Mother's Day Giveaway's 2008 Edition
Published 05.06.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (2)
Last year I highlighted just a few of the many Mother's Day giveaways around the internet. I thought I'd do another round this year so we all have a chance to get something for nothing.
Gabrielle at Design Mom is running a full week of Mother's Day giveaways at her site. She did the same last year and this year will be, according to reports, twice as big. So far, as of Tuesday, she's giving away this lovely necklace, a party pack from CocoBlu Studio, a gift basket from Nest Gift Baskets and two beautiful dresses from Shabby Apple (love these dresses). These giveaways end today May 6 at 2pm so hurry and enter.
Cool Mom Picks has their handy Mother's Day Gift Guide running again this year. To enter, simply paste the Cool Mom's Picks Mother's Day Gift Guide Logo onto your blog and email the editors to let them know where they can find it and you're entered. They'll announce the winner of a $200 gift certificate to TJ & Co. keepsake jewelry and another $200 in organic body care products from Earth Mama Angel Baby, on May 11th.
All Recipes is giving away $300 in an easy to enter sweepstakes. Simply vote for your favorite Mother's Day Brunch menu, I'll give you one guess what my answer was.
Windows Live is running a Portraits Of Mom photo contest. You can win a photo printer, a Canon Power Shot camera and an all in one photo printer and, maybe even the Grand Prize: a camcorder, a laptop computer and a family trip with a photo session with a professional photographer. Entering is a little more complex, post a photo of your Mom to your Window's Live space, get your friend's and family to vote for it, and win daily, weekly or the grand prize.
Finally at Five Minutes For Mom they're running a great giveaway. Leave a comment on each giveaway for your chance to win a ton of great prizes like an iPod Nano, a Kodak photo printer and a SAK purse (among other prizes).
Here at Alpha Mom we're running a giveaway, and though it's not Mother's Day specific, you should enter. You can win a Jeep Gear prize package (stroller, carrier and diaper bag) worth $220. Simply answer a few questions and voila! You're entered.
I have to admit I had no idea Mother's Day was this weekend. Time continues to slip past me. I hope you and yours have a wonderful day full of whatever you love to celebrate with. Personally, I like quiet time in my own house followed by a dinner with family. (Though a dress from Shabby Apple would be lovely too.)
Happy Mother's Day!
Great Handmade Gifts For Mother's Day
Published 04.29.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (1)
Mother's Day is once again around the corner. Holidays have a way of doing this, coming around each year, don't they? Last year I shared some fabulous last minute gift ideas for moms, you can see them here. This year I've come up with five reasonably easy and still lovely gifts you can help your kid make for their mother. (Pretend I'm talking to all the dads right now. You can share this with them.)
My son's preschool class did a craft like this cute Recipe Dish Towel from Wondertime, except theirs came in book form. Each child shared their favorite dish their mother's make and how they thought it was made. My son mentioned my chicken pot pie and his recipe was very helpful. "Take some vegetables, chicken and soup or something. Mix them together and put a sort of bread on top. I think." Look out Julia Child! For this project your child's recipe with a picture is put onto Iron on Transfer paper and adhered to a dish towel.
Martha offers up this plaster hand or foot casting project as a gift idea. I have a cast of my now nine-year-old's baby hand and I can't tell you how touching it is, especially now that she's nearly a double digit. It's the kind of gift that gets more special each year as your kid's hand grows. You can follow the direction at the Martha Stewart site, or find a cast kit at your local craft store. Do yourself a favor though, don't leave the kit in your kid's closet where you promptly forget about it until that one naptime when your kid is super quiet and you go in a couple hours later to find this. I know it looks like TONS of fun, but it wasn't.
Flowers are always a big hit with moms, especially in the spring when we're all relishing the newness of everything coming back to life after a long winter. However, save the cut flower gifts for your kids once they're young adults and forget all about Mother's Day requiring a frantic last minute call to a florist. These coffee filter flowers are an incredibly simple project even very small hands can do.
This ever-lasting flower bouquet incorporates photos of mom's extra special kids. In a vase, these would make a nice desktop decoration for the office. I suggest using this kind of paper from the Martha Stewart collection for a simple and colorful set of flowers.
Family Fun, as usual, has a lot of great Mother's Day craft ideas but this one in particular is my favorite. It's a bead and wire sun catcher to hang in your window. I have the perfect window for this piece, it's the one over my sink in the kitchen. The one we've been saying, 'Man, we have to get a set of blinds for this window. My retinas are being FRIED', about for almost 9 months now. Still, we do nothing. Instead of buying blinds, maybe one of my kids will make me this and I'll appreciate the blinding sun a little more as I cook dinner each night.
In case I don't get a chance to say it later, may your Mother's Day be everything you'd like it to be.
Inspiring Ideas For Kid's Birthdays
Published 04.22.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (1)
I like to talk about birthdays here at the Buzz Off about twice a year, usually in November and March because these are the birthday months of my kids. March slipped right past me but I have this folder full of great ideas to add to our vast birthday party collection. To refresh your memory:
Last night my husband's, er, my son's Cub Scout pack held a cake auction. It was our first year so we didn't know what to expect and arrived with two cakes to put up for auction that seemed quite nice at home and incredibly lame at the event when surrounded by very imaginative cakes. Including this Krabby Patty Cake, pardon the grainy photograph I didn't have my good camera, my friend Jodi came up with, as she said, "All by herself." She didn't snag the idea from a book or magazine, it's all out of her brain...and even better, it was really simple.
She made 12 cupcakes with nice rounded tops. She cut the tops off and used them as the top "bun" and the bottom piece as the base for each Patty. She also baked a layer of chocolate cake in a jelly roll pan and cut circles out of it to make the actual "patty" part of the burgers. To finish the look she used red, green and yellow decorator frosting to apply the condiments. (FYI: Her cake brought in $40 at the auction. Ours brought in $5. Nice!)
I came across this adorable cake yesterday via Sk*rt and think it would make a great first birthday cake. It would also work for any spring or garden themed party. There's no tutorial here, but it looks to me like two sheet cakes stacked together and trimmed into the shape of a cloud.
I'm pretty sure I've shared I Dream Of Cake before and made a little joke about how easy it would be to whip up one of their confections. (Snort.) Not really but it's such a beautiful site I think you should have a look at their cake gallery. I'm pretty sure there's a way to recreate the "Operation" cake without too much effort and take a look at the building block cake.
Instead of cake you could try this exciting rainbow jello concoction. The process is a bit time consuming, but not particularly difficult and on the plus side no dealing with frosting. Jello is one of those simple pleasures my kids can't get enough of and made up to look as striking as this one, who needs cake?
As far as inspiring (yet not overwhelming) birthday party themes I found a few new ones for this edition. At Oh Happy Day Jordan helped a friend create these clever boxes for a birthday picnic. This party was for an adult's birthday, and the food inside makes that clear. Unless you have one of those kids who happily eats red pepper and goat cheese sandwiches, and if that's the case good luck finding enough of your kid's friends who will eat that. But the idea could be easily changed out for kid friendly food. Perfect for an outdoor party at the park or even at the swim club in the summer.
Design Mom shared her son's fourth birthday party theme back in January. It was a Round and Round party where the decorations and food were all....round. I'd love to make every birthday party for my kids a circle theme, there's something so festive about polka dots and honestly circle decorations are incredibly easy to make.
Finally I ran across this idea, which seems perfect today as it's Earth Day, a greener birthday party for your kid. Cindy Fay offers up several great tips including cutting some of your child's artwork into large triangles and repurposing it as a string of flags for decorations. Instead of using latex balloon, use Mylar and repurpose them as gift wrap later. This is some really good information.
Have you seen any inspiring birthday ideas recently? Leave them in the comments!
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About
Melissa Summers was one of five Melissa's throughout her schooling, in her everyday life she is the only Melissa who folds laundry. The name Melissa is derived from the Greek word for Honeybee. The Buzz Off is published weekly on Tuesdays. She writes almost nearly everyday at Suburban Bliss.
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