GiftLOVE: November 2012

Friday, 30 November 2012

Friday Fabulous Finds: Very cool wall designs

Chalkboard walls are in my opinion one of the greatest inventions. Fun for the kids and fun for the adults - I admit, I feel like a kid when I am writing on a chalkboard wall. I fell upon this site, looksugar.com, and it has a series of wonderful chalkboard on the wall ideas. Perfect gift for a house warming, for a hostess or just as a gift to that certain someone for the upcoming holidays.

Here are a few of my favourites:

Chalkboard Calendar for the busy household or even office

Via look sugar

Weekly Planner for the organized (or disorganized!) person in your life

Via look sugar

Piggy Chalkboard super cute for the kitchen and the list of groceries

Via look sugar

Kettle Chalkboard also perfect for the kitchen

Via look sugar

Check out the looksugar.com site for more designs. Click here.

Friday Fabulous Finds: Zara for kids

Ok I live in everything and anything Zara. I-am-obsessed. I've tried to shop elsewhere, I really have! With little time to spare, a budget that does not go on forever and making a living working in fashion; I know what I want and Zara ALWAYS has it at the right time and at a fair price. It's like the wonderful people at Zara read my mind.

via Zara Woman December Lookbook

So when we had our little man I was sooo excited to dress him in Zara for kids. A little expensive for clothing he will grow out of sooner than later yes but if you choose wisely and invest in items they will get a lot of wear out of like coats, jeans with stretchy elastic band waists or adorable Fall booties...(yes my son has all three items mentioned BUT 2 out of 3 were gifted to him :)) Absolutely worth it when you see them dressed so adorably! Check out their latest look books...I mean come on!

via Zara Baby November Lookbook

via Zara Baby August Lookbook

via Zara Baby November Lookbook

With all these options my little man will definitely be decked out for the holidays! Watch out little ladies ;)!

My only complaint is the girls section is like 100 times bigger than the boys but I've learned to accept this as it seems to be the trend everywhere...Girls ARE so fun to dress up!

via Zara Baby November Lookbook

via Zara Baby August Lookbook

via Zara Baby November Lookbook

If your "little ones" are not so little anymore check out Zara's looks for kids from their December lookbook...Little mini-me's! I wish fashion pieces like this were around back in my pre-teen & teen years!

via Zara Kids November Lookbook

Thursday, 29 November 2012

I swear by this product!: Rainforest Fisher-Price Mobile for infants

I read reviews on many mobiles before choosing the Fisher-Price Rainforest Mobile and it paid off as this was an excellent purchase. I was a little hesitant as it did not really fit with the modern low key grey & white aesthetics of the nursery I had prepared but I knew that did not really matter...and I'm so glad for it!

Rainforest FisherPrice Mobile

The mobile features 3 soothing settings: 1) Music, motion and lights, 2) Music and motion or 3) Music with night light. I liked being able to use the motion to entertain him a few moments when I needed a few minutes to get dressed or whatnot and then just the music and night light to calm him before bedtime.

Motion, Music, Lights, Oh my!

I loved that the music options were all classical music (Bach, Beethoven and Mozart). Also once your child outgrows the mobile part it is easily removed and you can use the music box as a night light for much longer. This product really is great value!

Converts into a sound box with night light

One of the best parts was the remote! We would keep it in our room and when Mr decided to wake at 4:50am we would use it to turn the mobile on without being seen. Mr was happy to be entertained and we were thankful to get a few more minutes of shut eye! You have to be fairly close for it to work - I would go near the door to his room to turn it on.

Comes with a convenient remote control to start and stop from afar

Another plus was the battery life on this thing. For new parents you'll soon see how many batteries you need for all the gadgets and toys you'll have. Some drain batteries very quickly and therefore get super expensive in the long run but we only changed them once towards the end of the first year we had it (and used it daily).

I swear by this product!: The Garlic Pro E-Zee Dice

I received the Garlic Pro E-Zee Dice as part of a house warming gift basket and I have gifted it almost every time I have gone to a house warming since! It is by far my favourite kitchen tool and those who have received it from me have said the same thing.

Via C.A Paradis

I use a lot of garlic in my cooking, but even if I only used it once in a while, I would still love this product. I hated how the little pieces of garlic stuck to my fingers when I was trying to dice the garlic clove. Don't you find that happens to you? Not only would I be trying to control holding a small pieces of garlic while cutting tiny pieces, which is hard in it of itself, but I would also find myself trying to control all the pieces that were sticking to my fingers. Plus there was the garlic smelling hands after the entire process!

Now with the Garlic Pro E-Zee Dice I have my garlic diced in no time, no hassle, no mess and no smelly garlic fingers! And it is easy to clean - just rinse and put it in the dishwasher (don't touch the blades as they are really sharp). I am not into buying a bunch of little gadgets for my kitchen, nor do I fall for all the "gimmicks" when it comes to kitchen gadgets, but this one is a must in every kitchen. So this year when you are thinking what to buy the hostess, this would be a great idea. Because it is relatively small in size, it also works as a great stocking stuffer.

I received the Garlic Pro E-Zee Dice from C.A. Paradis in Ottawa, and I also have purchased the ones I have gifted from that store. C.A. Paradis sells this product on their website. The only other site I found which sells it and is in stock is the Worlds Best Sharpener, but I have never used that site.

Interesting note: While searching online I found that this product was voted Anna & Kristina's best garlic gadget as agreed by 75% of their testers. You can check out more details about their testing here. I guess I am not the only one who loves this product!

Wednesday, 28 November 2012

My tip of the week!: My take on gift cards

Gift cards are an easy gift, but sometimes in it nice to unwrap a box or tear the tissue paper out of a bag out of curiosity of what item you may find! So if you decide that you will give a gift card or just money this season, don't just put it in a card! Try to be creative and find a way to still make the gift fun to open and extra fun to receive.

Here are four ideas to help you out:

(1) Gift card in a small box, wrapped in a bigger box, wrapped in an even bigger box, etc.
For this idea, I would recommend you try to get a big box from the store you purchased the gift card, this way you can fool the person even more by thinking they are receiving a particular item and you would be giving them a hint at the same time. For example, if your card is from Bed Bath and Beyond, purchase a box from their store and put the card in it. Make sure you fill the box with a lot of tissue paper or something similar as well to add to the fishing! If you purchase a card from an electronic store you can ask if you could get a laptop box, or computer box, etc. Make sure you wrap each box from the smallest to the biggest to make it more difficult to finally get to the gift card.

Via Bed Bath and Beyond

(2) Instead of money bills use coins
If you are giving money to someone, like a $20 or $50 bill, instead of just putting the bill in a card, give the amount in coins and put them in a jar or even in a nice piggy bank they can reuse.

I thought this jar looked nice for a Christmas gift because of the colours. You can use fake grass as they recommend on the Lumenatic website or mini ornaments to fill the jar with the coins so that it is more decorative. You can even add a label on the jar that says "Shop 'till you drop".

Via Lumenatic

My niece who turns 11 this year loves owls so I may just buy her this owl bank and fill it with coins for her upcoming birthday!

Via Indigo

(3) Use a Jack in the box
Attach the gift card with a ribbon or with glue that doesn't stick too permanently to the hands of the puppet in the box, wrap the box and see the reaction on the person's face when they see the card in the puppet's hand when it finally pops! This is a great idea if you are giving a gift card to a child ages 3 to 5 years. Here is my favourite:

Via Indigo

(4) Wrap the gift card with an item from the store you bought the card

Click here for ideas of how to do this on the Happy Clippings website.

Via Happy Clippings

I know iTunes cards are very popular these days so why not give an iTunes card wrapped with a gadget that can be used with an iPhone, iTouch, iPod or iPad.

Be creative and have fun!

My tip of the week: When in doubt Book + Toy = Perfect gift!

Sometimes we want to give a thoughtful & fun children's gift but are afraid to choose a toy or book the child (or his sibling) may already have. I think it's a pretty sure bet is to choose a book you love or think the child will love and accompany it with a toy that goes along with the same character or theme.

For books I like to stay with the classics (Goodnight Moon, The Hungry Very Caterpillar, any titles by Dr Seuss, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (This one is definitely our favorite!), Tails, Guess How Much I love you...).