Hue HD Animation Studio - our first animation

We were recently sent this animation studio to try out and review, and today we made our first animation.

It is the simplest thing in the world to set up and use - it is a webcam-based animation kit which is automatically installed when you connect it to the computer.  The software with which you create your animation is user-friendly, and to get to your finished animation is incredibly easy:

• create the backdrop for your animation (we used a sheet of white A4 paper)
• point the webcam at your clay models, or whatever else you are using
• take a photo of your clay model
• move your clay model slightly
• take another photo
• continue in this vein until you come to the end of your short film

You can then edit your animation using the software on the computer.  You can add text and sound and remove or re-arrange frames in the timeline.

We had such fun with this kit, and once you start, it becomes very addictive.  We put together several short animations, some we did together, some Betty did on her own, and now I am itching to get to work on my own masterpiece once the kids are in bed.

The kit comes in several different colours and is compatible with both PCs and Macs.  I would totally recommend this product to anyone who might be interested in creating their own animations - check out the product in more detail by clicking HERE

Below is one of the animations we created:

Dressing-up party

Last week, Betty (4), Dolly (1) and I held a dressing-up party - for no reason other than we thought it would be fun, after a pretty gruelling January.  The idea of a party came about because I have recently put together a dressing up box for my girls. I have been collecting fun and quirky items of clothing from charity shops, and cutting up old clothes of mine and sewing sequins and feathers onto them.  In addition to this ELC sent me some fabulous costumes from their range, from fairies, to princessess, to vets, to ballerinas.  So there the box proudly sat, awaiting our little guests...

A dressing up party is always going to be a winner with kids, well, most kids anyway.  We had vets performing operations on toy dogs to remove their nits, we had a garden fairy, Snow White and a ballerina having a tea party, a witch and a nurse tearing around on a hobby horse, and two boys one dressed as a fairy and one as a princess.  It was a lot of fun, if very chaotic, and there were hardly any fights! 

Needless to say, the ELC costumes were the most popular with the kids, as they looked great, fitted properly, and were the biz, as opposed to some of the costumes I had fashioned together myself.  There was an ELC ball gown which I would have absolutely loved when I was a little girl - magical.

ELC offer a huge choice of different costumes for every occasion, and the prices range from £12 to £22.