Carries Versatile Fashion

Baby show Olympia 27th October 2013

Today I went to the London, Olympia 2013 Baby show, which runs for 3 days Friday to Sunday, and I heard about the baby show via the Prima Mother and Baby Magazine, which had a special offer on the tickets, and the tickets only cost me with the special offer £10.00 per ticket saving me about £8.00 as standard price ticket without the discount were £18.00; so as Friday and Saturday weren’t good for me, as my mum and husband would be working on Friday and Saturday would be the busiest day, I chose to go on Sunday. The last baby show I had attended I was actually working for Avent and was at the Earls Court arena, but I didn’t get to see much as I was working.

I would have gone with Avent, but as someone who worked for the brand I knew about the floors in some of the products and so kept away from this brand, except for the free soothers which I have mentioned and shown below.

This time I was an expected mum and I am so glad I went.

I went with my husband and my mum, which was a good idea because of taking stuff back, and my mum’s husband gave us a lift to Olympia so we didn’t have to worry about getting a train there and got there in good time. I wanted to get there as early as possible as I knew it would get busier as the day went on, so we got there for about 10 and looked around, had a coffee, then had another look around.

There were some great products on offer, all the well-known brands under one roof.

We did pick up a goodie bag (see picture below) which was just £2 and was great as I inside was a free copy of my favourite mum and baby magazines, Prima Mother and baby; Inside the goodie bag were loads of items as you can see in the picture, different brand of wipes, some newborn nappies, baby food, nappy rash creams, toddler toothpaste and some Cussons Baby and me baby bath wash, plus the magazines.

I was given another 3 packets of newborn nappies, which contain 43 nappies per pack, and some more baby wipes (see picture below).

A free pack of x2 3-6 months soothers from the Avent section.

I bought a Tommee Tippee Steriliser set, newborn starter kit and manual breast pump starter kit all for just £55.00.

Newborn starter kit show price was £15.00

Microwave steam steriliser set show price was £13.50

Manual Breast pump starter kit show price £26.50

I also bought a changing bag and got a good deal as the lady took the price off the buggy straps and so got the bag for show price of £59.00 usually £65.00, and I love it as it doesn’t look like a changing bag and it came with a free changing travel mat which you would usually pay for separately, another over the shoulder bag for free, another little bag and 3 plastic zip up pouches.

I then bought a Winnie the pooh changing mat, show price £9.99, which was I think from the fisher price stall.

It was such a constructive day and I would definitely recommend mums who have a little baby already or expecting, to go to a baby show as you do get some great deals, and saves you money and many brands will do the gifts sets so you can have a selection of items all in one box. I was going to get Dr Browns gift set but there discount for the show wasn’t so great and I had been recommended by mums to get either Dr Browns or Tommee Tippee and because Tommee Tippee had such a great deal we decided Tommee Tippee was the best to go with on the day though I may still buy some Dr Brown bottles as I know they are especially good for colic. However I can always get them later on.

Once Henry’s (the name of our expected little boy) room is complete I will take a photo and go into details of organizing the room and what I decided to use, and how we created the theme, which will be Walt Disney and Warner Brothers cartoon characters.

I am going to go to many more of these types of shows again, as I think they are great to see all the brands and options of products under one roof.

So if you do have a baby show happening near you then I would recommend it is worth the time and money.

The next baby show dates are:

21^st to the 23^rd February 2014 at the Excel centre

16^th to the 18^thof May 2014 at the NEC Birmingham.

For more details please check the baby show website:

http://www.thebabyshow.co.uk/

And remember to check the mother and baby magazines for special offers on tickets to the baby shows, as then you don’t have to pay full price.

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie x

Pick pockets and thieves.

Could you spot a pick pocket, a thief from a crowd of people?

They are people that look like any other person and that is why they get away before you’ve realised that they have taken something from you, and by the time you’ve noticed it is too late to get the item back.

I remember at Secondary school there were two girls in my class who were stealing and eventually caught, and it would be someone’s lunch or purse, etc. That is the worst thing when it happen to you, because then everyone feels like they can’t trust each other, and even though you know you haven’t done anything you can’t help but feel guilty either.

Those girls who stole never gained people’s trust again and people did remind them of it, and they couldn’t have normal school life because they were known as the school thieves, and there is no turning back once you get that reputation.

If something doesn’t belong to you why take it?

I am writing this going on my own knowledge of being a victim of someone who’s had stuff stolen in the past from them and I hate seeing it happen to anyone else.

NEVER TAKE YOUR EYE OR LEAVE YOUR POSSESSIONS UNATTENDED AT ANY TIME.

You may have heard this said many times but it is said for a reason for you to follow, to protect you and to remind you that once someone has been stolen sometimes it can be very hard to prove and once it has gone it is very hard to get it back.

I was in Oxford Street yesterday and it gave me the idea for this blog, not because anything happened on the day but I know that there are Pick pockets and thieves who target those sorts of places, where it is busy and people can loose focus as they are so caught up in the shopping rush and so stop paying attention to your belongings, and loose focus on the amount of shops and goodies there are in the stores.

So next time you shop be vigilant and never take your eye of your bag for one second.

Here are some key instructions to help protect your belongs from those Pick pockets and thieves.

Never leave handbags, purses, shopping bags on a shop floor whilst trying on or looking at another item. The amount of people I know have done this and it can happen in a split second, because a pickpocket/thief will always be watching and suddenly those belongings your shopping bags have gone. Always try on items if on your own in a fitting room or wait to you get home, but make sure you check the store return policy and you keep the receipt; Or if you a have friend, spouse or relative with ask them to stay with the bags whilst you look, but remember to return the favour if they need their belongings looked after too.
Put your purse at the very bottom of your handbag and out of sight. It will make it more difficult for them to take as you are more likely to notice and you are not causing temptation. If people see a purse in bag and you are not looking they will try to take it from you before you’ve noticed. Alternatively use an inside coat pocket, I never keep a purse in a back, but I do keep in a pocket if the packet is sealed a zip or secure buttons, and it is fitted right at the front of the coat, not at the side or never in a trouser back pocket. I always telling my husband if he is going to use a pocket to store cash in his jeans, either use inside pocket or use the front pocket of the jeans, hidden away so there is no clue that there is money in there.
Ideally use a zip up handbag for your purse or a small bag with a secure clip fastener on it, and keep it at the front of you, so you can see it. If the bag has a flap open at the front, put this facing towards you and closed when not needing to go into the bag at all times. With a hand bag that has a zip at the top of it, make sure it is zipped up when you don’t need to go into your bag, and have the bag strap over your shoulder with the actual zip fastener, in front further away from you, and keep hand over the zip.
Any bags with inside zip compartments use them for keeping possessions such as your money, your mobile phones, keys and audio devices; any high valuable items including jewellery and watches, if a thief sees it will try and take it if it is on show. So hide them all away until you need to use them.
Don’t put handbags below your seat when travelling or in a theatre, I did this when I went to the comedy store, some guy sat next to me then left and when I look down under the seat where I put my handbag it has gone, and it was most scariest time, as I lost everything, my keys, cards, my purse, my phone and my Oyster card. The people I was with were terrific and helped me to sort cancelling my cards and lent me money for another Oyster card, but if I had used my common sense and kept it on my lap it would not have happened. I did get my bag back as someone did find it, but my phone and money I had, had gone, but if I could have avoided it happening in the first place I would have done and did teach my a valuable lesson.
Be aware of your whereabouts when withdrawing cash from a cash machine, when banks are open go into the bank rather than use the cash machines outside, but if you do just be aware of who is around you and if anyone approaches you and tries to distracts you (as they can take your card and they sometimes make out that you have dropped something on the floor), keep eye on machine, carry on as quickly as possible and report the person to the bank right away. Avoid confrontation if you feel threatened then keep calm, hand them the cash or card if they are threatening and saying they have a weapon, don’t try and play hero, but once they have gone, go straight into the bank cancel the card and report any cash taken and make sure you contact the police. The more these thieves are reported the more the banks and authorities can help to prevent this happening to anyone else.
This leads me to my last piece of advice, which is never carry a huge amount of cash at one time, unless necessary and store safely away in bag and don’t stand there counting the money as someone could be watching, put the money away out of site. If possible always withdraw cash when you are with someone else who can look out for you whilst you withdraw any money.

Enjoy shopping but don’t allow yourself to be a victim and keep safe.

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie X

Organize an item a day

This is a strategy I have been following for a while and it works.

You don’t realise until you organize and de-clutter how much you accumulate.

My husband and I are in the process of moving, just waiting for it to all all go through and then hopefully we will be moving into our new place, in a about 4 weeks.

We aren’t moving to far from where we are now but moving into a bigger place and more of a house than a flat. However I still wish to keep things organized and keep things minimal so we still have a lot of space.

As I have been sorting threw things I saw that I have a lot of bags and so rather then spend money on boxes, use the storage bins we have and the bags I have to put things into that I don’t need right away or that I don’t use all the time.

I have done this with my toiletries organizing them first into toiletry bags and my hair care items, my hair dryer, straightener, my husband clippers and my curlers into a bag.

I have also gone through my receipts which I do twice a month and keep those that are for electrical equipment or housing maintenance for warranty purposes. Any receipts that are shows I paid by cash I instantly throw away, but the ones that show purchases made by credit or debit card I pass to my husband to shred.

My current document organizer — This is my Paper Desk tidy in it’s current spot.

I sorted through my paper desk tidy and all is clear and tidy, and what I used for receipts is now going to be for furniture and household magazines and catalogues that aren’t too heavy and for ideas on projects.

The space in which my desk tidy is situated is not ideal at the moment and am planning on having proper work space for my computer desk, printer, folders and

other related items to be built or at least created by new furniture in once place much better situated and tidier.

Once I complete my recipe book I will either do a video or photograph to show.

I have sorted through my recipe folder and arranging them in category which took two days and still to be finished by good to get started. Again when we have our new place this will be stored even in our new kitchen with my recipe books or in the work space on a bookcase or cupboard.

I then needed to sort out my kitchen and cupboards as we seemed to have a lot on the work tops and so cleared this by making more space in the cupboards, and so my food processor, blender and vegetable steamer are all neatly been put away in the cupboard and will get them out when we wish or need to use them. I also went through our baking ingredients as now and again I do like to bake, but some ingredients were out of date and so had to be thrown away. By doing his I now have one shelf completely clear which will again make it one less shelf for us to clear when it comes to putting these items in containers when moving.

My kitchen was already built when we moved in and not allowed to alter it, but there is not a lot of cupboard and storage space so it is about using what we have to making space.

This is my current kitchen in the flat my husband and I are living.

The next thing will be my storage bin and folders in the living room, and so doing a bit as you go is really great to stay on top of things.

So clean as you go it makes life so much easier.

I love to clean and organize because it just feels better when all is clean and tidy, and not cluttered.

Many thanks for reading.

Carrie X

Great Opportunity

Great Opportunity.

Organize your shopping

I organize everything from my laundry to my groceries, to unpack I put them into categories and then it is easy to put each item into the place where it should be, fridge, dry foods, fruit and vegetables etc, and the takes less than 5 minutes to put away.

Before you make your shopping list make a list of the meals you can make out the current groceries you have, so this will mean checking the fridge and cupboards to check on the items you have, and this will help minimise your wastage and you use what you have and the amount you spend as for example I know I can make at least 5 meals out of the groceries I have so I know I don’t need any more shopping until Friday or so.

I always as mentioned in my past blogs plan my meals in a week or two weeks in advance.

Making a list of the meals you can make on what you currently have and what ingredients you need to help create a meal from the items you already have will help to reduce the list and you buy items on what you need to add, to make those meals a week.

So don’t waste money on groceries think about how much you can save on the groceries and spend and save money on other things.

Many thanks for reading.

Carrie X

Why not try boxer babe, one of my favourite YouTube workouts

Why not try boxer babe, one of my favourite YouTube workouts.

Sunday Run 21st April 2013

Sunday Run 21st April 2013.

Quick Organising Tips

You don’t have to spend all day organizing but break it down so you get a bit each done each day and as you go.

Here are 10 tips that will help you,

1. Do short cleaning and organizing as well as setting aside a day or an hour to do it. It is amazing how much you get done in 10 minutes.

2. Tidy as you go, if you know that there is an item that you need to take into another room, and you are going into that other room, take that item with you and put it in its rightful place.

3. Create two baskets and inbox and outbox, for the main room that you use, so if it is living room, create a basket to bring stuff into the room, and one to take items out of the room and put them into their correct place.

4. Create a bin, basket, shelf or place if you have a cupboard or bookcase where you can keep all the items you use on a daily basis, so you can easily access them and you do not have to remove loads of items to get to them.

5. Remote controls: keep them near the TV, in a remote control organizer or put them on the coffee table neatly lined up so there is no chance of them falling down the side of the sofa.

6. Keep any fitness equipment near your Living room so you can easily access them and work out in front of the TV whilst watching your favourite TV programmes and also keep the workout DVD’s you use in the living room too, so they are not gathering dust and you can use them whenever you want (there are 10 minute DVD workouts available which I will do a separate blog about). If you don’t use the fitness equipment or the workout DVD’s, then donate them and give them to a friend who might use them if you know they are into exercise or take them to a charity shop.

7. Open the post as soon as it arrives and then create a “Take action” pigeon hole using a desk paper organizer.

8. Any odd socks create an odd sock box and use them for quick dusting of the furniture9. Recycle envelopes for keeping receipts, especially electrical products for the warranty. Some manufacturers do offer a 2 year’s guarantee on some products such as Philips offer a 2 years manufacturing warranty on all domestic and personal appliance; some retailers offer extended warranties on electrical products and on furniture so do keep hold of these details, should anything go wrong.

10. Use storage boxes for storing food in the kitchen such as teabags, pasta, baking ingredients and shelf organizers to help create space and de-clutter your kitchen cupboards

Organizing affectively

Organizing affectively is easy by learning what you have and you don’t need, then creating homes for each categorized item.

Set a budget if you need extra storage in catalogues, online, on the high street.

Go through everything you have first and create three sections or use 3 storage bins and separate the items into keep, donate and dispose.

Start with paper work first, kids toys, then books, magazines and newspapers, these are the main culprits when it comes to clutter. You end up collecting and buying so many that it can become overwhelming.

Once you have separated the items you wish to keep, donate and dispose then dispose what you don’t need, bag all the items to donate and then go through the keep items.

Create categories and sections for the items you have chosen to keep, such as finance papers, toys, notebooks, stationary, online receipts and high street receipts are an example of how to do this.

Create one area and you can use a suitcase or toy bag for all the kids toys so you can zip them away when not being played with.

You will have to be strict with yourself and say to yourself “Do I need this” “Is this going to change my life if I keep or destroy”?

It will help have another person to help, who has ruefulness.

To donate or dispose worn unusable toys do it whilst the kids are at school so they don’t think you are getting them out to play. Do it whilst they are sleeping or at nursery.

Once you know what you have in terms of paperwork then you can workout what space you have and use a ring binder for separating your finance papers, into statements, invoices, letters and household bills. I keep my household bills and online receipts separate in a ring binder; my bank statements, mobile phone bills and bank letters all in a file box.

I will take photos of the items I use currently to give ideas by creating an organization gallery.

For notebooks (new ones) they are all in a box in my storage unit,in the living room as I use them for journalling, everyday notes and lists and for my projects such as my blogs. Partly or complete used notebooks I keep only with important information for my websites, blogs and study notes.

The stores I like to buy from for stationary, storage and organizers are from Amazon as items are more cost effective, but be careful always read the reviews first; On the high street I use Paperchase, Argos, Works, Whsmiths and Wilkinsons.

There is a lovely online shop called notonthehighstreet.com:

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/?gclid=CM-IgYeL1rUCFW_KtAodGhsA3A

Whsmiths and Works do regular deals when the schools restart in September, so always investigate and learn when certain sales are on.

There are certain times of the year, such as just after Christmas to spring where people will start to change their homes and the best time is from December to May as this is when lots of the sales are on for home improvements, sales on kitchens and sofas, Argos do clearance sales regularly, and have sales around Christmas time.

Visit the Ideal Home Show in Earls Court, London which starts this year:

15 March – 1 April 2013

The tickets are selling now please see link, which shows great gadgets for the home and ideas for your home and will inspire to create that ideal home make over.

Thanks for reading.

Carrie X

Organised4TheBetter

Blogging has now become a passion for me, and passing on my advice to others is great.

When it comes to passing on my organization, my fitness tips and helping people to build better self confidence I am also learning new ideas myself and it is finding out what works for you, as a person and finding out who you are.

I love being organized now and having a plan and list of tasks, and challenging myself to get the shopping bill down. I like having things to look forward to and having an idea of what is going to be happening the week ahead and the weekend.

Being organized is a learning process and it worth getting tips and advice from others, I did via books which I will do a blog on on sources of information and YouTube videos (I will feature this in my favourites list). Planning ahead gives you a direction and it does help the mind and anxiety, and knowing I don’t have to rush in the mornings to make sure I catch the bus on time for work.

Also being a Volunteer as a Football Coach and running a youth team and being an Avon Representative you have to plan and be organized to make sure you plan for the unexpected, and make sure I have my Avon orders processed and sent before deadline day.

Please see my other blogs posted on google blogspot, I do two one is related to my wordpress blog (see below) and the other blog is in regards to helping people who may have self confidence issues like I have had and how they can overcome them.

http://organize4thebetter.blogspot.co.uk/

http://beingconfidentwithyourself.blogspot.co.uk/

I also have two websites one for my Avon and the other is sharing my passion in Sports and Fitness.

http://www.exclusive4himandher.co.uk

http://www.sportsandfitnessaction.com/default.html

Many thanks for your time.

Regards,

Carrie Challoner