MORE giveaways happening

Gobs of Giveaways is giving away ID Me Labels- Perfect for the tots in daycare or elementary school!

The Speedy Gourmet is giving away a Century of Flavor Cookbook: A cookbook from Nielson-Massey Vanillas!  I can only imagine how divine the recipes in this one must be!

MNM Special:
YourPictureBook: Not only does YourPictureBook.com personalize the book with a child's name, they actually include illustrations based on a photo of the child!  They also have DVDs, posters, and coloring pages!

Pretty Please Press Books:  The books not only contain values lessons such as working towards dreams and behaving, they also have vocabulary and concept cards and lesson plans!

Day Counter: How long have those green beans been in your refrigerator?  The lunch meat?  This handy little device from Days Ago will tell you.  They have 3 different counters- magnetic, rubber banded, and suction-cupped to work with all types of containers.  Obviously, the counter can be reset!

MomStart:
Reusable shopping bag & Sunsweet coupon:  As part of their Pop-a-Prune promotion, Sunsweet has paired with MomStart to give 5 readers reusable bags and coupons good for 1 Sunsweet item!

Portable Hard Drive: Seagate makes portable hard drives perfect for backing up all types of media external to the computer.  Great for families like mine using a 7yr-old computer!

Fabric Creations is giving away a $25 GC to both Target and ToysRUs!  What else needs to be said?!

Living Smart Girl:
[me]&goji Cereal: You've got to check this out!  YOU pick what goes in your cereal and we're not talking about Lucky Charms here!  Cranberries, Blueberries, Goji berries, granola, etc.!

Samples Box: Out of the Box Sampler sells boxes of samples- bath items, candles, etc.  You never know what you're going to get but they're supposed to be great!

Brown Paper Packages is giving away a $100 GC to Hot Mama!  They make some fantastic looking personalized jewelry!

MudBug is offering up a Bumbleride Indie stroller!  I'd love to get one of these- the 3 wheel stroller has become VERY appealing now that we struggle with the 4 wheels because someone grows HEAVY!

DIY is offering up 10 amazing handmade items or GCs to stores selling handmade items!  This is an ongoing giveaway- the sign up takes place over almost a month with daily entries!

Tinahdee is giving away one of her fabulous handmade rings or bracelets- you decide which when you sign up for this one!

LOTS more giveaways from Born2Impress!

Toucan Tree Puzzle: An ImagiPLAY painted wooden puzzle.  The company uses eco-friendly sources!

Holey Donuts: As I mentioned in my previous MommyPR post, Holey Donuts makes low-fat donuts, something you don't find at Dunkin' Donuts!

Personalized holiday gift Frecklebox makes personalized items like puzzles and books.

Crystal Nail Files Classy Nail Files makes highly-tempered glass nail files with cute little pictures or colors swatches on them.

Tote Bag  Bored, Inc. has a full line of tongue-in-cheek kids' clothes and totes.

Surprise Giftbox Personalized Parcels offers theme gifts, the specifics of which are a surprise.  Themes range from "Birthday" to "Animal Arrival" to "Family Fun" to "Special Spouse Surprise!"

Baby Blanket Neige Children's Clothes is giving away a fantastically soft looking blanket!

Novelty Tshirt  Crazy Dog Tshirts has great selection of fun shirts with images like 80's TV shows and movies, cute/snarky sayings and even somewhat crass commentary.

Wallet  All-ETT makes exceptionally thin wallets

Creative Kit for Kids Faber Castel makes a whole range of great creative kits for kids.  They're giving away 5 kits with Born2 Impress: Wee Enchanted Garden, Shrinky Dinks (YES, Shrinky Dinks!) Holiday Fun, Beaded Snowflake Ornament Set, Mini Window Sill Garden (complete with gnome from the look of it!) and Monster Trucks Custom Shop.

Magnetic Game  The playing pieces in Jishaku are made of hematite which is naturally magnetic.  That makes placing your piece and the affect it has on neighboring pieces an interesting twist to any version of  play you decide to use this game for!

Frosty the Snowman Directly from Build-a-Bear, a completed, musical snowman!

Talking 1st Aid Kit  Intelligent First Aid has made 1st aid kits not only useful to have, but even helpful- they actually talk you through delivering 1st aid based on the type of emergency you're facing!

Shawl  Nimli Organic Clothing Company is giving away a Azuri Cashmere Pashimina Shawl in black.

LOTS of MommyPR giveaways happening soon!

Sampler of Holey Donuts: Holey Donuts is a company that makes great-looking donuts that are low-fat!  Who thought it was possible!?!

Personalized CD: Name Your Tune creates made-to-order musical CDs.  The CD has 14 songs personalized for each child.

Leapfrog Zippity: The LeapFrog Zippity is one of the newest LeapFrog learning systems.  It's interactive and looks to keep the kids moving and active.  I'd love to have one of these for the long winter days coming up!

Sunny Day CD:  Julie K. has put out a new children's musical CD and MommyPR is giving one away!

Activity Books for the Kids: Peter Pauper Press and Mommy PR are giving out 3 different kids' activity books.  In addition to really great and attention-grabbing kids' items, Peter Pauper also offers gifts, journals, calendars, stationery and other related items for adults.

Lenovo IdeaPad U350: This one is fantastic.  Mommy PR and Lenovo are giving away a laptop.  What else do I need to say?   Oh, you want more?  5.29lb., 13.3" LCD screen, 3G memory + 320G hard drive, identity verification...

$25 to Sprout Baby: Sprout Baby carries a fantastic array of baby foods, snacks, reusable food containers, and healthy cleaning supplies to name a few!

Sit-on Animal: HearthSong is a great company offering some really fantastic toys for kids.  Once Liam is older, he'll definitely be getting a set of Connectagons!  This drawing is for something that should definitely catch the attention of the little ones- a large sit-on animal!  I'm personally partial to the pinto!  (You can choose from the pinto, brown horse, donkey and elephant!)

RCA Small Wonder EZ207 Video Camera: Yep!  Another big one!  An RCA video camera!  For someone like me who never bothered to get a video camera but frequently wonders if we should have, this would be great!  It's small, compact and can capture up to 8hrs of video on an SD card!

The Gift for the Inuksuk: Sleeping Bear Press gives away quite a few books at MommyPR.  I've been lucky enough to win a few and I think they're all definitely worth having.  While it'll be another year or two before I let Liam at them on his own, I've been happy to share them with him already.  This one is a fictional tale describing the "relationship between the stone figures (Inuksuk) and the Inuit people."

Flying Airplane Kit: Brooklyn 5 and 10 is giving someone one of their Artful Flyer kits.  Given that they have some really nice throwback types of toys, this looks like a real winner and something that could be safely thrown IN the house to boot!

Alphabet Cards: A great old-fashioned alphabet/letters flashcard set from Challenge & Fun.

Sampler Basket: Mayfair Lane is giving a MommyPR reader a great sampler basket of their items.  They've got some really nice clips and reusable bags!  This looks like a great way to give them a try!

Cookbook: After reading some of Holly's recipes, I love the thought of checking out her books.  Freezer Friendly Meals sounds right up my alley since I love to cook in advance and tend to make more than we want in one week. 

Customized Binder: Avery and Zazzle have teamed up to create binders completely customized to the purchaser's needs.  I'd LOVE to use these to get my craft and office area cleaned up and looking coordinated!

$25 to Hallmark: Did you know Hallmark now has digital scrapbooks?  Personalizable cards?  Recordable books?!  Such an amazing extension to their lineup!

Two new Christmas cards

I just finished this card for a contest over at Lily-Boo.  The challenge this month was to make a purple card and I love purple on Christmas cards so the timing is just right!  It's a bit hard to see but the medallion was "blinged-up" a bit.

The glittered snowflakes were actually made and sold to someone I used to work with.  They were relatively painful to make because the glitter HAD to stick so it was a matter of stamping the purple, lining up the stamp again and stamping with Versa Mark, pouring on the Heat & Stick powder, heating it, pouring the glitter on it and heating it again to set.  I like the results though.

$50 giveaway to Oh-My-Crafts!

I was just looking for a reasonably priced (i.e. Free shipping) "When It's Cold Outside" Cricut cartridge when I came across http://mycricutscrapbooking.com/.  They're giving away a $50 GC to Oh-My-Crafts on Saturday, Nov. 14th.  Definitely a giveaway to look into!!

You've GOT to see this packaging!

I recently received a shirt for my son from Ufadili.com.  They carry a lot of kids' shirts that have animals on them and present their names in several languages and 30% of their profits go to charities.  Cute, cool stuff!  I'd seen their packaging online but getting it made it all that much neater. 

I ordered a blue raglan shirt with a blue marlin on it.  "Sulisuli" is blue marlin in... wait for it... Swahili!  Funky and bizarre but cool.

Gooseberry Patch... Big fan!

Gooseberry Patch is a nifty company that carries a fantastic amount of kitchen items with a country theme.  They have old style cookie cutters, dishes, cloth items, mixes, the whole lot! 

However, what I know them the most for is their huge number of cookbooks.  I recently bought several of their small books including "Country Friends® Merry Mixes" and "Country Friends® Merry Mixes II."  I thought these would be ideal for Christmas since this year more of our gifts will be homemade due to budget reasons.  I found a great recipe for a moccachino mix that my husband gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to.  I'll be trying the hot chocolate and a few other drink mixes that will go into glass containers and be given as a set or as stocking stuffers.  There are also bread, cookie, and soup mix recipes that I can't wait to try! 

Upcoming Giveaways

The Bragging Mommy
Pirate Mr. Potato Head: aka. Capt. Potato Chips!  How can you NOT love Hasbros' Mr. Potato Head,  particularly in pirate garb!  I recently bought Liam a Mr. Potato Head and it's been his favorite toy.  I've already been thinking about getting some of these "supplemental" outfits to beef (spud) up his wardrobe and this is a great one.

UV Skinz (winner's choice): While this is more of a summer item unless you're taking a winter "fun-in-the-sun getaway", it's still a great one.  UV Skinz carries very trendy looking UV blocking shirts and bottoms for the whole family.

$25 GC for Maukilo.com: Maukilo.com has some great toys that would be instant Christmas hits.  Among other amazing things, they have a full line of HABA toys which I think are some of the most fantastic (and unfortunately pricey, though you get what you pay for) items out there.

MomStart
Things Remembered Car Snowglobe: I know that I sometimes forget Things Remembered as an everyday giftshop but that have some great stuff.  This race car snowglobe is an example of that- how cute!  Liam would LOVE this... though he's not likely to be able to put his little mitts on it anytime soon without a LOT of supervision!

Klutz Encylopedia of Immaturity, Vols. 1&2: The Klutz series of kits and books never ceases to amaze me.  Whenever I see a spinny rack of theirs, I have to stop and look to see what they've come up with now.  There's always something new and fun!  They've put out 2 volumes of fun activities and projects, one geared to kids 10 and up and one to the younger set.

Kikkoman Gift Pack: Just in time for Thanksgiving, MomStart and Kikkoman are giving away a gift pack that contains everything from a $25GC for a turkey to turkey recipes for the mountain of leftovers that always seems to exist no matter how many people stuffed themselves at the table to "A Kikkoman Duck for your kids to play with as you prepare the turkey."  What a great pack of goodies!

Unilever Goodies & Samples: Unilever and MomStart are giving away a box of assorted products likely to include Dove, Vaseline, and QTips.  This is a great way to try out new products without spending a fortune to decide if you like it or not!

Chocolate A Love Story:  This is a book about a man, Max Brenner, and his company.  It's a story, photobook, and recipe book all in one.  How can that be bad?

All a Little Crazy

I missed putting anything up lately because it's all been, as you might guess, a little crazy.  Liam's recovering from his run-in (literally) with the sliding glass door track and the resulting trip to the ER to glue his forehead closed.  Soon after that, I decided to try to give blood again.  After 2 nurses spent 30min trying on both of my arms, they pretty much dismissed me, one suggesting that I don't come back unless I'm sure it'll go well because it causes them to have paperwork to fill out and take a "ding" against their successes for the day.  Excuse me for trying and for prepping by drinking 90oz. of fluid before I came in!  I ended up icing my arms for 4 hours, still have bruises about 3" in diameter on both arms 5 days later and it's the first day neither forearm aches from "bruised veins" (I didn't even know about that!).  Then, to top it all off, I had a massive allergic reaction to something (not sure what) starting Monday night.  By Tue. morning, half of my face and neck was red and swollen with hives.  Today is again the first day where I'm starting to get back to normal though my neck is still a red mess.  Really.  That's enough. 

So, next post... the good stuff.  :)