FAB results with FABeffex!

we were sent a FABeffex kit from Spinmaster to try out, with thanks to Blogmatch.com

Fab Effex is a new kind of creative play, it is a fabric that sticks to anything without a sticky mark, so you can use FABeffex anywhere on anything and then change your mind and reuse it!

The fabric pieces have a specially waxy sort of layer protected when you receive them by a peelable cover, once you have peeled the cover you can the stick the FABeffex anywhere you like, different kits give different options, the one we received was a Fashion kit, and contained 150 pieces of FABeffex fabric and 3 cardboard dolls to decorate, the pieces we received looked like off cuts, and were not in any specific shape, except for some hearts and triangles.

The dolls were of a good quality and stood up well. Chloe instantly got to grips with the kits and started to make her own outfits for the dolls.

The great thing about FABeffex is that it is not sticky to the touch but does hold really well, this non sticky touch means it does not leave a mark, and can be reused. The pieces we got in our kit were all small, except for two larger pieces which could be used to cut and design yourself. Chloe found cutting the fab effex slightly tricky to start with as the waxy glue layer tends to slip abit in the scissors, but she managed it fine overall.

This kit certainly entertained Chloe for a good while, and we then packed it away and she has returned to it a coupe of times, however some of the pieces are now not really use able again, but we got a lot of use out of them in the past weeks.  Had the individual pieces been larger I can imagine they would have lasted abit longer, as we do still have some of the larger pieces which are usable, the fact that the pieces of FABeffex in this fashion kit are so small meant they got easily scrunched up and misshaped. But when used on the dolls provied the effects were good.

The larger plain pieces of Fab effex are great for designing things for other uses, on the FABeffex website (which can be found here: FABeffex.com) it shows some pretty great things which can be achieved, and I can see the potential in this product, Chloe happily decorated her ruler with some left over pieces, and I may well add the more open ended kit to Chloes Christmas List.

If you have a daughter I am pretty sure she would love these kits, I think boys would like the other kits in the range too so its certainly one to keep an eye out for.

heres a video review so you can get more of a 'feel' for this formable fabric craft kit!

I REALLY need your help!

A few months ago Mercedes Benz announced they were running a competition to win a new Vito van
 
our entry is here : www.madeforthepeople.com you need to click through to see the final ten then find ours bottom row, 2nd in from the left, with the red car and our personally  wrote and performed song, we really treid hard with our entry and hope you enjoy it!  This is a run down of how how we entered..

WOW I though, wouldn't that just be amazing if we won... we currently only have a tiny rover metro, and have had serious bad luck in the whole transport department!

The competition entry requirements were to make a short video or a photo with why you wanted to win.

Thats simple I thought, we would love a Vito because 'our cars too small!'

I had this idea that we could film us trying to fit some of our things in our tiny car, the three children, the dog, the bikes... we just can't get them all in our car!

So I managed to round up the children, who coincidentally were all running around outside when the thought came into my head, and hence them not looking very smart in the video!

They surprised me by playing along perfectly and I filmed them for about 5 minutes before they ran off to continue their game.

I then sat staring at my computer thinking about how to make a great video, I said to Darren we just need some catchy music... leave that to me he said and then we brain stormed all night with different wording and sound tracks until in the early hours of the morning we finally finished and had made what we considered to be a really great tune.

I added the music to the video footage, found a clip of the Vito van and quickly entered our submission, I then held my breath and waited, the following few weeks more and more entries appeared and some were simply amazing, every time I checked the website there was another brilliant entry there, then the day came and the competition was closed, no more entries were being accepted, nothing more we could do, so we waited, weeks passed and then today in my email inbox I received the best news ever, our entry has been submitted to the final 10 and is now through to the public vote!

Great! or is it? our entry has been shortlisted by the wonderful people at Mercedes, and is now through to the Public VOTE... so thats where I need your help.

Please please take five minutes to go view the entries and if you feel we are deserving enough could you spare five minutes of your time and vote for our video?

I am always sceptical of voting competitions and as I have said before I do tend to stick to competitions that I feel have a bit of a skill factor to them, and I only enter ones which I really would love to win, this competition did fit both them scenarios however the skill alone isn't enough to out and out win not without some support...

So I would truly love for you to support us in this competition, and if you could share this post with any of your friends that would be great too :)

Here is a walk through of how to vote,  there are a couple of things that if you don't do your vote won't count..

So please visit the made for the people website by clicking here:  Madeforthepeople.com 

Click the notice board when it says 'the votes are in vote now!' and you will be taken to this screen below.

then Click VOTE NOW to be taken to the following screen and view the entries

 

Our entry is highlighted above with the red box - its on the second row 2 in from the left

When you click on our entry it is displayed larger on the right, and you can watch our video.

 

Once you have watched our video, and the other entries if you choose, and you have found your winner, then click 'vote for this' as highlighted above

When you click on the vote button a pop up box will likely appear under the address bar of your browser, you will need to allow pop ups in order for the vote to be counted,

 

once you have allowed the pop ups for madeforthepeople.com your vote will be able to be counted and you will see the facebook application load 

You have to allow this and that's it you are done.

Please be patient with the website it is quiet slow to load, and please can you let me know if your vote doesn't seem to count, if you have not seen the above facebook app request then the likelihood is you have not completed the vote steps.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to vote we truly appreciate every one!

If you want to keep an eye out for future great offers and competitions from Mercedes Benz then make sure you follow them on twitter, and like them on facebook 

Please Please keep trying I know some of you are having trouble voting, the pop up allowing seems to be stopping alot of people so please make sure you double check there is no 'allow pop ups' bar at the top of your web browser, also your vote is not registered until you receive a message saying it has been counted.

The Gallery - Animals

This weeks prompt for the Gallery, over at Sticky Fingers blog is Animals.

Well I could use one of thousand photos I have that fit this... so what to choose?

Tara asked us to think outside the box, so something other than our lovable pets, but I have just posted all my safari photos in my last post, so don't really want to post them again today.

So Jackson pips it here are some of my favourite photos of our wonderful boxer dog Jackson.

Here he is when we got him as a tiny little pup

and here are some more recent ones:

He is just the most amazing dog, he is loyal and so friendly, he adores the children and is never far from their sides, he is their best friend and they love each other so much.

Not to mention how cute he is, and the fact he just makes the best photograph subject!

 

Now for some other animal photos be sure to check out the Galley :)

Selective colour removal: How to

I posted the other day about how I love taking and editing photos and told you about some of the tricks I use to get good shots you can find the post here: Making good... GREAT



I asked if anyone who tries out Picnik (a great editing online application ) to show me their results, or if they wanted a helping hand with any editing techniques to give me a shout, well a few of you said you'd give Picnik ago and I can't wait to see some of your edits, L-plate mummy asked me how I got the specific area colour removal edit to work. So here is my walk through for you all.



So when you go to www.picnik.com you are greeted with the following screen:





you upload your photo via clicking the 'upload Photos' green button and selecting your photo file from your computer hard drive



Once your photo has loaded up onto Picnik, you will see it appear make sure you have clicked on 'Basic Edits' on the top menu bar just below where it says 'home' I have highlighted the button in red below.

The Basic Edits are great and make such a difference, the two main ones I use are the Exposure and the sharpen, If you click on Exposure as highlighted above then more options pop out shown here:

the new slider bars which appear enable you to adjust the contrast and brightness of your photo play around with these slider bars and you can improve your photos no end, sometimes only a slight tweak makes a huge difference! always remember to click 'apply' if you are happy with your edit.



The next Basic Edit I always have a look at is the 'sharpen' options, if you click on the sharpen on the menu then again you see more slider bars



If you move the slider bars up fractionally then it improves the overall sharpness and clarity of your picture, again sometimes only a small tweak makes a huge difference, be careful not to over do an edit.



Once you have improved the photo via these basic edits you can then click on the 'effects' tab on the top menu bar, highlighted again on the below photo,



in the Effects menu there are lots of options, each one makes a huge difference to your photos.



Today I am showing you how to get the black and white effect but keep a specific area in colour, so the first thing you do is select the 'black and white' option from the menu, this turns your whole photo greyscale.



You will notice an additional box appears,if this box does not appear you can click the little paintbrush button underneath the colour selector, the box is for effect painting and has options to paint back on the original colour, so make sure that original' is selected.





Then you simply 'paint' back in your colour on the photo, click and drag the mouse around on the area you wish to recolour, if the brush size is too large, or small you can adjust that from the effects box. If you need to 'zoom' in to get small detail use the zoom option in the bottom right corner.

What I normally do is select a fairly larger sized brush to colour back in the main portion, then zoom in and reduce my brush size to get the detail. It may take some practise and a steady hand but its worth the practise because the end results can be amazing.





I hope this is of some use to someone, again if you do play with picnik then please share with me your edits.



This is NOT a sponsored post, nor was my 'making good.. great post' I just like to share my knowledge and help other people enjoy their photos, The edit above can all be achieved via picniks free features.



If there is any other edits you would like to know how to achieve then please get in touch.

Lets go on Safari!

We had an amazing day yesterday we went to explore West Midlands Safari Park and got to test drive a brand new Hyundai i40


The day started out bright and early we packed a picnic and left to West midlands Safari Park nice and early, however it took us longer than expected to get there, no reason except our wrong turns - how many times can you drive round a roundabout? but once we arrived we could see the Hyundai tent but somehow managed to enter the Safari before getting to them! So we had to flag down a staff member to escort us out of the Safari drive area so we could meet up with the Hyundai team.

At the Hyundai tent they signed us in for our test drive and let the children play with the iPads. Then we were given wristbands so we could explore the park and rides.

The entrance to West midlands Safari park is abit like how you would imagine entering Jurassic Park would be, everything is themed it really had a great feel about it, you passed several gift shops in the entrance which sold the most beautiful soft toys, but they are all rather expensive.

Once you were in the park there is LOADS to see and do, you can follow a discovery trail, explore reptile houses, twilight bat zones amongst other fascinating things.


Jake especially liked the Alligator!

The selection of rides at the park are just right, there is something for everyone and with us going into the park before the Safari it was very quiet, no ques on anything at all and we had free run of the park all morning (I think everyone was doing the Safari first - park later)

The children loved the Log flume, and Rhine roller coaster, why Dad enjoyed the Rapids ride.
I even had ago on the Venom Power Drop!

After the thrill of the rides we enjoyed our picnic and then went to see the Walking with Lemurs attraction. We entered the Lemur Wood and were greeted with several Lemurs who were scurrying along the hand rails, right in front of us!

A member of staff was at hand and was answering any questions and making sure everyone did as they should, the Lemurs all looked very happy and active and the children loved being so close to them, we continued through the woods along the track there are several notice boards telling you interesting facts about the lemurs,

The woods itself is not huge and doesn't take long to walk round, other than the Lemurs who were playing around the entrance we couldn't see any others, I think they were all having an afternoon nap!

Once you have passed through the Lemur wood you can go through the Goat walk which again the children loved.

Then on to the Meerkats which are always a big hit

Then it was time for our Hyundai test drive, we were briefed with the features of the i40 and off we went. The i40 is a superb car, it has electronically adjustable seats which can be adjusted up down forwards back anyway you like to really make for a comfy journey,the mirrors are all electronically adjustable too making the car really easy to set up for a great driving experience.

The steering is really responsive and the car has a powerful yet smooth engine and just drives amazingly well. It has really modern features and a touch screen for controlling these.

There is plenty of space in this stylish looking car and our family of 5 fit in perfectly
So we set off on our Safari drive, we were greeted by all the animals who all seemed eager to come and take a closer look at the i40.

We loved seeing the Lions who decided to take a leisurely stroll passed our car,

and the Giraffes who ate out of our hands.

The whole Safari experience was a great one, the comfort and easy driving ability of the i40 combined with the breathtaking animals we saw along the way really was a great experience.

After the Safari The hyundai team had face painting available,

then we went back into the main park, it was alot busier in the afternoon, but we still didn't Que long for many of the rides.


There was so much to do, we stayed till 7pm and still didn't get to see some of the shows and demonstrations we wanted, we deffinately will be visiting again (all be it next time in not quiet as comfy car)

For great offers, and to keep upto date with West Midlands Safari park and the Amazing people at Hyundai then be sure to check out their facebook pages here:

West Midlands Safari Park Facebook

Hyundai UK facebook