I'm a full-time mummy

I am so thrilled to be able to review this crafts and hobbies book by Tina Barseghian called: "A Homemade Christmas".

Author: Tina Barseghian
Publisher:  Harlequin
ISBN: 9780373892228
Product Dimensions: 5.13in x 8in
Paperback: 128 pages

"A Homemade Christmas" is chock-full of projects, recipes, tips, and helpful hints that are guaranteed to add a homemade touch to your holiday season. Open this charming volume to any page and discover a wealth of practical and easy-to-accomplish ideas for a homemade holiday:
* create personal, distinctive holiday greetings
* deck the halls with festive, handmade trimmings
* cook simple but memorable homemade dishes
* make unique, handcrafted gifts
* share the joy of the season with friends and family

Packed with inspiration and how-tos for ideas that are family-friendly and eco-conscious, festive and meaningful, A Homemade Christmas will put homemade back into your holidays!

Ever since Ben came along in March 2009, Christmas (oh, and other festivities of course!) just seem so much more meaningful, fun and lively! I actually did some DIY decoration for last year's Christmas and am pretty proud of that. Just look at the pictures below:

My simple DIY decoration using old greeting cards and deco items which I tied with strings of wool to each staircase railings. I got this idea from Martha Stewart's website last year. And this tip was also mentioned in this book.

This is a snapshot of one of the DIY Christmas gifts we made for hubby's clients. We bought the glass jars from Ikea, throw in some candies and chocolates and I tied each glass jars with golden stripped red ribbons, attaching a mini greeting cards as well.

Anyway, back to this review. This book was categorised into 5 chapters:

* Greeting - there's a couple of cool ideas in this chapter such as making a photo card and stitching up your own greetings card which I find creative and worth to try!

* Trimming - I particularly love the tutorials on how to make your own snow globe and the idea on a non traditional way of making a Christmas tree is just too cool! You really got to read this book to find out what it is!

* Cooking - there are some simple recipes given for us to try to make. I'm going to try the shortbread sugar cookies this year hopefully!

* Giving - there are a variety of creative and clever ideas on how to decorate our gifts which I like.

* Celebrating - In this chapter, there are ideas on creating new and continuing the old traditions and also connecting with our community.

I love the simplicity of the book, the instructions and tutorials given are easy to understand though I do prefer if there are more illustrations provided (thanks to Ben, I love books with tons of pictures in it!). The fact that most of the tips given can be easily done at the comfort of our home is just awe-inspiring!

With this book now, I am able to get more ideas for this year's Christmas!

You can purchase this book from Amazon or the eHarlequin store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a galley proof of the book by eHarlequin via my association with netGalley as a reviewer in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

Last Saturday was my 1st baking class conducted by my 1st SIL. She came prepared with her ingredients and equipments (she even brought a spare portable oven in case the one she gave us recently didn't work). The entire lesson last for less than 2 hours and consists of 3 recipes using oven. 

I'm so sorry there are no pictures taken at all because everything is rushed and I also had to quickly scribbled down the instructions that I managed to remember and also pay attention to my SIL (and also watch out for Ben). So before I forget, here are my notes:

1. Roasted Chicken Wings

Seasonings:

* Little bit of honey, soy sauce & thick soy sauce (Can use other types depend on your taste bud)

Instructions:

2. BBQ Pork (Char Siew)

Ingredients: Pork cut to strips

Seasonings: 1 tsp ginger powder, 1 tsp onion powder, 1 tbsp sesame seed oil, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tsp white pepper, 4-5 tbsp sugar, Lit bit of honey, red coloring & thick soy sauce

Instructions:

3. Muffins

Ingredients: Pre-mix muffin pack, 2 eggs beaten, 135ml oil, 135ml water

Instructions:

I'm sorry if the instructions are pretty blur and not detail enough. I have tried my best to jot down everything but it's really not easy, especially when your teacher is measuring things based on her rough estimation.

And the muffin recipe, although it's using pre-mix, I was told I should start with easy ready made ingredients to get used to baking. And I'm not experienced at all in writing down recipes so I'm not sure I'm jotting down the right words and baking terms or not :P

I hope to be able to take pictures the next time I start baking on my own!

So there you go, my 1st baking class!

Finally can't resist and succumbed to the temptation of creating the "I'm a full-time mummy Fan Page" for my blog on Facebook!

It came about when one of my blog reader (Thanks to mamapoekie for the inspiration!) who asked me through her comment whether I have a Facebook page and I replied that I don't think I can handle too many accounts at the moment!

. . . . . (please wait while I put my foot into my mouth)

Okay, okay... I just can't resist it any longer! I thought over the idea of creating the Facebook page and what benefits & good it does for my blog and it came down to these few reasons:

* a great platform for my loyal followers to come together for my website

* gives more footing in search ranking

* able to track the number of interactions my page has with fans, view key demographics like sex, age, and location, and more

* a variety of customization options when choosing to communicate with my fan base

* able to communicate messages and posts directly into my fans’ homepages

* it’s completely free!

* Facebook allows users to Comment, Like & Share any update, link, photo, video etc. This has the opportunity to turn viral depending on the popularity or interest in the subject.

* The process of becoming a fan is simplified – NO friend request to be ‘accepted’ or to view your page. Just the decision to become a fan and at the click of a mouse the avenue of communication is open to you both.

Another article on the benefits:

* Unlike profile and group, both of which are limited with maximum 5000 friends and 5000 members, fan page is unlimited, a fan page can get as many fans as it can

* Fan page can be searched or found by search engine, it is powerful, imagine whatever you post in fan page will be indexed by google,doesn’t it mean more traffic to the page and also target business website or blog?

Now how to create a Facebook page for your blog? I'm just going to put in those steps that I managed to screenshot for your guide, you can actually surfed around the Net for tutorials to do this as well. So here goes:

#1: Login to your Facebook account. If you don't have an account, you need to create one first by going to Facebook home page.

#2: Now go to Facebook | Create a Page option. You will see there are 2 page options to choose from, "Official Page" or "Community Page". Choose the one on the left.

#3: Select the 2nd option which is "Brand, product or organisation" and look for "Website".

#4: Key in your page name. In my case, of course I key in my blog name which is "I'm a full-time mummy".

#5: Check the box under "I'm the official representative of this person, business, band or product and have permission to create this Page." and click the "Create Official Page" button.

#6: From there onwards, you will be prompted to add your info, such a picture for your page profile, basic and detailed info and so on.

Now what good is a fan page if you can't import your blog RSS into it right? Honestly, I'm kinda tired having to copy my posts link to my personal Facebook profile whenever I publish a new post. So, doing this especially under my own blog profile is good for me!

Option 1: Via Facebook Notes

#7: Now, what you do is go to "Edit Page", look for "Notes" and click at the "Edit" option. Look out for the option to "Import a Blog" and key in your blog URL. Check the box at the end before clicking on the "Start Importing" button. (I actually have to search around for more tutorials as it cannot detect my RSS link and I finally found the solution which is to just key in my blog URL)

#8: If your URL is correct, you will see the preview of your imported blog. Just click at the "Confirm Import" button.

Option 2: Via NetworkedBlogs on Facebook (** FYI, I USED THIS OPTION!)

A note of thanks to a bloggy friend, MieVee for highlighting the differences between these 2 options. I'm using the 2nd option  based on this tutorial after MieVee's tips and we'll see how it works out when my next post is up!

Of course, the final step is to "Like" your own fan page and then start spreading the news that you have your own Facebook page now!

For me, I added a new social icon on my blog sidebar so that you guys can just click on the button (2nd from left) to follow "I'm a full-time mummy Fan Page".

Hope the above tutorials help!

Now come and start liking "I'm a full-time mummy Fan Page" already!

See you in Facebook!