A review

This is an excuse for me to put up some pictures of my gorgeous baby girl! But not many because she doesn't seem to be very photogenic at the moment. Mostly her expression when looking at the camera denotes a combination of mild shock, suspicion and disdain.

See what I mean? To be fair she's sat next to the engine of a rather noisy paddle-steamer. But still.

So a while back I mentioned that we won a giveaway hosted by FutureMama for some stunning hair clips made by GeorgiaBlue. It was pretty hard to choose, but in the end we went for some colours Nutmeg has in her wardrobe (pink and turquoise) and some others we just thought looked nice. They arrived at the end of July - and they are sooo pretty! I was excited about them already before they got here but when we saw them we were all thrilled. Even The Engineer thinks they're wonderful - and let me tell you, he is picky.

Here they are threaded onto a pen because the bows arrived looking a little flat. I don't normally take pictures of the wrapping a parcel has arrived in, but I was really taken with the presentation of these. They came folded up in brown paper sealed with the cute GeorgiaBlue sticker and arranged on several lovely little cards, which we're now using to keep them all in one place.
OK they were inside a jiffy bag too. But that was as un-photogenic as my daughter.
I know, I should have picked a different colour pen for the photo, it was just what was to hand.

Here's Nutmeg on the swings near our home, with me. Looking suspicious and frowny, as usual. I'm told she gets it from her mother... My hair isn't that colour any more - that's the natural look, which I intend to go back to at some point. For the wedding I had it dyed dark brown with two blue streaks.

As we've been away visiting family, Nutmeg has been wearing her new bows quite a lot. Here she is at the wedding, eating her first ever rusk.

I think my favourites are the ribbed polka dot ones, both green and black-and-white. The silky fabric ones are cute but there's something about the texture of the dotted ones that I just love.

Look a smile!

Two things I particularly like about these clips:

Firstly, as Nutmeg has such fine hair and relatively little of it, it's been hard to find anything small enough to stay put, but these don't slide by themselves. She has to knock them to get them to move, and even then they don't actually fall out.

And secondly, these are clothes-peg type clips, whereas all the ones we've found for her over here have been the sort that you bend back and then snap shut. Which, on the top of a small baby's head - you know, where that soft spot is - is not brilliant. So these are absolutely what I was looking for.

I'd like to be able to balance that by giving you some things that I don't like about them...but (un)fortunately there isn't anything! My only quibble is that there aren't enough bright blue or turquoise ones on offer.

If you like the look of them, you know where to find them.

Ooooh!

I was excited this morning to see that Future Mama had put up the results of the one of her giveaways that I had actually entered. Didn't think I'd win because hey, the lady has 400 followers! But of course I checked anyway and oh my goodness YES I WON. Froglet and Nutmeg were slightly puzzled at the outburst of laughing excitedness that ensued.

My prize (there were several winners) is a gift voucher to this lovely Etsy shop by GeorgiaBlue, who sells beautiful hair clips for girls (well obviously for girls. How many boys wear hair clips? Clearly the excitement has impaired my ability to speak sensible English). And I am particularly thrilled about this because with a bit of luck Nutmeg will be able to wear a couple to Zia's wedding, which is in just a few weeks. She doesn't have very long hair yet and I've not had much luck finding pretty clips for her here. So yay!

Now, the prizegiving over at Future Mama's blog isn't quite over - there's still one set open until midnight tonight, again with several possible winners, so hurry over there and check it out. And even if you aren't one for giveaways, check her out. She writes much better than me!

Giveaways are so exciting aren't they? (There's that word again. Someone give me a synonym!) And now I'm looking for ideas for one of my own, so tell me: what would you like to win - or what have you won in the past?