{Review} Retro phone goodness from Not on the High Street

As a blogger I get an array of emails offering me various things. Some of these offers don't fit my blog and some of them make me blush. But, now and then I'm made a lovely offer that I'm more than willing to take up. When I received an email from Not On The High Street. (NOTHS) asking if I'd like to review something from their website a smile broke out on my face, I accepted and then hit the website.

If you haven't browsed NOTHS before, then set aside a good amount of time. It's vast and full to the brim with fantastic talent. There's a wealth of designer makers and independent retailers with their own boutiques under the NOTHS umbrella. Both my mum and I love to shop with NOTHS, loving the fact that we can find original pieces and especially love the fantastic selection of customisable items for personalised gifts.

With such a huge selection of items it can be easy to be overwhelmed, but there are a number of features which help aid this. recently viewed items are displayed at the bottom of the page, so you can quickly revisit items and there are numerous ways to search, as well as items being well categorised.

As a registered customer of NOTHS, I have created a 'wish list' of items I hope one day to own and it's a handy facility when you stumble upon things when browsing. I often find items that I know would be perfect for a future birthday or special occasion - for me or others! The wish list is my place to store these and means I can easily come back to them rather than having to spend a while searching from scratch.

With an allowance for the review item, I found the feature to search by min and max price really useful. Whether we care to admit it or not, I'm sure many of us have a budget in mind when purchasing items whether its for a gift or for ourselves and this makes it easy to search the items that fall within our price bracket and saved a lot of time by eliminating items that fall outside the price bracket.

1970 Retro Rotary Dial Phone in Red 

I have to say that selecting a single item to review was a hard task and there's many items I would love to call my own. With a house make over underway, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to purchase something for the home. As soon as I spied the retro phones I knew I'd found my choice for review.

Black 1970 Retro Rotary Dial Phone - This is the colour I opted for!

Within 12 hours of sending in my choice, I was in receipt of my box of nostalgia! As soon as I lifted my new phone out of the box I was transported back to Abbeystead Road in Childwall where my grandad lived until he was nearly 90. The same reaction was evoked in my mum as she remembered fondly that same old dial phone in Childwall of her father's.

With technology becoming smaller and lighter there's something very reassuring about a solid phone that has presence and some weight to it (not that it's especially heavy). I think it will also become a talking point as others reminisce about the classic phone of the 1970s that is etched on their memory. Whereas my children will no doubt eventually wonder how phones were ever that big. They'll have a shock when they see early mobile phones!

Not on the High Street is a great place to search for gifts and gorgeous items. From this review opportunity and both my own and my mum's previous experiences I can recommend NOTHS.

Pop along to www.notonthehighstreet.com and prepare to get lost in a treasure trove of lovelies.