Shopping for those new school year essentials? Clothing at Tesco have got free shipping on their schoolwear range until Midnight on Monday 22nd August.

The discount applies to the full range of children’s uniforms, school shoes and PE kit and will be applied at checkout.

Have a small artist around? This colouring contest is so much fun!

Vertbaudet, the international children’s fashion and interiors brand, is giving one lucky child between the age of five and 12 the chance to design the party outfit of their dreams – and see it turned into reality!

Children can use felt tips, crayons, paint, collage or whatever else they like to create their designs – anything goes! There are templates for both boys and girls that can be downloaded from Vertbaudet‘s website. Entries can be drawn directly onto the A4 paper, and they must be submitted either online or by post by 15th September.

The winner being announced no later than 15th October. The winning design will be turned into a finished product for the winner, and will also be sold in the Autumn/Winter 2012 Vertbaudet catalogue. The winner will also receive a Nintendo Wii and game, as well as £350 to spend with Vertbaudet.

This sounds so obvious, but for some reason it’s a relatively new trick for me: cutting the tops off product tubes. I used to squeeze and flatten and try to smoosh out everything I could get from a tube and then just chuck it. What a waste! Now I cut the top off and there’s usually a good 5-6 uses left in the container.

Here’s how it works.

Step 1, cut the top off.

Step 2, dip into the remaining product!

Sometimes you have to trim one or two more times to get to the bit at the very bottom.

Side note: This is GoodSkin Labs Exten-10 Youth Boosting Moisturizer SPF 15. I got a free tube at BlogHer last year and I am NOT kidding it made me look 10 years younger. Seriously. I think so anyway! Now it’s come to the UK and you can buy it at Boots (at least I have bought it at Boots but I don’t see it on the website. And I’m out again, so go figure).

Guest post by Muzammil Bashir, senior editor of freestuff.co.uk.

Everyone loves a bargain, and there’s nothing better than finding great free offers and discounts to help your cash go a little further. So here is a quick guide for budding bargain hunters:

1. Jumble Sales, Yard Sales & Car boots

Summer time is in full swing and if you didn’t know already; it’s yard sale season. This is the time of year that walking round a field at 8am suddenly looks like a pleasant day out, and if you have got a keen eye for a bargain, what better opportunity?

There is sure to be a sale near you, so have a look in your local paper, and make sure you turn up early to snag the best deals before someone else does.

2. Bargain Shops & Money Saving

Some people raise their eyebrows at thrift stores and the like, but if you are on the hunt for good deals, you can do a lot worse than rummaging in your nearest charity shop. Sure enough, some-times you won’t find a whole lot, but it only takes the occasional gem to make it all worthwhile.

The best fun of the exercise is that you never know what you might find. These types of stores can have anything from books and clothes to gadgets, games consoles and I even found a pair of skis one time!

3. Recycling / Freecycling

The green revolution has brought with it a new opportunity for lovers of free stuff the world over. Free recycling or freecycling as it is known works like this:

Family buys new sofa and hence; no longer needs old sofa

Can’t be bothered to sell old sofa, but doesn’t want to send to landfill

Sofa is given away free to a good home…

There really are people out there with big ticket items, used but in good condition who simply want to give them away to anyone who will collect. Find your local freecycle network and see what treasures await.

4. Outlet Stores and Seconds

The previous few ideas have all been about getting second hand stuff for cheap, which can work really well, but what if you want something new, and perhaps a little nicer?

Well, outlet stores are a worthwhile place to start. Rather than shopping at your local sports store, or branding clothing shops, why not go online and see if you favourite brand has an outlet mall near you?

5. eBay!

I’m not going to say a lot here to be honest, but in simple terms, you have been going pretty darn niche before you will find a product that isn’t available on eBay.

eBay is a big business now-a-days, and there are a great deal of measures in place to help keep you safe. Ok so this is a bit of a boring suggestion, but if all else fails, it is always worth checking on eBay to see what the prices are like.

Two of my go-to shops for workwear have kicked off big sales this week.

At Banana Republic, from today, you can save 25% with code UKSAVE25. How about this classic LBD now that the Autumn weather is blowing in?

And Boden is already tempting us with a Winter Preview and is offering 20% off plus free shipping and returns. The discount code I have is PRV4. Shhhhh…

I’ll forgive them for introducing Winter before we’ve even hit mid-August and virtually the whole country is on Summer hols because isn’t this British Tweed Shift cute?

Powermat sent me some devices to try a few weeks ago so a post is long overdue! If you haven’t heard of Powermat, one of the huge benefits is that from the one cable you can charge hundreds of different devices.

Have you had a guest come to stay who needs to charge their phone? Have you ever lost your charger? How about going on holiday – how much do you hate packing up all the different chargers you need? And all the sockets that are used up by charging devices, not to mention the wires – does that ever drive you crazy? These are the problems Powermat aims to solve. It won’t make you completely wire-free, because Powermat itself does need to be plugged in, but it could make your life a lot more organised. Powermat also uses an intelligent system to charge, meaning as soon as the battery is full, the Powermat stops using energy, which is great for both the environment and gadget’s battery life.

My own “aha! Moment” came when we dug out E’s old phone for me to use as a spare, and we have no idea where the charger is. It’s not a problem because we’ve got the Powermat. Short of getting manufacturers to all agree to make devices with the same plug (something Apple will never do) Powermat is the best solution I’ve seen to the problem.

Here’s a link to some videos that show you how it works and where to buy.

Debenham’s have announced they are going to sell copies of Pippa’s two wedding dresses – the white one from the ceremony and the green one from the evening party. They’ll retail at £170 so still not all that inexpensive. Comments on the article I read about this in the Telegraph weren’t all that positive about it so I’m curious – who will actually buy these?? I’m not a big fan of replica dresses in general and these seem to be missing the detail that makes Pippa’s real dresses so special.

I was actually in Debenham’s at Westfield yesterday and didn’t see them. Has anyone seen them in person?

Westfield London Shopping Centre has launched a ‘Kids Eat for FREE’ offer as part of its Summer 2011 campaign. I think this is brilliant news – often the most expensive part of the day when we go to Westfield is lunch. Although the voucher doesn’t include our usual stop – Pho – several other great restaurants are taking part, including Benugo, Caffe Concerto, Ciao Baby Cucina, Comptoir Libanis, CrepeAffaire, Fire & Stone, Isola Bella, Jom Makan, Le Pain Quotidien, Mandaloun, Shawa, The Meat & Wine Company and The Real Greek.

The Kids Eat Free vouchers can only be redeemed in Westfield London at the restaurants specified from 23rd July – 4th September 2011. Westfield’s Summer campaign also includes kids’ events, shows and other entertainment activities, most of which are free.

Download your Kids Eat Free voucher here: http://uk.westfield.com/london/.

UPDATE 8.8.11 – We used our voucher on Saturday and it was as easy as pie. At CrepeAffair DSD’s crepe was free – no rules or restrictions from what I could tell.

Even as I write this I feel like someone’s hacked into the blog and posted something spammy! But I’m now £80 richer having won yesterday’s largest prize ever on FreePostcodeLottery.com so I feel inclined to pass along this tip. No matter that that £80 barely makes a dent in what I’ve spent on makeup alone for the wedding next month. Oh dear. Moving on.

Register on FreePostcodeLottery.com and if your postcode is picked you’ll win some money. The prize starts at £10 but if no one claims it it rolls over, and if you’re lucky, like me, you’ll win several days’ worth. The prize pot is paid for by the site’s advertisers. If you register you’ll get an email reminder every day which you might actually start to look forward to. Although now I’ve won I’m not sure that’ll be so true since the chances of me winning again are probably nill. When I won I was paypaled the money pretty much immediately. So there. Pretty good right? Can’t really see why you wouldn’t!

Richmond Habitat got in touch about the Spanish-themed shopping event they are hosting today between 5:00 and 9:00 p.m.

During the event you’ll receive 25% off any purchase plus there will be complementary wine and Spanish tapas served and a live Spanish guitarist until 8:00 p.m.

As lovely an invitation as this is, it is making me SO ANGRY at myself because just two weeks ago we bought floor lamps for our flat. They weren’t all that expensive in the grand scheme of things, but Habitat had just raised their prices. So the floor lamps, which had been on sale for 20% off two weeks before we bought them, were not only not on sale but they were priced HIGHER than before – £27 for the shade and base vs £20 previously and £16 on sale. I was already annoyed with myself for not buying them when they were on sale but now I’m REALLY annoyed because I’ve chucked out the receipt so now that there is another sale, I can’t buy them again and return them with the original receipt (which I guess is kind of a scam but I think alls fair when it comes to overpriced homegoods).

If you can’t make it to Richmond tonight you can still save 20% until the end of the month throughout the store or online with voucher code S1CVE. *bangs head against wall*

The lesson here, everyone, is to save your receipts. Obviously. God.

Anyway, here is the lamp (crap photo is due to my poor Paint skills). It’s the Suryo floor lamp base in Silver + Tipp small shade in Beetroot Purple. They tie our blue sofas together with my homemade pillows sewn with Jay McCarroll’s Habitat collection (no relation). Now if only I can do something about the drapes…

If you’re going to the Spanish party at Habitat in Richmond tonight, maybe I’ll see you there!