I'm a full-time mummy

I always believed God is watching over us! A while ago, I was telling myself as I rummaged through my worn out diaper bag (it's already 2 years old) and telling myself it is high time to get a new diaper bag, and few weeks back while discussing with my hubby what to get for our ninja girl's coming 2 years old birthday and hubby suggested we get a Duplo set for Alyson's birthday (as it can easily merged with her brother's Lego sets and we are really strong believer in Lego stuff which helps foster creativity and motor skills in our kiddos) and then a few weeks back also, one of our kiddos got a bit of a fever and I used our digital thermometer and I noticed the flashing battery low indicator and I was like thinking 'Argh... not this... how to change battery?' and God comes to our rescue and answered our prayers!

To cut a long story short, I was approached by Lazada Malaysia to collaborate with them and despite my announcement that I am stopping all product reviews to focus on our coming 3rd child in October and also taking care of our 2 kiddos now, I just had to accept this pitch as the products sent for my review are what I have been asking for!!! So here goes my review for the products we received from Lazada Malaysia:

About the company:
"Lazada Malaysia is poised to be the single largest online mall that is part of a global cyber chain already established in Europe. We have similar sites in China, India, Singapore and the Philippines with plans to move into other parts of the world. Lazada Malaysia will change the face of shopping by offering a user-friendly, convenient and trusted e-commerce platform. "

 I received a total of 3 products for my review which I will break it down for easier reading:

# 1 : Bubbles Ashley Diaper Sling Bag (Black color)

A new diaper bag with a detachable bottle holder! Yay! I would've preferred a red color bag (easier to notice) but black will do as well as it masks off dirt and mess easily too hahahah... I particularly love the spacious pockets all over the bag, and boy, this bag does have lots more pockets than my current worn out diaper bag! More places for me to stuff my kiddos things and snacks!

I also like that this bag comes with 2 handles which can be easily hold up together with a Velcro strap and I would definitely prefer the sling strap as I find it more comfortable to carry a sling diaper bag. I also like that the bag has 2 cute zipper tabs (I get annoyed when there's only one zip tab), I mean, 2 zip tabs are cool as I can open it from either sides!

A look at the insides of the diaper bag, whoaaaa... spacious... the width of the bag is about 6 inches, lots of stuff I can put in, enough for 3 kiddos' stuff later! Btw, the diaper bag also comes with a changing pad which you can use in the event you need to change your kiddo's diaper anywhere, anytime!

One thing that I'm still trying to get used to is the way the sling strap is being hooked/attached to the diaper bag. The metal hooks are not located on the sides of the diaper bag (like how my worn out diaper bag is) but are located at the top, zig-zag across each ends. You don't really noticed the difference when you sling the diaper bag, just that I feel weird and need to get used to this new settings.

So I took out everything from my worn out diaper bag and transferred them over to the Bubbles Ashley Diaper Sling Bag. There's a whole lot more space left in the diaper bag and I love how I can organised the things better now. More pockets for me to put things in different places rather than stuffing everything into a small space like how I previously did.

This Bubbles Ashley Diaper Sling Bag will come in handy when our 3rd child comes along as I will be able to pack all 3 kiddos' stuff into this bag! Yay! For more information on this bag, go to: http://www.lazada.com.my/Bubbles-Ashley-Diaper-Sling-Bag-Black-452657.html

# 2 : Bremed BD1130 Digital Baby Thermometer (Koala Bear design)

Like I mentioned earlier in this post, a few weeks back, one of our kiddos got a bit of a fever and I noticed the flashing battery low indicator when I was using our digital thermometer and I was worried about the prospect of not having any digital thermometer to measure our kiddos' temperatures in the future. And look at what we have here! The Bremed BD1130 Digital Baby Thermometer!! Yay, and it comes with 4 cute designs, which are frog, koala, panda and bear. We got the koala bear design and I love it! Really cute!

What impressed me about this Bremed BD1130 Digital Baby Thermometer is it has a flexible tip, you can really bend the tip back and forth. Very good when you have wriggly little ones trying to escape from being forced to have their temperatures taken hahahaha... This thermometer also has a fever alarm and is waterproof as well. Nice!

Of course I immediately got down to testing the Bremed BD1130 Digital Baby Thermometer with our current low battery digital thermometer on both my kiddos. The temperature shown for my boy is same for both devices whereas we are off by 0.1C reading for my girl.

The only thing I would prefer is a bigger screen for the thermometer as the screen for our current one is quite big. For more information on this thermometer, go to: http://www.lazada.com.my/Bremed-BD1130-Digital-Baby-Thermometer-445805.html

# 3 : Lego Duplo Luigi’s Italian Place (5818)

What a cute Lego Duplo Luigi’s Italian Place set we got here! This was initially meant for our 4.5 years old boy but we have decided to give it to our going to be 2 years old ninja girl soon as hubby and I were planning to get her a Duplo set for her birthday.

Unfortunately, this is the only Duplo set available for our review and we are really a big fan of Lego products and thought this would still make an awesome gift although it might be more geared towards boy type of games. Anyway, our ninja girl is not into dolls or girly cookery toys anyway, so yeah, we decided to go ahead with the Lego Duplo Luigi’s Italian Place!

Btw, why we love Duplo products? For your info, DUPLO products are fun and safe for younger hands, the blocks are big enough for them to play with and we can testify how awesome Lego products is for our 4.5 years old boy as we can see how creative he got as he plays with his Lego and we hope to repeat the same with our soon to-be 2 years old girl later.

I would really love to open this Duplo set up but like I mentioned earlier, we wanted to get this as a birthday gift for our going to be 2 years old ninja girl (her birthday is on 2nd Sept by the way) so I will have to revisit and update this post with more pictures of our girl playing with this Duplo set after her birthday passed okay?

If you are planning to look for Lego or Duplo products, you can browse for more designs at: http://www.lazada.com.my/shop-blocks-building-toys/

You can browse for more products at http://www.lazada.com.my/

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the products by Lazada Malaysia 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.

I've recently shared with you guys my new hobby that is very therapeutic for myself, the Do-It-Yourself (aka DIY) ribbon hair clip!

So here goes a simple ribbon hair clip tutorial in case you are interested...

What you will need:

* Alligator hair clip (I bought mine from an online store) - the size I used is 6mm width by 3cm length (my ninja girl's hair not that long yet...)

* Ribbon (I use 3/8″ grosgrain as recommended by my craft guru)

* Scissors

* Craft glue (I used a China brand el-cheapo craft glue)

* A cigarette lighter and candle to seal the ends of the ribbon

Steps to follow:

* Start with a hair clip and a ribbon.

* Seal the ends of the grosgrain ribbon. I use a lighter, light up the candle (I'm scared of heat so prefer to use candle) just hold the ribbon's ends the flame near (not touching!) for a few seconds.

* Start from the inside of the clip, near the joint and glue the ribbon down. I will use extra clips to secure it tighter.

* Then put glue on the underside of the bottom ‘jaw’ of the clip and fold your ribbon under, pressing and smoothing it onto the clip.

* Just continue gluing all over the hairclip until it is all covered up by the ribbon.

* I also glue the inside of the jaw clip area to make it look professional hahahah...

* You may add on appliques or decorations on top of your hair clip to make it more outstanding or unique.

The results...

I hope you can understand my tutorial, wish I could provide step by step pictures but the glue dries up fast and the clip is very small that it is very tiring for me to be holding it open long enough for me to snap pictures so I just randomly take the pictures.

Until then, I hope to be able to make more awesome ribbon hair clips for my children. Feel free to share your  personal tips if you are into ribbon hair clips making as well!

I've discovered a new hobby that is very therapeutic for myself!

Introducing the Do-It-Yourself (aka DIY) ribbon hair clip!

Sometime ago, I saw a mummy friend in my FB SAHM group sharing that she wants to pass on her ribbon hair clip making knowledge to whoever who is interested. To be honest, I was interested but there were so many mummies responded in that post thread that they want to learn so I just keep quiet myself and continue on with my busy life...

Until recently, I plucked up the courage to send a personal message to that mummy friend (who is also on my friend list since then) and asked her about the ribbon hair clip making updates and how the other mummies are learning on from her.

To my surprise, she said no mummies contacted her personally and I'm the only one who asked her about it now. And so, that sparked off my interest again and I began Googling for more info and also sending lots more PMs to my friend (her name is Kerry btw) asking her as and when I came across some bargain deals online,to find out from her whether it is worth it to purchase such items etc.

She gave some important inputs to me on what items to look out for such as the type of ribbons to get is grosgrain ribbons, the sizes, the type of alligator hair clips, the craft glues, and so on.

I told her I will only pester her if I need any more info and went on to buy from 2 online store. I have so far received one of the package while the other apparently got stuck in the postal office (status shown unable to deliver to me and package returned back to post office - and I've got NO notice card left by postman to proof that I can collect it personally at the pots office.. sigh, that is another story)

Anyway, with the package I received, I started off doing the hair clip, with a very simple tutorial to practise my skills. Which I intend to start off with learning how to glue the hair clip all over. And then slowly add other appliques or decorations on the hair clips as I practised along.

So how is this new hobby of mine end up being so therapeutic? Well, most of the time when I was doing the hair clips, both my kiddos left me alone. I get some 'me' time and honestly, I needed as much uninterrupted time as possible because at 8 months pregnancy now, BOTH my kiddos are really, really, really clingy at me! I can't even be out of sight from our 4 years old boy! I go to bathroom and not even 5 seconds, my boy asked from outside 'Mummy are you done?'. I tried to take a nap (despite the risks of being slammed down by my kiddos on the bed when they skipped their daytime nap) and my boy goes 'Mummy are you sleeping?' or 'Mummy you sleep enough?'

Even though I will be sitting on my chair at my desk doing the hair clips and still needing to entertain my kiddos, our 2 years old girl will most of the time immediately climb up to my chair and squeezed right next to me and started touching everything on my desk and our 4 years old boy will go 'Mummy see', 'Mummy look', 'Mummy why..' every 10 seconds on average, oh well, at least when I'm doing the ribbon hair clips, my kids left me alone. That is some precious moment of peace!

So yes, I've been practising and trying out new designs almost everyday and I get extremely excited when I see my girl gently touching her hair after I pinned the hair clip on her head. She is so scared that the clip will fall off. I chuckled when I see her smiling and looking at the mirror immediately after I put on the hair clip. Vainpot! Hahahah!

I started with a simple ribbon hair clip where I learned to glue the ribbon all over to cover the hair clip and then topping it off with a cute pink hat button.

I then tried to make my own decoration by following a sample online, making a strawberry flower topping.

The following day, we saw a gigantic rainbow above our house in the evening and that sparked my ambition to try out the rainbow hair clip. A tad too big as I did the rainbow without proper measurements, but I like it nevertheless! Made two at the same time and gave the other one away to a good friend of ours, his daughter is younger than mine.

I also made a pair of hair clips which I dubbed the 'Mother and Daughter hair clips' also given to our good friend, I hope they like it!

And this is one of my latest result! I am very happy with this though definitely need more fine-tuning - I still need to figure out how to stick the back of the lollipop properly to the hair clip and most probably need to get a thinner ribbon instead of the current 8mm width of ribbon I'm using now. It makes the lollipop a tad too big and thick for the tiny hair clip but it looks so superbly cute on our 2 years old girl, right?

I also made some fruit themed hair clips such as grape hair clip and banana hair clip shown below:

Anyway, you can view the pictures of My DIY Hair Clip Project I made so far which I shared on my Facebook page. As for tutorials, I hope I can share with you what I learned but most of them you can also find online anyway. I am not confident at all to teach anyone as of now as I am still learning myself and would not want to be teaching anyone the wrong thing. I can only share that one of the online store I used will be getting more clients as I have been recommending mummy friends and my blog followers to purchase the materials there. The price is OK for beginners like me but if you plan to do this more and in the long run, best would be to buy from eBay or other websites which can sell wholesale quantity.

Until then, I hope to be able to make more awesome ribbon hair clips for my children. Again, a very special note of thanks to Kerry for her guidance and tips in helping me along with my new journey!