Fun — Page 16

Wow! $40 worth of Product FREE from Paper Coterie!

Paper Coterie is having a BIG Event going on right now!

Check out some of the really pretty paper products at Paper Coterie, choose $40 worth of your favorites, and check out with the coupon code BEGINANYWHERE to get it all for FREE! {You will have to pay your own shipping though, which is fair for all of those free goodies.} This coupon code is valid until August 31st.

Begin Anywhere Month

The late composer John Cage claimed “Not knowing where to start is the most common form of paralysis.” His advice? “Begin Anywhere.” I love it.

Super excited to create…

I have some work to do this morning, but then I’m going to make the super adorable A-Z Baby Girl Photo Book, and the 10 Things I Love About You Poster! Their products are so unique and creative, you’ll love it. Let me know what products you get with YOUR credit!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on August 3, 2011 Filed Under: Deals and Coupon Codes, Freebies, Shopping | 1 Comment

Build Your Perfect Sandwich Contest!

Bacon Cheddar Turkey Toaster

Who else is a sandwich lover?

I love a good sandwich. It’s one of my very favorite summer lunches… A great sandwich partnered with some veggie crackers and a tall, icy cold glass of pink lemonade…. Mmmmm. Perfect.

Enter the Build Your Perfect Sandwich Contest!

All you have to do is go to the Hellmann’s^® Facebook page to share your sandwich-making tips, tricks, techniques and secrets. You’ll also have the opportunity to build your perfect sandwich and enter the Hellmann’s^® Build Your Perfect Sandwich Sweepstakes for a chance to win great prizes including a kitchen essentials bundle, grocery gift cards, and Hellmann’s^®products.

Bacon Cheddar Turkey Toaster

I entered, and the sandwich you see above is my creation… Toasted bread, piled high with turkey and crumbled bacon, lettuce and pickles, three kinds of cheese, slap on a bit of Hellmann’s^® reduced fat mayo and drizzle it with oil and vinegar, love it!

Get YOUR entries in!

Remember- You can enter your sandwich creation featuring Hellmann’s^® products once a day on their Facebook page, and be entered to win tons of great prizes… Including that awesome grand prize of a $5,000 Gift Card! There will be cool new prizes to win each week. So check it out today!

{Disclosure: I was entered for a chance to win a Hellmann’s® prize package in exchange for this post. No monetary exchange took place.}

Posted by Meagan Paullin on August 2, 2011 Filed Under: Contests | No Comments

New Summer Photo Freebies and Codes

New {Limited Time} Summer Photo Deals:

Shutterfly has a deal until August 3rd…

Use coupon code BOOK40 at check-out to get 40% off Photo Books! Plus, most orders are getting Free Shipping right now too! {See Shutterfly for details!}

Vistaprint {one of my VERY favorites for awesome freebies} is having a great deal–

Get 6 FREE Photo Products! Upload from Picasa, Facebook and Flickr! The products are free, just pay shipping and processing…

Shipping starts at:
Calendar- $5.67
Flipbook – $5.89
Mug – $5.67
Mouse Pad- $4.41
T-shirt – $4.41
Magnets- $4.70

BUT… Many times they have deals going where you can get FREE shipping with a $20 or $30 order. So I stock up on all 6 freebies, then order more at their discount prices, and save them for holiday gifts. What grandparent doesn’t love photo gifts, right?

Canvas Print has their deal going still: Get a FREE 8×10 Classic Canvas Wall Art Print, or use the $50 promo credit towards upgrading to a larger size, or adding cool effects like my favorite, the Pop-Art!

Kodak has a really fun deal when you sign up to join the site… Buy one Photo Collage Wall Art, get another one FREE! These are amazing, and the kids LOVE seeing themselves blown up on posters.

Snapfish:

Visit their site, Snapfish.com, and if you’re a new member, you’ll get 20 FREE prints just for setting up an account! Then, use these promo codes:

BONUS200: Get 200 Free prints with a $15 purchase, or BONUS100 to get 100 free prints with a $10 purchase, expires August 2nd.

SUMMERFS20: Free shipping on orders over $20 until August 31st.

TRY3CARDS: Get 3 FREE customized greeting cards, until August 31st!

PURPLESNAPPY: Get 20% off on all stationary supplies, which are great for personalized school supplies for the kids.

So, gather up all of your favorite summer photos, get some fun prints and gifts made, and save a ton of money too! This is a great time to start making holiday photo gifts too.

{Share the love! Have friends that love freebies? Use the social buttons to share these sweet deals and codes with your Facebook or Twitter friends!}

Posted by Meagan Paullin on August 1, 2011 Filed Under: Deals and Coupon Codes, Freebies, Shopping | No Comments

How to Save money on Formula + Rafflecopter Giveaway!

Babies = Expensive!

I’ve said it before… Babies are darn cute, but they’re also darn expensive. I was on a very tight budget while I was pregnant, and was really careful about what baby items I bought. There is SO much stuff, it’s all SO cute, and it’s all marketed as MUST HAVE items, it can be hard to know what you really need and what you can skip! I asked around to friends- What 3 items did you totally rely on, and what do you wish you’d skipped? That helped me prepare a nursery without overspending. {FYI- Boppy Pillow, extra baby sheets, a baby swing, baby medicine/first aid kit were the top must-haves, bottle warmer was the one I heard from EVERYONE that I could skip.}

Baby Arrives, Along with MORE Expenses!

Then, when baby gets here, there are even more unplanned expenses. A big one for me was formula. I had planned to breastfeed for at least 6 months, and was really committed to reaching that goal.

Unfortunately, things {as so often happens with a new baby in your life} did not go as planned. My little one arrived 3 weeks early, and had a lot of trauma during delivery. She spent a few days in NICU, then more time in the Pediatrics wing…And in all of the stress and confusion, no one ever brought me a pump or allowed me to feed her {I couldn’t even pick her up until the second night}, so we had a rough start. More complications followed, and after a month and a half of tears and frustration from both me and baby, we finally switched to formula.

The Switch to Formula

While I was really disappointed in switching to formula, baby was much happier with the change. But I could not believe how expensive formula was, or how fast we went through it! My oh my. We started out on Similac, and that worked great for her… Until she got sick for a week, and we found out about the Similac recall. They insisted that it probably wasn’t related, but many other moms were reporting the same symptoms! So we looked for an alternative.

Check out Parents Choice–

A wonderful choice for us, and your baby too, is Parents Choice formula. We switched to this line, and I was worried about how she would react to a new formula, but there was no change at all, and she loved it. But the big change for ME was that it was SO much more affordable. They have a really cool tool to help you discover how much you can save… Our savings switching from Similac Advance to Parents Choice is $634.91 per year. Wow, right? Try it yourself, Parents Choice $avings Calculator.

Great Quality at a Great Price

There are tons of other items for your baby in the Parents Choice line… My little girl is a HUGE fan of the banana puffs :) And, Parents Choice is generously offering a $10,000 Scholarship to one lucky winner in their new sweepstakes!

Win Your OWN set of Parents Choice Products!

Parents Choice Formula

One lucky winner will win this whole set of products:

12.9 oz can of Parent´s Choice Premium to try.
12.4 oz can of Parent´s Choice Advantage to try.
Two $3.00 off coupons for Parent´s Choice Infant Formula (redeemable at all Walmart stores).
Parent´s Choice Starter Set – a complete nurser system that includes a variety of bottles, nipples, liners, leak proof caps and retainer rings.

Rafflecopter Giveaway

{Disclosure: The Parent´s Choice Infant Formula product sample, information, and giveaway have been provided by Parent´s Choice through MyBlogSpark.}

[Read more…]

Posted by Meagan Paullin on July 31, 2011 Filed Under: Contests | 4 Comments

Sign up for a FREE CafeMom account!

Connect with other moms: Sign up for a FREE CafeMom account today…

Come to CafeMom to relax and take a break with other moms. Conversation, advice, and games are just a click away. Join for Free today! Click Here to join me!

CafeMom has a group for everyone. And it’s a really fun community of people to chat with, play games with, network with, and more. You’ll love it :)

Posted by Meagan Paullin on July 26, 2011 Filed Under: Fun Stuff, Freebies | No Comments

Your music, heard round the house, wirelessly.

Remember when top quality speakers were the size of a wing chair and about as portable? Not to mention they required an explosion of wires to connect with your stereo? Well, since most of us play or stream our music digitally nowadays, those systems seem downright Flintstone-ian.

Sonos

The perfect solution?

The Sonos S5 (a.k.a. the Play:5), part of Sonos’ wireless music system. This all-in-one player (speakers and receiver in one cute box) pumps out unbelievably high quality sound and can be controlled by your iPhone, Android or computer. To take your tunes wherever you want, just add The Bridge, which plugs directly into your router so your S5 is free to roam anywhere in range (including out in the backyard). And, if you buy additional units, you can listen to your music in one place while your kids listen to theirs in another— a key feature as far as we’re concerned considering what passes for music nowadays.

Check out this week’s twirl and join the party! Plus we have a suggestion on how to repurpose all those CD’s you have stacked somewhere.

The best of everything..

I’ll tell you what I think… I think I’m going to have to put this on my “save for” list!! The Sonos Play:5 is a little spendy, and I’m not usually one to fork out that type of money for technology stuff. But I LOVE music. I have some type of music playing all day… I use Pandora at the computer, the radio in the kitchen, and a Party Cube out on the patio by the pool.

I LOVE Pandora, because I love the not having commercials, and that it’s my favorite music picks. I love the radio, only because it plays on a really great sound system. And the Party Cube is awesome: it charges when it’s plugged in, so then you can unplug it to set it outside, and easily hook up an iPhone or iPod to listen to your music.

BUT… This Sonos gadget kind of combines all of my favorite elements from the others into ONE simply uh-MAY-zing little box! How cool that it can be controlled with your phone, and works wirelessly to pull music from all of the places where you’ve got it! Super cool, right? It’s a bit on the pricey side, but with the great speakers, portablility, and amazing access to your whole music collection, this bad boy is SO worth it!

What do YOU think?

Do any of you ladies have one of these super cool music masters?? Do you looove it? I’d love to hear from you!

Carley's Byline Pic

Digitwirl is the weekly web show that offers simple solutions to modern day problems. In 3 minutes, Digitwirl brings busy women the very best time, money, and sanity-saving technology, and then teaches them how to use it, step-by-step. Digitwirl was created by technology lifestyle expert Carley Knobloch, who uses lots of technology to manage her busy life as mom of two and entrepreneur. Become a subscriber to get weekly show alerts and exclusive deals at Digitwirl.com, or follow Digitwirl on Twitter at @digitwirl.

{Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the Sonos S5. I’m a Digitwirl Syndicate Partner, and share my own personal opinions on their weekly twirl!}

Posted by Meagan Paullin on July 26, 2011 Filed Under: Reviews | No Comments

Refer 10 Friends to get a $100 Gift Card!

Have you seen the Tell-A-Friend bonus rewards at Ebates?

This is pretty amazing– First, Earn $5.00 for every new qualified member you refer. Refer more and earn one of the bonuses!

10 friends = $100 Gift Card of your choice.
25 friends = $250 Gift Card of your choice!
50 friends = iPad2. {wow!!}

And there are more bonus rewards if you refer even more than that. Super cool. Plus, Ebates is easy to share with your friends, since it’s awesome.

How Ebates works:

Ready to shop online? Start at Ebates, and type in the store you want to shop at. It’ll bring up some great coupon codes that will save you money, click on the one you want, and proceed to the store.
Shop like you normally would, at check out you’ll use your coupon code for savings, and you’re done.
Ebates will automatically add the percent you earned on that purchase {runs anywhere from 3% on up to 25%} to your account. Four times a year, they mail out the checks with the money you’ve earned. So this is totally FREE money! You were going to shop anyway, why not get some of that money back, right? Totally rocks.

Get started here:

Head over to the Ebates site, and do a quick sign up process to set up your FREE account. Then you can start sharing your personal link with your friends to start earning those bonus rewards! Easy peasy.

Shop at 1200 Top Online Merchants and Get Up To 25% Cash Back at Ebates.com! Click Here.

If you’re using Ebates, tell me… What was the BIGGEST check that you’ve earned with them? I do almost all of my shopping online, and over the holidays I made a looooot of purchases. We had just moved to the new house, it was baby’s first Christmas, and I bought a lot of goodies :) My rebate check from Ebates for that quarter was almost $100!! So it is definitely worth your time to sign up and use ’em!