If you have decided to spring clean your cupboard and there are some 'smallish' clothes, belts or shoes that you are considering getting rid of, then why not see if your kids would like to use SOME OF IT as dress up clothes?

Obviously this only applies to the younger child, but there are many children who dress up as jedi knights, princesses and other fantastic characters and you may make their day by giving them some 'props'.

Last year my sister forewarned me that the older her boys got, the more projects they had at school. She suggested therefore, that I get an old box and fill it with toilet rolls, small yoghurt containers, polystyrene trays, plastic straws, spoons etc etc etc which could be used to build the assortment of projects.

I took her advice and true-to-her prediction, my child needed this and that to build a bridge for technology. I was so excited when I calmly directed ...

We all have to start taking responsibility for our environment and one way to do this is to re-use paper. Here are a few suggestions:

• Print on both sides of the paper and then shred and recycle what you can. Arrange for Mondi or similar company to fetch your used paper.
• If you have children, cut up paper and staple the pages together to make small notepads. Recycle these when they've been used (but remember to take out the staple).
• Give paper to schools in t...

Although I cook for my family all the time I do not enjoy cooking. HOWEVER, when my kids were babies and I was working out of the home, I realised that time was not always on my side.

As many other parents out there, I would arrive home late and then would still have to worry about food. So I quickly got into the habit of cooking more than I needed for any particular meal and then freezing the leftovers into small portions. I would stick a piece of masking tape on the outsi...