Sunshine and Sippy Cups — Page 217 — Smart Solutions for Busy Moms!

{Sweet Deal!} What’s YOUR Favorite Disney Movie?

What’s YOUR favorite Disney Movie?

Is it one from when you were a kid, like 101 Dalmatians or Alice in Wonderland? Or do you love the newer ones that you’ve probably seen with the kids, like Tangled or Wall-E? I admit, I’d have a pretty darn hard time picking favorites – I’m a kid at heart, and love me some great cartoons, it’s true! {And if I had to pick a favorite, it’s probably the Muppets…. The old Muppet Christmas Movie is one of my favorite movies of all time, but the newer ones are great too! } And with the Disney Movie Club, there is such a huge selection, I had a hard time tonight picking out which ones to get!

Great deals on great movies!

A great way to stock up on some of your favorite movies is to join the Disney Movie Club! It works the same way as the book clubs – you get a bunch of great freebies when you sign up, and then tons more deals on new movies each month!

4 Disney Movies for $1.00 plus Free Pluto Ornament and Free Shipping on initial order with membership. Click Here to get started today!

Do I hear Christmas Shopping?

This is a super smart way to stock up on Holiday gifts too! You’ll get all 4 movies and the super cute ornament… Plus exclusive savings on additional movies after you join – and every kid loves a great movie, right?

So check it out, and get some great deals today!

You’ll find all of the details on how the club works on their site – Disney Movie Club…. And then leave me a comment telling me – what’s YOUR favorite Disney Movie?? I’d love to hear ’em!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 18, 2011 Filed Under: Freebies, Shopping | 1 Comment

uDraw Your City Kids Art Contest – Win $10,000 & More!

Do your kids love art?

I was a little artist as soon as I could hold a crayon. I remember my mom taking college courses when I was really young, and how much I loved drawing along side her while she did her projects for Art Appreciation classes. So it makes me really proud that my nephews are little art lovers too – I might not be so great at helping them with their math homework but I can definitely jump in when it’s coloring time! And the oldest one is super excited to enter the new uDraw Your City Contest!

uDraw Your City Contest

If your kids are creative too – help them enter the amazing uDraw Your City Art Contest today! One lucky winner will be chosen – and will win a $10,000 cash prize for their family, plus another $10,000 as a donation to their school’s art program! So amazing, right?

What Does Your City or Community Mean to You?

That’s the question that uDraw wants you to answer with your artwork. Read more…

Creativity and imagination can be found in every city, town, and community all over the world. Everyone can be an artist – no matter who you are or where you come from! We want you to embrace that creativity and artistic inspiration to show us “What your city, your town, or your community means to you.”

A few Details:

This contest is open nationwide, for kids ages 6-17.
The entry period lasts from September 1st to October 31st – so hurry and get YOUR families entry’s in!
Entries can be submitted online or by mail.

More about uDraw

In addition to the Grand Prize, another Runner Up will receive a uDraw Studio Tablet, uDraw GameTablet games, and an HD TV so you can turn your television into an art studio! Have you seen the uDraw tablet yet? It is a super cool accessory for the Nintendo Wii, that allows your kids to use a little drawing tool on the tablet to create their own artwork right on the screen! We don’t have it yet, but I’ve seen it at a friends house, and it is really awesome. It’s on my Christmas list — {I’m saving up those Swagbucks for Amazon certificates to get it almost free!} – and I am 100% sure that the kids will flip when they see it.

Enter to win today!

To enter and see official rules, visit WorldofDraw.com. You can upload the image online to enter, or print out a submission form to mail it in. Either way – Good luck!! If you do enter, I’d love to see YOUR child’s artwork – feel free to stop by on Facebook to share a picture on my wall!

{Disclosure:I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of THQ and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.}

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 18, 2011 Filed Under: Contests | No Comments

Get your Business ready for the Holidays – Save over $50 too!

Who Loves Vistaprint?

I do, I do!! I use Vistaprint for a huge order every few months, and have always been super happy with the service, the quality, and especially the PRICE. You really can’t beat the value you get with Vistaprint – seriously. I get almost everything I need for my blog and business, plus fun gifts and personal stuff too.

Why do they give away so much stuff for FREE?

While Vistaprint has tons of great options for gifts, personal use, and office supplies – they are most focused on business owners. They’re hoping that by letting you try out a bunch of their products for free, you’ll love ’em enough to keep coming back for all of your small business needs. And for me, it sure worked!

What can you get free?

Right now there are a ton of great free options! You can get cute little mini-photo books like these – and there are a bunch of really nice design options. I used these as part of Christmas gifts for the grandparents last year. Really nice. You can also get all of this for free right now too:

One Wall Calendar – fully personalized with your own family photos and dates.
250 custom designed business cards – including your company logo!
10 Free Premium 4×8 Invitations – great for any holiday entertaining, or even make them as a Thank You style card instead!
1 Free Custom Cotton Tote Bag – your choice of design and text.
1 Free T-Shirt with your own photos and text.
Plus the photo books!

Why this is a great time to order:

Here’s how it works – all of the above items are totally FREE, you click here to visit Vistaprint.com, and start creating all of your fun free items. All you pay is shipping and handling on each one, which ranges from $4-6 bucks on each item. If you only want a couple of things, this is an amazing deal – how can you NOT love a full set of 250 business cards for $5 bucks? Or how about a T-shirt or tote bag customized with pic’s of the kids to sent to Grandma? And if you’re a business owner, you need to get ready for holiday promotions by stocking up on stickers, cards, brochures and more right now!

How to get even MORE value…

Here’s where the REAL value comes in… If you ordered all 6 free items, you’d pay about $30 bucks total for your shipping and processing fees. Still a totally great value for everything that you get, right? BUT – right now, Vistaprint has a deal – Spend $50 bucks or more and get FREE shipping! What does that mean? That means instead of paying $30 in shipping for all of this great stuff, you can STILL get it all, PLUS pick out $50 in ADDITIONAL merchandise, for only $20 bucks more!! When you add the value of the free items, plus the free shipping, you’re paying about $50 bucks for over $120 in merchandise!

There is so much fun stuff to choose from:

Car door magnets to advertise your business
Mugs and travel cups
Photo Mouse Pads like mine above
Holiday Cards
Christmas Ornaments with your family photos
Notebooks – these can be customized any way you like, with calendars inside, back cover graphics, text, etc. One of my favorites!
Keychains, lawn signs, banners, networking stickers, and more to boost your business
Photo Post-it Style notepads, greeting cards, birth announcements, and other fun stuff!

Love it!

My old business cards you see in the first picture have my old logo – so I’m putting together a HUGE new order with my new info! I want to add my Discovery Toys business info too. I’m excited to get new cards – and I’m getting a tote bag with my logo, to promote while I run errands. I’ll also get a rubber stamp, tons of cool logo pens, the car door magnet and more – and I’m totally having fun designing Christmas ornaments!

So check it out, and get YOUR order in today too!!

6 Free Fall Products from Vistaprint! The products are FREE, just pay Shipping and Processing. Choose from flip books, t-shirts, totes, calendars and more! Get creative and have some fun! Great for gifts or for your own use. Trying to find a way to preserve memories? Upload them to a calendar or flipbook! Planning an event? Send invitations and create rsvp cards out of business cards! Click Here to get started!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 18, 2011 Filed Under: Blogging Resources | No Comments

Busy Mom Solution: Easy Peasy Birthday Party Planning!

Where a Kid can be a Kid!

What kid doesn’t LOVE Chuck E. Cheese, right? So what better way to throw a birthday party than to celebrate at your local Chuck E. Cheese – You don’t have to set up, clean up, or entertain a bunch of wild kids – it’s all done for you! You’re happy, the kids are happy – Totally a Busy Mom Solution!

Why Kids LOVE Chuck E. Cheese Birthdays….

Special Online Deals!

Set up Birthday Party Reservations online at Chuck E. Cheese and you’ll get some really sweet bonus freebies for a limited time – so even if the party is a few months away, this is a GREAT time to reserve it, so you get the bonus freebies!!

Kids Birthday Parties – Click Here to reserve YOUR Kid’s Special Day before it’s too late!

What you’ll get:

A full TWO HOURS of fun at Chuck E. Cheese!
Ticket Blaster experience – that’s the one shown in the video above!
Book a Chuck E. Cheese Birthday Party online and get 20 Free Tokens!
Get another 100 BONUS tokens at a reserved Birthday party Friday or Sunday!

What are you waiting for?

It’s totally FREE to set up your reservation – no hassle of cleaning the house, setting up decorations and games, cleaning up the mess afterwards – and the kids will have a blast!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 18, 2011 Filed Under: Busy Mom Solution | No Comments

Busy Mom Solution: Stomp Out Stains!!

Introducing the new BISSELL Stomp ‘n Go!

Another amazing Busy Mom Solution product that I am super excited to share with you guys – the new BISSELL Stomp n’ Go is a totally different way of getting tough stains out of your carpets and rugs! Here’s how it works – pets or wild children make a messy stain on the carpet? Just quickly grab one of the individually wrapped Stomp ‘n Go pads, place it on the stain, then – this is my FAVORITE part! – stomp on it! Yep, show that stain who’s boss around your house – stomp on it, and it starts to get to work on that stain with it’s built in oxy-based cleaners!

A few fun facts:

Pads are portable and safe for use on all carpets including nylon, wool and stain resistant carpet.
Spots and stains are gone in about 30-minutes; tough stains may take up to 24 hours.
Permanently removes tough set-in stains like red wine, food stains, fruit juice, pet messes, mud/dirt and more!

BISSELL Stomp ‘N Go pads are currently available at Kmart, grocery stores and select Wal-Mart stores for $4.99. Each package contains five individually wrapped pads.

Why it’s a great busy mom solution:

I have a puppy with horrible manners, my mom lives with us with 4 more little dogs – plus a toddler and 2 wild nephews – so I have a TON of carpet stains! I’ve tried so many different combinations of products over the last 6 months, and have to shampoo the carpets every other week. So of course I was super-duper excited to try these out {is it weird that I get so excited about cleaning products? Like seriously excited? Do I need to get out more?}

My days are SO busy, and I have a hard time keeping up with all of the stains on the rugs. When I saw a new stain today, I decided to try out my new BISSELL Stomp ‘n Go – Love being able to grab it, unwrap and throw it on top of the stain, give it a stain-hatin’ stomp, and leave it to work it’s magic! No hands and knees, no scrubbing, no hassle. And it worked amazingly too! It was a pretty bad stain – the little one spilled juice in the living room – so I left the cleaning pad on for a few hours. Came out perfectly! Just make sure to use this at nap time, or keep the kiddo’s away from it until it’s done.

What do YOU think?

Have you used the new BISSELL Stomp ‘n Go yet? Do you struggle with carpet stains too? How excited are you to try this out if you haven’t yet? Share some comments!

{Disclaimer: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of BISSELL and received product samples and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.}

Shop Alice.com to buy all your home essentials like toilet paper and toothpaste with free shipping and automatic coupons. Plus get 20% off your first order. Click Here.

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 17, 2011 Filed Under: Busy Mom Solution | No Comments

Santas Coming! 10 Tips to Get Ready for the Holidays…

Let me just throw this out here…. I. Love. Christmas. Like, reeeaaallly love Christmas. As soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over, the Christmas Tree goes up. We have a 25 foot wall in the garage, lined with shelves filled floor to ceiling with boxes of Christmas decorations. Yep, we’re that kind of family.

My Favorite Part of My Favorite Movie:

When this movie came out, everyone told me that Buddy the elf must be my twin brother, lol. And it’s true, I’m so much like this. And like Buddy says later – “Santa is coming!! There’s so much to do!!”

Top 10 Holiday Planning Tips:

1. Make lists! Get a notebook, and make a few master lists. Your first is Christmas Cards – make a list of everyone you want to send them to, and start getting addresses. So many of us wait until the last minute, and this becomes a stress-inducing chore instead of a fun way to keep in touch.

2. Now make a Christmas Shopping List too. Write down all of the people you’ll want to buy gifts for – from friends and family, to teachers and coworkers. Do they need holiday cards with their gifts too? Then add ’em to your first list!

3. Take Pictures! Getting professional pictures done is great, but if you can’t afford it – Don’t worry. Trust me, you can still get amazing photos on your own. Check out How to photograph holidays and special occasions and Tips for Capturing Great Family Photos for some great tips and advice on getting great pic’s for this years holiday cards. It’s all about capturing that special moment to share with friends and family!

4. Choose your cards! There are some amazing options for Festive Christmas Cards to be found online – and yes, you can wait until the last minute, and order them with express shipping to get them in time. But you can save a ton by preparing early, and ordering them sooner. Plus, getting them by early November gives you enough time to add a personal message to each one too – which is the best part!

5. Make a Holiday Baking List! There will be TONS of great sales coming up over the next couple of months, and you can match them up with coupons from sites like Coupons.com or RedPlum to save a TON of money. You’ll almost always find coupons for cake mixes, frosting, and cookie mixes. So make a list of everything you’ll need, and start stocking up when your local store has some great deals. Hate clipping coupons? Use my new favorite, SavingsStar, to load digital coupons right onto your store loyalty cards! {Check out my favorite cookie recipe – Peek-a-Boo Cookies!}

6. Start Shopping! Yes – I know it’s not even Halloween yet, lol. But starting early gives you a chance to find the best deals, and get gifts you know they’ll love – instead of overspending at the last minute just to get it finished up! Some tips – Sign up for email updates from sites like Totsy, Zulily or HomeSav to find some totally unique items at HUGE discounts! I watch these all year, and buy great stuff to hide away for birthdays and holidays – you can find kids toys at up to 70-90% off. Wow, right?

7. Yep – another list! List all of the events you want to attend, and set dates for all of your own holiday entertaining and parties. But – make sure not to overextend yourself! Leave some “family” time, at home too, for things like baking cookies and watching movies!

8. Give back to your community. There are so many people in need, and while they of course need your assistance all year long, it takes on extra importance during the holiday season. Imagine being a parent who doesn’t have the resources to get your child a holiday gift, a winter coat, or prepare a Christmas dinner. Heartbreaking. Find out how you can help by visiting sites like Toys for Tots and Coats for Kids. Or check out VolunteerMatch.org to get connected with other local groups who need your help!

9. Another list! Are you a crafty type? If you plan on making gifts for the holidays, you definitely need to get started now – so figure out what you’d like to make, and make a supply list. Make sure to pick up some fun stuff that the kids can make too – they LOVE giving handmade gifts! For some fun ideas check out Handmade Christmas Gifts and 100 Christmas Gifts to Make. And get some great coupons to save at Michaels Crafts.

10. Finally – relax! The holidays are a time for family, celebration, and appreciating what you have. Don’t get too caught up in the frenzy of more, more, more – {unless you’re talking about glitter or tinsel!} – start planning now, use these tips to save bunches of cash, and enjoy the season!

{Disclaimer: I wrote this blog post while participating in the Storkie holiday blogging program. I received compensation for my participation. All opinions are 100% mine.}

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 17, 2011 Filed Under: Holidays, Busy Mom Solution | 4 Comments

Totsy – Not just for kids! Check out my Busy Mom Solution Outfit

Yes, Totsy has some of the stinkin’ cutest fashions and accessories for babies and kids – but they also have great selections for moms too! Totsy is known as the best place to find great designer brand outfits for kiddo’s ages newborn to 7 – all at prices up to 80% off. But every day you’ll also find some of the most amazing new designers offering moms and moms-to-be their best new pieces at HUGE discounts! I’m absolutely in LOVE with this dress from the Junior Dress Event today… How perfect would this be with leggings and boots this winter? Still comfy, but much better than sweats, right? {Remember my No More Frump Mom Challenge?} And there are a ton of similar options all at deep discounts.

More About Totsy:

Totsy offers moms on-the-go and moms-to-be access to brand-specific sales, up to 80% off retail, just for them and kids ages 0-7.

For kids you’ll find prenatal care products, baby gear, travel accessories, bedding and bath, children’s clothing, toys, DVDs, and educational materials. For moms you’ll find amazing designer fashions, handbags, and accessories – plus great options in home decor too! Totsy promises only the best in quality and designer brands.