 10% off your order!  We LOVE that!

Frills in the Hills Christmas stocking no 1!

Those of you in denial it's almost Christmas, listen up.  It's soon guys.  Time to get organised!


Every week I'll be bringing you at least one thing for your stocking - whether it be a exclusive discount or giveaway...  don't forget to sign up for the Christmas newletter too which will have recipes, craft, tips and fun (it's very pretty too if I do say so myself) and the first one will be out on 1st November so hurry up and sign up!

To kick the Frills in the Hills Christmas stocking we're having an exclusive offer.  The reason this one is first is that you'll need to get in sooner rather than later to get it all sorted for Christmas (it books up quickly) and this is a fantastic gift for the grandparents or even to your partner or to yourself for Christmas.

Silverwebb Studios

"SilverWebb takes the special times of your life, and turns them into a perfect memory or gift. Our artist works with you to ensure that you receive something incredibly special. Our subjects have included children, families, pets, boats, or whatever has a place in your heart and deserves a place on your walls."


Silverwebb Studios is offering Frills in the Hills readers 20% off their handcrafted piece of art if you order and pay before 1st November 2010 (and given the prices are in US dollars, it's a perfect time to order and tick off one of those Christmas presents off the list!)

You can find Silverwebb Studios on facebook and Etsy.

Pricing is: 

$150 $120 for an A4 or an 8x10inch*

$200 $160 for an A3 or an 11x14inch*

(*for one subject, add $25 $20 for additional subjects - full details here)