Was the comping fairy kind to you in November?

December has kicked off the comping frenzy of advent and 12 days of Christmas giveaways. I was stunned to get 3 winning tweets yesterday and that was before I even started entering any of the advent ones ! I'll save those wins for next month's prize round-up and cross my fingers that it's a sign of things to come !

November got off to a great start too with the first wins coming in in the very first days of the month.

I won the Bioglan ChocBall Supplements for Kids giveaway on Mummy Fever

Next the lovely Carole from Carole's Chatter had a mini giveaway and I won a postcard all the way from New Zealand

I won a KiqPlan - a 12-week fitness plan personal trainer (I chose Slim & Trim) which can be used alongside my Fitbug Orb.

Time for some lovely pampering goodies with my next win -  £50 Organic Sea buckthorn skin care and anti-ageing products from @Bio2YouRemedy on twitter

More pampering with a package of Le Petit Marseillais goodies, still to arrive so not sure what will be in it.

And finally a Gressingham duck recipe booklet.

What about you? Did you win anything nice this month? And are you getting ready for a comping frenzy all through December ?

You might also like to check out my own giveaways :

Giveaway #444 : Win a family ticket to see The Snow Queen 2 - closing date 12/12

Giveaway #443 : Win 2 x The Art of Being A Brilliant Teenager - closing date 13/12

Giveaway #442 : Win 2 x Drumond Park Articulate! For Kids games - closing date 12/12

Giveaway #441 : Win 2 x In The Night Garden: Snowy Day books - closing date 10/12

Giveaway #440 : Win The Hive Giant Floor Puzzle - closing date 10/12

Giveaway #439 : Win a Wasgij Christmas puzzle (plus bonus competition to win £10,000!) - closing date 5/12

Giveaway #438 : Win a Murder Mystery Dinner Party game - closing date 4/12

#NickJrCraftmas project #6 : Santa Hat Cupcakes

Did you manage to pop along to the #NickJrCraftmas twitter party yesterday? It was great fun and it was really lovely to see all the photos of the kiddies having a whale of a time with the crafts and party games. I shared several of our fun but simple crafts activities yesterday but there are still a few left that I didn't get time to blog about so I'll keep them coming as they're perfect for keeping the kids entertained in the run up to Christmas.

The instruction sheet in the box suggested making Santa Hat Brownies, using fresh strawberries, but as we still had the cupcakes, having preferred to eat our Marshmallow Snowmen on their own rather than as cake toppers, I went for the easy (and lazy !) option and used the ready-made cupcakes for this recipe instead. This means that you can have a fun, festive teatime treat within 2 minutes !

We failed to find fresh strawberries in December (and I doubt that any we could have found would have been very sweet anyway) so we used foam strawberry sweets instead. Just use a dab of icing to stick the sweet to the cupcake then add a line of icing fur and a little bobble on top. Pierre sucked any leftover icing straight out of the icing syringe !

These taste as great as they look and require zero effort ! If you like the look of Pierre's Ben Elf hat, find out how to make it here.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

#NickJrCraftmas project #5 : Paper wreath

#NickJrCraftmas project #4 : Paper Chains

#NickJrCraftmas project #2 : Chocolate Christmas Puddings

Giveaway #444 : Win a family ticket to see The Snow Queen 2 - closed - winner Natalie Stroud Vezina

THE SNOW QUEEN: MAGIC OF THE ICE MIRROR

At selected cinemas from December 12th

From visionary producer Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch) and Wizart Animation comes the perfect festive family treat as Signature Entertainment proudly presents THE SNOW QUEEN: MAGIC OF THE ICE MIRROR, in cinemas from December 12th, 2014.

Following on from THE SNOW QUEEN, the next chapter in the tale of Gerda, Orm and her friends sees a whole host of brand new, lovable characters join old favourites for another adventure in the wintry wonderland. THE SNOW QUEEN: MAGIC OF THE ICE MIRROR follows the troll Orm, as he exaggerates his exploits during THE SNOW QUEEN, creating a web of lies in which he single-handedly defeated the treacherous Queen. He claims he is destined to marry the princess and inherit great power and riches – but where will Orm’s stories lead him? In this lively and perilous adventure, Orm learns that friends, happiness, and true love cannot be won through deceit.

With an all-star voice cast that includes Sharlto Copley (District 9, Elysium) as Orm, Bella Thorne (Blended) as Gerda, Isabelle Fuhrman (The Hunger Games, Orphan) as Alfida and Sean Bean (The Lord Of The Rings, TV’s Game Of Thrones) as General Arrog, THE SNOW QUEEN: MAGIC OF THE ICE MIRROR is the perfect tale for all Frozen fans this Christmas!

Have a look at the trailer here :

I'm delighted to be spreading a little Christmas magic by giving one lucky Madhouse Family Reviews reader the chance to win a family ticket to see The Snow Queen 2 in a local Vue cinema. Enter using the Rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK only. Closing date : 12/12/14

T & C's : Entries close at midnight on the closing date. Winners will be selected with a random number generator and announced on facebook, twitter and in the giveaway post subject line. Please note, you will be contacted by email and/or twitter and if I haven't heard from you after a week, I'll have to pick another winner. Prizes will be sent out by the companies or their PR directly to winners. Madhouse Family Reviews cannot be held responsible for any prizes that go astray !

Other giveaways you may be interested in :

Giveaway #443 : Win 2 x The Art of Being A Brilliant Teenager - closing date 13/12

Giveaway #442 : Win 2 x Drumond Park Articulate! For Kids games - closing date 12/12

Giveaway #441 : Win 2 x In The Night Garden: Snowy Day books - closing date 10/12

Giveaway #440 : Win The Hive Giant Floor Puzzle - closing date 10/12

Giveaway #439 : Win a Wasgij Christmas puzzle (plus bonus competition to win £10,000!) - closing date 5/12

Giveaway #438 : Win a Murder Mystery Dinner Party game - closing date 4/12

#NickJrCraftmas project #5 : Paper wreath

Another simple but effective papercraft activity that the kids will love - paper wreaths.

Fold a large sheet of green paper or card in half lengthways and cut at 1cm intervals from the folded edge to a couple of centimetres from the edge.

Staple the long edges together, plump up the rings and staple the two ends of the wreath together to make a circle shape.

Decorate with sequins, glitter, Christmas stickers, cotton wool snow and whatever else you can find at the bottom of the crafts box !

I was amazed to see how excited the Madhouse kids got about this simple activity!

One finished wreath ready to hang in the window !

The #NickJrCraftmas party is underway ! Follow @cherylp59 (that's me!), @UKMumsTV and @NickJrUK, as well as the #NickJrCraftmas hashtag.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Cra-Z-Art Shimmer 'n' Sparkle Designer Nail & Body Art Studio review

Science4you Soap Factory review

Utterly Horses Breyer My Dream Horse Painting kit review

#NickJrCraftmas project #4 : Paper Chains

As soon as I saw this project sheet, I got excited because it reminded me of making paper chains myself as a child. My nan used to buy ready cut strips with glue on them every Christmas that needed to be licked and I can still remember the taste ! 

This is a fab way of using up all the offcuts of paper that you don't want to throw away but that are too small to do anything sensible with. Pierre soon worked out what to do and he was off !

There was no stopping him !

Adding little stickers with our favourite Nick Jr characters made them even more special for the kids.

The #NickJrCraftmas party is underway ! Follow @cherylp59 (that's me!), @UKMumsTV and @NickJrUK, as well as the #NickJrCraftmas hashtag.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Madhouse diaries : A fab day out at Parc Galamé

Science4you Soap Factory review

Go Create eco craft kits review

#NickJrCraftmas project #3 : Snowman Cupcakes

Here are the ingredients required for this project - snowman cupcakes. Not convinced ? Well, you will be in a minute !

How cute is this little fella ?! So simple to make too. Just chop the end off a marshmallow, stick it on top of another one and use an icing pen as glue to stick on silver balls (or chocolate balls as we used) as eyes and coal buttons. I had some orange chocolate curls in my cake decorations that were absolutely perfect as carrot noses, but you could use a slice of jelly orange slices too.

Now these were supposed to be used as decorations on top of the little cupcakes but the kids wanted to keep them as they were. The cakes were used for something else which I'll share with you in just a while !

In fact, if you look closely, you'll see what we did with the cakes on Pierre's plate !

The #NickJrCraftmas party is underway ! Follow @cherylp59 (that's me!), @UKMumsTV and @NickJrUK, as well as the #NickJrCraftmas hashtag.

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Fudge in My Kitchen : Vanilla Rainbow Fudge

Kiddie Kitchen Fun : Cheerios Frankenstein's Monsters

Kiddie Kitchen Fun : Ice Cream For Breakfast !!

#NickJrCraftmas project #2 : Chocolate Christmas Puddings

Time to head to the kitchen for our second project ! The instruction sheet for this one calls for 200g milk or dark chocolate (that's two bars), 100g crushed cornflakes, 200g white chocolate (two more bars) and silver balls to decorate.

We were provided with everything we needed but I decided to use up some Shredded Wheat that had been kicking around for a while in the kitchen, cluttering up the worktop, instead of the cornflakes, which the kids wanted to eat for breakfast !

Break them to bits in a bowl (or put the cornflakes in a freezer bag, remove the air (to avoid a cornflake explosion !) and crush with a rolling pin).

Break up the milk chocolate into a bowl and melt it in the microwave in 10 second bursts.

Pour the chocolate into the crushed cereal and mix thoroughly.

Arrange mini cupcake cases on a plate.

Spoon some of the mix into each one and form into a ball shape. Leave to set.

Melt the white chocolate and spread over the top of each "pudding". 

Decorate with silver balls (and any other cake decorations you may have kicking about in the kitchen cupboard !).

You can see how much fun the Madhouse kids were having !

Leave to set (again - that's the only tricky part of this recipe because everyone wanted to eat them straight away !)

Totally simple but totally delicious.

Don't forget, the #NickJrCraftmas party will be kicking off shortly so make sure you're following @cherylp59 (that's me !), @UKMumsTV and @NickJrUK, as well as the #NickJrCraftmas hashtag. Plenty more crafty fun to come !

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Chocolate Picture Maker review

Gelli Baff review

Fudge in My Kitchen : Vanilla Rainbow Fudge

#NickJrCraftmas project #1 : Ben Elf Hat

Excitement is at its peak ! It's party time today - the #NickJrCraftmas twitter party will be kicking off at 1pm so make sure you follow @UKMumsTV and @NickJrUK, as well as the #NickJrCraftmas hashtag, to join in the fun and be in with a chance of winning some fab prizes.

I thought I'd give you a sneak preview of one of the activities in advance - some festive elf hats that Ben from Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom would love (as did Pierre) !

We received a fabulous party pack full of goodies to use, but I decided to have a clear out in our crafting cuboard of all the odds and ends in the bottom of boxes and bags before restocking - out with the old and in with the new ! Here are the materials provided for the project but we made our hats with scraps from the crafting box, which proves that you can get involved at home too !

If you click on the instruction sheet above, you'll see a bigger version which you should be able to read. Just use a plate as a template to draw a semi-circle in blue card then cut it out.

While your little helper is cutting out the semi-circle, trace some holly leaves on green paper or card and get him to cut those out too (or you might need to help, as it's a bit more fiddly).

Staple the two flat edges together and use sellotape to stick on the holly leaves and shiny red sequins or pompoms for berries.

This is such a simple craft but you can see how proud Pierre was. I was impressed at how well it stayed on his head - I didn't even bother with the elastic !

Loads more #NickJrCraftmas fun coming up later on today on the blog and on twitter so watch this space !

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

More Fudge In My Kitchen Creations

Getting ready for our #NickJrCraftmas party !

myStyle Design & Make Shrink Design Jewellery kit review