I'm a full-time mummy

I received a PR pitch on August 31st and immediately replied back with my interest in reviewing the digital scrap book kit as I was tinkering around few weeks back while looking for ideas to revamp my blog header and stumbled upon the world of digital scrapbooking! It took me sometime to download the whole mega collab but it was worth the time taken as I get to play around with scrapbooking DIGITALLY and FOR FREE!

Some info about their products:

"All of our products are digital and are available via computer download only; no physical product will be sent to you.  Our digital scrapbooking products are in the highest quality and resolutions, all 300dpi. Papers are 12 inches x 12 inches and in .jpg format, elements are in .png format, and templates are in .png, .tiff, and .psd formats."

You can also check out their gallery and forum too! Btw, if you take up the challenges highlighted in their forum, you can earn points for free products.  500 points = $5.00 to the store. Good huh?!

I was asked to select one out of the following designs to review: School Time, Tropical Paradise, Berry Delight, There's a Party Going On, or Birthday Bash. After browsing through all of them, I settled on Birthday Bash.

A bit of info about this kit that I downloaded to review:

"The Stuff To Scrap designers have made another huge, fabulous birthday kit!  It  has great colors for both boys and girls and plenty of embellishments to complete any layout!  This kit contains 95 12x12 300 dpi papers, 135 embellishments and 2 full alphas."

And this is what I came up with after playing around for sometime (not pretty I know, I'm a newbie in this and I've got 2 kids to take care of now so time is a precious asset to me now!)

What's good?

* I like the user friendly process to purchase the digital products.

*  There are so many awesome designs in this store!

* I like that they even offer freebies for you to try out! I have in fact downloaded 3 more add-ons for free! Score!!

Room for improvement?

* I would prefer if the sizes of the images are smaller or compressed into smaller versions.

*  Maybe it's my slow connection but it took me days to download the whole collab. I also suspect it might be due to myself using Firefox initially as I don't seem to have download issues when I switched to IE.

*I would prefer to see a higher number of downloads allowed instead of the current 5 counts.

You can find out more great designs at: http://www.stufftoscrap.com/store/

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the products by the sponsor 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 received an email from Charisse of ChildUp Team last month asking whether I'm interested in reviewing their products and I'm glad I replied with my interest to review their products. I have earlier posted on my review for their "iCount-to-10 ChildUp Early Learning App". Here goes my review on "The ChildUp Early Learning Game Cards" after trying the game cards on several occassions with Ben...

Pictures below taken of a super excited and curious Ben with the cards when I received it...

Picture of Ben while we went through the Learning Game Cards together...  

Ben immediately points to the farm animals' series when I asked him which cards he wants to play with first. I kept the rest and practised the farm animal series of cards with him as I wanted him to get familiar with the cards.

How I Tested the Cards?

I started with the first pack of the cards with Ben by getting him to be familiarised with the animals on the farm, followed by the number of animals (from 1 to 10) and I then asked him what are the animals for the cards I picked and the number of animals on the card picked.

As of end of August, he has yet to master the numbering part but he does answer quickly when it comes to naming the animals on the cards. Video below taken on the 2nd time we used the cards can be viewed at: http://youtu.be/oyDp8yNFEWI

I would definitely continue using this as I feel there is much more potential for this cards on Ben.

What's good?

*  I like that I can teach Ben on counting from 0 to 10.

*  I like that the cards come with both sides showing different designs (one showing the animals, the other side showing the animal with the number)

*  I also like that I can teach my child the different types of animals.

Room for improvement?

* I would prefer if the cards are thicker. It somehow felt thin and fragile and I was worried it gets crumpled easily.

* I would prefer if there is just a standard sheet of paper for the Parent’s Cards so that I can read it at once (it also reduce paper wastage).

Summary

You can purchase the:

* "Teach Your Child to Count to 10 - Math & Logic #1 " from the Amazon or ChildUp website.

* "Teach Your Child to Count to 10 - Math & Logic #2 " from the Amazon or ChildUp website.

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

At the end of August, I received an email from Sonia of Walnut Labs which recently launched a new website called Curious Fingers dedicated to the fun game apps and educational apps that they are currently developing for kids. Their latest iPhone/iPad app for kids is called "Buzzle". I replied with my interest to review their  latest app. Here goes my review after spending sometime on it with Ben...

* Title: Buzzle
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Games
* Updated: Aug 09, 2011
* Current Version: 1.1 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
* Size: 16.0 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Anshu Dhanuka 
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later

Description from the product page:

"Buzzle is a scientifically designed game that engages your child in a series of 10 shape matching puzzles that are based on captivating themes. The brilliant explosion of colors, vivid sounds, and striking images encourage kids to be curious about remarkable details in conventional surroundings.

Each puzzle encompasses a variety of learning features.
-the game-play will refine their motor skills and hand-eye coordination
-the audio cues will improve their sound association abilities
-the vivid puzzle scenes will broaden their imagination"

Other info:

* Ranked in Top 100 Kids Games in the US and many other countries!
* Featured by US Apple store in Kids Games - New
* Featured in New and Noteworthy in many countries!

This game app is an easy to use app which helps develops shape recognition and pattern matching skills.

There are 10 shape matching puzzles with different theme but being a boy, Ben immediately goes for the public transportation series. Picture below taken when Ben tried the app for the first time.

You can also view the Youtube videos at the following links:

What's good?

*  I like that the app is easy to use, I don't even have to show Ben what to do!

*  I also like that each matching shapes appear one after another as you solved them, instead of everything coming out at once and clog up the screen.

*  I also like that the corresponding sound appeared as you solved and matched the shapes.

* Room for improvement?

* I would prefer it if the matching shapes are more realistic though it is kinda difficult to achieve as there are some shapes which is small and as you matched them, it suddenly appears big in size (I saw Ben's confused look as the object changes its size).

You can purchase the 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"