Change in your pocket

As previously mentioned we are expecting a baby at the end of the summer and in preparation for this we are clearing out our little "junk" room to convert to a nursery. This involves throwing out a lot of stuff we no longer need or find important (hoarding comic books is hardly a priority when compared to housing your first born!) and selling on a lot of the useful stuff to get a little extra cash whilst making room for baby.

Now I was intending to ebay a lot of this buuuuut as I now have a job for a few months I have decided to save time instead we will spend a whole day slogging at a car boot :) I am hoping we can get a few hundred quid for our collection, which will pay for decorating the room. We have plenty of nearly new and working electronics, games and DVDs as well as art supplies, books and a collectors items. I also have 3 bin bags of good clothes which if they don't sell will go to the charity shop and several complete costumes but I want a good price so will hold onto them for longer if necessary.

But my reason for this post is to share the easiest £100 I have ever made! Whilst clearing our our little room we found several old mobiles stashed away. I logged onto a comparison website to see how much money I could get recycling them and was pleasantly surprised! I was offered £70 for the newest phone and £50 for another, the last 3 were old but still working so I got £2-£8 for each of them. Interestingly the companies I have seen advertised on telly were not the best prices offered. I went with weeebuy as they had the best average prices (I didn't want 5 different companies) and sent the newest (a Nokia 5800 express music) to the post offices' SimplyDrop recycling centre.

It was so easy, fill in a few details, register on their site and they give you an estimate for your mobiles. I decided to opted for vouchers with weeebuy as you get 10% more, but cash from the post office. I have only just sent my phones off and haven't received the full price yet, from what I have heard these trade ins can sometimes use misleading quotes to reel you in, so Ill keep you informed :)

My mummy is a Hippy

I often thought I would use cloth nappies instead of modern disposables not just to be cost effective but also for the impact it has on our planet. I'm not the only one, many parents choose cloth nappies because they're worried about the environment.

But it's not clear whether reusable nappies are the most ecological choice so I did a little research. Using cloth nappies means that much less waste is sent to landfill sites. Around 8 million nappies are thrown away every day in the UK and it is thought they could take hundreds of years to decompose. Cloth nappies, on the other hand, need to be washed and dried which uses a lot of energy.

A report for the Environment Agency published in 2008 compared the environmental impact of using disposable and cloth nappies over a period of two-and-a-half years. The Environment Agency worked out that using disposables would create approximately 550kg of carbon emissions.

For cloth nappies, the calculations are more complicated because so much depends on the way you wash and dry them. Assuming that you wash your nappies at 60 degrees C (the minimum temperature recommended by the Department of Health) and dry three out of four loads on a washing line, the rest being tumble dried, you would produce around 570kg of carbon emissions. Using the tumble dryer more often would push your carbon emissions even higher.

However, if you wash your nappies on a fuller load, use an energy efficient washing machine and always hang them out to dry you can reduce this figure considerably. And if you use your nappies on a second child, the carbon emissions associated with using cloth nappies fall even further – by as much as 40 per cent.

So cloth nappies can be more environmentally friendly than disposables but you have to think carefully about how you wash and dry them.

Love fruit

It took three years for Japanese farmer Hiroichi Kimura and his wife to cultivate heart-shaped watermelons. This year, they shipped 20 of the fruits, which "symbolize their passion for farming and their affection for each other." They sell for 15,750 yen (£100) apiece! A store in Fukuoka is selling heart-shaped watermelons:

There are also these super kawaii tangerines which are apparently a super sweet variety of the fruit:
They would be a fabulous valentines gift for those with a big budget but seeing as this story broke in May 2009 Im not sure the availability of this fruit this early in the year, here hoping eh? ^_^

And for those with no budget here are some more home made treats, DH better grab them before they all go
*om nom!* : D

Egyptian Revolutions

This week news reports have been dominated by the world changing protests attempting to over throw the government regime lead by President Mubarak. They’re using slogans as quoted here in The Guardian:

"We don't want him! We will go after him!" demonstrators shouted. They decried looting and sabotage, saying: "Those who love Egypt should not sabotage Egypt!"

After 5 days of riots and protests curfews installed by the military have been ignored, the protesters dispersing only at the call to prayer. There are numerous un-pleasant stories of plains clothes policemen arming themselves with iron bars, bricks and bottles, working through crowds, taking people aside and beating them violently. One such story is about a group of female protesters being taken aside and brutally beaten for merely attending; many people have experienced this treatment from police and officials, including Jack Shenker a British reporter in Cairo.

Last month I wrote a long ranting blog about the Student protests in London and Manchester and how I could not abide the condoning of the violence that lead from it. This revolution could not be further from those past protests but still the student complaint persists. I hope that the current total of 73 dead in Egypt will not grow but if reform is not imminent I doubt it will be so.

It has been quoted from Fawaz Gerges that this is a "Berlin moment for the Arab world". I hope for all our sakes he is right, I will be watching the on going situation eagerly.

In with the old!

The new year might be a sign of progress marching forward, but it seems the high street didn’t get the memo, with some very retro inspired electricals. This radio player, £69 from Very.co.uk wouldn’t look out of place in an old-school American diner, and this dashboard clock, £24.99 from Lakeland, is straight out of war-era Britain. Who needs a touch screen when retro looks this good?

Lego Star Wars

I love Lego and I love star wars so its a reasonable assumption to say I love the licensed toys produced by Lego! In particular I like the little people, lego mini figures, the produce such cute replicas of the characters and their costumes. I have 27 Star Wars Lego figures and another dozen regular Lego mini figs, I just cant get enough of them. I recently rekindled my love for these little toys after a christmas gift from my my mother in law, a new lego star wars mini set and the visual dictionary : D what a great gift!


The Lego universe is always changing and has changed dramatically since I last paid it any particular attention, I only just noticed that my Leia mini figs had pink skin and the others had yellow. Then whilst browsing ebay I noticed many of the mini figures had pink and brown skin tones which is great - Mace Windu is my favourite jedi from the council - and the the new revamped mini figs have very detailed feature's and head pieces. My problem is most of my current mini figs have yellow heads, do I buy new pink headed detailed figures or continue my current collection with yellow heads?

Lego have this to say:

"When the minifigure was first introduced 30 years ago, it was given the iconic yellow skin tone to reflect the non-specific and transcendental quality of a child’s imagination. In 2002, as more licensed properties were added to the assortment, the decision was made to introduce ethnic and skin tones more in keeping with the actual characters and personalities who were being replicated. This included the introduction of black minifigures. However, these ethnic minifigures are only used in our licensed sets, all Lego playthemes continue to use the generic yellow face."

I started collecting in 2000 through to 2005 but since getting married I haven't collected many more toys (paying bills becomes a bit more important nowadays) but still don't see how could I have missed this major overhaul of Lego men, blimey!