Thursday 22 December 2011

Have yourself a Merry Blackberry Christmas! New range of BlackBerry smartphones are looking all white!

BlackBerry is pleased to announce the arrival of two of their latest devices in classic white. The new BlackBerry Bold™ 9900 and BlackBerry Curve™ 9360 are now available. And make fantastic Christmas gifts!

With last years’ white collection a hit with a range of celebrities, including Dannii Minogue, Dita Von Teese and Lily Allen, The new range are a stylish must-have for 2011/2012.

Both smartphones run the powerful new BlackBerry 7 operating system and offer stylish designs ensuring BlackBerry provide a device to suit every need. BlackBerry 7 boasts several exciting features including a next generation BlackBerry browser, enabling a flawless web browsing experience, the latest version of BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™), which now extends the real-time BBM experience to a range of other apps as well as a stunning high resolution display.

Device range in White:

BlackBerry Bold 9900

An evolution of the BlackBerry Bold series, already popular with celebrities such as Fearne Cotton and Alexa Chung, the sleek new 9900 handset is the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone ever, offering the perfect combination of a high-performance keyboard and touch display integrated within the iconic BlackBerry Bold design.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 in white will be available from Vodafone and Phones 4u from free with price dependent on carrier. The BlackBerry Bold 9900 is also available in black.

BlackBerry Curve 9360

Sleek and lightweight, the new BlackBerry Curve 9360 is an affordable, easy-to-use, full-featured and socially-connected smartphone. Designed with an iconic QWERTY keyboard, the evolution of this classic BlackBerry includes a 5MP camera with flash and video recording so that memories can be captured and shared instantly on social networks.

The Curve 9360 in white will be available from Phones 4u, Orange and T-Mobile from free, price dependent on carrier. The BlackBerry Curve 9360 is also available in black.

Lakeland for Christmas

For some fantastic kitchenware, just get to your nearest branch of Lakeland.

There you will find all that you need to help you ensure that you and your family and friends will have the perfect Christmas and New Year period.

Baking accessories, pie dishes, cake moulds, speciality devices, all those and much more, besides!

There are giant jellybaby moulds! spice jars, children's garden tool kits, herb gift sets, and much, much more besides!

To find your nearest branch visit www.lakeland.co.uk.

‘Jingle’ all the way with my Travel Cash

Britons who travel abroad or visit overseas websites for their Christmas shopping needs could pocket an accumulative £8.6m as my Travel Cash- the prepaid MasterCard® currency card – gives its customers the gift of cashback.

my Travel Cash recently added a fantastic reward for all customers - 1% unlimited cashback on everything purchased, paid directly to the prepaid card account the following month after it has been used.

Research from Santander shows that the average Briton will spend £359 on Christmas presents, with 4.2 million spending 23% of their budget abroad and a further 4.2 million spending 35% of their Christmas budget on overseas websites – collectively amounting to £8.6m in cashback rewards should they all use a my Travel Cash currency card.

As purchases made in cards’ currency are also free, shopaholics can feel confident when playing Santa for their loved ones this Christmas. The cashback earned is only limited by how much the cardholder spends – no hidden tricks or complicated rules just great value, commission-free rewards, back on the card in time for mid-term break in the sun.

Myles Stephenson, CEO my Travel Cash, comments: “More and more people are heading abroad to European Christmas markets or further afield to New York or L.A. There is also a large percentage of the population who purchase from overseas websites.

“For both types of customers, my Travel Cash not only offers a competitive exchange rate but we go that bit further to ensure our customers are rewarded. We introduced the 1% cashback this summer and it is now a permanent feature on our cards. Additionally, we have also scrapped ATM withdrawal fees on all three of our cards[iv], and to top it off, our customers aren’t charged any commission either.”

my Travel Cash (www.mytravelcash.com) offers three prepaid MasterCard cards in Multi-Currency (Sterling), Euros and US Dollars. The cards work like a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, you load them with money before you travel and top them up when needed, meaning you only spend what you load – great if you need to stick to a budget when abroad.

The Express Delivery option means you can get yours in time for your trip, unlike other prepaid currency card providers that can take between 5-10 working days. Order your prepaid card and take advantage of the competitive exchange rates at www.mytravelcash.com. Then, simply take it with you when you go.

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Quality Street made for the chocolate lover's Christmas

"A tin of Quality Street, please!" those are the words that are being uttered -with a smile of utter anticipation up and down the length and breadth of the entire United Kingdom as we move, ever quicker, to Christmas Day.

It seems that everyone loves a tin of quality Street. They are ideal for sharing. Fondant centres, toffee,  solid toffees, fudge centred, yes, all your old favourites are still there, still in the same good quality tin as they always have been.

The name, Quality Street, and the illustration on the tin bring back many happy memories of a tin of Quality Street being passed back and forth in front of a roaring coal fire on Chirstmas night, with mother offering a note of caution: "Careful! You'll melt all the chocolates together if you get it any closer to the fire!"

Quality Street. Thankfully, some things do not change.

Wrong pong? Wrong size? Wrong colour? Recycle unwanted Christmas presents with Mencap!

Did Father Christmas bring you everything you wanted this year? Many of us are left with the usual unwanted soap sets, spare or unsuitable home gadgets and ill fitting clothes.

This year learning disability charity Mencap has come up with the perfect solution for those unwanted gifts. As part of their Make With Me initiative Mencap is calling on people to sell their unwanted items to raise vital funds for people with a learning disability.

Make With Me in aid of Mencap is a fun filled, homemade initiative that encourages people to get creative and start making & baking to raise much needed funds to support people with a learning disability, their families and carers.

This Christmas Make With Me is inviting people to organise fun gift swapping parties, where unwanted presents can be swapped in exchange for a donation to Mencap. Meaning not only can you end up with a present you like you’ll also be raising money for a great cause.

If however you’re one of the lucky ones and got everything you wanted this Christmas then why not embrace the spirit of make, do and mend and commit to learning a new skill as your New Year’s resolution. Start knitting, cross stitching or take up sugar or paper craft. All makers, beginners and veterans alike, swear by the sense of achievement that comes from making your own unique gifts for a loved one and items for the home or to wear. You can also get social and have fun by organising a Make With Me party.

Whatever you do, help Mencap raise their £25,000 target.

For full information on how to recycle your presents, recipes and tips and how to make a donation visit www.makewithme.org.uk

To stay up to date with all the Make With Me news, stop by and say hello on Twitter (@makewithme) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/makewithme). Got a crafty idea? Anyone can donate ideas to Make With Me via the website’s your projects section, just head to www.makewithme.org.uk.

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Looking for stocking fillers? Then get Christmas crafts at Poundland!

The kids have finished school and are enjoying their time off, and it’s easy for parents to feel panicked about how to keep them entertained during the Christmas holidays.

"Poundland has come up with some festive and affordable craft ideas that can keep the kids occupied for hours. We’ve turned some of these ideas into a generic article about Christmas crafts, which we felt your readers may enjoy," explained a spokeswoman.

What springs to mind when you think of childrens’ Christmas crafts? Hair full of glue and glitter, a carpet covered in sequins and snowflake paper cuttings to clear up at the end? Yes, thought as much.

It all looks ever so easy on Blue Peter, with the famous ‘one I made earlier.’ But in reality, we don’t all have the time, patience or artistic ability to pull off a full size rocket made from toilet rolls and PVC glue... especially when there's also a Christmas dinner to cook and presents to wrap! While we all like the idea of being the perfect parent who embraces creative activities and then sweeps up the mess in one fell swoop, we all know this is difficult to achieve when we’re busy and stressed and there's a host of relatives knocking on the door.

It’s great to get children thinking creatively and expressing themselves through arts and crafts and – if you know where to look – it can be a pleasure, not a pain. Much precious time can be spent with the kids over the Christmas holidays making cards together, wrapping presents, creating your own crackers or even making decorations to put up around the home.

The warmth of the oven is also an inspiring place to start with crafts at Christmas. Baking a delicious Christmas cake needn’t cost a fortune, and the whole family will enjoy decorating it with snow white icing and fun accessories. If Christmas cake isn’t to your taste, what about crispy gingerbread men or cute Christmas cupcakes? Edible glitter is easily available and food dye makes for colourful and tasty treats! Best of all, ideas like these needn’t cost a fortune.

There are plenty of websites with handy tips on what to make and where to begin. Activityvillage.co.uk is a great website with plenty of ‘how to’ guides for kids’ crafts that are straightforward and something they will actually be able to achieve. Plus there are ideas to suit different age groups and budgets. Mummy bloggers often test a whole variety of products with their kids so it’s also worth checking out a few reviews and seeing what they have to say.

Most importantly, you don’t want this to cost a fortune as Christmas is expensive enough as it is! It’s great to recycle things from around the home (yes, toilet rolls included!) and as well as being a green way to craft, it keeps the cost down. Old shoe boxes can be decorated to make beautiful memory boxes, old sheets and garments are ideal for at home Nativity plays and flattened cereal boxes can be re-crafted to make bespoke Christmas cards from the kids.

Best of all, hobby and craft products are readily available on the high street so you don’t need to battle the Christmas shopping madness to find niche art stores for your supplies. Make sure you find a store that sells a range of arty products that are inexpensive. You can let the kids choose the items that catch their eye so they can get excited about using them and you don’t have to worry about the cost mounting up.

And who knows, with enough encouragement and a bit of assistance, you might have a little Michelangelo in the making!

Great sources for children’s craft ideas:

http://www.allfreecrafts.com/
www.crafts.kaboose.com/holidays/christmas/christmas-crafts.html