review – Page 2 – sea.ess.em.jay

From underneath the artwork, a review and a competition!

I will confess – I am one of those parents who cannot cope with throwing a piece of lovingly crafted artwork away. As a result, I have a cupboard, filled with a variety of craft projects, paintings and an assortment of pieces I can’t find the other bits for.

Basically, I need a really good filing system.

Coupled with that, I’ve just received our stationery list for next year at school. I visibly gulped at the total amount and am currently wondering if I can auction off some advertising space on my forehead to pay for it all.

This morning, the doorbell rang and a beautiful little package arrived from Butterfly Products. A well-established stationery company, Butterfly Products are a licensed distributor of many leading brands in South Africa. I took a little look at their website and have firmly decided that I want everything, in every colour, and I know my kid will agree!

But what’s excited me most is the Butterfly Products range of Pocket Files! I think they may solve my little filing dilemma.

Available in a range of sizes, these durable pieces of filing brilliance are about to transform my poor “Art Cupboard” into a dream display of my kid’s best and most beautiful pieces of art!

But Butterfly Products doesn’t just produce these sanity-savers! They also distribute Activity Books, pencil cases, luggage and an exciting variety of other products that I am very excited to find out more about! Take a look at their website here.

And here comes the cool part! They’ve given me a set of Pocket Files just like the one you see above to give away! For all you stationery fetishists out there, and moms who need some help with filing *all* that art – I’m sure you’d love to win this!

It’s pretty simple to enter – all you have to do is pop over to the Butterfly Products Facebook page, hit “like” and tell them I sent you!

This competition is open to all of South Africa, and will close on 29 October 2013. Winners will be chosen on 30 October 2013.

This competition is now closed.

I went through the entries listed on the Butterfly Products Facebook page, gave each of them a number and let Random.org‘s Random Number Generator do the rest.

Congratulations Rosalie Vlassides! You won! – I’ll be in touch to arrange delivery of your hamper from Butterfly Products today.

To keep up to date on their product range, you can also follow them on Twitter or take a peek at their full range of products on their website here.

A review from the massage table.

For a change, some news from on top of the table. A little review of one of Durban’s loveliest spas!

There are two things you should know about me before you read this:

1) I don’t review things easily. In fact, I’ve turned quite a few things down because they did not fit into my life easily, or immediately attract my attention.

2) I don’t like people touching me if I don’t know them. If I know you, I will hug you so tightly your head might pop off. But if I do not know you, I will probably be ‘rather averse’ to you touching me.

So, keeping point number 2, in particular, at the forefront of your mind, you can now read this.

The lovely Boni Xaba approached me via the WBFL megaman Sandy Nene, to take a look and experience Nealj Day Spa. The Spa is located at 149 Florida Road, Morningside, in a quiet corner of the block.

Nealj opened two years ago, and is owned by the brilliant Nonto Khoza. There is nobody called Neal at the spa, as the establishment’s name is constructed from names within Nonto’s family – a fittingly smart tribute to her commitment to not only her business, but her family too.

Upon arrival, I was greeted by the vivacious Nadia and we spoke for ages about our lives, my appalling skincare routines and why I should never, ever go in the sun. For the most part – I have very fair skin, that’s more sensitive than an emo fanatic on the day My Chemical Romance breaks up.

Nadia took me through to the treatment room and treated me to a full face-mapping session. I learnt a lot about my own face – which is pretty strange, considering I use it every day. By the way folks, most of all the skincrimes you commit over time, can be saved…I used to believe that I’d just be stuck covering up the imperfections and scarring forever, but it appears that some of these are not going to be with me for eternity, if I take good care of my face. That gave my frown lines and I hope!

Using Dermologica methods and products, Nadia treated me to a 45-minute, fully customized facial that worked to improve my skin’s condition and give me a far smoother face. A day later, as I type this, I still can’t believe this is how my face feels. It’s almost 9am and I haven’t got that weird, oily feeling I usually have.

Thereafter, I met with Nonto and was blown away by her passion and extensive expertise. Within minutes, she knew I was a computer-bound worker, and had me laughing at my own bad habits (I don’t stretch enough and I REALLY need to!)

20131010_093754 — by the way, this is what I look like with no makeup on, lying on a massage bed.

After an incredible 45-minute back, neck and shoulder massage, I lay there swimming in complete bliss.

As I said before, it’s not common for me to comfortable with people I don’t know but the team at Nealj put me so at ease that I may have napped a little during my massage.

If you’d like to find out more about this great Spa, visit their website http://www.nealjskincare.co.za/ or download their app here:

iTunes and Android.

You can also follow them on Twitter or like them on Facebook.

My serious, big and huggy thanks to Nonto and Nadia at Nealj for making me feel pretty again!

Moccis are Marvellous!

It takes a lot to impress us…this is a fact. I have somehow ended up with a scrupulous shopper, who – very quickly decides what does and does not work for her. And me. I’m not allowed to shop without her because, “mom, you can make some terrible choices”. Haha.

Shoes, in particular, have always been a focus point, and my kid has always been a bit mad for shoes. It can make life difficult at times but we get through – usually with a lot of compromise! Shoes also have a bad habit of falling apart easily in our house…

And then, along came Moccis.

Moccis are handsewn, machine washable, little shoes of awesome. We chose penguins for this pair as they “will go well with jeans, mom!” 🙂

Not only are they comfortable, warm and perfect for running around the house, but their non-slip bottoms help on our tiled floors!

About those tiled floors…they get dirty really easily, and my best mate will also tell you – I LOATHE dirty shoes. And floors. Dirty anything, really. But Moccis make that problem go away. And, because they’re machine washable, I don’t have to worry about a thing when it comes to dirty shoes now!

As for kid…she says:

“Mom, I think I need a pair of every type…I can wear this everywhere! They are my precious shoes”

Take a look at the great range of Moccis on Queck Baby and order away! The team at Queck Baby are efficient, sweet and full of helpful information! Take a look at the rest of the products they also have an offer – you won’t regret it!

p.s. Just so you know, Moccis are available in all sizes – from babies to adults! Yes, the cuteness can be on your feet too!

(This is a review post. Like I’ve said before, I’ll happily review products we love, and we love Moccis!)

Real Steel – a peek into Nokia’s not-too-distant future?

(and then sometimes, the boyfriend blogs for me…)

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the premier of the upcoming film “Real Steel”, and to be honest, the film exceeded my expectations. I found it to be a perfect mix of visually astounding yet believable CGI, action, and drama. Set in the year 2020, where human-controlled robot boxing is a popular sport, an ex-boxer (played by Hugh Jackman) stumbles across a discarded robot with his estranged 11-year old son and soon realizes he may have found a champion.

An interesting fact is that Nokia makes a cameo appearance in the form of Hugh’s mobile phone, which can be seen in the movie trailer (at 00:16), here.

It’s one of those ‘if-you-blink-you’ll-miss-it’ moments, but look carefully and you’ll clearly see Hugh’s futuristic handset which seems to share features of a few of Nokia’s current phones (the E7, the N8 or possibly the N9).

It’s a beautiful, slick looking phone, sporting a large touch-screen, protected by a glowing translucent body. The software (judging by the battery & signal icons) seems to be a version of the open-source MeeGo operating system, which is interesting because it has been speculated that Nokia would most likely abandon MeeGo once the current N9 had been succeeded. Trying to tell us something, Nokia?

I personally hope that this is a genuine taste of things to come. Other cellular phone manufactures could take a few tips from Nokia’s ground-breaking design.

The future is looking good!

For more info on Real Steel, see here and here!