This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and Walmart Family Mobile. All opinions are mine alone. #TreatYourFamily #CollectiveBias. Here I’m sharing 8 FREE and Fun Apps to Help you Through the Holidays, and great info on an affordable plan for family-friendly mobile services.
In many ways I can’t believe that the holidays are right around the corner. This year we’re hosting Thanksgiving at our house and as much as I love cooking and entertaining; things can get a bit crazy as we prepare for our guests. I found some free and fun apps to help lighten the load this holiday and I thought I’d share them with HappyandBlessedHome.com readers. Some are extremely helpful and others are just for fun, but all of them will treat your family to smiles and lots of family fun memory making this holiday season. The photo below is from a Santa Tracker app featured in this post – so fun!
Many of the FREE Apps I’m sharing here are easy to find on a cell phone using an app store or Google play. If you have any trouble, simply connect to the internet and search the tool name to locate it and download it to your phone. In case you’re curious, the phone pictured here is the LG Leon LTE phone. It’s less than $70 for the device and it’s 4G Capable. The LG Leon LTE phone includes a 5 Megapixel camera with a 4.5″ multi-touch screen. Sounds like a great gift idea for families who need a mobile phone and mobile phone plan to me! I picked up our LG Leon LTE phone at Walmart when I activated our family’s Walmart Family Mobile Plan. More details on this very affordable family mobile plan below.
FREE Application #1: Thanksgiving Countdown. (Kulana Media Productions) Once you download this app, this adorable turkey will be your friendly reminder of the days remaining until Thanksgiving. This can help you plan ahead and keep track of the amount of time left until the big day. There is also a fun quiz included in this app – a great way to elicit giggles from little people like my three and five-year-olds. Sometimes everyone just needs a little laugh to perk up during this busy season. The app is free and you can easily find it under the Google play store on the LG Leon LTE phone or under an app store on any other smart phone device.
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FREE Mobile Phone Application #2: PicsArt. (PicsArt) I’ve made a list of all the family members we need to make gifts for and I’m having the boys make homemade crafts to give as gifts to family far away. Crafts like the lovely turkey covered in sequins and feathers pictured here. I found PicsArt which allows me to take pictures of the boys with my LG Leon LTE phone and customize the photos with cute frames and shapes. When I show the edited photos to my boys they just laugh and giggle and say “do me, mommy” and it just makes craft time even that much more fun!
This photo is from the same app: PicsArt. Same as above but here I’m demonstrating another feature of the app. PicsArt allows me to take pictures of the boys and customize the photos with cute frames like this “travel” frame. Great for sending fun collages of the kids to my family members over the holidays.
Capture the Memories
One of the wonderful things about the holidays is gathering together with family to create memories. And what better way to stay spontaneous and “in the moment” than to use your cell phone to capture every moment as it happens. With FREE apps like PicsArt and others I’m including in this post, you can capture fun memories and make the holidays even more memorable with your phone.
FREE Mobile Phone Application #3: Christmas Countdown. (Aqreadd Studios) Once the turkey has been served and the leftovers put away, it will be time to put up the Christmas tree and start our Christmas shopping. I love this FREE Christmas countdown app to help me stay on top of how many days I have until Christmas. There are crafts to make, cookies to bake, gifts to buy, gifts to ship, a tree to decorate, and family to pick up at the airport. It’s a busy season for everyone, especially during Christmas.
Crafts and Photos for Family Fun
Crafts are a huge part of our Thanksgiving and Christmas activities. I think handmade crafts makes gift-giving even more special. As we create our crafts, bake cookies, visit Santa and other fun activities over the holidays, I like to use my phone and some of these fun free apps to capture memories and share the photos with other members of our family.
My little elves are busy making turkeys, Christmas ornament frames, and foam gingerbread houses this week.
What to do with all the Pictures
FREE Cell Phone Application #4: Shutterfly. (Shutterfly, Inc.) I’m a huge fan of Shutterfly. They have beautiful printed photo albums and personalized Christmas gifts. You can upload any photo and turn it into a T-shirt. You can also upload groups of photos and turn them into personalized calendars, photo books and picture collages. The nice thing about installing the Shutterfly app on your phone is that you’ll be the first to know when photo books go on sale for half price or when the company offers big discounts like 30% off everything!
Turn the photos on your phone into personalized Christmas gifts with just a few clicks of a button. It’s such a convenient way to get some Christmas shopping done!
FREE Cell Phone Application #5: 23snaps. (23 Snaps Ltd.) This cell phone application is so popular that it’s been downloaded by over 100,000 people. It’s a fabulous private family album that allows parents to save and share videos, stories about their kids, and record significant family milestones with a closed network of family and close friends anywhere in the world. Family members can follow updates on their own cell phones (and those phones do not have to be the same type of smartphone) or on their desktops or by e-mail. You can add things like your child’s height and weight measurements, significant accomplishments and more. Invited family and friends can interact with the updates you share by posting smiles, hearts and comments. A great way to keep family up-to-date over the holidays!
FREE Cell Phone Application #6: Christmas Cards (by HappySunMobile). Downloaded over 10,000 times, this fun app lets you create electronic Christmas greeting cards (almost 100 different versions to chose from). You can share these cards with anyone via Facebok, Twitter, WhatsApp, Google+, and/or e-mail to spread Christmas joy. The app lets you customize the message, font, color, and text size; and view the changes simultaneously.
FREE Cell Phone Application #7: Christmas Gift List (by appshub). This practical app will let you track your Christmas gift spending on your phone. Here I’ve recorded one test person with a gift budget of $30. The app lets you type in the gift idea and how much you spent on the actual gift. Comes in handy when you are trying to stick to a budget, and when your gift list is long enough that it’s hard to remember what you’ve purchased and for whom. Now you can track the gift, who it’s for and how much you’ve spent. Whew – that makes Christmas shopping a little easier.
FREE Cell Phone Application #8: Santa Tracker (by Google Inc.) This is a really fun app. It’s been downloaded over 1 million times and once I show you the features, you’ll know why. You can track Santa’s whereabouts (in a fantasy of make-believe), play games with elves in jetpacks, rolling gum balls, and sleighs powered by rockets. When the 24th of December arrives follow Santa on his journey around the world. Great fun for kids and parents. Santa tracker is a “must have” app in my book!
Even though it’s not the 24th yet, the app will show kids how Santa is preparing for the holidays – shopping at a store, searching for kids high and low, and taking off for the North Pole to get ready for the big day. I’ve also pictured one of the games you can play with elves in the collage below. Great fun for everyone!
Affordable Solutions for Sharing Memories
FREE Apps on your phone are the most affordable way to set important reminders, keep track of Christmas shopping, share festive activities via great photos, and even upload photos to create personalized Christmas gifts. They are easy to use and they make holiday planning and record keeping much easier. In addition, you can get all this functionality with the LG Leon LTE phone and the Walmart Family Mobile plan. The Walmart Family Mobile plan offers for $39.88/month (for the first line) Unlimited Talk, Text & Data service plan which now includes up to 5GB of 4G LTE data.
To get started, you just need to select the phone (other makes and models are available at Walmart) with a $25.00 starter kit. The Walmart Family Mobile plan is one of the lowest priced unlimited plans available and includes unlimited talk, text and data. Great for not only accessing all the fun FREE Holiday-inspired apps I’ve shared here, but perfect for taking photos and staying in touch with friends and family.
Want to share some festive holiday fun? Check out the Walmart Family Mobile Tumblr page: www.walmartfamilymobile.tumblr.com and enjoy some fabulous holiday cheer!
Making Memories? What are your favorite holiday apps?
These are the apps I’ve found most helpful for our family. Do you have a favorite app for setting reminders, adding stickers or frames to photos, sharing photos with family or another holiday fun app? How do you keep family far away in the loop during the holidays? Please share with this online community by leaving a comment below – I love to hear from HappyandBlessedHome.com readers.
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P.S. – I blog to encourage moms, offer free preschool tools, and share ideas for family fun. If you enjoy free recipes, printables, crafts and games for little ones, ideas for family fun and encouraging posts for moms, sign up and have Happy and Blessed Home delivered to your inbox. Simply enter your e-mail address here:
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