By women, for women
I’m in a big nail painting phase right now and was craving some variety in place of my usual pinks. I found this beautiful shade of blue at Rite-Aid.
Today I was in Walgreen’s and spotted these little cuties:
These colors have a thin tiny brush perfect for adding decorative accents to your nails. Like this:
Cute or what?
They had a huge variety of colors, I wish I’d thought to snap a pic of the display.
I picked this up at Rite Aid today. LOVE the color.
Note: you will need a top coat to make it look shiny like mine.
I couldn’t find this color on Amazon but they do have several others: Sinful Colors
Since having been diagnosed with cancer, trying so many different medications, and getting older, my skin has turned into a hot mess. I have tried a lot of different skin care alternatives, cleansers, potions, and lotions before discovering that I can have perfect skin with Clarisonic.
Clarisonic Sonic Skin Care Cleansing Systems are patented sonic frequency cleansers that use more the 300 movements per second to gently, yet thoroughly remove 6x more makeup and 2x more dirt and oil than cleansing with your hands alone.
Left: without cleansing  After: Left-cleaned with Clarisonic Right-cleaned manually
I have had my Clarisonic for a little of a year now and I have to say that I won’t use anything else to clean my face. I have never had any breakouts, it is not harsh on my sensitive skin, and in my opinions, it has cleared up a lot of issues that I hated about my skin as a woman in my mid-thirties.
Cleaner skin is the first step toward healthier skin. Healthier skin is smoother, more radiant and more beautiful!
What do you use to keep your face and skin looking perfect?
As parents, we are bombarded with choices regarding all facets of parenting from diapering to feeding to clothing our children. When it comes to how they learn and play, Melissa & Doug provides us the luxury of turning to one brand to give our children safe, quality toys.
From newborns to older children, Melissa & Doug has toys that enhance the fun of playtime by simultaneously developing fine motor, artistic, cognitive and other important developmental skills.
One of my son’s favorite toys is still his Chomp and Clack Alligator Push Toy. As a first birthday present, it helped assure him of his confidence to walk while providing him an attractively bright toy with animated sounds to spark his interest. Nine months later and a fully confident walker, he still enjoys pushing his Chomp and Clack around the house, only 50mph faster than before!
As a mom, I love that I am providing my son with toys that help his development and won’t turn my home into a loud, plastic jungle. Other favorites of his include the Large Farm Jumbo Knob Puzzle and the Alphabet Nesting and Stacking Blocks.
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We were given an opportunity to select and review a product offered via Pro Home Stores and I selected this beautiful brass and enamel birdbath. I knew it would look fantastic in my sister’s front garden area – and it does!
I’m hesitant about ordering some things online and wondered if this birdbath would be ‘flimsy’. Turns out it’s solidly built and really gorgeous in person. There is an ‘L’ shape welded on at the ground that keeps the birdbath from twisting around and tipping over.
This is what my sis had to say: “It was easy to put together – just two items to thread together and then just stick it in the ground. The color red is excellent for butterflies also – and it is shallow enough for them too!”
Now that I’ve experienced the quality of Pro Home Store products, I would not hesitate to order from them again.
Traveling to New York on vacation – with the whole family – doesn’t have to cost a fortune. With some planning, there are many things you can do for free.
The hotels in downtown Manhattan tend to be, by their very nature, tend to be extravagant and fun to browse compared to the average hotel (You can see what we mean by checking out the New York hotels listings on Orbitz).
Toys R Us on Broadway cannot be missed. It’s not just any Toys R Us store, there’s a ferris wheel in the store that kids can ride for free! And Ray’s Pizza? Always packed but always a hit with the kids with every slice.
That being said, there is so many more attractions to visit while in New York that you simply must experience for yourself and through the eyes of your children.
Below are a few of our favorite places to bring the kids in no particular order.
The Bronx Zoo is a great place for kids of all ages. The zoo contains more than 4,000 animals, the bug carousel, camel rides and more; although, additional charges may apply. There’s also Prospect Zoo and Queens Zoo but we are partial to the Bronx Zoo.
Jump on the subway to Coney Island and enjoy a day at the New York Aquarium. It’s rainy day friendly and boasts more than 10,000 species of marine life which is great fun for you and your toddler. During your visit, don’t forget to check out the Planet Earth: Shallow Seas, 4-D show.
Located on Sixth Ave. in Brooklyn, PuppetWorks caters to children ages 3 and up. They perform classic fairy tales such as Aladdin and Cinderella.
Acrobats, clowns, horse and more! This one-ring circus is two hours and 15 minutes long and runs from October through January at Lincoln Center and May 14 through 30th in Cunningham Park in Fresh Meadows.
From soaring views of Top of the Rock to a backstage pass at NBC Studios, outdoor gardens and historic buildings and more. This is a must see, particularly if you are visiting during the holiday season. They host the biggest Christmas trees in the area.
Little ones enamored with firemen and fire trucks will love visiting the New York City Fire Museum, which houses one of the nation’s most prominent collections of fire related art and artifacts from the present back to the late 18th Century.
Like Toys R Us, World of Disney is more than a store. Located in Times Square it houses several exhibits and activities for the kids which also includes a chance to meet some of the Disney characters. It’s worth the visit.
A Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour
You can’t visit New York and not have pizza! Adding in a tour only makes your pizza experience that much better. Learn the history of pizza, visit locations from movies, Coney Island’s landmark amusement park and boardwalk and more. While on tour you also get to sample their thin-crust pizza and Sicilian style pizza.
Kids of all ages will get dizzy with delight at the views atop the Empire State Building, which also has the New York Skyride. Parents will enjoy it just the same, even if they’ve already been there.
If you have time, also try to squeeze in Books of Wonder, NikeTown and Dylan’s Candy Bar, for a Willy Wonka experience.
And there you have it, some of our favorite New York City attractions for the whole family! And most of them are affordable which is always nice when going on vacation.
Rae is a mom of four, a work from home mom and owner of various small niche websites, including ApronAddicts.com which highlights the best in women’s aprons and gives tons of ideas on simple recipes, including slow carb recipes.
For moms, entire days can be spent trying to keep kids entertained in order to finish simple tasks like washing the dishes, doing laundry, or cooking meals, in a timely manner. Outside of the home, waiting for a dinner table at a restaurant or trying on clothes can be excruciating with bored and fussy children.
Luckily, Android phones and thousands of apps available in the Android Market can be a great distraction for kids, while helping them learn and keeping them creatively engaged.
The Kids Finger Paint app unlocks the endless creativity of your child with no mess or wasted paper. Kids can use their finger to draw and paint on colorful, seasonal backgrounds or simply on a plain white screen.
Designed with young children in mind, Kids Finger Paint lets kids choose their own background, brush size, and paint color from a color wheel, and comes with a “back” key to undo mistakes. Shaking the phone clears the screen so kids can start over with a new picture, and when the artwork is finished, it can be saved to the gallery and easily shared with friends and family via email and Facebook.
This is a particularly great app because there’s no limit to the fun. As long as your child has an imagination, Kids Finger Paint is in style.
The iStoryBooks Android apps are the next generation of storytelling for children. Integrated with the latest technology, iStoryBooks lets children to enjoy their favorite stories without needing an adult read them aloud.
Each book published by iStoryBooks is a picture book with audio included, so bedtime stories and fairy tales read themselves. With new books downloaded to the app automatically every two weeks, kids won’t run out of new stories to enjoy. In addition to classic tales like Cinderella and Snow White, iStoryBooks includes educational books to help children learn the alphabet, solve riddles, and identify national monuments.
The iStoryBook website also offers games, puzzles, and coloring pages so kids can have fun offline with some of their favorite characters from the stories.
When handing off your Android to your kids (I tested all of these on my daughter’s T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S as an FYI), you want to be confident that the time they’re on your phone isn’t wasted. The Kids Numbers and Math app a fun way to not only keep kids busy, but also help them learn numbers and build basic math skills.
And with fun, engaging games, parents find that their kids actually enjoy learning math skills – from basic counting to addition, subtraction, and advanced exercises.
Kids Numbers and Math doesn’t overload children with too many audio and visual stimuli, making the game a delight for children and a winning choice for parents. The app strives to give children just the right balance between education and fun, so it doesn’t feature fun at the expense of education – or education at the expense of fun.
The Kid Mode app is packed with hundreds of fun, educational games and videos perfect for kids ages eight and under. Babies can listen to baby songs, lullaby music, and videos about shapes, letters, patterns, numbers, the alphabet, and animals, and older kids can play math, reading, brain, and action games and try their hand at logic puzzles all from the same app.
For parents, the app’s biggest advantage is its Child Lock feature, which keeps the phone inside Kid Mode. Even when kids press the home screen button, the phone will remain in Kid Mode, eliminating the risk of having a child email your boss, call an acquaintance, or get on the Internet.
Parents can also add other favorite apps, such as Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja, to the app, so kids can play without accidentally or intentionally accessing apps intended for adults. Wi-Fi and Flash are required for many of the app’s features, so make sure your phone has these capabilities.
On the non-educational, non-creative front, Air Penguin is a game that appeals to every kid’s “just one more time” instinct – and parents will love it, too (even CNet loved it)!
The goal of the game is simply to jump, fly, and dodge by tilting your phone to guide Air Penguin through Antarctica to save his family from melting ice caps. With adorable graphics and easy-to-play design, Air Penguin will keep kids hooked and entertained for hours on end.
Rae is a mom of four, a home based business owner and owner of various small niche websites, including ApronAddicts.com which highlights the best in fashionable aprons and gives tons of ideas on simple recipes and other creative kitchen ideas.
Curbing your impulse buying when you are shopping with kids isn’t always easy. Â In fact, many people buy on impulse with out even realizing it is happening. Â It’s when they get home that they wonder what happened to all that careful preparation that was supposed to help balance their income and bills.
The most common place to impulse buy is the grocery store and I find when I am shopping with kids it’s even easier than when I am alone. Â I’ve learned two very helpful things about food shopping. Â The first is, don’t go hungry and the second is make a list and stick to it. Â When you are hungry it is easy to stray from your shopping list. Â All those specials and display products look so good when you are hungry. Â Don’t give into those cravings, eat first and shop second.
When you are going shopping with kids let everyone add a favorite snack to the list. Â Try and find coupons for those snack items to save some extra money. Â It pays in the long run to add a few treats and snacks to your weekly food list because financial budgets are very similar to dieting for calories. Â If you keep denying yourself the good stuff, sooner or later you are going to breakdown and go overboard by spending too much or gorging yourself.
Another helpful trick is to ask yourself if you really need this item. Â A simple yes or no answer will usually do the trick, don’t argue with yourself, just answer the question. Â When you can’t say yes right away, you don’t need it. Â It’s also a very good question to ask when you are shopping with kids. Â Teach your children how to curb impulse buying and it will help them learn to use self control and it will save your family’s shopping budget as well.
This Quinny Zapp X-tra in the bold Q-Design has many elements of today's trends.
We’re proud to have another great guest post from Stroller Expert Amy Tanathorn.
If you haven’t needed to look at strollers until recently, you’re in for a big surprise. Lots of newly pregnant moms I know still think that the big bulky, frilly stroller is their only option.
Well have I got news! Strollers over the last few years have grown increasingly sophisticated with more options, features and functionality. Not to mention better colors and style!
Revealed are the top stroller trends today competing for your attention.
Technology has given way to lighter aluminum that is just as strong as steel. Joovy is a brand that uses aircraft-grade aluminum for their frame. UPPAbaby and Maclaren strollers are super lightweight yet balanced enough to hang your purse on the handle.
Moms are tired of lugging around a heavy stroller in and out of the car trunk or off and on public transportation. Double strollers already carry up to 90 pounds of child plus gear. Add to that the weight of the stroller itself and you’ve got a tank!
Nowadays though, you regularly see full-featured strollers weighing under 20 pounds and umbrella strollers as light as 7 pounds.
This aluminum withstands a heavy weight, too. Many of these incredibly light strollers have an astonishing weight capacity. For example, the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle is an all terrain stroller that weighs only 24 pounds, yet can carry up to 77 pounds! Yes, that’s a single stroller, not a double!
A few years ago when Bugaboo came onto the scene and was setting trends left and right, one of the looks most copied is the single wheel. Look at most of your traditional Graco/Evenflo/Combi strollers and they have double wheels in front and back for better stability and suspension.
But many of the higher-end lines like Inglesina and Peg Perego strollers began using sealed ball bearings in their single wheel models to smooth out the ride. A glide is more how it is described by moms who swoon over this style. (I swoon, too; they look beautiful!)
This trend has caught on with mass producer Graco who has the new UrbanLite, a single wheel lightweight model that has that high-end look for far less.
I was always disappointed in the sun canopies in most strollers. The sun would always shine at just that angle that would always get right into my child’s eyes.
Luxury strollers first offered enormous sun canopies, creating paneled or ratcheting hoods that extend over your child down to the snack tray or over the lap area. This feature became an instant favorite and now many brands have a stroller with this feature. Often times the panel zips up to stay tidy and compact until needed. Others types simply ratchet into place, like BOB strollers. You’ll also see pop-out sun visors, a-la UPPAbaby or Phil and Ted.
Another trend I’ve noticed on sun canopies is the peek-a-boo window getting larger. Many of them are no longer clear vinyl windows but mesh netting. I like this because it allows better air flow and it won’t crack, split or discolor after a few years.
The flaps covering these peek a boo windows have magnetic closures in higher-end brands. Magnetic closures are nice because there’s no Velcro rip sound to wake your baby when you check in.
This is perhaps the biggest stroller trend over the last couple of years. Also called a convertible stroller, the reversing, removable seat allows for greater seating flexibility. You can:
A convertible stroller is the solution for parents who want a travel system without the bulk and with a lot more style.
A fashionable, sleek look is in, and that oftentimes means no snack tray for your child. Padded bumper bars are used instead. Sometimes your child has little pockets within the seating “cabin” to hold little toys or snacks. Other brands offer a snack tray separately.
The same sleek look can also mean no parent console or cup holder, which is a huge bummer to moms and dads who like to have a cup of coffee during their outings. So this trend is getting mixed feedback and some brands have re-introduced a cup holder.
Ah, that sleek look again. Black stroller frames are very much in fashion right now. Quinny has their models in black or the traditional silver and their new Moodd even has a white frame with some color choices. It’s all about making a statement with bright bold fabric colors coupled with a frame in anything but silver.
So what do YOU think about these new trends?
Amy Tanathorn researches the best baby strollers at Stroller Envy, where you can read in-depth reviews for UPPAbaby, Baby Jogger, Phil & Teds, Quinny and more. Reviews include video demonstrations, product specs, photos and detailed descriptions.
Coupons are a great way to save money, but not if you don’t know how to use them. You may be thinking, how hard can it be to use a coupon? Sure, you may have a couple of them lying around; you plan to use them the next time you visit a store. However, without proper planning and preparation, those couple of coupons aren’t going to do you much good except make you believe that couponing isn’t worth the time and effort.
To help you fully understand how to save money with coupons, consider these tips.
Organize
This is the most common tip you’ll receive on the Internet, because it is the most important tip. Professional coupon users have multiple binders with tabs to categorize and sub-categorize their coupons. For example, some coupon users have a tab for meats and sub-categories for ham, chicken, turkey and other meats. This helps shoppers know exactly where their coupons are when they need them quickly.
Gather From Various Sources
While the Sunday paper is a great way to gain coupons, there are other sources, such as magazines and websites, which offer coupons as well. Additionally, higher priced papers and magazines usually contain coupons with greater value. Still, there is no guarantee that these coupons will be for products that you would normally buy.
Be careful about signing up for coupons through websites. Most of them will require your email and telephone number. You may start receiving solicited calls and emails from other companies. If this happens, simply ask to be removed from their database. They are required by law to do so if asked.
Sites like Groupon and Retailmenot are great for finding special deals, both online and in-store.
Use For Things Other Than Groceries
When people hear the word “coupon,” they usually think about groceries and saving a few pennies. However, there are coupons for literally everything — haircuts, oil changes, manicures and more. Always file these coupons under a miscellaneous tab. You never know when you’ll need a coupon the next time you need your oil changed.
Combine Offers
This is a great money-saving tip. Most stores will let you combine your coupons with other coupons or in-store special deals to help you save even more money. Before shopping, do some research for stores in your area that are having special deals. Stores like Publix, Winn-Dixie and Kroger usually have new deals every week.
Additionally, consider visiting pharmacies. They also have deals for various items, mostly beauty products. Pharmacies also usually have a loyalty card program, which will allow you to save even more money on your purchases.
You must also learn to be patient with your coupons. Wait for certain items to go on sale and combine your coupons. The best shoppers are patient and understand the value of an extra 50 cents off of an item.
Don’t Collect Coupons for Brands You Don’t Like
This is just common sense. Don’t use coupons to buy items you normally don’t use. Many people let their impulsive side take over when they have coupons. Perhaps you may have a friend or family member that would like the coupon instead.
Amazon UK online coupons on Coupon Croc, one of the best resources for coupons in the UK. Tom Blanchard shares his advice with couponers in the UK on how to find the best deals and save the most money on their daily purchases.
