If you've managed to complete your holiday shopping only to find that you forgot to pick up a box of gift tags don't fret, just fire up your printer. A number of craft blogs are offering free downloadable templates and lovely designs for easy printing and cutting. I find when I buy gift tags from the store there's never enough to go around and often you get some really bad designs mixed in with the good ones. With these free templates you know exactly what you're getting and can just print them off as needed. 

[More]

It's not often we can associate fun with a financial institution, but PNC has done just that with a holiday model train adventure. each year the company studies the inflation rate for all the items mentioned in the Twelve Days of Christmas, you know, turtle doves, french hens, maids a' milking and the like. As you ride their online train you'll be taken through a number of puzzles and games that express the results from that study. The impressive visuals alone make it worth the ride. 

[More]

BirdBox Studios has released a fun little interactive holiday short on YouTube this week. Using your mouse you can click to make a series of choices, choosing one of three hedgehogs to sing a carol and then picking out their music, clothes, or other props. Depending on the choices you'll make you'll arrive at a very different ending and it's worth going back and playing the short again and again, just to see each of the funny outcomes. 

[More]

With the holidays coming upon us many retailers are launching their traditional Christmas storefronts, filling large windows with animatronic characters and moving toys. Last Sunday Saks Fifth Avenue in New York delivered a more modern twist with this spectacular transformation of their building front using computer mapping to create an animated 3D projection. 

[More]

Want to add some holiday magic to your festive snapshots? Glitterboo is a new online service that allows you to paint animated effects onto your personal photos. From glitter to stars, there's a range of tools and effects you can add simply by painting them on and clicking "apply". When you're done click on the "Select Size" icon to move to the page where you can download or embed your finished photos. You can use a selection of effects and sizes for free, but will have to pay a $10 membership fee to access the entire catalog.  [More]

Last week I presented a sensible look at gifts $140 or less. Now it’s time to break the piggy bank and pretend we have money enough to dream and indulge with Big Kid delight. Here are the real tech toys, five jaw-droppers that are sure to make your family think you’ve lost your mind, and blissfully you just might.

[More]

Tom Brown is an exuberant, ebullient man. I’ve known him for several years, even before his current position as weather anchor, and have never seen him at anything less than full spirit. From personal experience I can tell you that he is always the first to spot if you’re feeling low and can help you find reserves you didn’t know existed. Naturally this makes him the perfect figurehead for Toy Mountain, a charitable drive run by the Salvation Army and supported by CTV’s news team in Toronto. He’s asking for a mountain of 120,000 toys and by golly he’ll make you feel needed for the cause. [More]

With Easter weekend approaching you're bound to start boiling some eggs. Eggwatchers.com will both help you figure out how long you should boil your eggs for the desired effect, and then offer some entertainment to keep you occupied while you wait. By answering a few questions about your egg's size, time spent in the fridge, and the kind of egg you're going for - squidgy, firm, runny - it will calculate how long you should leave the egg in the pot and then based on that time retrieve a recommended YouTube video of that exact length to help you count down the minutes. With its cute, cartoon eggs it's a novel way to include the kids in the cooking process. Don't forget to enter Canada AM's Your Video Challenge. We're looking for fun videos that explore the idea of an easter egg hunt.  [More]

With the Easter weekend approaching, PeterRabbit.com has added a special holiday activity to their collection of Beatrix Potter-inspired activities. 10 eggs have been hidden amongst the menus and backgrounds of the sites areas dedicated to crafts, games, and video clips. Find all of them and you'll be rewarded with a free download. If you're looking to keep your kids active during the holidays this is an ideal website full of engaging items about the books and activities you can print off and work on. Click here for more of my recommendations for keeping kids busy and don't forget, Canada AM has a video challenge for you to enter too! [More]

You're single, it's Valentine's Day, and it seems like everywhere you look there's a couple in love. In Samsung's latest viral, their single woman decides to grab photos of those luvy-duvy couples she sees and inserts herself into the shot. Sad? Creepy? Funny? The idea is to show off the dual LCD screens on their latest camera design, the ST550. You have the main screen on the back and then a smaller one on the front for taking self-portraits. I looked at this camera for our gift guide for Christmas and found that while the two screens are neat, it makes it more expensive ($350) than comparable models by Canon, Nikon, or Sony which use a better-quality lens and image sensor. Still, clever ad. 

[More]