One of the things I like best about being a Shopcade ambassador is discovering new brands.

Until recently, I’d never come across Joy The Store or 18 and East before – but what a discovery that was.

I’m currently in the market for a range of wedding outfits to kit me out for the gazillion weddings I have this year. Weddings don’t come particularly cheap, so I’m not keen on spending a fortune on a different dress each time. But now, with the help of trusty Shopcade, I don’t need to.

Joy The Store and 18 and East are both my new go-to places for inexpensive fashion, that I won’t be likely to see on another guest at a party. Their designs are unique enough to be a bit quirky and cheap enough to avoid the guilt I often feel when buying frivolous stuff I don’t really need. (Both dresses in the picture above are from Joy and retail at £20 each.)

It’s not all about the dresses though. If you’re not a dress type of person you can browse a bit more and come across your favoured skirt/top or trouser/top combo.

Both the skirt and top in this picture are from Joy – and both cost less than £50.

And – because Shopcade is full of familiar and new brands alike – you can also find items from your old faithfuls, like Dorothy Perkins, Asos, Debenhams etc.

I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, whatever. She’s a Shopcade ambassador, she would say that.” But it’s true. I genuinely never buy anything online now without checking for a deal on Shopcade. And, most of the time, I already know what I want because I’ve already added it to one of my Shopcade lists.

I get points just for logging onto the site, and I don’t just use it when I’m in the mood for buying. If I have a spare 5 minutes, I’ll pop onto Shopcade and have a browse – in much the same way as I would if I was early for a meeting and there was a shop over the road.

If the idea of social shopping puts you off, it needn’t do. Shopcade is very similar to Pinterest and incredibly easy to navigate – even I can do it without a hitch.

If you join up, come and find me on there – and check out my Fashion for Under £50 list. It’s FULL of bargains!

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Disclosure: As a Shopcade ambassador, I regularly get sent lovely things from the site. All views in this post remain my own. Obviously.

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I was feeling a little tired, you see. Taken for granted, if you will. I felt like we just needed a break, to give us both time to grow.

And that break has worked wonders. Because, thankfully, the relationship is back on track.

Yep, you guessed it, my love affair with cloth nappies has been rekindled. After a completely content period with Bambino Mio nappies, Frog decided to get bigger, as babies do (how selfish of her). Which meant that none of her Bambino Mio nappy covers fit.

So the offer to review a set of Baba and Boo reusable nappies couldn’t have come at a better time. I was feeling guilty at turning my back on cloth in favour of disposables again. I knew it was just a matter of time before the cloth relationship would be too broken to fix.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an eco warrior. Yes I care about the environment, we recycle and “do our bit”, but I don’t grow all my own veg and as much as I love organic, I’d often rather spend those few extra pennies on wine than a bunch of posh carrots.

But the thing about cloth nappies, is that they save you money. Always a sucker for a bargain, the promise of a few extra quid in my pocket each week was a rather attractive one. And lo, the cloth love was born.

So it rather hurt to go back to disposables, albeit for a brief period. I could see my hard-earned cash being, quite literally, pissed away. Every nappy that went in the bin was the equivalent to a sip of wine or a mouthful of those posh carrots.

As well as a thrifty soul, though, I’m also rather a lazy one. I don’t like to faff about when it comes to nappy changes, especially now Frog has become an expert in the art of escaping during a nappy change. So the Baba and Boo nappies went down a treat.

They’re exceptionally easy to use, with a simple piece of cloth which you stuff inside the fleecey nappy cover, like so:

So easy, even I can do it

Once stuffed, you just have to secure the nappy in place. The press stud idea is an ingenius one because it stops the nappy sliding off, is adjustable as your baby grows and can’t be removed by inquisitive little hands:

You can't more trendy than this number

They’re also rather pretty, with funky designs like the one above for the most discerning fashionistas. And they’re soft to the touch, without being bulky. I think you’ll agree Frog’s little behind is far from J-Lo-esque:

No sign of J-Lo here

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Baba and Boo reusable nappies are available to order online from the Baba and Boo website. Prices start from £8.75.

Disclaimer: I received no payment for this post but I did get two Baba and Boo Series II nappies to review. And really rather good they were too.

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I know Real Nappy Week isn’t over yet and so this celebration may be a bit premature. But I’m going to live dangerously.

We’ve got to day 6 of Real Nappy Week with no spillages, no poo on carpets and no fuss. I can’t believe how easy it’s been. Seriously.

When Bambino Mio asked me to take up the Real Nappy Challenge and swap a disposable for a reusable every day for a week, I wasn’t convinced. But after realising the wine budget was being spent on nappies, I thought I’d give it a go. I really like wine, see.

And it’s been fine. So fine in fact that I’m going to switch completely. I know they’re better for the environment and all that, but that’s not my main motivation for ditching the disposables. Call me selfish, but my main reason is the fact I’m going to save heaps of cash. Oh, and they’re very pretty. Not to mention the fact Frog hasn’t worked out how to take them off (unlike the disposable version) so I haven’t had to clean poo off the carpet this week.

If you’re at all interested in joining me (did I mention it leaves you with more money for wine?) then I’ve written more about the savings at Playpennies today. Or you can find out more at Go Real.

Oh, and if you’re a real nappy expert and have any tips you’d like to share, I’d love to hear those too. I’m still a bit of a cloth nappy virgin so am after all the help I can get to continue making my life as easy as possible.

I wasn’t paid to write this post, but I did receive a couple of Bambino Mio cloth nappies to review. And they were really rather good. Just saying.

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Real nappies. That is, the cloth ones that you have to wash. Hmmmm.

Since Frog was born ten months ago, we’ve always been disposable kind of girls (I say “we”, clearly she was the one actually wearing the nappies). Ever the lazy mother I was keen not to make extra work for myself by constant washing. Sorry Environment, but I really don’t have the time.

But then I got poor.

That is, my maternity pay ran out and we decided it was time to adopt some kind of financial strategy to avoid complete bankruptcy. It was about this time that I heard of Real Nappy Week. I was challenged by Bambino Mio to replace one disposable a day with a reusable. Just for a week.

And today is Day Number One.

But I have a confession to make; I’ve already tried them. Me being the impatient girl that I am, I ripped open the package from Bambino Mio last week and delved in (with a little trepidation). Expecting to find huge terry towelling nappies and terrifyingly large safety pins, I was surprised. Because cloth nappies have got with the times. They’re now, well, trendy.

I am such a girl. The oh-so-pretty purple and blue stars on the nappy cover immediately appealed to the frustrated fashionista within. I mean, you don’t get those with plain old disposables do you? And they’re not enormous either. Frog doesn’t look like she’s J-Lo on a bad day. Her bum is an actual normal size with the cloth nappy on.

Figures from Bambino Mio show that using reusables can mean savings of up to £700 per child. £700?! I’m in.

So it looks like I don’t have to give up wine completely. I can still afford the odd glass now I’m a cloth nappy girl.

Of course, I’ll keep you up-to-date with our progress throughout the week. But all of a sudden it doesn’t seem so scary. Funny what a pretty pair of pants and the promise of wine can do really.

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