Gadgets & Goods « coffee with Julie

Archive for the ‘Gadgets & Goods’ Category

January 2nd, 2012

The Homemade Gift

Us busy folks just love a homemade anything, don’t we? Marketers, of course, know this and like to use the word to advertise their wares any chance they get. But the truly homemade gift is a special thing indeed.

Some of the most cherished homemade gifts I’ve received include a quilt from my mother-in-law for each bed in the house, a quilt from my special Aussie girlfriend Nat, and a scrapbooked collage from my mom. As for gifts from Hubby, I can’t even list the number of homemade gifts he’s made for me over the years. He is crazy-talented and I’ve received everything from jewelry, decorative boxes, and artwork to a cedar-strip canoe and a bed!

This year for Christmas, I was fortunate enough to receive two homemade gifts. The first was a painting by my father. Hubby and I are beyond thrilled with this since it’s the first painting that he’s painted especially for us. And the second is this very groovy tote from my sister and brother-in-law. Check it out! (You know it’ll be on my arm at the next BlogHer or Blissdom, don’t you!)

On the front is the image that represents the age-old saying: “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

And on the back, you can see that the tote has been customized for the blog! Here is a close-up shot:

They also gave me a cookie-mix in a jar. I’m glad it looks pretty in the jar on my shelf since, well, I don’t bake or cook. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

3 Comments »

December 8th, 2011

10 Grand Gifts for Kids: $30 or Less!

We all know Christmas spending can easily get out of control. But really, most young kids like a $20 gift as much as a $200 gift — they don’t know the value of money, it’s just about having some fun!

So, in that spirit, I thought I’d share some gift ideas that I think are “winners” under the $30 price range. Some are products that were sent to me to review and some are simply things I’ve come across on my own.

1. Walrooz sleds: These cheerful sleds have a super-cute walrus design that my kids immediately loved. I admit I felt a tad disappointed when I received a sample of the large sled ($11.95) and a smaller connecting sled ($7.45) — they seemed smaller and thinner than I expected. But then I remembered that my absolute favourite sled as a kid was a Krazy Karpet (if you grew up in the 70s, you know exactly what I mean, don’t you?!). Anyhow, we haven’t had a chance to actually test these out on snow, but both kids (age 3 and 9) keep practicing down the stairs in the house and they are a real hit. The handles have held up to all the abuse and the linking mechanism is so perfect for how kids really do like to sled.

2. LeapFrog Fridge Words: I have yet to meet a child who wasn’t fascinated by LeapFrog’s series of magnet toys ($19.99-29.99). My kids have loved them all. You can read a post here on this toy and “interesting” ways in which my daughter has played with it. Tip: Keep it stored inside the kitchen cabinet and pull it out only when you really need some child-free time, like when you’re cooking dinner.

3. Warriors: Power of Three Box Set: If you’re going to give a book, it always feel a little more special to give a boxed set. Some of my favourites gifts from when I was a child (and I still have them in my book case!) are the Anne of Green Gables, and The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe, and the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sets. I still love these sets and would still recommend them for kids today. But if you are looking for something a little “now,” both boys and girls are really enjoying this series called “Warriors.” Although the name sounds a tad violent, it is a series about a clan of cats. The starter set in the picture below is priced at $17.10 and was given to Stella on her 9th birthday by a good friend. (For more book recommendations from Stella, check out the right hand column of this blog, where she had identified a number of them.)

Warriors: Power of Three Box Set

4. Sculpey Sculpturing Compound: Available from Lee Valley (the sampler pack is $29.50), this set is for the imaginative child who dreams, doodles and talks of fantasy creatures. It’s a great treat to pull out on a weekend with some hot chocolate, and the bonus is that unlike so many other crafty activities, it makes so little mess.

Sculpey® Sculpturing Compound - Gifts

5. National Geographic Kids subscription: Remember how exciting it was to have a letter arrive to the house with your name on it? Well, even though mail is rarely ever delivered to homes anymore and people rarely ever send letters anymore, kids still LOVE getting mail! A magazine subscription is a gift that lasts the whole year. Owl ($39.50) has a science bent, Kayak ($21.95) has a historical focus, and National Geographic Kids ($22.00) covers a lot of critters and creatures. To present as a gift, pick up the current issue in the stores and wrap with a ribbon and a little explanatory note. Tip: If you are buying more than two magazines subscriptions, you can purchase from the Magazines Canada site and receive the third subscription for free.

Little Kids cover

6. Little Dottie Bracelet: Stella & Dot have the sweetest jewelry sets for girls. And the best part is that they come in a gorgeous little tin (okay, okay, I am a sucker for packaging!). My favourite is the Little Dottie Bracelet ($16.00) and matching necklace ($29.00). Stella isn’t into jewelry really, but I recently gave my niece the bracelet for her birthday present and she absolutely loved it.

Little Dottie Bracelet

7. The Tiny Perfect Dinosaur: It’s no secret that many children are afflicted by a serious dinosaur obsession at some point in their lives. Stella went through a full year period where she insisted that her middle name was “Dinosaur.” Naturally, then, we have spent our fair share of time at the Canadian Museum of Nature. The gift store is always a highlight, but you can skip it and buy online if you’d like. Here, the Stegosaurus of The Tiny Perfect Dinosaur series is shown below, but the entire series is now on sale for $5.95 each. It includes a book, a poster, and a dinosaur egg that has the skeleton inside which you are to put together yourself.

Stegosaurus: The Tiny Perfect Dinosaur Vol. 4

8. Cook & Play Potsy: My son is three and he just loves to play house and cook like his Dad. But trying to find imagination toys related to the home in any colour other than a gawdy pink, at a reasonable price, isn’t an easy task! So I was quite pleased to be sent this Leap Frog toy to try out. The packaging features two girls playing with this toy, but as you can see, the pot looks pretty gender neutral and has a fun animated face on it. Like all Leap Frog toys, it has a ton of educational features built into it and it’s priced at $24.99.

9. Art workshop with 4 Cats Arts Studio: This studio for kids is an amazing concept that is taking off all across Canada. In Ottawa, we have a location in Hintonburg (which I profiled here for my 40th birthday party). Rather than a concrete gift, you might want to consider giving an experience — the winter workshops that are being offered in the upcoming season range from $18-20 — and really are fabulous value for money. Age ranges run from 3 up to 15 and there’s a variety of offerings.

10. Zoob: For the child who gravitates to lego and building blocks, Zoob is the cool new kid on the block. Bright, colourful and easy to use, it’s recommended for children aged 6 and up. I was first introduced to Zoob sets by the owner of My Toy Shop in Manotick, but since then I’ve noticed that Tag Along Toys, Mrs Tiggy Winkle’s, and Scholar’s Choice also carry them. The 75-piece set below is priced just under $30.

I hope that this has renewed your faith in reasonably priced toys and gifts! There are so many out there, and kids are just thrilled with them. If you have other faves to add to these, feel free to leave a note in the comments.

5 Comments »

September 5th, 2011

The Back-to-School Outfit

Back-to-school is here! As usual, summer has whizzed right by and we’re back into the busy fall season (both at work and at home). This summer was a milestone for us — we moved houses for the first time in 14 years and we enjoyed a special visit from overseas relatives. But we’re ready for routines again, I think. That’s one bonus of school-aged children; it helps the whole family get into consistent routines.

Not to be outdone by Valentine’s Day or other commercially created and flogged-to-death occasions to spend money, the back-to-school ads have been incessant. Not only do you *need* a new wardrobe, but also brand-new stationery, and the latest and greatest technology gadgets.

Now, don’t get me wrong …. when I was a kid, I loved — loved! — back to school. I loved the fall weather, the classroom, reconnecting with friends and the back-to-shopping trip my mother would always treat me too. Looking back, I have no idea how my parents managed to afford it with four children, but somehow I was always kitted out with new clothes and goodies for the pencil case.

But for us, the back-to-school shopping event is turning out to be more of a non-event. Stella has no interest in fashion and hey, who says you actually need a brand-new outfit for the first day of school? The advertisements do, that’s who. So, we are taking Stella’s lead and adopting a far more simpler and less stress-inducing approach.

Here is the outfit she would like to wear for tomorrow’s first day:

I’m not sure if it will be shorts weather or jeans weather, so both are out and ready. The shorts and jeans are regular features in her closet — both from The Children’s Place, which has a line of jeans that is perfect for Stella’s slim body type, as well as shorts that I consider “nice” and not “short-shorts.” We have the shorts in pretty much every colour and about five pairs of the jeans since Stella, like her father, prefers jeans over any other kind of pant. The shoes are a New Balance pair that we picked up late last school season when she outgrew her other pair of “indoor” shoes. I’m a big believer that the indoor shoes the school requests should be shoes designed for exercise with good cushioning and support, since the kids wear these shoes for gym class. Out of all the clothing elements a child has, I think shoes are the best investment for a growing body. These ones still fit perfectly and are in good condition, so it would be wasteful to toss them simply because they’re not pure white any more.

So, did you add all that up? Yep, a total of $0.00.

But wait, there is one brand new item. A never-worn-before item kept aside specifically for the new school season. And it’s this t-shirt:

Ontario Parks has created a number of nice lines of clothing for toddlers, kids, and adults. This one is from the Species at Risk line, and features the Eastern Wolf. We picked it up on our recent camping trip to Achray, but you can also buy them online (cost is $16.95).

In addition to this Eastern Wolf shirt, we picked up one with a butterfly on it. And during the summer, Stella and I happened upon some great Chinese dragon (a fave creature) shirts that were on sale for $3 each somewhere. So, in total, there are about 4 new shirts for the season.

All up, then, the back-to-school wardrobe this season totalled less than $40.00.

How did you make it through the season? Is your bank account still suffering? What were your top picks or most favourite finds?

1 Comment »

September 2nd, 2011

“Month of Me” post #01: There’s a hashtag, so it must be real

A while back, I decided that I’d really like to attend Blissdom Canada, which is a blogging conference taking place in Toronto next month. I thought, hey, I love blogging and it’s my 40th birthday in October, so why not? All the tickets were sold out ages ago, but I was able to buy a ticket from someone who wasn’t going to be able to go. (Although I am still hoping to win a ticket so that I can recoup my cash. Keep your fingers crossed for me!)

Then a friend told me she was moving to New York City for the whole month of October. It was going to be a cool experience – to live as a bonafide New Yorker. I offered to grace her with my company for few days. Why not, eh, it’s my birthday month after all?

And from there, I’m afraid I have let it turn into all kinds of crazy. I decided that this October, the month of my 40th birthday, will be the “Month of Me.” I had a glass of red and then told my Twitter friends about it too. They happily spurred me on, as Twitter friends are apt to do. And a hashtag was created: #monthofme

Now that a hashtag has been created, it’s official. Right? Right.

So, my friends, you’ve been warned! I am going to beg, borrow and steal (okay, well not really any of those, but you get my drift) to make the month of October a mighty grand experience. While some might simply refer to themselves as 39 forever, I am going to CELEBRATE my 40th! I am really looking forward to my 40s; I have a feeling it’s going to be a fantastic decade.

First on the list? I am going to spend at least part of my Month of Me driving around in this beauty, courtesy of Ford of Canada:

2012 Lincoln MKS

It’s a luxury family car called the Ford Lincoln MKS. It looks might pur-dee to me!

Some of the cool features I’m looking forward to trying out are: the rear-view camera at the dash, that works with a reverse sensing system as well as a technology that scans blind spots for you when you’re changing lanes.

The interior also looks mighty fine. You know how nice seat warmers are in the winter? Well, this car comes with standard seat warmers in the front and the back. I really like that because the back-seat passenger often gets overlooked in a car’s design, so I thought that was smart.

EcoBoost™ Appearance Package

Anyhow, part of the deal with driving this car will be to review it on the Coffee with Julie blog. I have been asked to review it for both what I liked AND what I didn’t like.

A sweet ride, some Broadway shows, and hanging with bloggy buddies … the Month of Me is really starting to take shape!

Edited to add: I didn’t win the Go Girlfriend’s Follow Your Bliss contest for a ticket to the Blissdom Canada conference, but happily, I received an invite to be a Tribe Leader for the topic of Travel. You can see some of the fun pics from Blissdom here. Also, through no fault of Ford, the car-testing thing got logistically too challenging for this month. However, I’m looking forward to test-driving one of their new Hybrid cars in the new year.

12 Comments »

August 16th, 2011

The School Lunch (aka “Kill me now”)

I know some moms who literally rejoice at the start of summer vacation solely because it releases them from the morning grind of the school lunch. And who can blame them? The school lunch really is a tedious task.

And it’s fraught with pitfalls – pitfalls that are just waiting for me to fall into! So, with school just around the corner, I thought I’d gather some tips for myself. And hey, I might as well share while I’m at it!

Pitfall #1: What to pack

So, first of all, you have to actually have food to pack. But what? That’s easy, right … just make a sandwich and throw in a couple of those nifty little snacks and do-dads easily found in the grocery store developed precisely as a solution to this daily quandary. Nope, not anymore. Lunch needs to be litterless! Which means, absolutely nothing should be put in the lunch that is packaged. (Okay, yes, litterless lunches ARE good. But sometimes things just get a bit nonsensical. Read this post by Finola to get a feel for what I’m talking about.)

Tips for what to pack? Check out: A Peek Inside the Fishbowl’s post “It’s a lunch revolution” includes Andrea’s ideas as well as tond of great ideas in the comments section.

Pitfall #2: What to pack it in

The days of the plain brown paperbag are sooo over. Can you even buy these any more? Now, with so many different (and high-tech!) options out there … how do you pick? Yes, you want to be that perfect mom and not pack your child’s food in chemical-ridden plastic (yes, the ones that we all ate from! haha!), don’t you? So, there’s that to consider. But also, considering all the tupperware-style containers I need to use in a single lunch these days (a la litterless lunch, see Pitfall #1), I also find that some lunch bags are just too small. But you also don’t want your child toting around an enormous box the size of a construction worker’s lunch, either. So finding the right size can sometimes be tricky too. Plus, there’s the whole temperature thing … can it keep the food cold enough or hot enough until lunch time?

Tips for what to pack it in? My post “Lunchbox past its expiry date” shares my research on this oh-so-fascinating topic. (And for the record, I ended up buying the L.L. Bean lunchbag are we’re still using it.)

Pitfall #3: Will they eat it

This is the newest pitfall on my list. My grade 3 daughter Stella has always been a great eater, but lately her lunches are coming back un-eaten. When I dug a little deeper into this with her, it seems that sandwiches turn her stomach because they get a bit soggy while waiting to be eaten. But this also applies to boiled eggs (now I leave the shells on), baby carrots (now I cut up the large, full-size carrots), and most fruit (now she eats fruit at breakfast and dinner instead).

Tips for the “will they eat it” pitfall? Are you kidding? I don’t have any tips! Share all of yours with me in the comments please!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. The school lunch topic is one that is up for discussion on the Kids Matter forum, created by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO). Feel free to join in the discussion there too!