Send your own ElfYourself eCards

It is a busy time now with the kids off school and the grandparents here form the U.K (and hubby in China) so haven't had much time for blogging. But I have found some quite interesting Christmas sites that I thought I would share with you.

• The first is a site a friend showed me today, called elfyourself.com This is an hilarious site, where you upload a photo of yourself and your family and stick your heads on the elves' bodies. You then choose a dance style such as disco, country, and hip hop and watch your family groove away to a Christmas tune. The one I have included here shows the kids with their grandparents and Tapioca the cat doing some very cool disco moves! We had a lot of fun with this, and you have the option of sharing the dances via social media as well as email..will make a very cute e-card!

• If you are stuck for stocking fillers, you can shop at Right To Learn where they have items for under SG$10 in their "Christmas and Party Favors" category. They also have a great range of Montessori and educational toys in stock and they deliver island-wide.

• If you are looking for some crafty ideas to do with the kids this holidays, you can try some of these very cool ideas at Babble.com The crafts by Todd Oldham are original, fresh and best of all fun!

• Last but not least is the site earthTV, which broadcasts LIVE video from some of the most beautiful places on the planet. In their new "Christmas Across the Globe" There are more than 60 worldwide cameras located on six continents. You can watch the Christmas light-ups and decorations in such places as Amsterdam, Berlin and and Hong Kong. There is also some nice information about the different Christmas traditions around the world.The link is: http://www.earthtv.com/en/programs/christmas-across-the-globe

I would just like to say Congratulations to Hsein Lei from Cotton-Pickin' Days , who is the lucky winner of the HP Photosmart printer. I hope she finds the printer easy to use and a really great tool when printing a whole range of photos and documents. And she'll get it just in time to make some really great Christmas cards!

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway; I will be having more exciting competitions soon so do keep reading. I would also like to thank HP for providing the printer and the very sweet people at Waggener Edstrom for doing such a great job.

Things are getting busy around here, with the kid's school finishing this week and Christmas preparations begun. I find myself writing lots of lists this time of year, as there are so many bits and pieces to organise.

Martin's parents arrived from the U.K a few days ago and it is lovely having family around. They are amazing travelers; still enjoying the long tedious journey at 87 and 91 years old! I hope I am as interested in life when/if I get to that age.

We chanced the looming rain and visited the Botanical Gardens last night for the finale of the celebrations marking the Garden's 150th anniversary. We arrived at about 6.30pm to find Palm Valley already crowded with people having picnics and enjoying the evening. The kids charged down the slope to find the mud thick and just right for stomping in, and we squeezed in between the picnickers to enjoy the music.

Unfortunately the rain began again after a few songs from Robert Casteels and the jazz ensemble, so after the official light-up of the trees, the children couldn't suppress their excitement any longer. We trooped off to look at the 150 decorated Christmas trees that line the walkway between Palm Valley and the main entrance to the park.

The Chatsworth Peace Tree

We found Chatsworth's Peace Tree, and lots of others from Primary schools and centres around Singapore. All were beautifully decorated, some with recycled objects and tags the children had made. Unfortunately my photos don't do justice to the pretty sight of so many lights twinkling, so we will have to return when it's not raining to try for some better snaps.

The trees are alight every evening until the end of December, so do get down and enjoy the variety and scope of the decorations. You may even get lucky and catch a dry evening.

by TheGreatContini

Chatsworth International School have donated a 'Peace Tree' as part of the Botanical Garden's Trees of the World light-up tomorrow night, Saturday 5th December. In all 150 trees, all donated by embassies, community groups and schools will be decorated to create a magical place within the Botanical Gardens.

The Chatsworth students decorated the tree with their hand prints and their thoughts on peace, and the tree can be seen on the walkway towards the Symphony Stage. What a beautiful sight so many decorated trees promise to be, and a perfect photo opportunity as all the trees will be sparkling with lights.

To make it even more special there will be a one-off Botanical concert of unique bird songs from 6.30pm onwards at the Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage. Modern Classical composer Robert Casteels will lead a group of Singapore's fines Jazz musicians, world-music performers and the Philharmonic Youth Winds to perform this unique concert of birdsongs. The songs inspired by birds will include jazz classics and popular melodies like The Beatles' Blackbird and Maurice Ravel's Three Beautiful Birds from Paradise.

The Botanical Party- A special concert of Bird songs, and the Trees of the World Light-Up

Date: 5th December, 2009
Time: 6.30pm onwards
Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage
Singapore Botanical Gardens
Free Admission

image courtesy of National Museum of Singapore

There are some interesting workshops at the National Museum of Singapore this school holidays. Being 10 now, Maya is usually too old (or she think she is anyway) for a lot of the children's activities organised in museums here, but some of these workshops are for 9-12 year olds which is perfect.

The Get Real, Kids - Sensing Food Workshop; a collaboration with Project Omelette, for instance, is designed for 9-12 year olds. Here the children are taught about the global issue of starvation and how they can play a part in helping the less fortunate. They find out where the ingredients of a burger come from and work out what makes up a healthy meal. They then create a healthy burger using their own imagination and use a presentation kit to promote their product! This sounds like a very worthwhile afternoon for this age group. I think that this is the age when they are becoming more aware of global issues so this is a perfect subject for them.

There are also workshops for younger kids, so do check out the National Museum website for details. These courses are not cheap, but the children will get a lot out of them.



Get Real, Kids - Sensing Food Workshop
Fri 11 Dec or Sat 12 Dec 2009
2pm – 6pm
SG$60 per child (SISTIC)

Recently I started up a Facebook page and I am finding it very useful. I have been very slow to make use of Facebook, but am now realising the true value of it. Facebook has an Alexa ranking of 2, right after Google itself, and has 200 million users worldwide and 1.8 million users in Singapore alone!

No wonder Internet Marketers have been using it to draw attention to their products and services. It has become more than just a place to find old school chums; it is a valuable marketing tool.

For me it is a handy place to keep my readers (called 'fans' on Facebook) up to date as it is a quick way to communicate. Fans have the ability to add their own links, photos and start up discussions as well.

Often I will find out about interesting happenings in Singapore at the last minute and won't have time to write a full post, so the Facebook page is the perfect place to include a link and a brief description of the event. I have also been using it to share great family-friendly websites I find, and information that I think my readers will find useful and interesting.

So please do become a fan of the Singapore Kid's Place Facebook page so that you can stay in touch. You can do so by clicking the link above or clicking on the Facebook widget on the right. If you don't already have a Facebook account , it is easy to set up and lots of fun to explore. I would love some more interaction from fans, and for you to let me know how I can improve.

A template print I made

I have just received a new wireless HP printer (Hp Photosmart Premium All-in-One C309g) as a trial and have been exploring it's functions. This is a huge upgrade from my existing Canon Pixma; the prints are superb and it was so simple to set up even I could work it out! I can't see a difference between the prints done with the Hp Printer and professional photos.

It's been fun exploring the functionality. Being wireless means that I can take my laptop to another part of the house and still make prints. Or, using the touch screen I can make prints directly from a USB, a memory card or I can log into my Snapfish account.

I can also make different types of prints directly from the touch screen. These could be Album Pages, Panorama Prints, Wallet Photos, or Passport Photos.

I have made a few 'template prints' from the Windows software that is bundled with the printer. These are a great way to group holiday snaps or birthday photos together in an interesting way. The one above I made from the photos from our Phuket holiday earlier in the year (yes, a very photogenic place). It took about 5 minutes to put together and prints beautifully.

Even better, the people from Waggener Edstrom, the PR company I have been liaising with, made me a wonderful Singapore Kid's Places scrapbook, just to show me what the printer was capable of. They did a fab job (thanks Amelia!) and it is something I can keep forever as a little hard-copy piece of this blog.

Pages from the scrapbook made for me

Are you impressed? I certainly am. And I have an HP printer to give away FREE to one lucky reader! It is not the exact model I have been using, but the HP Photosmart Plus All-in-One with TouchSmart B209a, worth SG$269.00. These printers are superb for home use or small office, so make sure you enter! I have given you a couple of examples of what the printer can be used for, but there are many more capabilities.

All you have to do to stand a chance of winning is leave me a comment after this post telling me why you would like to win this printer. Make sure you leave your email address if you are not attached to a blog.

You can gain one extra entry for each of the following:
1. following me with Google friend connect
2.subscribing to the blog
3.becoming a fan of the facebook page at www.facebook.com/singaporekidsplaces
4.follow me on twitter
5. twit about this contest.
6. For 2 extra entries you can blog about the contest.

Please let me know if you have done any of these things in a separate comment, and also if you already follow etc. Maximum entries is 8 per person.

This contest is open to Singapore residents only and will be drawn by Random .org on 7th December, 2009.