Giveaway - Alternative ABCs

~ Posted on Friday, July 2, 2010 at 2:35 PM ~

I had previously post up my product review on the awesome "Alternative ABCs" and had mentioned in the "Where to Get It?" section that I am in the midst of liaising with AMMO Books for a giveaway copy of the awesome board book to one of you guys and YES! YES! YES! YES!

I have finally received the green light to do the giveaway after working out the details for the giveaway.

Yes, I am not kidding you!

A copy of the above will be shipped directly to you FREE OF CHARGE!

Awesome right? I get so excited at the opportunity of being able to host giveaway like this cos it really feels nice rewarding my blog readers for following my blog! So without further adieu, here goes the details of the giveaways:

* Eligibility: Open worldwide!
* Giveaway expires on 31st July 2010
* You must fulfill the mandatory entry 1st (which is to answer the question), else you will be disqualified.
* Winner will be randomly drawn using Random.org and will have 48 hours to respond to  my email notification or a new winner will be drawn.

* Winner will receive their prize sent directly by AMMO Books.

Go to the AMMO Books website (http://www.ammobooks.com/books/altabcs/), come back here and leave a comment telling me what the letter P stands for. Remember to leave your email address in the same comment so that I can contact you if you win!

Need to increase your chance of winning? Once you got the above mandatory question right, the following optional entries  (you can choose either one or all) will help increase your chances of winning. Please remember to leave a separate comments for each of the optional entries! So here goes:

* My Blog Follower on Google Friend Connect (1 entry)

* Follow Me on Twitter - Leave your @username (1 entry)

* Grab my blog button, let me know your blog URL so that I can check it out (1 entry)

* Blog about this giveaway and leave me the link (1 entry)

* Leave a suggestion on what other alphabet themes you think would be good to have (1 entry)


So hurry up! I did mentioned the giveaway is open worldwide right??

Remember, if you complete the mandatory and ALL the optional entries, you have a total of 6 comment entries entitled for this giveaway to up your winning chances!

Go on and enter the giveaway right now so that your child can be like Ben, so intrigued with the awesome board book! (I mean, how often you get to see an alternative book for teaching ABCs to your child?!)

Product Review - Alternative ABCs

~ Posted on Friday, July 2, 2010 at 4:23 AM ~

The product I'll be reviewing this time is:

Yeap! A board book by the title of “Alternative ABCs”!  I  have  been  given  this wonderful opportunity to review this board book through the Business2Blogger program and the contact person, Ms. Sara DeGonia is a wonderful person to work with! She has been providing me updates and help all the way from the point I submit my request for the book review until the book was delivered safe to my hand half way across the globe!

(Excerpts from the website): 
This “
Alternative ABCs” board book features original, colorful, and graphic illustrations and typography by Southern California based designers Eric Ruffing and Dave Parmley of 13THFLOOR. 

Aesthetically borrowing from street, surf, skate, and music subcultures, the custom design and typography beautifully spell out this unique alphabet. From Calligraffiti to Pin-Striping, and from Goth to Punk, this little book crosses genres and is sure to create a buzz.  Further details of the board book:

* ISBN: 9781934429396, Dimension: 6 x 6 inches and number of pages: 56 pages

The moment I read about the opportunity to review this book (without even seeing the pictures of it!) I was hooked!  I mean, how often you get to see something other than the normal A for Apple, B for Ball, C for Cat type of board books?!! I’m not sure about you but this is the first time I read about this concept! Just look at the pictures of Ben below enjoying the book when it arrives!

The book also instils a sense of responsibility in us, as you can see, R is for Reduce, Reuse and Recycle! How uber cool is that?! 

Ben flipping to the next alphabet for more!

Picture above of Ben, obviously intrigued with the vibrant colors used!

What I like about this board book?

* A different concept towards getting your child to learn alphabets

* Vibrant colors used for each alphabet which attracts and caught your attention

* Creative illustrations used where some of them actually helps instil preservations and love towards environment and our planet earth!

* The thickness of each page is just right (flimsy and thin books always get chewed by Ben and doesn’t last more than 1 week)

* The dimension of the board book is also just nice, not too big that I get tired holding them for Ben or too big for Ben to carry around. 

You can go to  http://www.ammobooks.com/books/altabcs/  to order a copy.

Similarly, you can also order from Amazon by clicking at this link: Alternative ABCs (Chunky Edition)

*** Btw, I am in the midst of liaising with AMMO Books for a giveaway copy to one of my lucky blog reader (yup! Could be YOU!!), so watch out for this OK?

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a free product by AMMO Books 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.

Product Review - Buds Organics

~ Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 4:51 PM ~

Before I begin, I'd like to mention that I received these products early in June and have been testing it throughout the month. The pictures posted in this review still carries the watermark of my previous blog's URL and I am not able to redo the watermark as my laptop was reformatted just few days ago and I've lost the original pictures taken during this review. (So, I have no choice but to use the photos which was saved in my review draft) but nevertheless, its my feedback that counts right, not the nitty gritty details like pictures' watermarks huh..?

Anyway, for this product review, I have highlighted the few main important dates where I tested the products and note down my feedback upon the testing. Without further adieu, the product I'll be reviewing in this post is: "Buds Organics"

I have been given this wonderful opportunity to review a product made in my home country, Malaysia! Buds Organics is produced by the Malaysian company I-Green, and is the first Asian brand of certified organic baby care products.

Buds was first introduced to the market as pure and natural and was then gone through reformulation process into organic for the past year. The implementation was completed last October 2009 and this basic range is now called Buds Organics which can be broken into 4 categories namely Buds Everyday Organics, Buds Soothing Organics, Buds Outdoor Organics and Buds Nurturing Organics for Mom. They have another luxurious line of baby and mum care, Buds Cherished Organics which is preservative free! Buds is now certified organic by ECOCERT of France.

Pure and gentle, Buds Organics will allow you to really pamper and nourish baby's skin without exposing her to harmful chemicals such as sodium lauryl sulphates, PEG, artificial colors, artificial fragrances, mineral oils, parabens and other harmful synthetic ingredients. This comprehensive range is made up of specific and specialized products to handle almost every situation from delicate newborn skin to diaper rash and even mum’s stretch marks.

Buds Organics products are packed with gorgeous organic ingredients like EFA rich Amazonian Inca Inchi, which protects, heals and nourishes and the luscious emollients, Sunflower and Jojoba oils and Shea Butter. Aside from the washes, all products are over 88% organic which far surpasses ECOCERT's minimum requirements of 10%.

At Buds, every effort is made to ensure minimum damage to the environment. They use post consumer recycled paper where possible and only box their products where necessary. Their plastic is recyclable and they use both sides of every sheet of paper because even the smallest steps can make a difference!

I fell in love with their oh-so-cute baby cartoons on their labels! What's awesome is they even listed down the things that are NOT in their products. You can read more on this link on their website. These are the products I received to facilitate my product review:

Under the Buds Organics line:
* A 50ml First Aid Lotion
* A 225ml Baby Head to Toe Cleanser
*
A 75ml Baby Cream
* Brochures on the products under Buds Organics
Under the Buds Cherished Organics line:
* A 8ml sachet pack of Happy Baby Head to Toe Cleanser
* A 8ml sachet pack of Happy Baby Cream

As usual, all products to be reviewed must go through Ben's high standards of testing which begins with him biting the baby cream tube. Well, bite test passed! :P

Ben is undecided on which items to test next since there's so many to choose from... Now let's proceed to mummy's test on Ben (Hehehe!)...

1st June 2010 testing:
The first product I tested is the First Aid Lotion, I dabbed some onto the side of Ben's nose which he scratched 2 days ago. By evening, the scab looks dried and smaller, and to think I only applied once on Ben! Good stuff! I like the
First Aid Lotion tube cos it's small and I feel assured that the first aid lotion is made of organic stuff.

Next up in line for testing is the Baby Head to Toe Cleanser which I used when I bathed Ben in the evening. It smells nice, initially feels oily when I poured some onto my palm, makes bubbles when rubbed onto Ben's body but surprisingly, washes off real fast when sprayed with water. The current baby milk bath I used for Ben takes about 2-3 times wash in order to remove the soapy slippery feel so it's a nice change when I'm using the Baby Head to Toe Cleanser. Ben's hair also feels fluffier, smoother and softer. Surprisingly, even hubby and his eldest brother noticed that too although hubby said he prefer Ben's hair to be rougher! :P

One more thing I noticed when using Buds Baby Head to Toe Cleanser is it doesn't sting Ben's eyes when I washes the cleanser off from his hair. Compared to our current baby milk bath, Ben would've been running all over in the bath room to avoid his hair being washed and he'll be busy wiping his eyes (which sometimes makes it red) and I have to quickly wash his hair and wipe his face dry to reduce the irritation towards his eyes. So, yeah, this stuff is good man!Love it! And this is only day 1 of the testing! :D

3rd June 2010 testing:
Ben scratched his nose again in the late afternoon! Just as the first scratch healed up, he went and created a longer one. So, while he took his nap earlier, I took a close up shot of his scratch before I dab on the
First Aid Lotion.
Look at that long scratch... sigh... let's see how fast it takes to heal with the
First Aid Lotion.

5th June 2010 testing:
Ben's nose scratch has healed up completely! This stuff is good! In fact, I too dabbed on some First Aid Lotion
when I scratched my left knee! It does stings a bit initially. The last I checked on 6th June, the wound has scabbed over and is on its way to heal! :D 

I have also been testing the Baby Cream with Ben and it leaves your skin feeling soft and smooth and I really love the smell of it!

9th June 2010 testing:

We tested the 8ml sachet pack of Happy Baby Head to Toe Cleanser (under the Buds Cherished Organics line) and the smell is so much stronger! I can actually still smell the fragrance in Ben's hair in the middle of the night (Ben co-sleeps with us) - totally love it!

10th June 2010 testing:

Today, we tested the 8ml sachet pack of Happy Baby Cream (under the Buds Cherished Organics line). Personally I feel that this is a bit too slimy for me and the smell doesn't lasts as long. I prefer to use the Baby Cream under the Buds Organics line.

You can go to http://www.budsbaby.com/ to find out the stores available in your countries that sell their products.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a free products by Buds Organics 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.