I'm a full-time mummy

Every year in December, hubby and I will be cracking our heads to think of what to make and give his clients for Christmas celebration. You can read this post to see our previous gifts to his clients.

• In 2008, we got this 3 feet tall fake Christmas trees and hung treats and goodies as ornaments and filled up the base with sweets and snacks too.

• In 2009, we bought this glass cookie jars and filled them up with Famous Amos cookies and sweets and treats and tied a red ribbon over the glass jar.

• In 2010, we bought 2 biscuit tins of fifferent sizes (2 for each client), small tin filled up with butter cookies which I baked myself sealed in decorated plastic bags and the big tin is filled up with treats and snacks.

What we did for 2011? Ta-daaaaaaaaa...

For 2011, we made ribbon Christmas tree with treats and snacks in a basket decorated with fake pine leaves.

The ribbon tree is my idea after searching the Internet for inspiration and the basket with treats is hubby's idea. I've posted some pictures of our ribbon Christmas trees on my personal Facebook page and a couple of friends asked me how to make it, so here it is:

#1 : Making the Ribbon 'Leaves'

#1 - These are the items you need to make the ribbon 'leaves': scissors, double-sided tape, ribbons!

#2 - Start cutting ribbons! I cut mine about 7 inches long. Make sure the length are all same. Gently fold the ribbon in half.

#3 - Cut 2 small tabs of double-sided tape. I cut mine about half centimetres in size for each tab. Stick 1 of the tab to one end on the inside of the ribbon (you want the nicer looking surface to be outside). Peel out the protective layer and stick the ends together.

#4 - Stick the 2nd tab to 1 side of the ribbon where you just double-taped earlier.

#5 - If you do not want your tree to look fuller or bouncier, you can press the ribbon where it's folded in half.

#6 -Repeat step 1 - 5.

#2 : Creating the Ribbon Christmas Tree

What you need is party hats, some ornaments to put at the tip of your tree and your ribbons made from earlier steps. Take 1 ribbon, peel open the protective layer of the double-sided tape and stick the ribbon onto the party hat. I make sure my ribbons touched the edge of the party hat. Repeat until you reached full circle. I also try to overlap the ribbons by a few milimetres to make it compact.

To do the next ribbon circle, I will repeat the above and ensure my ribbons covered about 1 inch of the ribbons below. Keep on until you reach the top.I actually cut and prepared tons of ribbons, put them into a paper bag and when my girl is napping on my legs, I just start sticking the ribbons onto the party hat.

I got this cute little star ornament which I poke a hole big enough to cover the tip of the party hat. I also tape the star ornament for added protection.

#3 : Making the decorative basket

Now what you need for the decorative basket (hubby's idea!) are basket (big enough for your party hat), fake pine leaves, ornaments, cable twist tie and scissors.

Hubby cut and wrapped the fake pine leaves all around the basket and securing it with twist tie. We actually got some nice cookie tins and mini Pringles can to hide inside the party hat and then we filled the basket with goodies and treats.

I also printed the greetings and double-tape it to a card before punching holes to both ends of the card. I then use some recycled ribbon to tie the greeting card to each basket.

#4 : Final results to oogle on!

I love this year's gifts!

I hope you enjoy this tutorial! 

When I saw the press release of this app from Oceanhouse Media, I immediately check out the app further. I mean, it is very intriquing to see what an app with the "Picture Me" words are all about! I am so glad to be given the chance to review this app! as it is a very very cute and personalised app! Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Picture Me® Christmas Cutie
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Dec 14, 2011
* Version: 1.08
* Size: 11.5 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later

Description from the product page:

"Add your child's photo to the first ever personalized omBook and they can star in their own holiday dress-up story! Take a picture or add photos from your library and voila, your child instantly adorns cute holiday costumes like Santa’s helpful elf, Christmas teddy bear, jolly snowman, cuddly mouse, or playful reindeer. Children will enjoy the playful sounds and interactive objects on every page as they flip through the story and see themselves in costume!

Special features include the ability to store your photos in the app and even use multiple photos within a single story. Everyone in the family can be included! Children will love the beautiful scenes on each page, the professional audio narration, and word highlighting to benefit emerging readers. These features and more create an enjoyable experience for users of all ages.

With Picture Me Christmas Cutie on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, you can make adorable holiday costume collections wherever you go! Additional Features:
* High quality artwork based on studio photography
* Professional audio narration
* Introduces pre-literacy skills with word highlighting
* Interactive objects on each page
* Encourages imaginative play as children can take on a variety of characters
* This 'Universal App' is optimized for Retina displays and the iPad "

What a cute app in time for Christmas celebration which is right around the corner! The moment I started using this app, I selected pictures of my family (hubby, myself, Ben and Alyson) and once I'm done (very fast process too!) I showed it to Ben and we went through the app together. 

You should've seen the look on his face when he saw his own face appearing on the app cover and then our faces on the characters in the app!

He was smiling and saying out our names as he saw our faces popping out on the app! Cute!

What's good?

* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch the objects in each page on the screen!

* I like how the pictures we selected appears randomly as the story goes along and got repeated again and again and again!

* The process to upload our pictures into the app is very user friendly and easy to go through.

* I am also amazed at the cool features of the app when I upload our pictures, I can so easily select, enlarge or reduce the size and even rotate the pictures!

Room for Improvement?

* I think it will be totally awesome if there is a function which allows us to EMAIL out the pictures! That will totally make a cute e-card for Christmas!

You can purchase the "Picture Me® Christmas Cutie" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store 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 iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

I have read the "Who Moved My Cheese?" book so when I saw this book title, I was intrigued and decided to request for a review copy. Here goes my review for the "The Swiss Cheese Theory of Life " book:

Title:  The Swiss Cheese Theory of Life 
Authors: Judith Belmont, MS & Lora Shor, MSW
Publisher: Premier Publishing & Media; 1st edition (October 21, 2011)
ISBN-13/-10:  978-0982039892 / 0982039891
Paperback:  247 pages
Dimension:  8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches

Description from the product page:
"The Swiss Cheese Theory of Life is a book about resiliency. Using Swiss Cheese as a metaphor for life itself, you will explore ways to get through the holes rather than get stuck in them. Swiss is not like any other cheese - and neither are you! This self-help health and wellness book is sure to delight and enlighten - with a thick-sliced sense of humor. While it is whimsical in style, it deals with many serious and universal topics that affect our everyday lives. We distill important concepts from many sources, slicing them up into easily digestible chunks of information.

After all, Swiss is not like any other cheese and neither are you like anyone else! This wellness book is about thriving in the face of life's adversities, overcoming challenges, developing stress resilience, and making effective and long lasting changes for a happier life. Important training concepts are easily related through a light-hearted holistic approach that will touch your mind, body and spirit. Our expertise as psychotherapists and wellness speakers has reached thousands of people throughout the country - and now we want to reach out to you! Couldn't everyone benefit from Swiss Cheese Life resiliency training to help them move through life's holes instead of getting stuck in them?

Take the Swiss Cheese Theory of Life Challenge!
-Are you trying to make changes in your life, yet you find yourself digging deeper into a hole?
-Do you know better but can t seem to get out from under your unhealthy patterns or habits?
-Do you often have why does this happen to me thinking?
-Are you looking for happiness in all the wrong places?
-Are you ready to make healthy changes in your life ... physically, emotionally, spiritually?

If you answered yes to any of these questions help is here!"

* I like the way the authors compares life using Swiss Cheese (kinda makes you think and goes 'Ohhhh... I see....' when you read each chapter).

* Each chapter in the book are interesting to read and I love the illustrations in the book as well.

* I love how the authors uses W.A.I.T to represent the points for What Am I Thinking in page 86.

* I also love page 132 on the statement of "Opportunity is NOWHERE" - it depends on how you look at things, whether "Opportunity is Nowhere" or "Opportunity is Now Here!". Awesome!

* I love the lesson taught on page 224 about the ability to forgive others.

In summary, it is a book that shows you how to get through the holes in your life and how to overcome the obstacles and turned out to be a better person.

Highly recommended, do get a copy of this book for yourself too!!

Or, since Christmas is approaching why not get a copy as a gift for your loved ones or friends to start off the New Year with new perspective in life? 

You can get this book from Amazon.

And yeay!!! I am so happy to hear Ms. Belmont has generously offered to sponsor 1 copy of her book SIGNED by herself to 1 lucky follower / visitor on my blog! Yeap, if you are the winner, you get to own a copy of her book, signed and she will mail it to you anywhere you are!

OK then, just read below for the giveaway terms and entry form, OK?

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

• You can enter either via login through your Facebook account or just key in your name and your valid email address.
  
• Please also leave your valid email address in the post comment so that I can contact you if you win this giveaway.
  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So what are you waiting for?!! Hurry up! You have 1 month time from now to join in the fun and try your luck!

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a PDF copy of the book by the author 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"