Canon Ixus 285HS Transferring Images With Windows 10

Canon Ixus 285HS Transferring Images With Windows 10 seems to be a common issue users face. When I first started using my Canon Ixus 285HS I was so pleased with it. It has wi-fi connectivity & couldn’t wait to use it with my Microsoft Surface Pro 3. After several searches online for a solution, I eventually gave up & found an old memory card reader instead. This worked just fine for the last two months…

Canon Ixus 285HS

Memory Card Reader

As some of my readers may know, I’ve had a pretty rough time lately with lots of big & small things going wrong. No surprise then that my memory card reader suddenly decided it didn’t want to work at all. Admittedly the reader is older than Izzy but it led to me having quite a strop. I don’t have the correct USB lead as the camera came without one. The Mr tried to help out pointing me to several articles that seemed likely to work but with no luck. Plenty of advice about setting it up in the network & sharing centre but nothing worked at all.

Have You Turned It Off & On Again?

Several times I tried turning the camera on & off, connecting & reconnecting to the Surface. It all looked set up as it had before but still unable to transfer images! I tried completely uninstalled and then re-installed the Canon Utilities software on the surface too, disconnecting & connecting the camera, failing each time. There was nothing else in the PDF Manual on Canon’s site either. I started getting so frustrated I simply worked through every connectivity setting on the Surface in the hope something, anything would work.

A Solution At Last!

Eventually, I worked out that simply connecting the camera with the software installed doesn’t work at all on Windows 10. UNLESS you also add your camera as a Bluetooth Device! I was shocked relieved when the Ixus 285HS suddenly connected and I could import all my photo’s at last! I double checked back through all the articles & guides we had found & not once did we find this mentioned anywhere!

Canon Ixus 285HS Transferring Images With Windows 10

Canon Ixus 285HS Transferring Images With Windows 10

If you are having the same issue with your Canon Ixus 285HS transferring images with Windows 10 then it is a very simple fix! (Once you know how haha!) Go into your Windows 10 Control panel, Bluetooth Devices & add a device. It doesn’t show you an option for a camera so I clicked on ‘Everything else’ which worked just fine. Make sure your camera connectivity is turned on & the software is installed too & it should automatically pop up asking if you want to transfer all the images from your Canon Ixus 285HS to your photo’s.

It may seem like such a simple, logical explanation but having seen forum after forum full of users facing the same issue, it obviously gets missed from time to time. I have to admit I am really relieved I finally found how to transfer images to my surface via wi-fi. It saves me from having to take the memory card out each time & keeps my only USB port free too. Hopefully, this post helps out someone else who is struggling with their Canon Ixus 285HS transferring images with Windows 10 too!

Have you had this issue?

DIY Daddy
”Tammymum”

Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab Kit – Review

Eva received the Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab Kit to review this week. She loves her Camryn Coyle Doll she reviewed earlier this week & was ecstatic to receive the Ultimate Lab Kit too. Project Mc2 is a Netflix series aimed at encouraging girls to enjoy S.T.E.A.M based activities. S.T.E.A.M stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Maths. Definitely a good choice for girls Eva’s age!

 

Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab Kit

Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab Kit

The fab Ultimate Lab Kit comes in a handy zip up plastic bag which opens up to reveal fantastic storage & science apparatus. Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab Kit is suitable from 6 years & requires adult supervision with several experiments. The set comes with safety goggles, a Microscope, glass slides, test tubes with a stand, funnel, beaker, 3 lab bottles, PH strips, pipette, petri dish, safety goggles. The Ultimate lab kit also comes with a fashionable Mc2 ring & 2 sticker sheets & a book full of fun experiments to try.

Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab Kit Contents

This fantastic lab kit comes with all the basics to get started with some fun experiments & a booklet to help you out with 30 experiments to try! Each experiment requires household ingredients you may already have or can be easily found in supermarkets. This fun lab kit really does encourage girls to enjoy experimenting & having fun, Project Mc2 is definitely a new favourite here!

Having checked out the contents of this fab kit & tried on the safety goggles & Mc2 ring, we took a look through the book of experiments to see if we had any ingredients to help us get started.

Cloud In A Jar Experiment

The Cloud in a jar experiment is the first experiment we found in the helpful booklet full of experiments. It seemed simple enough & we had all the items needed.  For this experiment, you will need an aerosol Ice Cubes & Boiling Water & the Project Mc2 beaker. We ended up making a cloud in a jar twice, the first time didn’t work out too well. Our hairspray may have sat in the cupboard a little too long, oops!

Creating A Cloud In A Jar

 

 

Trying again with my Sure spray we sprayed a little into the boiling water. We then sat the lid upside down with ice cubes on top & waited to see what happened. This experiment shows how a cloud forms, using boiling water which creates lots of warm water vapour.

Watching Our Cloud In A Jar Form

 

Cloud In A Jar Experiment

As the ice quickly cools it forms tiny water droplets AKA clouds! The aerosol spray gives water molecules something to hold on to which they need to do as they cool down. Our second attempt turned out a little bitter but our cloud definitely preferred to stay in the jar!

Eva really enjoyed this experiment & is writing a shopping list of ingredients for our next experiment. The Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab Kit is fantastic for getting girls excited about science & encouraging them to experiment. We try to encourage the girls to do things like this at home & having the Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab kit is definitely going to make that easier!

What do you think of the Project Mc2 Ultimate Lab Kit?

”Tammymum”

Project Mc2 Experiment Doll – Camryn’s Nail Polish – Review

Eva received a Project Mc2 Experiment Doll – Camryn’s Nail Polish to review this week. Project Mc2 is a series on Netflix showing smart is the new cool with a team of 4 super smart, seriously cool girls. Each Project Mc2 Experiment doll comes with an experiment for you to complete at home with the help of S.T.E.A.M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths).

Project Mc2 Experiment Doll - Camryn's Nail varnish

Project Mc2 Experiment Doll – Camryn’s Nail Polish

Camryn Coyle is the construction queen & this fab 12″ doll comes dressed in an off the shoulder ball dress with detachable dragon wings & mask. Camryn also comes with a mini hammer, excavator & funnel to help you with your Nail Polish experiment.

Camryn's Nail Varnish Experiment Doll

Eva’s Nail Polish Experiment

Crushing Eyeshadow

Eyeshadow is usually made from a mixture of talc powder and coloured pigments which is pressed into a palette. Crushed eyeshadow can be dissolved in nail polish which is usually made from ‘Ethyl Acetate’. Scientists call this a ‘Non-Polar Solvent’ which allows you to add colour to your clear nail polish.

Firstly, Eva broke up the eyeshadow by smashing it up with the hammer.

Scooping Eyeshadow into Nail Varnish

Once the eyeshadow was crushed up, Eva began scooping the loosened powder into the funnel. We sat the funnel on top of the clear nail polish bottle. Then she closed the bottle up and shook it up until well mixed, creating a pearly pink colour.

PINK NAIL VARNISH!!

As you can see, Eva was really pleased she had made her very own pink nail polish. Eva can’t wait to try out some more experiments & can’t wait to check out the rest of the Project Mc2 dolls. We then tried out her nail polish out to see how well it had turned out, she was really pleased with the result! Eva said it was a super fun experiment.

Pink Nail Varnish

What do you think of Project Mc2 Experiment Doll – Camryn’s Nail Polish? Have you seen the Netflix series?

Fantastic Fun With Glam Goo Fantasy Accessories Pack

Eva’s having fantastic fun with the Glam Goo Fantasy accessory pack having recently reviewed the Confetti pack too. This fab accessory pack comes with all you need to have fantastic fun creating your own Glam Goo!

This pack contains a pot of clear Glam Goo along with 2 pots of colour. These shimmering colours contained in the Fantasy pack are ‘Magic Hour’ and ‘Mint Skies’.

It also contains 3 pots of sparkles in ‘Cosmic Dust’, ‘Mermaid Wishes’ and ‘Unicorn Fuzz’ and Rose Mist Scent to make your Glam Goo.

The fantasy pack also comes with a rainbow charm and Heart necklace to fill with Glam Goo and wear.

Glam Goo Accessories

 

Fantastic Fun

Eva loves these accessories packs and this one is right up her street! She couldn’t wait to get started, setting everything out neatly before she began.

 

 Eva decided to start off using the Magic coloured powder turning her goo a sparkling blue. We both love how this colour turned out with the way it shimmered and looked magical!

Glam Goo

After adding ‘Magic Hour’ Eva Decided to add in some ‘Cosmic dust’ too. These look really cool and catch the light so magically.

Cosmic Dust

 

To finish, Eva placed this Glam Goo into the Heart necklace accessory. She was really pleased with this and couldn’t wait to try it on and pose for a photo.

Once she was finished posing, she quickly got back to work making the other half of her Glam Goo a shimmering green with ‘Mint Skies’. I almost missed it, she was so quick to get going again!

Mint skies glam goo

Eva poured a mixture of sprinkles onto the table and added them to her Mint Skies Glam Goo giving it a fantastic fun mermaid theme.

After working plenty of sprinkles into the second half of the Glam Goo, Eva popped it into the rainbow accessory piece.

This fantastic fun accessory pack kept Eva busy for quite some time after creating her own mixes with the ingredients. She had a little left over too and enjoyed adding a little of everything in too! The theme of this pack was a favourite too and she can’t see what Glam Goo come up with next!

Fantastic fun

Have your kids tried the Glam Goo Fantasy Pack yet?

 

5 Easter Crafts Using Posca Pens

We’ve tried 5 Easter crafts using Posca pens over the last few days. Posca pens are paint pens designed to be used on many different surfaces. They are perfect for so many crafts! We received 2 packs of Posca Pens to help with our Easter crafts. We received an 8 pack of standard and an 8 pack of sparkling Posca Pens. Posca Pens are a Uniball product with a large range of colours & tip sizes for different projects. Posca Pens are water-based and non-toxic, unlike alcohol-based pens the colour doesn’t bleed through paper/card/fabrics.

5 Easter Crafts Using Posca Pens

 

5 Easter Crafts

Decorating Plastic Eggs

Decorating Plastic Eggs With Posca Pens

Our first Easter craft was decorating hanging egg decorations using Posca pens. Eva is a big fan of Posca pens having discovered them at a MetalArts event and loved them. She quickly pretended she couldn’t paint properly with paint and a brush after spotting new Posca pens. She decorated an egg using some of the new standard colours and a few left over from my last pack and came up with this design.

Using the pack of standard colour Posca pens to decorate an egg myself, I was impressed with how well they covered the plastic. As you can see both eggs turned out really colourful and the Posca pens work brilliantly on these plastic decorations.

Easter Crafts With Posca Pens

Colourful Egg Cups

 

Next, we decorated egg cups using the standard Posca pens. Cheating slightly as the flowers were part of the egg cup design, we got to work. We started off colouring those & adding more details & colours as we went.Decorating Egg Cups With Posca Pens

We then added some colourful Easter eggs all the way around the bottom. I was impressed with how easy it was to use the Posca pens to decorate the egg cup. Posca pens are fantastic for such a range of surfaces!

Deocrated Easter Egg in Easter Egg Cup Using Posca Pens

Easter Cards

Mrs Mactivity Easter Card Printable & Posca Pens

Of course, it wouldn’t be easter without a lovely card so we visited Mrs Mactivity’s site, we love her printable resources designed by Polly Love. We found this lovely Silhouette Easter card which the girls think is really cute! We printed the card out on to pink card and used the Sparkling Posca pens to brighten it up. I also used the white Posca pen from the standard pack for the bunnies fluffy ears & chest.

Happ Easter Silhouette Card From Mrs Mactivity Coloured With Posca Pens

Numbering Bunny Footprints

Posca Pens are great, even for simple things like numbering bunny footprints for an Easter egg hunt! They are so bright & vibrant, you can’t miss them!

Numbering Bunny Footprints with Posca Pens

Easter Masks

Posca Pens & Face Mask

Masks are something the girls really enjoy decorating for all kinds of occasions. These had a felt texture on the top & the Posca pens worked really well. I had expected the colour to seep across a little but we didn’t have this issue which was a relief! Eva decided to make her’s a rainbow & bunny mask. Face Mask Decorated with Posca Pens

Admittedly that bunny does remind of the Hell Bunny Logo haha! Eva is really happy with her mask and loves being able to use all the colours without them running into each other. You kind of expect paint pens to leak and run everywhere but Posca pens are amazing & once you get the flow going, so easy to use. They are so brighht & vibrant and we are totally in love with the Sparkling Posca Pens, you will no doubt see them featured on the blog again soon!

Have you used Posca Pens for Easter crafts before?

 

 

Round 2 – Ales By Mail/ The Craft Beer Shop

I sent the Mr for round 2 at Ales By Mail (online) or The Craft Beer Shop last week. He surprisingly came back with money on him which in all honesty I am amazed at! I got a bit carried away on my first visit & spent a slight bit more than the Mr did. With over 300 craft beers at Ales By Mail, there is something for everyone, even if you mostly just enjoy the artwork.

Round 2

 

 

 

Round 2 - Ales By Mail

As you can see the Mr was well behaved only picking up 8 beers from Ales By Mail this week. He picked up the Darkstar – Revelation mostly because it’s purple & well, we need a touch purple in this post somewhere! Revelation is a beer the Mr hasn’t had in quite a number of years but really enjoys too, he was quite pleased to find it!

Stouts from Ales By Mail

The Mr’s friend Steve picked up this selection of Stouts for his round 2 from Ales by mail. It’s always interesting to see what these 2 pick up as they both like very different beer styles. The Craft Beer Shop/Ales By Mail have such a great selection and variety of styles it’s great to finally see both the Mr & Steve returning with new & different beers. I have to admit some of these Stouts made me a little nose drunk just from the smell haha!

The Mr started off with Conflux pale ale from Unity and Steve picked out the Henley dark. I quite like the lighter beers the Mr chooses whereas I find the darker stuff like this really nasty.

Next up for the Mr was the white stout from The Durham Brewery with Steve trying the Boss Black, another rather strong beer.

Trust was next in line for the Mr and Deccan Traps for Steve.

The guys decided to wait until the next day to carry on drinking but Steve started with the Westerham Double Stout with the Mr starting with Beavertown Lupuloid IPA.

The Cloudwater DDH pale Citra Eukanot was second for the Mr with Steve trying the Imperial Russian Stout.

 

The guys were quite happy with their choices and enjoyed most of these whilst Steve struggled with the Imperial Russian Stout that smells similar to Covonia.. grim! I’m sure it won’t be too long before they go back for another round!

Have you tried any of these craft beers before?

Stunning Planners & Stationery From Old English Co – World Stationery Day Competition

I’ve been browsing the stunning planners and stationery from Old English Co who currently have a World Stationery Day competition running. Their competition to win 4 stunning planners is open until 25th April 2018. Simply head over to their competition page and follow the simple instructions for a chance to win. Old English Co is a  stationery and homeware brand creating beautiful, hand-lettered products.

Stunning Planners From Old English Co

Stunning Planners From Old English Co

Old English Co has this range of stunning planners (A5) available for just £11.95 each. These planners are available in pink & gold, grey & gold, off-white & copper and my favourite – black & pearlescent. These A5 planners are perfect for day to day use with an area for the date, da daily checklist on each inner page and a section for notes at the bottom.

Black & pearlescent planner - Old English Co

These stunning planners from Old English Co are made using metallic foil on thick, 350gsm coloured card for the cover. The planner contains 380 pages made from 100gsm paper and all planners are printed in the UK. I love the layout of these planners, I run off of lists otherwise I can be quite forgetful.

My Old English Co Stationery Wishlist

With World Stationery day coming up and both Eva & myself loving stationery I decided to see what else the Old English Co have to offer in the stationery department. I was not disappointed, they have a fantastic range. Here are my 5 favourite products from Old English Co outside of the stunning planners they are currently giving away for their World Stationery Day competition!

  1. Brilliant Ideas Notepad – I love this little A6 notepad, perfect for jotting down blog post ideas!

 

2. Dreaming of unicorns A5 notebook – Eva loves unicorns and loves this notebook too. I’m sure plenty of people would love to add this to their stationery collection too.

3. Start somewhere A4 notebook – We all have to start somewhere and this notebook is a great reminder to get started!

4. You Rock A5 Wiro Notebook – This would be a perfect gift for my brother to note down song lyrics & guitar riffs!

5. Get Stuff Done Weekly Planner – Weekly planners are possibly the best thing I have discovered in the last year! They are great for having on your desk so you know your week’s schedule/plans at a glance.

Old English Co has some great products available and I could happily get carried away shopping on their site. With Eva by my side, we could easily end up with way too many notebooks, pins & planner amongst other things!

 

Do you love the stunning planners & stationery available from Old English Co? Have you entered their competition yet?

*All Images in this post are the property of Old English Co & have been used in for this post with consent.

5 Family Events We Are Planning To Attend 2018

We’ve found 5 family events we are planning to attend in 2018. Hopefully, the weather improves eventually! Having attended a few lovely events last year we wanted to put together a list of fun events. We are looking forward to getting out & having fun as a family and can’t wait to blog about them too.

5 family events

5 Family Events

English Festival – 21 April

We attended the English Festival with Martyn & the boys last year and had a great time. The English Festival had so much going on and so much fun for the kids. From petting zoos, sheep shearing, George & the Dragon performances, Punch & Judy, Voices from Victorian London and much more making it a fun day for everyone. As you may have read, we discovered some fantastic stalls. I can’t wait to meet them again & buy more of their awesome products. We hope to see Goody Ales, Sudzz, Joannes Preserves & The Chocolate Hut now The Brownie Edit.

Joannes preserves

Dickens Festival – 2nd & 3rd June

The Dickens Festival was another fun day out last year & we can’t wait to go again. With fun performers everywhere parades, a craft fair, fun fair & so much history spread across Rochester High street & the gorgeous castle grounds we all really enjoyed the Dickens Festival. We are hoping to maybe manage both days as we really enjoyed this event but we will see! A lot of the stalls from English Festival were at Dickens last year. Hopefully, we see them at both events too.

Fathers Day Motorfest – 17th June

I’m pretty sure most of my readers know we love cars, bikes, aircraft of all kinds. I spotted this fun day out at Barleylands and it sounds great, we have never attended this event before & hoping it’s as good as it sounds! Even the girls enjoy looking at different cars, bikes etc so it sounds like it will be fun a day for everyone. This had to be included in our 5 family events this year as it could give me #MySundayPhotos for the next year haha!

 

Greenwich Tall Ship Festival – 4th-8th July

Last year we found out last minute that the Greenwich Tallship Festival was on so I have made sure to note the date down this year! The Tall ships sail up & down the Thames & living along the river gives us a chance to see lots of the tall ships. I managed to get a few pictures last year but was unhappy with them. This year, with a new camera, I should be able to get some nicer shots. We may visit Greenwich to watch the Festival, there seems to be a lot going on. If not we will definitely spend the day by the river taking pictures.

 

Orsett Show – 1st September

I’ve wanted to attend the Orsett show for years but always forget to find out the dates. Now I have the date saved & the prices jotted down, I have no excuse! The Orsett show has been running for well over 100 years with a mix of agriculture, horticulture cattle & livestock, horses & hobbies & handicrafts exhibited & entered into the show. Whilst the finer details are yet to be released the Orsett show is well known as a great family day out. You can enter anything you have made into the Orsett show. Items you can enter include a cake, a photograph, some honey, preserves, needlework, art or handicrafts.

Are you attending any family events this year?

 

Easy Mornings With Left & Right Shoe Stickers From Easy2name – 3 Sets To Giveaway!

Want easy mornings with left and right shoe stickers? Easy2name have these fantastic stickers perfect for pre-schoolers & young children & we have a set each for 3 lucky winners! We received several sets of the lovely animal design left & right shoe stickers for our review. You can find a whole range of fab stickers & labels at Easy2name & I recently reviewed their Gorgeous Personalised Woven Labels with a giveaway (Ending: 2/4/18) too!

 

Easy Mornings - Left & Right Shoe Stickers - 3 sets to give away!

Left & Right Shoe Stickers

The left & right shoe stickers are designed as a simple but effective solution to teaching children to put their shoes on the correct feet. This makes putting shoes on more fun and getting out the house a bit easier! Both girls still need help with their shoes, Izzy is learning and Eva struggles to stay focused. Needless to say, it can cause stressful mornings so spotting the left & Right shoe stickers seemed a great idea.

Left & Right shoe stickers come with 4 fun designs included in each pack of 8, costing just £4 each. They are really easy to use, peel off and place each half of the sticker in each shoe to complete the picture. These labels are white and come in either black or pink print, you can select when adding to your basket.

Left & Right Shoe Stickers from Easy2name

Izzy barely let me photograph the stickers before claiming a pink pig set of left & rights stickers for her trainers. Straight away I noticed the quality of the stickers, Easy2name have amazing quality products, I’m still in love with my woven labels too! The left & right stickers looked really cute and Izzy loved her pig! The very next day she got ready to go shopping with the Mr & proudly showed him which shoe to put on each foot. It really made me smile, it makes putting on shoes much more fun gives kids that little bit of independence too.

Easy Mornings

I’m looking forward to easy mornings and Eva coming out of school with her shoes on the right feet! Eva picked a Dog for her trainers and a Zebra for her wellies which she struggles the most with. She wore her trainers to school for a few days (she keeps destroying school shoes, eek!) and came home with them on the right foot every time. I was even more impressed on P.E days as she generally has to swap her shoes over before walking home.

Making mornings easier with left & right shoe stickers

One morning we woke up & it was raining hard so Eva needed her wellies for school. Eva usually can’t figure out which welly to put on which foot, as they are so similar. Reminding Eva the images go on the outside, isn’t helpful as the pictures wrap around. With the Easy2name left & right shoe stickers though we had an easy morning with no stressing over her wellies being on the wrong feet. Relief all round!

Shoe stickers for kids

 

I would definitely recommend these cute left & right stickers to parents of young children. They really do give you an easy morning and a happy child, these stickers are just fab!

Giveaway

If you love the idea of these left & right stickers enter the rafflecopter giveaway below for your chance to win 1 of 3 sets. Each set of  8 left & right pairs of stickers come in 4 cute animal designs & winners can choose their preferred colour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Gooey Fun With Glam Goo Confetti Accessories Pack

Eva’s having Gooey Fun With the Glam Goo Confetti accessories pack we received to review. Eva was really excited to receive the Glam Goo kit having seen adverts around for it.

Glam Goo Confetti Pack

Glam Goo Confetti Pack

Contents

Glam Goo Confetti Accessories Pack

This fun-filled pack comes with 2 accessories, a bow bracelet & a bunny keychain to fill with slime when you are done mixing in different ingredients. This pack comes with fluffy slime, a peach scent, 2 colours (Pink & Yellow), colourful confetti & balls to mix in with your gooey slime!

Gooey Fun!

Slime

Eva really enjoyed playing with the fluffy slime. We split the slime into 2 halves so Eva could try 2 different types. She decided to start off adding in some of the colourful balls to her slime. Next, she added some pink colouring, her favourite colour!

Pink Glam Goo

Once she had added in the powder, Eva decided to add some colourful confetti.

Confetti Glam Goo

Having decided she was going to put the pink slime in the bunny keychain, Eva was pleased to fill up the bunny and still have some left over.

Glam Goo Pink Confetti Keychain

Yellow Bow Confetti Bracelet

With the second half of the fluffy slime, Eva decided she wanted to make a yellow bow confetti bracelet. She got to work adding the yellow powder and peach scent first.

Yellow confetti Glam Goo

It’s all about the colour with Eva so she decided to add the coloured balls in again for the second half.

Colourful balls in Glam Goo

Next, she added some more confetti, she had a slight confetti explosion but was happy with the end result.

Confetti Overload

After squeezing some of the yellow colourful gooey slime into the bow bracelet she had more left over again. She eventually mixed the two colours, keeping it in the handy pink storage pot and keeps both lots of slime in their accessories.

Glam Goo Bow Bracelet

Have your kids discovered gooey fun with Glam Goo yet?

Burnished Chaos