DIY: Watch in a Dome

We are doing a bit of DIY projects lately, so I guess that's another reason why the posts ain't as frequent as before. But I think these self-made pieces are quite meaningful and some of you might be keen to try out, hence I dedicated a post to it. If we can do it, I am sure you can too. 

This is actually conceptualised by my husband (he wants credit for it, lol) Basically, he had a spare watch hanging around and we wanted another "clock" in the house. Instead of just storing it, he wanted to put it into use. And tada, watch in a dome was born! I have to admit, it looks quite classy too!

It is made of 2 pieces. We didn't bother to glue it together because we might want to shift it around in future and I haven't gotten my glue gun yet. The watch holder was gotten off shopee/ Lazada while the glass dome (19cm) is from Ikea. I still feel that the dome is too big though. 

Total damage: <S$15

It is quite an easy project too!

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Note: Laptop is down, so posts won't be as frequent!

Hot fav from Taf Toys

My laptop crashed so I lost quite a bit of photos of my baby. One of things I love snapping are the interactions my child have with his toy. Does it sound creepy? LOL. 

Baby has been growing up with a lot of the toys from Taftoys from itots. Some of the items we previously featured such as the Taf Toys 2-in-1 Tummy Time Pillow ($35.90) and Tummy Time book ($33.90), he is still using them, just for different purposes. The pillow now lies in his playroom and he would lie on it to drink his milk. Sometimes when "his  younger friends" come over, they lie on it too!

His favourite page now on the Tummy Time book is the mirror. He would flip to that page and smile at himself...and proceeds to kiss his image. Oh Gawd, guess I got a Little Loki on my hands! We have some other toys from Taftoys which baby loves which we thought we would share it here. 

Hunny Bunny Stacker ($29.90)

My baby really loves this stacker. But he doesn't really use it for stacking but more for chewing the rabbit's ears. (He is quite unstructured in his learning.) Also, we play donuts with the rings (cos he has a separate donut toy) so we would "pretend" to eat them. Although sometimes he does give these rings a good lick. For the stump, we would turn it over and act like it is a mic too! Hehe.

What I like about this set is that it is really easy to grip and have quite a variety. One of them even has coloured beads in them and can make a sound. They also don't have to be stacked in a particular order which suits rebels like us who hate following rules :P

Laptoy Activity Center ($69.90)

This is one toy which grew up with him. It started as his bedroom toy as it was hanging at the side of his cot (yes, I split his toys so he would associate them to the different rooms). When his cot was collapsed, it followed him into bed. Initially he was only interested in the nose of the bear which would sing 2 tunes and the star rattle.

I used to distract him when putting him on a highchair when he was younger (sadly I lost those photos). Silly parents we are, we didn't know that we could turn off the music and sometimes when we kinda of bump into it on our bed it would start singing. My husband hence named this the "creepy toy". Whatever my husband named it doesn't matter because my baby loves it and has now progress to playing other parts of the toy which trains his pulling, twisting and turning abilities. 

Koala Car Wheel Toy ($52.90)

My baby used to be quite easy on cars. But as he grew older, he became more curious and refused to keep his hands to himself. Whether you drive or grab, this toy is a super useful distractor. Especially if you grab, some cars do not have the baby lock and babies with itchy hands will try to open the door. Mine opened once on our family car (somehow we forgot to lock) and I freaked out. 

This toy imitates a steering wheels and the buttons give quite realistic sounds (a 2nd click would make them sing a tune). My baby likes it because he feels that he is in control and manipulating the movement of the car. Sometimes we would sing "the wheels of the car go round and round" as we play with it. It also comes with a mirror which my baby is obsessed with (remember he is a Loki). 

Ending this post with a bonus photo, baby hola hooping with his pillow :P

5 uses for 1 bath toy

I always feel that there is more than one way to play with a set of toys. And the more uses you find for it, the more value for money the set is. Those who have been following me for a while would know I have some obsessions with unicorns and nautical items. Since my child is a boy, I have been accumulating quite a bit sailor-items for him. 

He is not exactly 12 months yet, but he has been quite receptive and curious about a lot of things lately. So we thought it was time to introduce him to more bath toys. B.Toys' Fish N Splish Floatable Bath Boat (S$67.10), apart from being chunky and filling up half our foldable bath tub, everything about it was lovely!

1. Great for Storage

I have to admit I was initially attracted to its looks. All the bath toys can fit snuggly into the toy boat and honestly, it even looks cute as a deco in our toilet. Haha. We don't have a bathtub so if were to use every toy during his bath time, my child would barely fit in. So...I just leave the boat outside and rotate the toys haha. *The boat can float by the way when empty :D

2. One of the toy is a comb!

The set has many toys, and got all grounds covered. You don't have to keep buying different toys. Just one set, bam, you got everything settled! The boat has a mirror at the side. My son's favourite star fish can even double up as a mould should you go to the beach.

If you have sharp eyes, you will notice that one of the bath toy is also a comb. We didn't exactly have a comb for our baby before this, so this was pretty handy. I really enjoy combing his hair now as he frolics around in the tub with his new-found friends. A pretty adorable comb, don't you think? This is one of my favourite piece along with the captain!

3. Water Sensory Play

I am not sure if it is the same for all kids, but mine really love the showering effect. Yes, you can see his grubby hand reaching out even when Mummy wants a clean shot. The set comes with 3 mini pails with holes at the bottom. 

Tip: I find it easier to wash their hair with such toys. The traditional method is to use a hanky. I have tried the hanky method and I think it doesn't wash the shampoo off their hair as cleanly. The hanky method is still the preferred method when they are infants, but when they can sit or are both comfortable with water, I find some pails work better! And after a while, they won't be afraid of showers anymore!

4. Fishing

Not only does my child love this set, I enjoy playing with it too. The hook allows you to fish out some of the bath toys. I have tried showing my child a few times but I think this is too advanced for him now. He just tries to eat the hook and the stick. You can play with them either in water or on dry land. 

5. Picker

Another dry-land game, I also use this set to train my boy to put things in and take things out! This can't exactly act as a sorter, but my child can't sort yet. So this is the closest I can do to get him interested in "sorting" Sighs!

If you are planning to get a set for yourself, 5 uses for the price of 1! :P

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Note: Laptop is down, so posts won't be as frequent!

A Gallery in my home - Bleak Illustration

A lot of people miss out on the decorations for the walls. It is an important element because otherwise the house just look like another showroom piece without your vibes in it. To be quite honest, I told my ID to copy pictures of houses I like - one of that being my friend's. Without the tiny touches, our house look pretty much the same. 

You only have that many walls in your house, so we did put thought on what we wanted to hang up. We agreed that we wanted to feature local artists and their works should reflect either one of our personality (We are on the different end of the spectrum you see.)

We came across Bleak Illustrations and I really love her cats and also the dark, whimsical pictures on the notebook. I had a thought, this would look great on our walls and I am sure our guests would also love to be introduced to her works. Psst, she has the digital prints in bigger sizes too!

You guys must be wondering why we opted for digital prints when she has art in other mediums. Firstly, digital prints are cheaper and a lot easier to maintain. We ain't exactly art connoisseurs and I would freak out if I ruin an exquisite art piece. 

Tip: For cheap and decent frames, you can consider Ikea. Usually, their supply management is quite robust. But lately, there are so many items out of stock. I waited for months before the design/ size I wanted for my frames were available. If you don't want to wait, you probably can change to something else but I am that sort of people once I set my sight on something, I am willing to wait :P

I didn't know this before but Ikea has quite a huge variety. There are different colours/ depth/ designs on the frame. There is quite a good pick! It is also rather easy to assemble the pictures, I actually had quite a bit of fun doing this with my brother although I did attempt to put the wrong side of the back in. Oops, thank god I didn't continue with my ambition to become an engineer. 

Currently, I have a gallery on the floor of my dining area. It looks good like this too, but because I have a curious baby - this is probably a disaster waiting to happen. (But so far, he has been cooperative.) The only reason why it isn't hung up yet because the hanging stuff at  Ikea is out of stock too. Oh manz!

For the designs, we picked Hermit Hotel, Sleepless Nights and Wonders of Space. I was limited by the fact that I couldn't hang too "dark-themed" picture lest it scares my boy. So we picked these cheerful looking pieces. Will update again when they hang up on my wall, so stay tune!

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Note: Laptop is down, so posts won't be as frequent!

This is the way I wash my bottles

Washing bottles is like one of my daily duties. Previously we were using a sponge bottle brush which used quite a bit of soap to clean the bottles. Also, if left wet for too long (we are only at our own home during the weekends), moulds will start to appear. We tried out the Baby Bottle Cleaner - Silicone Brush ($10.90) from I am Tinytods and I have to say it is a lot more effective. 

Each set comes with 3 brushes. The rotating brush was really useful to go into the deeper ends for the bottle. The teat brush, apart from cleaning teats, I also use it for cranks on the bottle. Lastly, it came with a tiny brush which was really useful for the valves. Before that, I never cleaned that portion (What a shitty mum I am) But with this, I am finally doing what's right for baby. The bottles definitely feel a lot cleaner :D

I am Tinytods holds quite a selection of nice toys and babies product. The wooden camera ($14.90) is really more for Mummy's whims if you ask me. But is prettier in real life. As of this stage, baby doesn't like it when it is hung on his neck. Currently, it hangs on the playpen (read our review here) and I would take it out to pretend play (as though I am snapping photos of him). 

I was a little bummed that baby doesn't take to it as much as I do. But the husband said this made a nice deco for the house and it does indeed. Once we get our hangers up, I might hang it there permanently when there are no longer any babies in the house. It does give the house character and it is in my favourite tiffany green :P

Note: Laptop is down, so posts won't be as frequent!

Hello, my beautiful nursery

Vava voom, we ramping up our little corner in the nursery. For the longest time, it looked like a naughty corner for us adults. We have moved our comfy beanbag from our living room here (It is from Softrock and you can read all about our review here!) But apart from the beanbag, everything was baby-ish.

Took a little bit of effort but yea, with a nice coffee table and rug (both from Ikea by the way), we now have a reading corner where we can sit and eyeball baby on a good day. Other days, baby is just bouncing around on the beanbag, feeling very much like a superhero. 

One of the highlights in our nursery is this customised piece for our little boy. It is from Kayithj and the theme is "3 Little Pigs". There is quite a lot of customisation options, change the colour and words etc. It is an inside joke that's why our customised words are "Riding of Wheels of Fire". The price is slightly on the steep side at $80, but the print is truly gorgeous. 

And so is the frame. My only grouse would the frame doesn't give with a string at the back to hang. Now, it is lying on the ground because we can't really decide which wall should it go on. Sometimes I would place it at his pig sty just to tease him a little. As a mother, I would say it is actually quite dangerous to leave pieces like this on the ground but my boy doesn't have that itchy fingers, lucky me!

This is how chilling looks like now LOL, but in reality it is hard to read pass a few pages. Speaking of books, Kayithj sells really beautiful book sleeves as well (I have done a review so you can read about it here.) Am really excited about the nursery now and can't wait to host my play dates. 

If you know of any nice scandi-looking kids furniture, do hit me up :D I am starting to enjoy this home deco series a lot. 

My door is always open

So, we revamped the play-room. Initially, we were pretty against the idea of a playpen because our baby is sort of a free-spirit. He really enjoys roaming and the Hubs think it is just too cruel to lock him in one place. Eventually, we decided to give it a try but we agreed that the door will always be open, so as not to betray his trust. 

I made effort to place his favourite toys within the pen and made the whole place inviting. The transformation could be felt immediately. My living room became an adult space and the kids toys were confined within the pen. The whole place felt so much neater!

Overall, the playpen was very easy to assemble. Each set came with a door. You had the option of anti-slip shoes or suction cups at the bottom. We opted for the anti-slip shoes because our tiles weren't exactly that premium and could take a bit of scratches. You could turn the knobs at the gate to tighten it. 

After securing all the knobs, the playpen was very robust. Baby was quite smart, so he did fiddle with some of the knobs, nonetheless the structure was still very stable maybe because the gates were pretty heavy themselves. Personally, I am very particular about the "smoothness" of the product because I would hate it if baby scratched his porcelain skin because of it. Am proud to say it passed the test. 

Honestly, this is a life-saver. I, myself would be quite drained after playing with my kid for an hour (includes running after him and stopping him from touching "dangerous items"). My house isn't very child-proof to begin with and now with this playpen, I can keep the rest of my house the way it is, yeah! And I have so much more energy after each play session. 

Most importantly, baby was receptive to it. At the end of the day, this is his play room. Only when he enjoys himself in it, can we safely say ok, this works. This 14+2 solution from Raab Family would set you back by $179, but the sanity you receive from this, awesome!

Note: Laptop is down, so posts won't be as frequent!