Gamer Gift – ReTrak Utopia 360° Elite Edition VR Headset

Gift Guide / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

We were sent the ultimate gamer gift! A ReTrak Utopia 360° Elite edition VR Headset, the perfect Christmas gift for any gamer! All of us enjoy playing games and discovering apps on our phones & tablets here so we couldn’t wait to try out a Virtual Reality headset for the first time. The ReTrak Utopia 360° Elite Edition VR Headset is available at Selfridges, Dixons Travel and WHSmith Travel.

ReTrak Utopia 360° Elite Edition VR Headset

Gamer Gift Specs

The new Utopia 360° Elite Edition VR headset combines state-of-the-art optics with immersive audio for the ultimate sensory experience. Perfect for gamers! The headset includes a Bluetooth gaming controller and removable HD stereo headphones with built-in mic and volume controls. This fab gamer gift also has HD optical resin lenses, a built-in capacitive touch button and removable face plate for compatibility with AR apps too. The Headset has optimised field of view with custom focal adjustments and an ergonomic halo band with a ventilated, form fit cushion. There are plenty of VR games available to download from the Play Store & the Apple store.

Gamer Gift - ReTrak Utopia 360° Elite Edition VR Headset

Setting Up The Headset

The VR headset itself is simple enough to set up. You load the VR game on your device, pop it in the front of the headset which is adjustable to fit different sized phones. You then pull out the knob on the back of the headset to adjust the size and push it back in once you have the correct size. If your device doesn’t automatically pick up the VR Headset there is a button on the bottom of the headset to connect.

Game Play

We decided to try out a Solar system VR game & a Safari Tour to try out. With the headset all set up we all took turns looking around space and driving through a safari park. The ReTrak Utopia 360 Elite Edition VR Headset is fantastic fun, being able to look in any direction you choose to discover planets or animals was great. The girls really enjoyed this gamer gift & so did I! ReTrak do advise you take a break every 30 minutes when using a Virtual Reality headset.

Gamer Gift

Overall Thoughts – The Perfect Gamer Gift!

The quality of this VR headset is great and it is definitely the ultimate gamer gift in our eyes! We love how quick and easy it is to set the headset up. The headset is comfortable to wear and simple enough to adjust to a comfortable fit. There are so many games available it is hard to choose but we will no doubt be playing plenty more! We love the ReTrak Utopia 360° Elite edition VR Headset

Do you know someone who would love this gamer gift?

Burnished Chaos

Peppa Pig’s Adventure! Live At The Orchard Theatre

Days Out and Events / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Izzy and I went to see Peppa Pig’s Adventure! Live at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford. Izzy loves Peppa & George and was thrilled to be told she would be seeing Peppa live. Tickets Prices vary, Pre-show dining can also be booked in advance.

Peppa Pig's Adventure

As we arrived at the Orchard Theatre Izzy saw the poster for Peppa Pig’s Adventure and got even more excited! We headed inside to collect our tickets and free Peppa Pig Stickers and a display of Peppa Pig goodies caught her eye. We came away with a George light up windmill (£8.50) and the Peppa Pig’s Adventure! Souvenir Brochure (£5).

 

We’re at @theorchardtheatre ready to watch #peppapiglive and Izzy is so excited!

A post shared by Ember (@relentlesslypurple) on

Once we had collected our tickets & got our goodies we decided to go get a picture of Izzy by the sign so she could send it to her daddy and sister. Of course they had to be shared on IG too! We picked up some popcorn & drinks for the show and headed off to find our seat.

 

When Peppa Pig’s Adventure started Izzy was over the moon to see her favourite characters on stage. She spent most of the time giggling away at Peppa and her friends. She liked Peppa’s new friend Daisy and their funny game of hide and seek.

Peppa Pig's adventure Live

The show was an hour & 15 minutes with a break in between. Izzy got a little distracted with her George windmill at points throughout the show but she still joined in singing a few times. She loved the puddle jumping song, especially getting soaked when Peppa & her friends jumped in muddy puddles! Overall Izzy loved the show and I would definitely take her to shows like this in the future.

Any Peppa Pig fans are bound to love Peppa Pig’s Adventure Live with it’s singing, dancing, joking and familiar characters and a new friend too!

Do you think your little one would love Peppa Pig’s Adventure Live at the Orchard Theatre?

 

Burnished Chaos

 

Printable Activities – Fun For Kids

Crafts / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Printable activities are great fun for kids, we’ve been printing lots for the girls since our new printer arrived this week. It can be a struggle to keep kids busy indoors without screens as the weather turns miserable. I’ve been looking at printable activities we can do to keep them amused. There is so many printable activities out there for children of all ages.

Printable Activities – Masks

Our favourite finds this week are Izzy’s Skye (Paw Patrol) Mask we printed out. We found this fantastic Skye mask on the Nickelodeon site. We printed the mask & stuck it on card before we cut it out, stuck the pieces together and added string. It literally took 5 minutes so it was lovely and quick to make and Izzy was over the moon!

Nickelodeon Skye Mask - Paw Patrol

Izzy couldn’t wait to wear her mask and wondered around the flat wearing it for the rest of the day. She was excited to show Eva our make when she came home from school too!

Printable activities for kids - Sky Mask

 

We also came across lots of fantastic free printable activities from the ichild site. They have a fantastic Holly Mask Izzy has been colouring, we still need to cut it out but Izzy refused to cut it until she was completely finished.

Holly Mask - iChild printables

Handwriting Sheets

We’ve used the ichild site quite a few times this week looking for different printable activities. Handwriting sheets are another activity we have been printing. Izzy has been practising letters at home for the last few months and she loves a handwriting sheet so she can show off her pencil control. We love the pirate one’s!

ichild Pirate handwriting sheets

Colouring Sheets

ichild also has some fantastic colouring sheets. Keeping with our pirate theme this week we found this fantastic Skull Flag to printout & colour.

ichild skull pirate flag printout

Printable activities have kept the girls busy this week, especially Izzy and we’ve had lots of fun. We love these great printouts and will be hunting for more!

What site do you use for printable activities?

Adult Halloween Party Dècor Ideas

Halloween / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

I’ve been looking at adult Halloween party décor ideas this week since it isn’t too far away. I’ve always enjoyed Halloween and so has my brother so I’ve been looking at fun Halloween party ideas.

Happy Halloween

Adult Halloween Party

I came across a lot of children’s crafts which are great but I wanted something more grown up. I found some great ideas on this festive lights blog post. They have some great décor ideas amongst others in their free downloadable PDF pack. I decided to try some out to see how easy they were.

festive lights halloween party pack

Pumpkin Carving Challenge

One of the games in the downloadable party pack was a pumpkin carving challenge, complete with templates to print out. I printed a template sheet out and have a go so I was prepared for the challenge.

Adult Halloween Party Ideas

I decided to try carving a few bats using the template pictured above. The game of thrones template looked awesome but slightly too difficult for me haha! For a beginner pumpkin carver I was quite impressed with the end result to be honest. I’d totally win the challenge!

Adult halloween party ideas

Ok maybe not quite. Using the templates definitely looks a lot better than the last mushed up orange mess I produced though! Do you have a much better pumpkin photo to put mine to shame? The bat design is much better than the usual faces I’d attempt too. I think I may try spraying a pumpkin purple first next time, what do you think? 

Decor ideas

Spooky Candles

Next I made the spooky candles! It only took me a few minutes to draw all the spooky faces on the candles. They turned out better than I had expected and I had some fun taking pictures of them. It love that these ideas are quick, simple & cheap décor crafts too. Even with my unsteady left-handedness I managed 2 simple décor ideas.. yay!

Spooky Candles

The PDF also had some fantastic costume ideas including a guide to paint our face like IT! Maybe I’ll have to borrow Eva’s Snazaroo face paints this week and try out a few different looks.

Are these adult Halloween party ideas & pack something you’d enjoy? Do you have any ideas I could use?

Crafty October on The Purple Pumpkin Blog

Healthy Fruit Juices From Appy Kids Co

Children's Food & Drinks / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

We received a selection of healthy fruit juices from Appy Kids Co this week. Appy Kids Co offer a selection of deliciously healthy fruit juices for children. They have a range of licensed characters on all their juices, Dora, Minions, Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol & more!
Appy Kids Co Paw Patrol Juices

We received Paw Patrol & Ninja Turtle juices to try out which are fortified with vitamins A,C & E. I try to make sure the girls drink healthy fruit juices like these regularly across the week and love the Appy Kids Co juices. These delicious juices are great for drinking anywhere, at home, school or the park.

Healthy Fruit Juices

Healthy Fruit Juices

 

Appy Kids Co is on a mission to be the number 1 healthier choice for families. They want to empower families to make healthier choices. Created using ethically sourced premium ingredients ensures the fruit juices are affordable. Appy Kids Co have developed these healthy fruit juices over years to create formulations and delicious flavours with lower sugar and calories. Appy Kids co wanted to achieve lower sugar and calories compromising on taste or quality.

 

The girls loved these healthy fruit juices. Eva’s favourite was the Ninja Turtles Multifruit Juice Drinks & Izzy just loved them all! We tried Peppa Pig juices in the summer which we shared on IG (above). The girls really do enjoy drinking them & having their favourite characters on is always a bonus to them. Making sure the girls are hydrated in a healthy way is a bonus to me!

Have your children tried the Appy kids co healthy fruit juices before?

 

 

My Top 5 Comfort Foods

Food / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple
My Top 5 Comfort Foods

Here’s my top 5 comfort foods that I love when I’m feeling a little bit meh. We all find comfort in food at times and I’m no different! Whilst I do struggle with my appetite there are also those times when I just need to stuff my face with something delicious.

My Top 5 Comfort Foods

  1. Chinese – Ordering Chinese just solves everything. Chicken chow mein, egg fried rice, crispy beef, deep fried crispy chicken in lemon sauce, chips & BBQ sauce just makes me feel better. Even if I don’t feel like eating I will finish at least half my plate. I tend to save some chow mein for the next morning too. Ultimate comfort food.Chinese Takeaway - Ultimate comfort food
  2. BBQ Chicken Pizza & Nacho Cheese Wedges – We tend to eat at the table for dinner but this is one of the few meal we sit on the sofa with. Sitting snuggled up munching away on pizza & wedges watching a DVD with the Mr always makes me feel better.
    cheese, close -up, crust 
  3. Cheese & Ham Toasty – There is something comforting about this quick and simple snack. It’s perfect any time of the day and is just delicious.
    Cheese & Ham Toasty
  4. Swedish Meatballs in Gravy & Chips – The Mr recently made this after I refused to try Ikea meatballs for years. I admit I was wrong & they are absolutely delicious! I could now happily eat this most nights.Swedish Meatballs In Gravy
  5. Chicken & Vegetable Soup With Fresh Bread – The Mr makes the best Chicken & vegetable soup in the slow cooker, we add in any veg with lentils & pearl barley to thicken it. A pot feeds all 4 of us for 2 days and is so warming & filling especially with fresh bread smothered in real butter.top 5 comfort foods - chicken & vegetable soup

With the colder months approaching I’m looking forward to comfort foods like this. I can’t pick a favourite out of these 5 as I do enjoy them all no matter how meh I feel!

Do you have a list of top 5 comfort foods too?

My Sunday Photo – Stained Glass 

My Sunday Photos / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

We spotted this gorgeous piece of stained glass in the Thurrock Museum yesterday. We popped by after dropping our books off at the library to see if there were new exhibits. The girls loved the pieces of stained glass on display & this piece is our absolute favourite!

Stained Glass

The girls were so excited and dragged me around so quickly I didn’t get a chance to read about this piece but I think it’s beautiful. You can see so many details in the glass itself even after all these years. It would be interesting to know who made this, when & why. I think I may go back in the week alone to check it out & have a read.

What do you think of this stained glass?

Photalife

Christmas Gifts For 3 Year Olds Under £40

christmas / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

It’s tricky finding Christmas gifts for 3 year olds, there is just so much out there these days. What do you buy!? I’ve put together a list of perfect gifts for 3 year olds this Christmas. I try to cover a little bit of everything when gift buying and I’ve found some fantastic gifts for 3 year olds! I’ve found a toy, a book, Santa letter, costume & colouring book all under £40.

Christmas Gifts For 3 Year Olds

A Toy

My First Scalextric £39.99 is a great gift aimed at children 3+ that everyone can join in with. It’s a great way to get the whole family playing together in a friendly race. This is a great gift to introduce children into the world of Scalextric racing.

scalextric

My first Scalextrics promotes Hand/Eye Coordination, Manual Dexterity, Risk-reward thinking, Face to face interaction, Three dimensional & Motor skill development.

christmas gifts for 3 year olds

Assembling the figure of 8 design is simple and comes apart easily for storing too. The set also comes with two rally cars and adjustable power hand-controllers. The cars & controllers are colour coded in red and yellow to match the chevrons on the circuit. Scalextrics Magnatraction technology helps to keep the cars on the track. My first scalextrics

The My First Scalextric is fully compatible with our Micro Scalextric range of sets and cars, allowing you to extend your track and add new cars too. A gift that can be added on to is always a bonus for us! Find out more here.

A Book

Next on the list of Christmas gifts for 3 year olds is fantastic personalised book from Dr Niamh . Find your Name in the Alphabet Train is available for £16.99 in soft back or hard back. I reviewed this book in full recently and I have to say it is definitely an ideal gift for Christmas.

Personalised Alphabet Book

Personalised books make lovely Christmas gifts for 3 year olds. Children benefit greatly from being read to and reading, personalised children’s books are read on average 9 times more than traditional books. Books like this encourage early learning and a passion for books.

Izzy

The Find my name in the alphabet train book is available in soft or hardback. The story can be personalised with your child’s name, gender, skin & hair colour. The personalisation includes a personalised message printed on the last page, making this alphabet book extra special. I love that you can personalise the book, Izzy’s personalisation turned out great.

A Santa Letter

Lapland Mailroom have a fantastic Santa letter & Activity pack with free nice child certificate for £8.95. Nothing beats the magic of a letter arriving addressed to your little one from the big guy himself and Lapland Mailroom make it quick and easy to order one.

Giveaway

I’m running a giveaway in my Lapland Mailroom Santa Letter giveaway too so head HERE to find out more about Lapland Mailroom and enter for a chance to win one for free!

A Costume

All 3 year olds love to dress up & Pretend To Bee Have an amazing range of costumes. Costumes make perfect Christmas gifts for 3 year olds, helping them explore their imagination. Pretend to Bee’s Garnet Fairy Dress for £25 posted makes a gorgeous Christmas fairy outfit too and can be teamed up with a Santa hat. Izzy still prefers the headband though!

Garnet Fairy Dress From Pretend To Bee

 

Pretend To Bee also have this fantastic Deluxe Elf costume ! A boutique-quality novelty children’s Elf Costume, hand made with the best Fabrics and Trim. The costume includes a jacket, belt, trousers with boot covers and Hat for £19.95

Pretend to Bee - Elf costume

A Colouring Book

I think it’s always nice to add in a lovely colouring book at Christmas. When everything calms down it’s nice to just sit and colour. We found these fantastic Princess & Fairies Dress Up Masks book in Aldi for just £1.99! A bargain & so pretty!

Dress-Ups Masks

What do you think of my Christmas gift guide for 3 year olds? Which products to you like best?

 

 

Burnished Chaos

Personalised Mugs From Brinley Williams

Personalised Gifts / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

I ordered 3 personalised mugs from Brinley Williams this week and I am in love with them! Brinley Williams offer a range of fantastic personalised products including over 180 personalised mugs. Personalised products like this are a great way to show off your personality at home or in the office. The personalised mugs make great gifts too at £9.95 fitting most budgets.

Brinley Williams Personalised Mugs

Ordering Personalised Mugs

The personalisation options vary depending on the design chosen & include colourful designs, font colours, fonts, text & more. I had a good look through the personalised mugs on the Brinley Williams site before I decided which mugs to order.

Brinley Williams site is quick and easy to navigate and personalisation takes no time at all. I made my order and then received an email to double check one of the personalised mugs had intentionally been left without personalisation. Once I had confirmed the order was correct, because the Mr is a grumpy git (haha!) my order was processed.

My Personalised Mugs

The personalised mugs arrived 3 days after I ordered them, well packaged & in PURPLE packaging. Obviously that made me even happier! I am so happy with how all 3 mugs turned out.

 

Obviously the ‘Relentlessly Purple’ Mug is for myself. I can’t review mugs without a cup of tea first! I was over the moon to discover I could use different fonts and could make mine much more like my blog logo. Perfect for IG photo’s. I couldn’t wait to have a cup of tea and of course pose with my Relentlessly Purple mug, even if I do look rough at 7am!

The Red Campervan mug without personalisation is of course for the fussy Mr. He loves the design & the fact he didn’t have to have his name on it! He isn’t keen on personalised gifts & it is beyond awkward trying to find anything he likes at all. The Mr seems really pleased with his mug though and has already used it too!

personalised campervan mug

This colourful cat mug is for my Brother with his & his cats name on. I’m sure Alex will love his mug and I am so excited to give it to him. I am hiding this one away until Christmas for him though.

Personalised cat mug

Ordering personalised mugs from Brinley Williams is such a quick and great service. I’ve added their sirte to my bookmarks for future gifts buying.

Personalised Calendar From Potato Print

christmas / 9 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

I received a personalised calendar from Potato Print who offer a fantastic range of calendars. Potato Print offer a whole range of personalised gifts but I especially love the calendars. Each year for Christmas I get the girls a calendar for their room which they love. Buying their favourite characters isn’t that exciting but they will LOVE discovering pictures of themselves each month. I also think personalised gifts mean much more.

Ordering

The ordering process is so simple. Potato Print offer desk calendars, wall calendars and calendars for parents at £14 each. Postage is £6 no matter how many items you order which I think is great. Each calendar has several options for you to choose from. I selected a wall calendar as the girls already have a hook to hang their calendars.

There are 3 options for wall calendars, adventure, art gallery and geometric. I went for geometric as I love the way it’s laid out. We’ve never had a personalised calendar before so I was quite excited to fill the calendar with all my favourite photo’s.

Personalised calendar Geometric wall calendar - A3Personalising

Once I selected the A3 geometric personalised calendar I was taken to the product editor where I could upload the photo’s I wanted to use and position them how I wanted too. I managed to fit in a few themed ones like the girls birthday months, Halloween and Christmas. Once I had filled up the calendar and was happy with it I ordered the calendar which arrived less than a week later!

Our Personalised Calendar

Our Personalised Calendar

Our personalised calendar arrived well packaged in bubble wrap and cardboard and arrived signed for. I couldn’t wait to open it up and take a look at the end result. I am really pleased with how the calendar has turned out and can’t wait to give it to the girls as a joint present for their bedroom!

What do you think of our personalised calendar from Potato Print?