Duck Tape Design

If you enlarge this photo you can see the duck tape ridges.

T has lots and lots of books. Even though we have really cute shelving in the living room and two classic shelves in T’s bedroom there always seem to be books spread about. My parents were visiting recently and my mom told me I should put some of the scattered books in a box because our tiny apartment looks messy when anything is out of place. I found a sturdy old shoe box , filled it up some books and set it on a shelf that T could reach. After a week of staring at the ugly shoe box I decided it had to be covered up with something. Duck Tape to the rescue! This project was super easy and made the shoebox totally displayable. Check out all the patterns you can choose from at http://www.duckbrand.com/products/duck-tape/printed-duck-tape. I picked this pattern up 40% of at Michael's and still have enough tape left to cover up a few more boxes! 

Happy Birthday T! Memories of last year's Cake Smash

Last night I decided to look up when T’s Hebrew birthday falls this year, and I’m sure glad I did because it is today. Happy Hebrew Birthday to my sweet, smart, cunning and hysterical big girl, T!

When T woke up this morning I sang her the Hebrew version on Happy Birthday, Yom Huledet Sameach, and then she immediately asked me for cake. Woops, I guess she already associates cake with her birthday. The association is also probably my fault because last year as soon as T’s birthday rolled around I made her a cake smash! Cake smashes have become increasingly popular and are taking Facebook by storm. Most people hire professional photographers to buy the cake, set up and area, take the photos and clean up the mess- but we did it ourselves. It is a good thing that my husband is used to my crazy by now. He was a really good sport and a big help during the cake smash festivities. If you work together with a partner and own a decent camera – you too can pull off your own cake smash!

A few days before the smash I bought fabric from a store near work for $10. The fabric worked as a perfect background and also helped contain some of the mess.  The night before the festivities began I baked a cake – heavy on the frosting. Next time I do this I will use a whipped cream frosting so there is even more mess!

I set the fabric up by taping it to the wall and floor and set the cake up in the middle. I was slightly insane and even ironed the fabric a little. This was the first and last time I’ve used my iron in the 6+ years I’ve been married. I don’t have professional lighting so I gathered all the lamps in my apartment and set them up along the fabric. I then brought T out to start the smash party!

It didn’t go exactly according the plan. T had never had cake before that day and wasn’t really sure what to make of her surroundings. She ended up poking the cake for a good 10 minutes before Daddy showed her how to dig in. As soon as T shoved her arm into the cake and tasted it she was hooked. The following Sunday at her birthday party she lunged at her birthday cake because she thought she was supposed to smash that one too!  Woops. She is now sweets obsessed, hence this morning’s cake request and last night’s begging for a chocolate milk bottle before bedtime (Don’t worry, I said no- and didn’t cave). I snapped a million photos and some video and we all had the best time. And of course, the mess did not stay contained as hoped. T likes to shake and clap and she loved watching the cake fly everywhere.

I then used photoshop to create a cake smash template to use for a canvas print. It is 20”X20”. This was probably the hardest part of the entire project and I am happily sharing it with you now, it is at the end of the post. If you want me to send you the original PNG or photoshop doc of the template, I will but you will have to start following my blog and leave a comment with your email address and which version you would like. If you know anything about photoshop you should be able to use it. Just crop your photos to fit in the openings and you are done! I also like the idea of including a box or three of text, which is what I did.

If you are a photoshop novice here is a quick tutorial. Load the template into photoshop. I think blogspot will convert this one out of its original PNG format so you then need to use the magic wand tool to remove the white boxes. The image will also download at a much smaller resolution. You will want to click on Image then Image Size and reset your resolution to at least 250/300 before you start adding your photos.You should then use the paint bucket tool to recolor the template to match your photos. I find the best way to get a color you like it to use the eyedropper tool to pick up a color from an actual photo. You will then need to load each individual cake smash photo into the program and crop it to size. Copy and paste each cropped photo into the template over the holes. Lastly move the template to the top of the layers list so it hides all the mess and makes the design look stream lined. Let me know if you can’t follow the above directions and I’ll try to help you out! 

I still think a cake smash is the perfect way to celebrate your little love’s first birthday and introduce them to a world of sweets. Now that T is 2 we will be celebrating with lots of messy projects and yummy treats at her upcoming Bday party!

 

Click on the template to open it in the larger screen and then save the image from there.

Homemade clumpable sand

This is sand is totally awesome and you can really build a castle with it!

I am in the midst of planning T’s 2^nd birthday party, and I love planning parties even more than going to one. T is obsessed with the Raffi song Baby Beluga so this year’s theme is “under the sea.”  I always like to have a kid activity so this year I was going to make a sand table for the kids to play with, it was going to include cute shovels and sea creatures. It was going to be very entertaining and it was going to be very cute and it was going to take place on a giant plastic table cloth so I could just toss the mess. Was is the key word, the following project is a BLAST but I will never ever be trying it indoors again. I suggest you pin this and save it for the warm weather when you can mix up a batch of sand and bring it to the park, and then after hours of fun you get to leave the mess behind. That is what I am going to do this spring. In the mean time I will be coming up with a much cleaner b-day project!

You can make as much sand as you would like. Last night I only made 2 cups of sand and that tiny amount kept T busy for a long time!

--1/4 cup baby oil for every 2 cups of whole wheat flour--
You can use canola, but it won’t smell as good and you can use regular flour, but I won't look like sand.

Mix the oil into the flour slowly while you mix/ crumple with your hands until you are satisfied with the consistency. You want it to clump but still fall apart...  and then vvvwaala, instant clumpable sand!  

Glitter is optional- it will look pretty awesome, but is just more mess for later.

At first T played beautifully with the sand and kept it nice and contained on the table cloth. At this point I was thinking- the kids at the party are going to LOVE this!

Once the foot action started up I got slightly concerned and got T undressed so her clothing wouldn't get gross.

I left the room for 1 minute, I swear, just 1!

T loved how the sand felt so decided to style her hair with it, I was literally washing clumps of dough from her hair in the tub! 

Tried and Tested - Free Stuff Online

I like a good sale but free stuff is even better. I am not one to turn down a coupon, hand-me-downs for T or even hand-me-downs for me! There are a lot of sites online now that will send you free stuff; here is a breakdown of the ones I've tested.

Houseparty.com

Houseparty is by far the coolest site I've come across for free trials online. You can sign up for the opportunity to host a party featuring a product. If you are chosen to host you have to invite at least 10 friends to join you at your party to test the product. The only other requirements are to fill out a pre party survey, a post party survey and to take a photo of you and all your guests to prove you had the party and how many people came.  

A few weeks before your houseparty you will receive a box full of goodies. So far we hosted few parties. Our first was a fisher-price play date party and we received over $200 worth of Fisher-Price products. They also sent coupons and coloring books for all of the party guests. The other two parties we hosted were Hasbro Game nights- and you can check out my previous blog about how awesome the last one was. My sister in law recently won a Duplo lego party, and they have tons of cool parties to apply for all year round. 

See that giant contraption in the middle, it is a ballapalooza and we live in a very little apartment! It is currently residing at the foot of my marital bed. Sexy! 

Your party acts as an advertisement for the company and your friends are not obligated to do anything but attend and have a good time. To increase your chances of being chosen to host you can use social media to promote your party and make sure guests come. I have only used facebook to show that I’ve applied to host various parties and to let friends know when I have one coming up. I also tend to upload more photos to the houseparty website after the event to showcase our party. Houseparty also asks that you share a post party survey with your friends after the event. I always send it out but don’t harass friends to make sure they fill it out.

How does this works for brands? If the product you introduce is really great your friends will buy it! Almost all of T’s friends have the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Stride-to-Ride Puppy because of our party.

Here is T and the dog walker

There is really no negative I can think of, this is an awesome brand party opportunity! But I guess if you don’t like parties or people this is not for you.

Bzzagent.com

Bzzagent is a social marketing company. They work with brands to send you free products and coupons based on your lifestyle and needs. The products we received from this site are pretty decent. We got a nice Schick razor, Quaker products, Garnier Fructis hair products and some free yogurts. The company also sends coupons for you to give out to friends and co-workers.

Once you receive and test the product you have over a month to write reviews and tell your friends about your product experience. You do not need to be a social media whore to fulfill your product promotional responsibilities. I have uploaded product photos and reviews directly to the bzzagent website and facebook and I share the coupons with friend and co-workers. The coupons are usually pretty great, so people want them! I do not feel obligated to open a twitter account or blog about each product. Bzzagent gives you Bzzscore, it rates you in terms of the amount of surveys you fill out and product awareness you raise. It is supposed to determine how many bzzagent product mailings you are chosen for, but Im at a strong 8.2/10 and have not received a product invite in a LONG time. Here is to hoping I get one soon!!

When I first signed up for bzzagent they made me fill out a million surveys about myself, and in order to keep your profile up to date they expect you to fill more surveys each week. If you do not have time for surveys this site is not for you!!  

Influenster.com

Influenster is also a social marketing company. Once you sign up you fill out a few surveys based on categories that fit you and your needs the most. Then you wait to get your first VoxBox invitation! I just got my first voxbox and it is like a miniature birthday present filled with great surprises. It is like getting 3 bzzagent kits at one time.

My first voxbox was called the JollyVoxbox and it was packed with goodies. I received…

An entire box of skinny cow chocolates – Yum!

A Rimmel London lip lacquer- not my color, but I could see it being a hit in a pink/red

NYC New York Color HD Color Trio Eye Shadow – totally my colors and I wear it to work every day now

Duck Tape mini roll, it is a cute roll of strong duck tape that has a fun print and that T thinks is big roll of stickers, super fun and crafty

A pack of puffs tissues that went right into my diaper bag and have been super helpful with all this crazy cold weather!

There is a catch; after you get it they want you inundate all of your friends with product reviews. It is not good enough to post one review of the box, each and every product has its own requirement to keep your score high and to get more awesome boxes. They want you to instagram the products, tweet them, facebook them, video review them, create pintrest boards and blog away. Now, you may not have noticed how tricky I am, but I just gave a quick review of all my products on this blog, so influenster is going to be very happy with me!! And to all of my friends, I am sorry about all of my social media product promoting but I really like these boxes, you should try it too.

swaggable.com

More social marketing! Swaggables is like the last 2 sites, you get invited to try out new products based on a few surveys you took and you have to review the products.

This site doesn’t require you to fill out so many surveys and only requires that you review the products on the swaggable website, with the option of a facebook or twitter share, which I totally love. I only recently signed up for this site and already received two products in the mail, my issue is that the products are a little sub par. It was nice to have the opportunity to try them for free, but I will not be buying/recommending them anytime soon. I feel like swaggable needs to get some better product partners, or it is just not worth sticking around.

Bath crayons - an awesome and super messy invention

T loves to be silly

There are a ton of products on the market for bath time fun. We have used, abused, and recently trashed some ABC foam letters that got a little too mildewy for my taste, and T does love her rubber duckies, who by the looks of it will soon join their ABC friends. However, I would like to share with you T’s favorite bath toy – bath crayons! Now, please be warned, these are beloved by my daughter and loathed by whomever is tasked to clean the bathtub… but T is totally obsessed.

We got the crayons from a friend of mine for T’s 1^st birthday and we are down to the crayon nubs at this point. We love to color in general, but to color on walls is especially thrilling to T. She stays in the bath until her fingers and toes look like raisins and the water is cold. So… if your little on doesn’t really like the bath I suggest getting these to keep them entertained. Of course, T has always loved bath time and we still need these crayons, bubbles and some crazy frog that sprouts water from its mouth, but that’s what being a toddler in 2013 is all about. 

Still being silly... and yes, we color too!

Now, please don't forget that these "washable" crayons need some scrubbing to remove the mess and the little duck eraser is a bad joke, but we still love them. My favorite part is trying to find images in what T draws. What do you see in this photo? My husband and I see a man riding a camel, and that is pretty darn impressive for a 1 year old! 

What do you see? 

Here is where you can get the crayons - http://www.amazon.com/ALEX%C2%AE-Toys-Bathtime-Fun-Draw/dp/B00004U3FX/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384983149&sr=8-2&keywords=alex+bath+crayons

but they are cheaper at target and toys r us if you time to make it outside... hahaha. 

Tilapia Even a Toddler Will Eat

I have a strangely picky eater on my hands; T loves to eat crazy strong flavors but has some issues with textures. She will keep meat or chicken in her mouth for a while and then gift me a lovely pile of mush; if I’m lucky it will end up in my hands and not on the floor! I think it’s rather odd that my kid will pound Indian food but won’t eat a chicken cutlet. However, I have discovered that she will eat my tilapia – yup, she will chew it and swallow it! The added bonus is that my husband and I love this quick meal as well.

mustard and mayo / prepared crumb topping

1lb of tilapia fillet

2 tbsp French’s honey mustard

2 tbsp mayo

1 cup French’s fried onions (I highly suggest you buy the gigantic bag of these at Costco- so delish)

1 cup of corn flake crumbs

Onion powder, garlic powder and salt to taste

The prep for this is super easy… 

Mix together the mustard and mayo and coat the fillets

In a separate bowl crush up the French’s fried onions and mix with the corn flake crumbs

Now you can hand coat each piece of fish with the fried onion and crumb topping -or take the lazy way out like me… I spray my baking pan with oil and then coat the bottom of my pan with the crumb mixture. I then layer the fish and put the rest of the crumb mixture on top! So much easier and just as crunchy!! I then sprinkle the fish with onion powder, garlic powder, a tad of salt, and a spritz of oil.

Layering crumbs: the much more efficient way to bread anything!

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Viola, fish my kid will eat! I think that is worth celebrating!

See, you can't even tell I breaded the fish the lazy way!

** I have made this exact same recipe on chicken cutlets too, it is a hit (just not with T) 

Party On!

Our Hasbro Birthday House Party

This past Saturday night we celebrated my husband’s birthday with an awesome Hasbro Game Night Birthday House Party. People asked, what exactly does that mean? What is a House Party? Was it actually sponsored by Hasbro? Why, yes it was just that – we hosted a HouseParty sponsored by Hasbro!

About a year and a half ago I joined this wonderful website called HouseParty.com. The idea of the website is to promote products through parties. This is not a Tupperware party style where you receive free products and guilt your friends into coming to your home to dish out money to get their own.  House Parties are advertisements for the company, the host gets free products and is obligated to show off the brand at a house party while friends just need to come and have a good time. Sometimes friends even get a free giveaway too- and they always leave with coupons!

I apply to host tons of parties and am selected infrequently, about 1 party every 6 months. I just checked my stats; I have applied to host a total of 24 parties and was chosen for 3! Not too Shabby, especially considering how awesome these parties are. Applying to host a party takes minimal effort, you fill out a quick questionnaire, post about how excite you are and share your applications with friends on Facebook and/or Twitter. You can also do extra stuff to increase your chances of being chosen as a host, like upload photos, videos or conversations. I am pretty sure that you are chosen based on luck and demographic, rather than the extras but why not, just in case!

Back to our most recent house party - My husband Dave’s birthday is at the beginning of November and he had a Golden Weekend (both Sat and Sun off). Dave is a General Surgery Residency Intern and this means that he practically never has off, so we really lucked out with this party. This was actually the second Hasbro Game Night we were chosen for and we LOVE games so we were psyched. We invited guest and then once we found out Dave was going to be off we morphed our Game Night into Dave’s Bday Bash as well.

House Party then sent us our party pack that came with four awesome Hasbro games – Catchphrase, Taboo, Funny or Die, and Draw Something. They also sent a box of Cheetos new product –a kosher cheddar puffed corn snack, some winner crowns, Hsabro cups, and coupons.   Now between the amazing party pack and all of the snacks, candy, beer, spiked punch and bean dip I made for the party, I am sure you are thinking I wish I went to that party… but it gets even better. The PR department for Hasbro reached out to me and arranged to send their Hasbro PARTY BUS to our already rocking party! Yes, I already thought hosting these parties was super cool and this just blew me away! All of our guests had a truly memorable night, and my husband is going to have a tough time topping this when my birthday rolls around in January!

Playing Catch Phrase on the party bus

Soooo cool! 

I love HouseParty.com and if you sign up and are chosen to host we want an invitation! My sister in law is hosting her very first House Party in less than two weeks and we can’t wait to see her Duplo Lego Party Pack and play at her party. 

I even made this cute Sponsorship sign for our door