Sunday, July 31, 2011

BabyBeddingZone -Palm Beach pink curtains 8/21 CLOSED!!!

***CLOSED!!!***

About Baby Bedding Zone

"In 2004, Laura Abro, a work at home mom with her second child on the
way, was frustrated by her lack of options when trying to find the perfect crib bedding for her daughter’s nursery. With no time to run from store to store, she turned to the Internet, but was very disappointed with the available ecommerce stores. She found that they either had a very small selection of bedding sets or a poorly-designed and difficult-to-use website (often both!). She was inspired to build a better choice for new moms, and in early 2008, her dream became a reality with the launch of Baby Bedding Zone. It was an instant hit and is now one of the most popular nursery bedding stores online."

I was so surprised at the curtains I was sent. When you think nursery curtains, I am not thinking like this. These curtains are amazing! First of all. Maybe some of you have heard about my husband, the ever growing energy conscious person he is? He was super impressed with the curtains. I don't know if you guys know- but I will just make you aware. The thicker the curtains and the heavier, the more heat is blocked out during the summer months, the more you save on your power bill. They call them solar curtains. (They also work like-wise in the winter months, blocking drafts and cold air out.) Not only that- but they keep noise level down. I live near a school, so my yard almost borders the school soccer field/playground. Which has been a nuisance on Field Days. These do not claim to be solar curtains, it's just my opinion they are very similar. Which is good. Because I have solar curtains, and these definitely are up there with them. probably better than them. What I didn't count on, was their weight. The box was so heavy I wondered if they goofed and sent me the whole thing. it was almost like one of those handkerchief's that keep coming out of the clowns sleeve. They just kept pouring out of the box. They are so long in fact, 8ft long, they go from our ceiling, to the floor!

Sterling Anabella Palm Beach curtains have a retail value of $650.
The curtains are made from very nice, thick 100% Egyptian cotton.
They're lined and keep light out extremely well. They're 100% washable and do not need to be dry cleaned. The Palm Beach curtains include 2 white pique drapery panels with scalloped edge trim in blue, pink, or green. They're 96" long, have a rod pocket top, and are lined with white cotton. They also include double sided tie backs in white pique with accent color on the reverse.

Please note: The giveaway is for the White with PINK trim curtains (above) and does NOT include the valance shown in the pictures. You can purchase a valance separately (for less than 20$ too!) from Baby Bedding Zone.

What we thought: Just look at the image above and tell me that is not something you would see in a celebrity baby's room.

Click here to zoom into the prize curtains you are entering to win!

See complete Rules
Baby Bedding Zone makes it easy to shop for what you are looking for. You can browse by color, style, pattern, and theme.
This giveaway is for a little girl's room. But they also have one stop shopping for decorating little boy's rooms too! Just look at these: puppy crib bedding, camo baby bedding & sports baby bedding too!

*Disclaimer* I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention/review it on my blog. I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” The opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own. Your experience with the product may differ from mine.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

There Are Vegetables In That Ink! (RecycleBank!)

http://www.recyclebank.com/blog/post/view/identifier/there-are-vegetables-in-that-ink/?utm_campaign=Village+Green&utm_content=Vegetables&utm_medium=email&utm_source=July+VG

There Are Vegetables In That Ink!

When you're reading the back of a cereal box, a new novel or newspaper, or even a colleague's business card, there's a chance you’re reading veggies. As the need for eco-friendlier inks is gaining traction with printers and a number of product brands, all those words you’re seeing are that much more likely to be printed with materials you’d usually find in the supermarket — think all kinds of edible plants, from vegetables to soy, and even flaxseeds.

Plant-derived inks are gaining popularity, especially by eco-conscious companies and particularly as a complement to recycled or recyclable packaging and printed materials, often making packages much more biodegradable. These natural-material-based inks are an interesting alternative to the current standard, petroleum-based inks.

As printing moves back toward vegetable-based inks, you might begin to hear more about them or see their use mentioned on your favorite cookie or cracker box. Never thought twice about what’s on your packaging? Here are some of the basics:

What’s the norm? Read now!

What makes plant-based inks better? Read now!

Other than soy, what's used to make eco-friendly inks? Read now!

What can I look for when I shop? Read now!

How about my at-home projects and printers? Read later!

If you need to have something printed — from business materials to party invitations — seek out printers who use plant-derived inks.

For at-home printing, even if you can't use eco-friendly inks, there are ways that you can still be eco-responsible while printing.

Ecofont, a company that alters fonts so that they require 25% less toner to print, is planning todebut a home edition. Using certain fonts, such as Century Gothic, can also save toner — in some tests by Printer.com, it showed a 31% savings over the default font Arial, and even used less toner than Ecofont.

Many printers can use refillable ink cartridges or continuous ink systems (in which ink in bulk bottles is continuously fed into the cartridges via tubes); both of these systems can reduce the waste caused by disposable ink cartridges.

What were you surprised to learn about eco-friendly inks? Share your comments below!

Recyclebank's Partners In Purpose want to help you make smarter choices when you shop for your home, by keeping the environment in mind. From sustainably-sourced and organic ingredients, to fair trade standards and sustainable packaging, the Partners in Purpose are rooted in the philosophy of doing well while doing good, all in their own way.

To learn more about Recyclebank's Partners In Purpose and making smarter choices while you shop (and to check out some great rewards!), visit Recyclebank.com/PartnersInPurpose.

Tags:

Posted in featured By Jessica Harlan

http://www.recyclebank.com/blog/post/view/identifier/there-are-vegetables-in-that-ink/?utm_campaign=Village+Green&utm_content=Vegetables&utm_medium=email&utm_source=July+VG

Furnishing a Kid-Friendly Home

Furnishing a Kid-Friendly Home

Want to give your home a trendy and functional makeover? If you have kids at home, then you would surely want to make sure your new décor is kid-friendly. Obviously, you would not want to spend too much money, as most children are bounded by no price in their mess-making! And naturally, you would not want to spend too much time cleaning the home or policing the kids. So what are some good thought for kid-friendly furnishings?

If you are thinking about replacing the flooring, think about the available options and which one would work best for your family. Carpets in a home with pets and kids can turn out to be a disaster. Other choices of flooring like ceramic tiles and laminated flooring are a lot easier to maintain. If you love carpets, you can go for carpet tiles. By doing this, you will easily be able to replace a stained tile with another one.

If you have kids at home, upholstered furniture would be your best choice. You may like pillows that have back cushion, but just imagine the mess with kids playing pillow fights with the same pillows. Therefore, it is better to go for upholstered furniture with easy-care fabrics. You can also choose outdoor furniture which is a lot easier to clean. You can easily maintain such furniture by simply wiping it with a soft cloth. Leather and microfiber upholstery are ideal because they are so easy to clean. Plus, microfiber is naturally dust and pollen resistant.

If you want wood furniture in your home, go for inexpensive antiques as they are usually made using solid wood and can be refinished once the kids grow up. Not only this, wood furniture can easily be painted over in case of any damages. On the contrary, particle board furniture does not last too long and cannot be fixed if it is damaged.

When it comes to window covering, it is very important to exercise caution in a home with kids. Lavish designer curtains that sweep the floor are beautiful to look at, but can be a mishap for kids for might step on it, or try to climb it. There have a number of accident cases involving children and window coverings/mini blinds with cords. Therefore, always choose cordless window covering. You can also go for valances to cover your windows efficiently while keeping it out of your child’s reach.

When we talk about wall covering, a number of options are available, which can be quite good for homes with kids. A number of brands have come up with paints targeted for kid friendly homes. Semi-gloss paints are a good choice for kids homes as they can be easily cleaning by wiping. If you like wallpaper, make sure to pick out the ones which can be scrubbed. Additionally, experiment with matte finish. This permanent and protective finish enables Crayola, markers, paints to wipe off of the wall and reduce wall glare all at the same time!

Other Safety Precautions

Make sure to install child-resistant locks in all your storage cabinets. This will help in avoiding mishaps that may be caused due swallowing chemicals or touching harmful objects such as cleaning products, medicines, or insect poisons.

Make sure to keep all electrical wires and phone cords bundled up to avoid accidents.

Install smoke alarms in all the rooms for your house.

Make sure that the fence surrounding your house from outside should not contain any sharp edges which can wound the child.

Avoid putting up any plants inside or outside your home which are poisonous or attract harmful insects and bees.

Author Bio: Ethan S. writes on behalf of Design55- a UK-based designer furniture shop that specializes in living room furniture and modern living rooms.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/1caseycolette

the only exception

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

7th generation Diaper Giveaway! 8/9 Closed!!!

***Closed!!!***

I must be delirious, my best laugh all day long I got when reading up the details of this review earlier.. it said (& I quote) "....in addition we hope you might share the provided information about Free & Clear diapers and how you plan to incorporate them into your family´s routine."
I plan to use them to clean up spills in the floor. NO! HA!
I plan to use them to hold urine and feces in. That was funny.. I am sorry. I have a weird sense of humor I suppose. It was amusing to me. I guess I do not understand that question.

I'm all jumbled up and out of order again.
If you haven't figured it out, we are reviewing and giving away Seventh Generation Free & Clear diapers! If you've got a kid in diapers there is no way that you don't need/can't use these! I like to buy our diapers in bulk, and not worry about it again for a month or two. In both of my daughters infant lives.. there is only two instances where we ever even ran out of diapers.. and I am not sure how those happened. I guess just being super distracted. These diapers are cool because they don't have any of the added stuff that the other kind have. A lot of granola moms choose to use cloth diapers. I think they are cute, but I can't imagine having to clean my child's BM out of clothes and wash them in with my other laundry. Because diapers DO account for a lot of landfill waste. (I think it's 2%) I am not sure about the numbers 100% but it's worth googling.

But let me discuss these diapers. There are pictures of Devonny wearing them below. (At the end of the post.) Ironic that I got these, because when she was born I actually bought 3 packs of each size, because I found a good deal on Diapers.com. I liked them a lot, and liked they were more healthy to be on my baby than other diapers. But, when I would get a babysitter (rarely) they would always be like, "What kind of diapers are these?" It is because they look different. They don't have those designs and cutesy characters, but that also means they are not dyed. A lot of dyes, and I am not sure about the inks on diapers images, can be absorbed into the bloodstream through baby's thin skin. I know this. And that is why I used them. But they do look different. So if you have never seen them, and you win, you will probably be thrown for a loop. But do not worry, they work amazingly. In fact better than some store brands I have tried. A lot better. (That's my opinion.)

INGREDIENTS

Our diapers are made of chlorine free wood pulp fluff, sodium polyacrylate (also referred to as SAP or absorbent gel), polyolefin nonwoven fabric, adhesives, polyolefin film, synthetic rubber elastic strands.

Composition:

The color of disposable diapers is typically achieved through the addition of color pigments to their inner and outer cover materials. This is also true for Seventh Generation diapers. While most designs on the market use pigments that result in a white color, we use a small amount of blended color pigments to impart a tan color to our diapers. The blend is proprietary to the supplier of the pigment. To the best of our knowledge, there are no known toxicity issues associated with the use of these pigments in our diapers. Without the addition of color pigments, these materials would be colorless, much like a plastic milk jug. We use brown pigments to help distinguish Seventh Generation Chlorine Free Diapers from others in the marketplace that are bleached with chlorine-containing substances.

All disposable diapers, including Seventh Generation’s, rely on man-made materials to deliver the high-level performance that parents expect of modern diapers. These materials are mostly petroleum-derived and are not renewable, which adversely impacts the environmental footprint associated with these products. At Seventh Generation, we are pleased to offer an alternative that is not bleached with chemicals containing chlorine, and are working hard to further improve the sustainability of our diaper products.

About Chlorine
The wood pulp used in our diapers has not been processed with chemicals containing chlorine. This prevents dangerous chlorinated toxins from being released into the environment through the pulp production process.

In any case, diapers can be bad... because of an ingredient in them, that Seventh Generation actually does have.

Disposable diaper foes also suggest that they might harm a baby's health, suggesting that the super-absorbent polymers (called sodium polyacrylate) responsible for absorbing the water in urine and stool could pose a direct risk to the child.

Read more: http://www.momlogic.com/2008/10/are_diapers_bad_for_the_enviro.php#ixzz1TMGfhTlR

Disposable diapers not labled as “unbleached” or “bleached with peroxide” contain Dioxin. Dioxin is a by-product of bleaching paper and according to the EPA is known to cause damage to the central nervous system, kidneys, and liver.

THAT BEING SAID ... EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE POTENTIALLY BAD, WE WERE ALL RAISED WEARING THEM, AND WE ARE FINE. THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF CLOTH DIAPERS HAS BEEN STUDIED AND SCRUTINIZED TOO, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO- THE POWER USED, THE WATER, THE DETERGENTS...

To win a pack of these diapers for yourself.

Mandatory

Say, I want to win!
That's it!

Extra Entries

Tweet this giveaway for 2 extra entries (place 2 separate comments! w the link to the tweet!)
#myblogspark @1caseycolette @SeventhGen #Win SeventhGeneration #diapers #Bloggiveaway Locomotion of Expressions! end 8/9 http://tinyurl.com/3ouezeu

"Like" Seventh Generation on Facebook Tell them Locomotion of Expressions sent you
Follow Seventh Generation on Twitter

Seventh Generation Free & Clear diapers on SeventhGeneration.com:

For information about the whitening process

For information about the role of pigments in diapers:http://bit.ly/DiaperPigments

Seventh Generation Free & Clear diapers coupon:http://bit.ly/seventhgendcoupon

ONE winner- winner will be drawn via Random.org on August ninth at noon eastern.
Winner will have 48 hours to respond via email or a new winner will be chosen.
Thank you for being a reader of Locomotion of Expressions!

See complete Rules

Devonny wearing her Seventh Generation Free and Clear disposable diapers!

* Disclosure* I received these diapers free of charge from My Blog Spark & Seventh Generation . These opinions contained within this post are 100% mine and not influenced by monetary compensation. All the opinions within it are my own and not to be held liable to Seventh Generation. Thanks to My Blog Spark for this sparkhttp://www.seventhgeneration.com/!

Night Owl Paper Goods Giveaway! 8/8 CLOSED!!!

***CLOSED!!!***

Locomotion of Expressions is all about being green! This company I am reviewing uses Eco-friendly, sustainably-harvested, yellow birch wood!

Birmingham Alabama sure puts out some great stuff! Me, namely, haha. My friends, my family.... but also a lot of companies I have found that I would love to work with, or have worked with on my blog, (Slingshot T-Shirts) Now- you can add another to the list! Night Owl Paper Goods! It is so funny, I do not seek these companies out because they are in Birmingham, but rather notice it after they ship the item for review to me. Like- on the box from Night Owl paper Goods, she has special branding tape to seal the box. Look how cute! Birmingham, OWLabama! HA!

I am obsessed with owls. I don't know why. It is a new fascination of mine. Not actual owls mind you, although they aren't bad. But I am talking cartoon-y cute whimsical folksy owls. What sparked it was probably the UDONCHOW giveaway I wrote up. Now I notice them everywhere. Like never before. It is like some new fad, they sell the dolls (stuffed animals) people using owl images for their blogs... Target has an amazing selection of owl stuff too! ( I did my bathroom in them!)

SO when I noticed Night Owl working with other bloggers.. I thought again. I would love to work with her. So, I sent her a pitch and that's where we are today! She even let me pick which notebook I wanted to review AND also sent me a wooden ruler and a card with another image she has that I told her I really liked! AND it's not even an owl.. if you can believe it. It's a giraffe, and it is super duper cute!

First thing is first - you can get a free market tote with an order of 30$ or more and another special of 10 free wooden cards with the purchase of 50.

Lets learn some more about them:

What I thought-

Not what I expected to be honest. But not in a bad way. It's just when I think a wood notebook. I am thinking hard and thick. You could tell it was wood. But it was thin, and flexible like wood. It is sooo cute though. I can't wait for Giana to get to use it at school (with the ruler they sent too- of course!) The other kids will be jealous!

I think it's sturdy and functional. I love the images they use and I would love to have more of their stuff to add to my collection.I got compliments on it, everywhere I scribbled in it... the dentists office, the grocery store .. my girlfriends house... my neighbors...

I am proud of the fact that this comes from my hometown and just goes to show that Birmingham is not full of rednecks & crime like people think it is (Which really bothers me!) I get that a lot moving around with the Navy - when I tell people where I am from, they are all .. "Birmingham?!?#!" (.. or "Alabama?!@#?!" .. as they curl their noses up in disgust.) It super offends me. Just FYI. It's not all hood. In fact, some metro Birmingham areas are nicer than you would think .. Mountain Brook .. Hoover.. just to name a few. Birmingham is not just the inner city... it has other towns within it. For instance, Night Owl is located in Homewood, but used the name Birmingham. It is just how we do. When I say I am from Birmingham, do not assume I am talking about the ghetto. Besides... the cities surrounding Birmingham are no different than any other cities and suburbs anywhere else. Believe me I know, I move around a lot with the Navy. the ONLY difference in geographical climates and accents. But now that I have gotten off subject and ranted about that. (Gotta defend my home state!)

OF NOTE!

They have a great clearance section you should check out! SALE items

And they have been feautured in numerous magazines and even on the today show. Mostly for the Wedding Collection invitations.

But you should probably know, Night Owl paper Goods is more than Cards, Notebooks, and invitations. They also have a lot of different plushies!

I liked this one (below)

You can find these things in the Gifts & Goodies section.

Besides the owl above, my absolute favorite thing they offer (and I almost asked for it! I probably should have.. hindsight is 20/20!) is the wooden birthday banner! (below)

Now, are you ready for what I was sent?

Well - see for yourself. here are our pictures!
(This first picture is a tote all the stuff they sent came in!)

(Reads: A Place To Scribble Poetic Musings Or Daily Doings")

PS - You can order the giraffe image that is on my card on a notebook of your own! To see all of the notebooks available. Click the word: notebook.

Chip: Ricky, remember: The fieldmouse is fast, but the owl sees at night. [maniacal laughter]

Cal: That's kinda creepy, ain't it?

WIN IT!

$10 gift certificate

MANDATORY -
(This must be done before the extra entry methods or none of your entries will count.)

Say, "I want to win!"

That's it!

EXTRA ENTRIES

You can do/use any of these methods as an extra entry to this giveaway, but you must be a public GFC follower.

You will need to "Like" them on Facebook AND
write on their wall Locomotion of Expressions sent you.
http://nightowlpapergoods.com/retailers/locations.php Using the link tell me if & where a location Night Owl paper Goods near you might be sold. (1 entry)
Give me the name and the date f a magazine they have been featured in. http://nightowlpapergoods.com/company/press.php (1 entry)
Browse around http://nightowlpapergoods.com/ Tell me your favorite item! You can name two. Each one in a separate comment gains you one entry.
Follow @nightowlpaper on twitter. tell me your @name.
Follow me on twitter @1caseycolette. Tell me your @name.
Tweet this " @nightowlpaper @1caseycolette #win this really cool #bloggiveaway for CUTE #owlstuff ends 8/8 http://tinyurl.com/3e9b6h9 #lowentry "
Share this URL on Facebook
Subscribe by RSS in the top right corner above the GFC box.
Grab a button (x3 entries)
Blog about this giveaway (x5 entries) 5 seperate comments must be placed saying you did this, with at least one linking to your blog post proving you did so.
"Like" my facebook! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Locomotion-of-Expressions/204067296272122