Advantages: Beautiful house and gardens, good disabled parking, a lovely family church, childrens activities
Disadvantages: Short opening times for the house

...~~ Belton House ~~ It is coming to the end of our week holiday in Lincolnshire and we have one house left to visit, which is Belton House. Armed with my Hidden England Passport, we head off down the A52 towards Grantham. Our Hidden England Passport allows us to get in on a 'Bog off', it covers five of the stately homes and castles of Lincolnshire, you pay full price for your first visit and get all the others on a buy one get one for free. The places on the passport are Belton House, Burghley House, Grimsthorpe Castle, Belvoir Castle and Rockingham Castle. It has its own website if you want to learn more which is www.hiddenengland.org . We arrived down the long driveway leading towards the house and we approached the little ticket office, where we could purchase our entrance ticket. The lady took our passport and £8... Read review

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Advantages: Access and enjoyment for all
Disadvantages: Food a little limited and pricey

...of the building and they rely on donations and public admissions to the House and Gardens to maintain the house in its present state. The House Belton House is one of those places that are close in my heart. I used to visit when I was younger with my family and twenty years on I visit with my son. In this time the house itself has changed little, however more areas are now open to the public to view and what can I say the rooms take your breathe away. With its rich tapestries, fine plasterwork and wood-carving, as well as important collections of paintings, furniture and the latest addition silverware. There is now an opportunity for your little ones or even the big kid within yourself to partake in children's activities from the past and dress in authentic costumes. A quick word to the wise though, pushchairs... Read review

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Advantages: It is quick.
Disadvantages: It is messy. Limited paint colours available.

...At the end of last month I moved into my new house in Hertfordshire. As I am taking a few months out of the workforce, I am overseeing the ginormous amount of work that needs to be done and am personally handling the painting of just about every room in the house. With this in mind, my thoughtful husband suggested that a Dulux PaintPod roller system would make lighter of these tasks for me. The TV advertisements certainly made it seem this way and so we set off intent on making our purchase. We bought our system in Homebase for £69.99, although I think it is possible to get them a little bit cheaper elsewhere. The paint that needs to be used with the pod comes in a specially shaped plastic container. I understand from the internet that there are about 35 colours to choose from, but a far smaller number were stocked in my local... Read review

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Advantages: A wide choice of colours, colours can be mixed to your taste, excellent value
Disadvantages: None

...yellow as some cream shades often do. It was whilst looking at a local decorating shop in the city centre that we found the perfect shade, not too dark, not too light, not too brown, yellow or white. The paint shade was what's called seashell and came in a 2.5 litre plastic can for the price of £7.99. There are many colours to choose from and from what I seen on the shelf they had matt and silk finishes to choose from, I am also sure that they had a bigger size can but as to what the price for larger sizes was, I am not too sure I would say that it would probably be around £12.99. Well that's the cream sorted and now for the tricky bit, purple. With purple being such a wide spectrum of colour and a variety of shades there was no definite pre-produced shade that we thought would reflect our personalities. Off to look at the colour... Read review

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Advantages: Good Old Fashioned Fun
Disadvantages: None

...Having five children aged between one and thirteen art and paint in particular have very regular use in our house and the one brand more than other is Crayola as I find they are the best quality product even if a little more expensive than other available brands. This review is on Crayola Washable Paint which comes in very convenient bottle's with sealable caps. The pack I buy contains four colors red, yellow, green and blue these tend to cover most painting activities but I also have various other colors I have bought from my local craft shop. For the four pack each bottle being 250ml I pay £3.99 and they last for ages even with five kids all sitting round the table painting. These are washable paints so should as does often happen in my house the paint get on clothes or heaven forbid furniture it can be washed off (The quicker... Read review

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Advantages: Friendly, responsive, at the end of a phone, have time to help.
Disadvantages: Unable to post framed paintings due to the risk of damage.

...I wanted a painting made from my wedding album. My husband was photographed alone on the steps of the church in this particular photograph. It was his last moment of freedom before marriage and he looked suitably scared! I wanted to have it painted as a surprise for his birthday. I searched online for a UK based painting company and found PaintMyPicture. I had a look at their website and then gave them a ring as I was unsure of what to do next. The lady who answered took a message and later that evening I was called back by a gentleman who I now know is the owner. He was very helpful, describing what they could do, what I needed to do with the photograph, and he told me how long it would take and how much it would cost. So later that night I ordered the painting on the website and then went to bed. The painting arrived just before... Read review

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Advantages: Warm, soft effect that looks modern and interesting.
Disadvantages: Can only use a paintbrush and getting it on the skiting board.

...This exquisite new idea from Crown is truly astounding We have just redecorated the front room. For a little difference, having just smooth plastered the walls, and on wanting a modern effect with painting over it instead of wallpapering, we chose this new product that Crown has just released. It only comes in a range of 12 colours at the moment, so a little disadvantageous, but the colours are quite common colours - particularly as its a modern paint, it comes in a mixture of coloured browns and beiges, including a terracota and pastels. What it is about this particular paint is that it is textured. It contains very small granules of what appears to be a sand like debris. On applying to your walls you can only use a paint brush, not a roller as it does not promote the effect when dry. I will explain to you why in a moment... Read review

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Advantages: A lot less climbing up and down steps to fill roller
Disadvantages: Still got to do a bit of cleaning by hand on roller holder

...I bought the paint pob three weeks ago and have just used it last night. When I bought it I had to buy the paint container which is a special tub made for the pod. The price of that was a bit on the steep side as it is only Dulux paint and nothing special about it. Putting the unit together was quite easy. I decided to go with the instructions on this one because of the different fittings on it. Very little packaging so that was a relief. The parts went together easily enough, when you put the paint pod in you can put it in the wrong way round but when the pipe is placed into the hole in the unit that does not matter, it still works ok. Ready for use now. So keeping the trigger pressed and letting the paint run through and when it gets to the roller you need to keep it pressed so the roller can file with paint, dont forget to keep... Read review

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Advantages: Finish, colours, durability
Disadvantages: tad expensive, cleaning the brush

...Hammerite smooth is the bee's knees of metal paints. So good in fact that I would suggest that you never leave home without it. I usually but the small 250ml tins which tend to be priced at £4.99 a tin. There are a few larger ones namely 500ml and 2.5 litre tins and possibly bigger but the price goes up respectively. I tend to buy the smaller tins one for price but also because the paint stays fresher in the tin as your more likely to finish the small tin rather than having a large tin sitting about for a long time. As with most paints to bear metal it is always best to fully prepare the metal surface prior to starting the painting. Hammerite provide concise instructions on their tins to give you maximum guidance when using their products. Rather than quoting the entire tin here is a quick summary. Clean the surface from dirt... Read review

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Advantages: good fun
Disadvantages: messy

...Dib dab finger painting El C ready made bright finger paints are some I have used at work. You can buy these from the Early learning centre shops or at their online store. These pots of paint are recommended for tots aged 3 and over. Personally I would use with a younger child but would supervise them all the time. They cost £5.00p for a set of 6 colours orange yellow purple pink blue and green. These colours are bright and cheerful Each colour comes in its own individual pot. The pot contains 125mls of paint and is a good size for little hands to get into. The instructions warn that these paints may stain, they do but only a little some colours worse than others so make sure your tot is wearing old clothes. I would recommend having a bowl of water and a flannel and towel near at hand ready to wipe and wash painty fingers... Read review

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