Mabel's Labels - 40% off

A while back I posted about "Emily Press" for fun and durable kids clothing and accessory labels.  Today a good friend of mine told me that Mabel's Labels, another great site for such personalized labels is having a sale and the sale ends tonight at 10 p.m. EST - 40% off their five favourite label products.



Via Mabel's Labels




Via Mabel's Labels




Via Mabel's Labels




Via Mabel's Labels




Via Mabel's Labels




Via Mabel's Labels

 I will stop my post and let you go shop before you run out of time on this great deal!

Free Printables - beautiful gift for newborn

I was shopping for maternity clothing on Queen Mother Maternity's website and saw a link to On to Baby's website for these super awesome printables.  Click here for the link.

You can customize the name, initial and colour (22 colours to choose from!).

And all you have to do is print them and put them in a nice frame for a perfect gift for a newborn (or any child`s room given the variety of colour)! Great way to add a personal touch to your gift.  I absolutely love all the colour options!

I Swear by this Product: The Pandora craze!

Like any trend, you think that after a while it will not last and it will lose its appeal.  I have said this about Pandora bracelets and charms year after year and yet, everyone around me is still adding charms, changing bracelets, etc.  And I totally get why!  These charms are the easiest gifts to give, yet they have an emotional, sentimental, personal and lasting element.

If you know anyone with a bracelet, get them a charm and they would be happy...well that is the case with the ladies in my family, in my circle of friends and at my work.  A friend at work even buys one charm for her daughter every time she loses a tooth.  She hopes it will make a nice keepsake for her daughter as she gets older.  She got the idea from another friend at work who has a charm bracelet of her own (of course not Pandora - didn't exist at the time) from her parents who did the same thing when she was losing teeth.  Such a great idea!

At this time of year, I would be happy with any charm from Pandora's 2013 Valentine collection.

Turtle Doves - Via Pandora

Heart Pave - Via Pandora

Love of my Life - Via Pandora

Heart Pave - Via Pandora

Ring dangle - Via Pandora

My Tip of the Week: the power of a picture

I recently went from seeing my son 12 hours a day to only 3 hours, because I went back to work and he started going to day care.  Now all day long I cannot stop looking at pictures of him and really understand how my husband felt when he went back to work after some time off with us while I was home this past year.  So as part of his Valentine's Day gift, I am thinking of doing something for his office with pictures of our son (and even me - assuming he misses me too!).

I think this is such a great gift for a working dad who sees his children just a few hours a day.  It would definitely put a smile on his face especially because I know he would never go out and buy himself a frame or put something together with different pictures.  Here are a few ideas:

Snow globe

Via Black's Photography

Digital photo frame

Via Best Buy

Via Best Buy

Easel Art

Via Tiny Prints

Via Tiny Prints

Via Tiny Prints

Picasa collage in a frame

Create your own collage on Picasa and get it developed and then frame it or develop it on just about any type of photo gift.

Via Skip to my Lou - check it out for a tutorial on making collages in Picasa

Have fun!

Loving these cutting boards!

How great are these personalized cutting boards from Noteworthy Notes!?  So fresh! I love that not only can you personalize them by having the person's name or initials or any other writing on the board, but you can also personalize these in the design you choose to make sure it suits your recipient.

    Check out the Noteworthy site for more designs by clicking here.  Happy choosing!

My Tip of the Week!: Gift for a one year old

Everyone keeps asking me what they should get my little guy for his upcoming first birthday.  That is a difficult question!  My son just received a ton of toys for Christmas so he already has more than he needs, and the sad part is that he spends more time following me around and playing in the cupboards than with any of his toys.  In upcoming days, I will definitely list a few gifts I think as a one year old he will need and enjoy, but for today I will tell you about the gift I am making for him.  In addition to "the" Pottery Barn Chair, I ordered for him (as posted on Monday) I will be making him a picture book.  He loves flipping through picture books and he loves looking at pictures so I am going to make him photobook of the people and things around him (mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, etc.).  This will not only make a nice souvenir for later but it will be good for him to start learning people's names, etc.  He is already saying a few words and this will help expand the vocabulary he will need daily.  The photo book will need to be small and pocket sized like the following.

5.5 x 5 - Via Black's

5 x7 - via Tiny Prints



6 x 4 - Mixbook



These are my favourite options.  I prefer the Black's option because it is a square book and the smallest size and it seems simple inside.  I will see which one ships faster.  The best part is that both Black's and Tiny Prints have sales on these items right now!  Hope he likes it.

Hello Monday!: What a difference a day makes!

What a great gift to remind us to be grateful for everyday! I fell on this item and thought it was the perfect gift for any special occasion; a wedding, a birth, a house warming or just because.

It's a "What a difference a day makes" print from CoCoStineDesigns on Etsy.com.  Tell a story about life, love and special occasions with dates and names.

"What a difference a day makes" artwork via Etsy

CocoStineDesigns is closed for the holidays but check back soon to order your personalized version for that special couple or family!

Happy New Year's to all! Wishing you all the best for 2013! XO

Friday Fabulous Finds: Indigo Monogram Mug

I received this gift from a friend at work this week and thought I would share. It's a mug from Indigo with my initial on it in cursive. I love that this is a small yet personalized gift and really perfect for a coworker as most of us NEED coffee to get going in the morning!

Cursive Monogram Mug via Indigo 

Loved the card too - adorable!

Cursive Monogram Mug via Indigo

This is such a simple yet versatile gift! You could fill it with chocolates on Valentine's, with a small stuffed animal for a new mom, with golf balls for the golf lover, with a packet of coffee/tea or even some cookies for your neighbour...there are so many possibilities! 

Update to December 18 post: Gift for your neighbour - DYI

And here is how my ornaments turned out.  Not bad for a first try.  I definitely have to master the stenciling as the paint smudged a bit, but I still think they look good and will be a nice touch to my bag or cookies.

Gift for your Neighbour - DIY

Every year, I (well, my husband and I!) bake cookies and put them in a nice Christmas themed tin canister to give to our next door neighbours. This year, I wanted to do something slightly different and while browsing online I fell in love with a monogrammed Christmas tree ornament on Pottery Barn's website:

Via Pottery Barn

Simple yet personal and would be a perfect addition to our yummy cookies.  Unfortunately when I went to purchase it, it was no longer available.  My fault for doing so too later.

Anyway, instead today I went to Michael's hoping I can find ideas to make my own ornament and I found all I needed.  So here is my plan:

I bought this porcelain ornament from Michael's:

I also bought a fancier ribbon to replace the existing one:

And finally I bought some Martha Stewart adhesive stencil and some acrylic paint, Santa red colour:

I'm hoping to paint all in red the first letter of my neighbours' last name on the ornament with one of the designs from the stencil.  I should be able to do it tonight so stay tuned for the final result.  I hope it will look great.

But that is not all, I'm still going to bake the cookies but instead of a canister, I will use Mrs. P's idea and place the cookies in a cellophane bag, twist the bag closed with the nice ribbon I got and hang the ornament from the bag.  Maybe it will look something like this:

Via Running in cute heels

Wish me luck and stay tuned for how it turns out.

Update to November 11 post: The Perfect Gift for Grandparents

This weekend I received the last batch of personalized photo gifts, including the calendar I made for my parents-in-law.  As I said in my November 11 post, I decided to use mixbook.com this time to create the calendar.  I was very lucky because just when I was creating the calendar, Mix Book had a buy one get one free deal so I was able to get 4 calendars for the price of 2 and will give the other ones to my husband's siblings.  This way everyone can keep track of the birthdays and anniversaries in the family.

Anyway, all is all, I was super happy with Mix Book.  I found there were many templates to choose from for the calendar. I used this template design:

Via Mix Book

And the most important part is that I was able to add as many photos per page as I needed.  This made making the calendar so much easier and faster - a big bonus.  As I mentioned in my November 11 post, previously I used Costco's calendar template and wasn't able to add more than one or two pictures so I had to create collages in Picasa of multiple pictures then upload them to the calendar - a big hassle.  Unfortunately with Mix Book you have to pay shipping, but I think it is worth it.

Hope my in-laws love it!

My tip of the week: Sharpie + Mug = Great Gift!

Need a personalized gift and need it fast? This is a fun DIY gift that anyone can do! Pick up a couple of white mugs at your local home goods store, grab your Sharpie and have fun! Full post from A Beautiful Mess here.

via Pins for the Home

via The Phobia

via A Beautiful Mess

The perfect gift for Grandparents

Last year, my grandparents, who live overseas, were visiting us just before Christmas.  Before they left I gave them a gift that made them cry, and frankly made me cry - a CALENDAR highlighting their family, children and grandchildren.  I gathered all birthdays and anniversaries of their children and their grandchildren as well as photos of all and wedding photos of each couple (It took a lot of time to gather the best pictures - but it was well worth it at the end).  The calendar cover had an old picture of my grandparents showing them young and showing how it all started - they couldn't believe I found this photo.

For each month I marked the date of anyone celebrating a birthday or an anniversary and I posted photos of the persons celebrating a birthday or anniversary that month.  I stuck to wedding photos (if I had one) for the anniversary pictures as I found them more romantic and meaningful.  For December, it so happened that no one celebrated a birthday or anniversary, so I did a family tree with family photos.  If you don't have anniversaries or birthdays to fill the entire year, you can get creative for the particular month, for example if August is missing, maybe post some photos from a family BBQ that took place in August.

I used Costco's Photo Centre as I am used to printing my pictures at Costco and found their program easy to use.  The only draw back is that the template only allowed me to add one or two photos, so I used Picasa to arrange the photos and then uploaded them to the Costco website to use as the picture of that particular month.   [Side note: I LOVE Picasa, if you haven't downloaded it, you should.  It makes it easy to create collages - I will certainly talk more about this on another day].    Here is an example of how the month of April looked.

This year, I am making a calendar for my in-laws for their children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren!  I have started to use Mixbook for photo books and I love the website and the variety of templates and ease to use, so I am going to try using this site for their calendar.  Will let you know how it goes!