Review: Zno's Layflat Book

I like to do photo album, digitally or not. The process of browsing and handpicking photos, attempting to layout the pages chronologically and flipping through the pages back and forth is therapeutic. And the outcome of the hard work is... pleasing, because of the achievement of memory-calling and collating sets of photos into a book. 

When I chanced upon Zno, I decided to try my hands in making the Layflat book. I was drawn to its thick pages of high quality printing. The pages of the book are not just done on conventional paper quality, but it mounted on thick inner substrate with silver halide photo paper, which gives the book an excellent premier characters. The uniqueness of no bulging and no gutting when layflat is another special feature. Think grand and once-in-one's-life-time high quality wedding album, but in smaller and manageable scale. What's more, the special offer - $5 Trial was very attractive. 

The special offer is not just for its premium flush mount photo album but also wood custom photo frame and canvas print.

Eligibility: 1 trial item per household/account;

Note: Shipping & tax (if any) not included.

Here, I am sharing some tips of making a layflat book via Zno.

Review: Jane Means' Gift Wrapping Workshop

On the first day of August, I had the privilege to attend Jane Means' Gift Wrapping Workshop. I got to relearn some of the skills I left behind for many years.

I no bluff. I was an excellent gift wrapper. I loved dong it and I could wrap a present beautifully with minimum 3 pieces of scotch tapes, just to seal the edges of the wrapping paper over the gift. Before I learnt about the use of double sided tapes, I could hide those scotch tapes if I wanted to(you probably know how). At one time, I was obsessed with fancy gift wrapping papers and I collected lots of them. Who doesn't like pretty things? I made good use of them for embellishing a bookmark or a card, or gift wrapping. I was good with pleating wrapping technique after seen it in a mall's gift-wrapping service corner. For many years, I have books' and dictionary's covers protected by beautiful wrapping papers. These days, I do more of impressing my daughter by recycling a page of Kikki K's catalogue into an envelop, neatly.

But I am not good with ribbon tying. Terrible, terrible, terrible. If you see one bow perfectly tied by me, it must be my lucky day!

So usually my gifts were without ribbon and bow.

Review: Creative Horizons

My girl's English isn't fantastic. She is confused with grammar, weak with word decoding; speaks Singlish (Colloquial Singaporean English) wonderfully and brings them into her comprehension, composition and oral too.

I don't have solution for her, except being very patient in correcting her. You see, I was brought up in an environment that English is being third or four language to acquaint with, I didn't learn the language formally until i was in third year of primary school. I learnt English bit by bit slowly over the years and I am still learning the language to-date. So in a way, I don't push very hard in her study. I let the big English-speaking environment do the hard work; the school, her friends, the media are the greatest teachers, aren't they? Eventually, she should be mastering the language, right? I am just a supporting role when she's back home.

But. My home environment is kind of rojak (mixed): Mandarin, English and most of the time mixing them up in a sentence to convey a message. Even though I don't speak perfect English, I was taught the right way to speak simple English and so cautiously, I speak to my children in grammatically correct manner... by right. In such a big environment of Singlish, I am slowly localised, been quite confused with the language sometime, while exhaustively reminding her what's right and what's not. Slowly, I get into more serious business, past years' paper for her to practice, holiday programme to revise, hoping to improve her proficiency level. I hate to admit, I am doing little help to her, in her English. To some extend, I speak more Chinese to her instead. Let's go back to our mother tongue, she should be mastering the language eventually, right?

I think I was giving up in helping her.

Review: De Hygienique

November is ending and it is this time of the year that I need to spring clean my house. And for one very reason, mattresses and its related items, sofa and any other upholstery would not be included to the list of things to clean. Ops!

It is cumbersomely inconvenience, see!?

So when I was approached by De Hygienique to do a sponsored post of their services, I began to think of them, mattresses and sofa... how well have them been? It has been 5 years since we moved into this house with all the furniture. I reckoned, it is the time that mattresses and sofa to be cleaned for the first time. Now that it is coming to me, perhaps I should see how exactly it helps me? Especially it mentions that there is an in-built UV light works in disinfecting the mattresses. 

I remember long time ago, younger me used to be ordered by my mother to carry the mattresses, blankets, pillows and bolsters, even sofa cushions to sun outside our house, yearly, at least. Back then, mattresses were not as bulky as now, but, it would be dreadful if Mr Sun decided a sudden shift of duty with Ms Rain.

Sounds like De Hygienique is my old pal

"De Hygienique is Singapore's leading soft furnishing cleaning service provider, specialising in cleaning and sanitising of mattress, carpet/rug and upholstery. They are the first professional cleaning service provider in Singapore to introduce soft furnishing cleaning treatment using 100% dry, or low moisture, and chemical safe cleaning technologies from Europe."

So, yes, I was curious enough to take up the offer, find out and learn about latest technology able to bring Mr Sun home to serve... me. Professionally.