Congratulations to our randomly selected winner – Julie Ann Welsh! You have won a $30 gift card to Little Monkey Designs! I will be emailing you shortly to help you claim your prize.
Thank you so much to everyone who entered, and congratulations again to Julie Ann!
This morning I dropped my son off for his first day of Montessori school, and I think we were both pretty excited. He had gone to daycare previously and liked that too, but we thought he might be ready to try something else out. So I’m not the handiest of Mom’s….yesterday he wanted his tractor to pull another car so I grabbed a roll of scotch tape to stick the car to the tractor. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. I think I’d describe my sewing skills similarly. I ordered a large number of labels with my son’s name on them online, and when it came to sewing them into all of his gear for school, it wasn’t pretty. I used a travel sewing kit (it’s all I had!) and my stitching skills were so bad that I tried to find obscure places to place the labels. So I’m not Martha Stewart exactly, but I do try to put in a bit of effort.
Next time I think I should save the sewing for someone else. I refuse to ask my Mom as technically I am one of those too, so I think I might hit up this new online store I’ve discovered called You Name It Baby!.
Yes there is an exclamation mark as part of their name (it’s hard to tell I’m sure because I use a lot of them in my writing! See?), and they will literally personalize anything in their store.
The store was created in 2005 by two women who were new mothers who had a hard time finding places who did personalizing for their children’s items.
They focus on baby, toddler and kid products, but you can find all sorts other products on their website as well for adults.
They offer the option of colour matching if you have a swatch you can send them, and they offer free gift wrapping and delivery to the recipients address (without including the actual receipt).
I really like all of the camo gear they have. There are some great style options, and their prices are great as well.
The Pint of PJs Sweet Dreams Sleep Set is my favourite item on the website. It includes a cute ice cream tub with a matching onesie and a hat that has sprinkles and a cherry on top! So adorable.
These Personalizable Sports Pillows are pretty awesome too!
They ship to the US and Canada, and their website has a huge selection so give yourself some time to browse through their online shop!
You can visit them at www.younameitbaby.com.
Check out more of my favourite finds below!
Pattern play is a big fall trend, and there are sweaters launched this fall that not only serve the purpose of keeping you warm, but keeping you looking trendy as well. I’ve been known to sacrifice practicality for a good looking outfit, and that includes being freezing cold for the sake of a cuteness. Luckily I won’t need to sacrifice much when it comes to cozy sweaters – they can’t help but be practical.
Since I sort of hate the whole dressing practically side to fashion, when I’m dressed for a casual lunch or play date, it’s important to avoid wearing comfortable workout gear all the time and opting for something like one of these patterned sweaters. I’m guilty of it all the time – wearing Lululemon’s or Nike workout gear when not planning to work out at all and instead to do errands or hang out. Sometimes I look around and see everyone wearing the same thing – Lycra, running shoes, and more Lycra. It’s easy to get comfortable (literally) with wearing workout gear for everyday life minus actually working out, so wearing this easy and comfortable trend in the fall substitutes fashion and comfort into the place of just comfort period.
Nordstrom Woven Heart Print Open Cardigan
Victoria’s Secret Bateau Sweater
Ralph Lauren American Flag Cardigan
Forever 21 Shredded Star Sweater
Billabong Late for Luv Sweater
Victoria’s Secret One Button Cardigan Sweater
Nordstrom Woven Heart Geo Pattern Cardigan
Who doesn’t love a good cupcake? No seriously – who? Because if you don’t, you may want to skip this post.
The Cupcake Junkie Bakery & Café is located in Whitby, and they serve all kinds of desserts – ice cream, cookies, squares, cinnamon buns, and most importantly, cupcakes!
Every day of the week there are 12 or more flavours of cupcakes available, and they range from Sticky Toffee, Maple Bacon, and Kit Kat to name a few. Cupcakes are $3.00 each, and $3.50 for cupcakes with filling. They start their baking at 5am (that is dedication!) so their cupcakes are as fresh as possible.
Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
Salted Caramel Cupcakes
Bow Tie Cookies
Kit Kat Cupcakes
Kit Kat Cupcake
I couldn’t decide which cupcake I wanted to try, and I ended up settling on a vanilla cupcake. I shouldn’t’t say settle – it was so good! Like the next time I have a party I’m ordering a dozen – that is how good it was. To be totally honest I was surprised because they had so many options for cupcakes, and to me when there are a lot of choices there may not have been a lot of care going into the creation of each one. My cupcake tasted like it was made with a lot of care, and did I mention how tasty it was? I think it was a smart move to have the word “junkie” in their name, because this place could become slightly addictive.
My tasty vanilla cupcake, which I finished in an embarrassing little amount of time!
They specialize in custom cakes as well, and they had a few on display to showcase some of their work with fondant. They take special orders, and they advertise that if you are looking for something specific, just ask because they can probably make it happen!
They have lots of gluten free options, which I think is hard to find when it comes to cupcakes and cakes. They are also a nut free kitchen as well.
The Cupcake Junkie Bakery & Café have a lot to offer besides cupcakes. The space to eat at the café is quite large so it would be great for a lunch with friends, and they boast their own home-smoked salmon, their meats are roasted on site, their coffee is locally roasted and environmentally friendly, they even pickle their own jalapenos. I don’t do or offer any of those things, so I was pretty impressed!
Even though it’s in a downtown location they have lots of parking. If you have any sort of cupcake emergency (surprise baby shower, a large birthday party, or a break-up where you need sugar to make you feel better) you can call their cupcake hotline at 905-430-3200.
The Cupcake Junkie Bakery & Café is located at 404 Brock Street South, in Whitby. For more information visit their website – www.cupcakejunkiecafe.ca. You can also follow them on Facebook here.
To keep up my rep of being a total beauty junkie I picked up a new mascara last week that I totally didn’t need. Well, at the time I thought I might need it since it said it was High Impact mascara. Those couple of words reminded me that I totally needed some High Impact lashes in my life, and I thought I would give it a try.
At $19 it didn’t totally break the bank either, so I spent the week willing it to replace my favourite Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara. The mascara only comes in Black or Black/Brown, so it’s really all business and no fun (usually there are a few other colour options with mascara, but it’s not like I have bought a blue or a green one lately anyway).
The claims? Instant volume and length that resists flaking, clumping, smudging. They said it could stand up to heat, humidity, and an active day.
The first thing I noticed was how smooth it went on. The consistency is a little watery so it easily smoothed onto my lashes and was easy to apply. The tips Clinique gave for the mascara was to start at the base of my lashes and then wiggle the brush up to the tip of my lashes. It said to repeat this step, and to prevent clumping to let the mascara dry between coats. I am all about following instructions so I did exactly as told. I didn’t notice any clumping at all which was great, but what I did notice was that the consistency of the mascara was so watery I had to build over and over and over again to get any “Impact”. It went on so smoothly I didn’t really see a lot of volume, and to create the volume I wanted I had to put a lot of this stuff on.
I also found that it didn’t separate my lashes as nicely as I would have liked. I had to use another want to separate my lashes the way I like them to be. It seemed to clump them together, and I think it was all the brushes fault.
It really doesn’t like it when your lashes curl. It seemed to want to straighten my lashes out which was sort of annoying. The formula just didn’t seem to be thick enough to bend your lashes in the shape you want.
Towards the end of my day, the mascara would start to flake. I find I have this issue with all of my mascara’s (probably because I like to put it on very thick!) so I wasn’t overly surprised at this. I had a very hard time getting this mascara off! It is definitely waterproof. It was hard to even smudge it. Apply this mascara very carefully since you are going to be stuck with it for a while.
So the funny thing was that after I tried this mascara for a week, I found out Clinique not only has this mascara in a non-waterproof version (not surprising), but a lash curling version, and they have a mascara just for your lower lashes as well! So they really want you to buy two mascaras – one for your upper lashes and one for your lower lashes? It seems really wasteful to me. Wouldn’t it make sense for everything to be in one mascara? I guess that is why this mascara is a little cheaper than most of the mascara’s at Sephora – technically you need two of them.
Overall I think I am done with this mascara. I gave it a week and it didn’t really work for me, and I did not feel like it lived up to it’s “High Impact” claims. I thought it worked just fine on my lower lashes (I can’t imagine buying a mascara just for those few lashes, which says a lot because I buy useless stuff all the time), but other than it being waterproof it didn’t live up to it’s claims of being “High Impact” for me.
My favourite mascara continues to be Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara! If you have one that you absolutely love and thing I should try, let me know if the comments and I will add it to my arsenal!