As I mentioned yesterday, I have a few posts I want to share related to simplifying birthday parties for kids. If I can manage, I'll bust everything out this week while things are top of mind. First, I want to share the 3 easy (and delightfully rainbow-tastic!) party activities I planned for Laurel's party. You can do these any time, really, and I recommend doing the chalk paint ASAP while the weather is good. So easy and fun. Enjoy!As I mentioned yesterday, I have a few posts I want to share related to simplifying birthday parties for kids. If I can manage, I'll bust everything out this week while things are top of mind. First, I want to share the 3 easy (and delightfully rainbow-tastic!) party activities I planned for Laurel's party. You can do these any time, really, and I recommend doing the chalk paint ASAP while the weather is good. So easy and fun. Enjoy!
One great thing about summer? Salad. And it doesn't need to be boring salad. Today, Jules (also of In The Kitchen Catering & Food Delivery) shares the next installment in our Meals Made Easy series. Enjoy this unique farm stand salad (and be sure to try these zucchini, ricotta & tomato frittata, roasted shrimp with veggies, balsamic orange chicken, and coconut lime cod recipes too!):
Raise your hand if you want something that's easy and yummy to knock together for dinner tonight. Yeah, me too! Today, Jules (also of In The Kitchen Catering & Food Delivery shares the next installment in our Meals Made Easy series. Enjoy this simple and delicious recipe for coconut lime cod with sautéed spinach and oranges (and be sure to try these zucchini, ricotta & tomato frittata, roasted shrimp with veggies and balsamic orange chicken recipes too!):
In a meal rut? Need some lightning fast inspiration? (I feel like I've been eating a lot of salads and quesadillas these days...) Today, Jules (also of In The Kitchen Catering & Food Delivery shares the next installment in our Meals Made Easy series (be sure to give this easy roasted shrimp with veggies dish a try if you haven't already!). Enjoy this simple and delicious recipe for balsamic orange chicken:
Today, Paige (also of Mudroom Boston) shares 4 quick steps to, and 5 examples of, easy flower arrangements:
One of my favorite forms of art is floral arranging. It need not be inexpensive and you end up with a beautiful end result really fast. Many people find flower arranging daunting, so they buy a pre-arranged bouquet, pull it out of its cellophane wrapping, and stick it in a vase (and then wonder why it doesn't look quite right!). Today I'm here to help with a super easy how-to prepping and arranging flowers, including five easy flower arrangements.
These days, I've been using the word epic with some regularity, there's just been so much good stuff going on! And today, I have something to share that is truly epic in the fun department. I'm teaming up with some wonderful bloggers to offer you an epic May giveaway including a Canon T4i DSLR + a gorgeous Epiphanie Charlotte chevron bag (I have been coveting this puppy), collectively worth ~$1055! Woo hoo!
Today, Priya shares seven fire safety tips for families:
Last month, not long after we had put our kids to bed, all of our fire alarms went off simultaneously without any obvious reason; no one was cooking and we didn't have a fire burning in the fireplace. I reflexively went looking for the trigger, and my husband immediately went upstairs to get the kids. When the episode was over, it occurred to me that Pete and I should devise a fire safety plan, particularly given that we know two families in our own town whose homes were destroyed by fires. Fortunately, our incident was merely a function of alarm malfunction, but it motivated us to get more prepared. I wanted to share our process with you:
Today, Lindsey (also of A Design So Vast) shares four lovely sources for book plates:
I love gifting personalized book plates. Book plates may seem, I realize, old-fashioned, but I adore them. They celebrate reading and speak to a child's deep desire to mark things as their own. My children loved choosing which of their books deserved book plates, and to this day, when I happen upon their book plated copies of Goodnight Moon or Make Way for Ducklings, tears spring to my eyes when I remember their chubby toddler hands smoothing the stickers into the books. The crooked angle at which some of these plates are adhered reminds me of their fierce determination to "do it my own self!"
Today, Judy (also of Talking Thirty) shares 12 great gift ideas for new moms:
These days it seems that baby announcements from friends roll in about one per week and I spend my weekends cuddling squishy newborn after squishy newborn (no complaints here!). I've realized that often we focus on gifts for the new baby and sometimes forget the person who has been through the most -- the new mama! Here are my favorite gift ideas for new moms.
One of the most beautiful things about the online space is how incredibly nimble people can be to make awesome things happen. In October when I traveled to Ethiopia as part of the ONE Moms delegation, our team created such an online stir about fashionABLE that they were able to create three new jobs. This past winter, fellow Ethiopia companion and dear friend Gabrielle Blair, of Design Mom and Alt Summit, worked with ONE and fashionABLE to challenge the Alt community to design an exclusive ONE/fashionABLE Mother's Day scarf. And today the beautiful Genet scarf is available for purchase (with free shipping today and tomorrow).
I'm thrilled to announce a new blog post series that I've crafted with lovely (and long-time!) contributor Jules. Jules is a mother of two with credentials in social work, personal training, and catering; here's the gist of the Meals Made Easy series: Meals Made Easy recipes represent what all busy moms need: quick and easy dinner solutions that don't require a special trip to the store at 5:30pm on a weekday with two tired kids who both need to go potty. Awesome, no? Today, Jules shares a simple and delicious recipe for roasted shrimp with veggies:
Today, Miriam (also of Other Pieces of Me) shares a handy resource for organic cleaning:
It's that time of year again! The birds are chirping. The snow is melting. The flowers are starting to poke out of the ground. And the sunshine can't get through the grime on my windows -- eep! Time for some spring cleaning. A few years ago, I decided to try to cut down on the chemicals we were using in our house. My husband is a bit of a cleaning supply addict and we had amassed a collection of sprays, powders, liquids, bleaches and wipes -- all with their very own cleanliness claims but none that I wanted gracing the surfaces of our home.
I love necklaces. Except when they're clumped and tangled, as most of my collection has been for some time now. I was planning on buying a cork board to make sense of the mess, and then this past weekend, as I stared disdainfully at furniture packaging that needed to be broken down for recycling, I had a light bulb moment: turn the large Styrofoam sheets into jewelry boards! It would save the effort of breaking down the material to fit into our recycling bin, and save me the cost of cork boards! Here's the how-to for this ridiculously easy and awesome project:
When ONE asked me to share a recipe in honor of Sweet Potato Day -- an effort to raise awareness about world hunger -- I immediately thought of a recipe I enjoyed one Thanksgiving in Maryland. Jon and I were away from our families and our dear friend Joe invited us to his mom Chris's house. It meant so much to me to be welcomed in for the holidays, and the food -- including Chris's sweet potato casserole with bourbon and marshmallows -- was insanely good.
Not long after I returned from Ethiopia, Bridget of @BostonSkin asked me about fair trade shea butter suppliers based in Africa. I didn't have immediate recommendations top of mind and canvassed my fellow ONE Moms for ideas; they of course came up with great leads! I've been meaning to share these recommendations for a while (er, several months now!), particularly given that if your skin is anything like mine, it is suffering along through the winter in a dry, chapped state. Here's to happy skin and supporting global businesses!