Artkive - Save space while displaying your child's artwork!

 

It is no secret that kids love to create art whether it is drawing you a card or painting a picture & as a parent of two I've been given lots of artwork by my children. Between their personal art pieces, they've done at home & artwork they've brought home from school, there just isn't enough space to keep everything. I've kept quite a bit of it & have a box full of artwork in the closet, but I always feel bad there isn't a lot of room to display some of it. That is where Artkive comes in! 

One of the services they offer is that you can send in a stack of your children's artwork, which will then be professionally photographed and made into a hardcover book which can be pulled out & looked at any time you want. I recently received the opportunity to work with them to see how the process worked. I was offered a twenty-five-page book in exchange for my review & both of my kids along with my husband and myself were excited to have some of the kids artwork in a book. I sat down with both of my kids to go through some of the artwork we've saved so we could pick out what we wanted in the book together. The kids also decided to give thirteen of the pages to my oldest & twelve of the pages would display my youngest's work.  

So how does it work? The first step is to head to their website & start the book process which will include paying a first initial payment then waiting for a box to be sent to you. The box has a plastic bag to place your artwork so that if anything happens to the box the art is still safe, along with a prepaid label. Books start out at $75 for twenty-five-pages and additional pages cost extra. If you use code MOONLIT20 you will get $20 off your book order. After you send in your artwork, you will receive updates via email letting you know where your book is at in the process. Our book got stuck for a little while on one of the steps, but everything was sorted out. It takes about two months from the time you send in your artwork to the time you get your book back.

Before they send out your book, they will send you an email asking you to proof the book. This step allows you to adjust the lighting on any photos if you wish, add a description under the artwork, and select a cover photo. When you hit submit, your book will be printed & mailed back to you. I thought the process was very simple to understand & was easy to use. Our book turned out great, I love being able to grab our Artkive book off the bookshelf to flip through the artwork. When we've had family over, we've been able to put it out on the coffee table & they've enjoyed looking through it as well. 

The point of these books of course is to free up some space in your house, so unless you select to pay an extra return free the original artwork will be recycled. My kids are ages eleven & fifteen, so they didn't think it was that big of a deal not to get the original work back since we had a copy in the book. However, some people are more attached to things like this and may want the work back, so it is completely up to you. These books would make a great gift for a family member or as a gift to yourself. Along with kids art books they have an option where you can get it turned into a framed mosaic. There is also another option called cards by Artkive where they will do the same as they did with this book, but with old greeting cards instead.

Does this sound like a service you'd use? 

Disclaimer- Artkive provided me with an art book for the review free of charge no other compensation was provided. However, no product compensation will influence the outcome of any review. My honest opinions are used in all reviews, they are solely my own & they may vary from others. My reviews are posted for readers in order to provide an informed decision before purchase.

This year let Santa send the letter to your child!

**This was not a paid post. My honest opinions were used, they are solely my own & they may vary from others. The products mentioned below have been provided by Package From Santa for the review free of charge.**

Christmas is coming up which means that it is time for holiday lights, gift shopping, decorating and writing letters to Santa. This year not only can you have your kids fill out a letter to Santa, you can have Santa send a letter to your child! Or make it even better by upgrading to a Package from Santa that includes a cookie and more. Ordering is a breeze that only takes a few minutes, and those few minutes will make it to where your child will have a memory for a life time. The cheapest option is Gold which is $14.95, followed by Silver which is $24.95 and then there is the big package which is Platinum and it is $74.95. For a review I received a Silver package which includes a letter from Santa, a nice list certificate, a photo of Santa plus a flight plan photo. All of that sounds great right? Well it also comes with a bonus call and personal video from Santa.



Since I have two kids and we were only getting one package for review I personalized the papers to include both of their names. When picking out your letter you can choose a pre-written letter and just fill in the blank spots or you can type out your own letter. Since all of the letters only have space for one child's name, I used the "write your own" option but still used most of one of their pre-written letters, the process only took about three minutes. Next you can fill out the name for the nice list + Santa's flight plan and you are able to add a photo.




The only paper that didn't print out right was the Nice List Certificate which you can see above, it only printed one name then has some gibberish. With the flight plan photo I went with a photo of us goofing around with snapchat filters because my kids love when we mess around with the filters together and I was right the kids loved the photo on the flight plan. Everything arrived in a cute envelope with a Christmas scenery and a North Pole stamp in the corner, the package arrived quickly and in good shape.

My kids had a lot of fun getting and opening their package together! Getting yearly letters from Santa is definitely something the kids look forward to every year. If you haven't started this tradition yet I highly suggest doing so before it's too late!

Celebrate Hotel Transylvania 3 with TownleyGirl!

**This was not a paid post. My honest opinions were used, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by TownleyGirl for the review free of charge.**

My kids and I are all fans of the Hotel Transylvania movies so we were pretty excited when we heard they were coming out with a third installment, then our excitement was boosted when we found out Townleygirl was coming out with a line of Hotel Transylvania themed goodies. For a special review we were sent a few of the Hotel Transylvania products and we wanted to share them with you here on my blog. In our box we received the following three sets: Hotel Transylvania 3 Puffy Lip Gloss Set with Bonus Tin $7.99 + Hotel Transylvania 3 Nail Polish Set with Bonus Tin and Stickers $7.99 & Hotel Transylvania 3 Spooky 4 Pack Nail Polish Set with Nail File $7.99.

Before we get into the review of these products I wanted to say if you haven't seen Hotel Transylvania 3 yet you should go rent it for a night! It was a lot of fun and we loved seeing all of our favorite characters again plus now we have a new favorite character (the dog).

One of the things I like the most when it comes to their products is that a lot of them come with tins or storage containers to keep the nail polish or lip balms in. If you don't want to keep your polish or lip balm in the containers you can use them for jewelry, change, small trinkets, etc which is nice.& They also often include extra goodies such as nail stickers, key chain bobbles and puffy stickers that can be removed and re-used. All of their nail polish is easy to apply and to remove because the formula they use is similar to the peel nail polish so you don't need any harsh chemicals to remove the color from your nails. Lip balm wise the formula isn't too thick or goopy which is a big plus for kids who don't like things on or near their mouth.The nail polish bottles in the set are shaped like little coffins which make the bottles easier to grip in your hand.

 

There is nothing wrong with the nail polish when it comes to how it is applied or how it looks but my daughter was slightly bummed out because she said the colors in this set and the Vampirina set were very similar. I couldn't remember what the Vampirina set looked like so I had her go grab them for me so I could see and she was right, two of the colors are almost identical and the other two are very close as well. We think it would have been fun if they added some other fun colors like lime green for Blobby, a shade of orange for Dennis (his hair), a Grey-ish blue for Frank, and so forth. Since some of the colors were very similar we didn't use one or two of these polishes so keep an eye out in the future for them to be included in a giveaway goodie bag!

The holidays are coming up and many of their sets would make wonderful Christmas gifts & stockings stuffers, everything is affordable at $15 or less.

Diono Review!

**This was not a paid post. My honest opinions were used, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by Diono for the review free of charge.**

Like most children my kids think long car rides can be pretty boring without something to do, and my son likes taking naps on car rides so I want my kids to be as happy and comfortable as possible. When I hear Diono I always think about their car seats but what I didn't know is that they offer a range of car accessories as well and I was lucky enough to receive a few of them for a review.



Pop-up Trash Bin; I will 100% admit that my car can turn into an absolute disaster, mainly because there is no trash can so anytime the kids have something they want to throw away I have them just put it on the floor. Nasty I know! I do clean my car out once a week if that counts for anything though. This Pop-up trash bin helps solve all of those problems, it is a small can made from water resistant fabric. It takes "bag it" bags also sold by them but I just use grocery store bags, they fit perfectly and I have a ton of them so it is win-win in my book. This bin helps keep the car looking a lot nicer! Retail Value: $7.99



Seat Belt Pillow; This is something not only my son was excited about but his dad and I were pretty excited as well. My son falls asleep in the car often, he is four so he doesn't take naps daily but when he is tired he won't admit that he is thus won't take a nap but as soon as were in the car for more than three minutes he will pass out. We are always worried about the weird angles he gets into when he falls asleep so we knew this would be a big help to prevent his neck or head from being stiff when he wakes up. He loves this pillow, he even tried getting me to bring it into the house to use as a regular sleeping pillow because the cover is so soft. It has a Velcro strap that goes over the seat belt and then a piece of cloth sits over the belt to protect the childs face and neck. The pillow is 11" long and is pretty thick so it is as comfortable as possible. Retail Value: $8.97

Travel Pal; Even if we are only running to the store for a quick trip my kids always insist on bringing some of their stuff with us for the ride but they know to leave stuffed animals and such in the car (electronics get placed in my purse). Toys can sometimes end up on the floor and be forgotten, crayons get placed onto the seat for safe keeping until they need that color but Oh no! they forgot to pick it back up before getting out of the car because they didn't see it in the seat crack. This travel pal helps keep all of their belongings picked up and kept in once place, it even has drink holders in the front and pockets both on the outside and the inside so you can store all kinds of goodies in here.

How does it stay up on the seat while driving? It has a sturdy flap in the back that gets tucked into the backseat of your car that helps hold the basket in place while you are driving. My kids love having this between them and I love that it helps my car stay a bit neater. This retails for $9.08

The best part about all three items is that they can all be purchased for less than $10 and can all be found on amazon along with a dozen other helpful products.

OnandOff Giveaway & Review!

****This was not a paid post and my honest opinion was used. The opinions are solely my own and may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by OnanOff for the review & giveaway free of charge.****

We love spending time together as a family, even if we are wanting to do different things we like being in the same room together. Sometimes this can get pretty noisy so I've been looking into headphones for kids which is when I came upon Onanoff who sells a headphone line for kids called Buddyphones. I was sent the inflight model which includes three modes: Safe flight mode, safe kid mode and safe toddler mode.

    

My four year old son was slightly bummed the set we received was purple as he was hoping for a green or blue pair but he said he isn't picky and doesn't mind using them anyways. He is such a cute kid! The ear piece has a cushion lining which helps protect your child's ears from being rubbed raw due to the plastic, it also has a small piece of fabric over the speaker to further help protect their ears. On one side of the headphones you will find a knob which allows you to switch between the three settings, I find it is easiest to use my palm to gently push down on the dial to switch it. They are adjustable enough that not only do they fit my four year old perfectly but they fit on my head comfortably as well. It comes with a carry bag, decorative stickers for the side of the headphones,an airplane adapter plus a buddy cable that allows you to dock a second set of headphones to the first so more than one child can listen to the device at the same time. We also received a hard shell case to keep the headphones stored in when not in use.



Let's talk volume, while we want to be able to cut back on some noise from tablets, dvd players, etc we also don't want to harm our kids ear drums so I tested these out first to see how they are. I tested these out by plugging them into my cell phone and turning on some music at full volume, the headphones themselves prevent anything from being too loud even if you try turning up your device as far as it will go the headphones will only go up to a certain volume. The volume is the perfect amount, you are still able to enjoy what ever it is you are listening too but it also allows you to hear when someone is talking to you. This is quite handy because we all know how sucked into the screen kids can get so you still want to be able to get their attention without shouting at them. The toddler setting lowers it a bit further but your device is still audible without causing harm and the inflight mode tunes it just slightly higher than the child setting. According to their website researchers who study hearing loss have found that a person who is exposed to noise levels above 85 decibels for a prolonged period of time is at risk for hearing loss. Many devices go up quite a bit more than that so the headphones have a set decibel for each setting which are 75, 85 or 94db.

These headphones sell for $49.95 each, they are pretty durable and for me completely worth the price for something comfortable and safe for my child.

PRIZE ALERT:
One reader is going to win their very own set of Inflight Buddyphones.

This is open to US/Canadian Residents! Please remember if you DO NOT leave a comment on this blog post as your mandatory entry into the giveaway then all of your entries will be void. Doing the Daily entries will increase your chance of winning. Winners have 72 hours to respond to the notification email!
 
Giveaway winners are announced on FACEBOOK, If you would like to see who won my latest giveaways please visit and like my facebook page.
 
Giveaway entry question: Which color of headphones would your child like? (link on rafflecopter form)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Janiebee Review & Giveaway!

****This was not a paid post and my honest opinion was used. The opinions are solely my own and may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by Janiebee for the review & giveaway free of charge.****

My son is four, he is at the stage where he doesn't need to take a nap every single day but naps can still be useful when he is being extra cranky due to going to bed late the night before. During the week I work a full time job and he stays in the care of a relative while I work, it is a bit of a pain to get him to nap anywhere but home so I wanted to test out a nap mat to see if it would help. Janiebee is a company that sells comfortable quilted nap mats, I was drawn to them because they offer several mink mats. My son is obsessed with soft blankets and pillows so I figured getting a mink nap mat would be a huge hit with him and boy was I right.





For my review I selected the "Samuel nap mat" which is a mat that has a Navy Mat top/bottom with a Platinum blanket and pillowcase it also includes Red ties straps and name plate with navy thread. The mat measures 21" wide and 53" long which is the perfect length, the blanket is just slightly wider than the mat by about two maybe three inches. The mat itself is padded and a pillow is included, the mat is completely washable and the pillow is removable for when you wash it. My son uses this nap mat for everything, he insists on it being on his bed at night and in the morning when it is time to go for the day so I can work it gets rolled up and brought with us so I've washed this a few times and it is still soft as can be and looks brand new.

The mat has a carry strap which makes it easy to transport when it is rolled up, above you can see how my son enjoys carrying this he thinks of it as his soft backpack and has rolled stuff animals up in it to go along on the journey. This mat has helped improve naps both in the house and out because he wants to lay on the soft blanket and mat. I adore this mat and I am so happy my son enjoys it as well. Along with mink mats Janiebee sells a number of other material mats, backpacks, lunch sacks and more. The nap mats can be purchased for $119.99 or you can get a promo mat for $89, or you can enter below for your chance to win your own nap mat of choice.

PRIZE ALERT:
One lucky winner is going to receive a mat of their choice (under $131.99) you can add a customized name.

This is open to US Residents ONLY! Please remember if you DO NOT leave a comment on this blog post as your mandatory entry into the giveaway then all of your entries will be void. Doing the Daily entries will increase your chance of winning. Winners have 72 hours to respond to the notification email!
 
Giveaway winners are announced on FACEBOOK, If you would like to see who won my latest giveaways please visit and like my facebook page.
 
Giveaway entry question: Which mat would you select if you won?

a Rafflecopter giveaway