Holiday home

 If you’re caught in two minds between starting your next redecorating project and heading off on a hard-earned break, here’s your chance to do both. Look Interiors is offering a special deal, whereby for the princely sum of £1,650, it will redecorate four rooms of a standard sized London home and throw in two return flights to Spain for a week. You work on your tan, while the team works on your walls, ensuring a stress free, mess free, expertly decorated home. Better still, all profits made at Look Interiors go back into building training opportunities for people with mental health problems in West London.

Offer expires 31 March 08. Visit www.lookinteriors.co.uk   or call Luke Terry on 07947 318355.

Bee mine

 It won’t be your most practical purchase of 2008, but I couldn’t resist this Bee tape measure from Traidcraft. Made in Vietnam by ethical retailer Mai Crafts, the fabric-covered measure is hand-decorated with beaded antennae and embroidered face details. At just £3.50, it’s an inexpensive novelty and a great way of showing support for Fair Trade Fortnight (25 February -9 March).

Everything's hunky-dory

 As fabulous as the David Bowie album it shares its name with, Hunky-Dory Home is finally back. After a brief pause in trading, the website is back in business and the collection has lost none of its pizzazz. Seventies sunflowers and retro duck lampshades join candy-covered cushions in an eclectic range that doesn’t disappoint. Prices start at £14 for cushion covers and £18 for lampshades.

Visit www.hunkydoryhome.co.uk for more details.

Dice and easy

 I love cooking - but I must confess that it’s not for the chopping, dicing and slicing - so my ears pricked up when I heard about the Nicer Dicer from JML. Simply lift the lid, place your food flat side down and away you go. The twenty eight razor sharp blades will make short work of that chopping and with a little bowl screwed in to catch the bits, there’s no mess either. The Nicer Dicer costs £29.99. Available at ASDA, Woolworths and JML.

Call JML on 0871 2222 631 or visit www.jmldirect.com

Flawless floors

 If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: newspapers leave marks on the carpet. I’m fighting a losing battle in my house, so to maintain my sanity, I always keep a good carpet cleaning service on speed dial. www.carpetcleaningserviceslondon.co.uk is a professional, reliable and reasonably priced service that combines modern and powerful equipment with good old-fashioned elbow grease. Prices start from £20 for a single bedroom in an average-sized London apartment/flat (minimum order for carpet cleaning, £70), with upholstery and curtain cleaning also on the menu.

Call 0845 00 66134 or visit www.carpetcleaningserviceslondon.co.uk

Book now

  Alberto Giacometti wasn’t known for practicality, which makes these book ends from Joanna Wood an interesting talking point. Inspired by the elongated shapes and rough moulding of the Surrealist sculptor’s signature style, these really look the part. And at just £37 for the pair, you can afford to invest in a few classics, fitting of such elegant shelf-fellows.

Bookworms should also watch out for the Imagine Children’s Literature Festival, taking place at Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall, SE1 (14-22 February 08). Call Joanna Wood on 020 7730 5064. www.joannawood.co.uk