January 27, 2010
It happens all the time. I’m browsing my favorite paper goods store or stationary dot com and suddenly, our eyes meet— it’s the perfect notebook. I saunter over, feigning interest in its shelf-mates— a fancy pen, a chic stapler— but ultimately the attraction is too strong.
I give in.
I pick it up.
I stroke it’s thick stack of virgin pages and begin fantastizing about the possibilities. I could chart my next project… I could plan my next vacation… I could make a list, and another and another…
Maybe you don’t geek out about list-making like I do, but there is something about a fresh notebook, planner or sticky pad that promises the beginning of a beautiful (and organized) relationship. February is the perfect time to fall in love with organizing products, so I reached out to the companies that make the products that I use every day to keep my life running smoothly… and holy cow, they’re helping me give prizes away every weekday in February on The Juicebox Facebook Fan Page!
How It Works
- Become a fan of The Juicebox on Facebook!
- Each weekday, I’ll ask you a fun question about how you stay organized (or try to)! Answer the question by commenting before midnight and you’re entered to win that day’s prize! Each day’s winner will be chosen at random, and announced the following day (Only one answer per day).
- Receive an extra entry for “sharing” the question on your own Facebook page. (Leave an extra comment on my Facebook page, under that day’s giveaway, letting me know that you shared. Only one extra entry per giveaway allowed.)
As if this wasn’t totally awesome enough, there’s a Grand Prize! I’ll be giving away a mondo pile of organization products at the end of the month on a free teleconference I’ll be hosting about my new Perfect Moms Finish Last 6-Week Course. If you’re registered for the call, you’ll be entered to win that too! (Details coming soon).
Prize Calendar
Here’s what you can win… try not to drool on your keyboard!
02/01 : MomAgenda 2010 Day Planner
Unique week-at-view format with space for mom and up to four children. Features monthly views too. Featuring the momEssentials pamphlet that can be removed and reused from year to year. 6 stylish, stain-resistant colors (subject to availability): Fuchsia, Royal Blue, Tangerine, Chocolate, Lime, and True Purple.
02/02 : Buttoned Up Coupons
This fun little coupon book has 20 cleverly illustrated coupons that enable you to lighten the load of someone you love – mom, dad, roommate, or friend. The set includes coupons for everyday tasks like taking out the trash, doing the laundry, and running the errands.
02/03 : Julie Morganstern Balanced Life Planning System
Julie designed this unique planning system to give you a personal coach within every page so that you can plan your days realistically and feel excited, rather than overwhelmed, when you wake up. It will help you stay on track all day long, so you get the right things done and feel satisfied when you go to sleep at night. It will help you create days that are meaningful and rewarding to you and teach you how to connect each of your daily activities to your big-picture goals.
02/04 : Pear Budget 1-Year Subscription
Pear Budget is a tool for really simple budgeting. Created originally as a spreadsheet to help track the co-founder’s spending, tt was downloaded over 100,000 times, and was written up in the Wall Street Journal, Popular Science, and dozens of popular websites and blogs. It’s the simplest budgeting and expense tracking tool on the internet.
02/05 : Alice.com $10 New Customer Gift Card
You can probably think of a thousand things you’d rather do than drive to the store again and again for toilet paper, toothpaste, trash bags and the dozens of other home essentials that keep your home running. Enter Alice! You tell Alice what you buy—choosing from great deals on 1000’s of products—and Alice goes to work. We organize all of your products, find coupons and deals for you, remind you when you might be running low, and help you order just the items you need so you can avoid that trip to the corner drugstore or the big-box store. And all this convenience comes direct to your door with free shipping included!
02/08 : Erin Condren $50 Gift Card
Erin Condren creates beautiful personalized paper products to help you stay organized and look great doing it. Family planners, gift labels, notepads, labels and calendars, all in her signature cheery colors and personalized for you and your family.
02/09 : Russell & Hazel Mini Smart Date Set
Russell and Hazel makes some of the most gorgeous paper products around, and you won’t find me without one of their notebooks or sticky pads to collect all my ideas. Get tons of planning power in a a little package with the Mini SmartDate Set. Includes your choice of Mini Binder (colors subject to availability) with Mini Month Tabs with full calendar view, Weekly Planner Sheets and a set of Daily Adhesive Notes.
02/10 : Knock Knock “So Much To Do” List Pad
Fine Print List Pads transform the standard notepad into a virtual powerhouse of thought-gathering potential, and with this handy list maker, compiling a to-do list has never been easier. What’s more, with a touch of wit and lots of sophistication, these pads lend style to all your jotting, scratching, and scrawling.
02/11 : Whomi Clarity Calendar
The Clarity Calendar is a weekly planner that tracks multiple family members all in the same view (color coded for each family member). View your entire week in one easy snapshot, plush portability, style and a tough-as-nails vinyl cover to protect your agenda.
02/12 : Muji Chrononotebook
Pocket size notebook. The pages are divided by AM and PM. The left hand side of an open page has a graphic of a white clock which represents AM and on the right hand side has a dark clock which represents PM. Simple but functional, new way to plan your day out.
02/15 : Alice.com $10 New Customer Gift Card
You can probably think of a thousand things you’d rather do than drive to the store again and again for toilet paper, toothpaste, trash bags and the dozens of other home essentials that keep your home running. Enter Alice! You tell Alice what you buy—choosing from great deals on 1000’s of products—and Alice goes to work. We organize all of your products, find coupons and deals for you, remind you when you might be running low, and help you order just the items you need so you can avoid that trip to the corner drugstore or the big-box store. And all this convenience comes direct to your door with free shipping included!
02/16 : Buttoned Up Catch.Up Pad
With schedules as cram-packed as they are these days, it’s no wonder family members often feel like ships passing in the night. Use the CatchUp.pad to share a virtual hug, relay an important message or two, or otherwise just bring someone up to speed on the goings-on.
02/17 : The Organized Parent Package
Three fabulously coordinated and invaluable items from The Organized Parent, a website dedicated to providing great tips and helpful products to keep your life running smoothly. This prize includes: The tote (shown), The Address and Card Organizer, and Designer Sticky Notes, all in pretty pink “Henry Road” pattern.
02/18 : The Clutter Diet Book
The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life by Lorie Marrero. This book will get your house in shape! Applying just an ounce of the advice in this practical guide saves you enough time and money to pay for itself. You will learn: The actual scientific law of nature that helps you get organized, the cure for procrastination, ten types of High Calorie Clutter to avoid, where to start and how to tackle your projects and how to successfully add new habits into your life.
02/19 : Muji Chronotebook
Pocket size notebook. The pages are divided by AM and PM. The left hand side of an open page has a graphic of a white clock which represents AM and on the right hand side has a dark clock which represents PM. Simple but functional, new way to plan your day out.
02/22 : Whomi “How Do I Do It?” Notepad
The How Do I Do It? notebook: A soon to be indispensable companion for every woman with more than one thing to remember at a time. A portable control center for even the most overwhelmed head of even the busiest household. Organize all of your “to do’s” by our signature Shop/Call/Do color-coding and prioritize tasks by days of the week. Plus side folders for keeping important notes and lists.
02/23 : Knock Knock “This and That” Notepad
This and That Pocket Notes take portable note taking to a whole new level, harnessing lines and grids to bring color and sophistication to all your random musings—not to mention their durable covers make them perfect companions for your purse or back pocket.
02/24 : Buttoned Up Birthday.Book
Never forget a birthday again! It feels great to connect with someone on their special day. But the challenge is to actually remember all those birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions in the hurly burly of everyday life. The Birthday.book from Buttoned Up functions as an extended memory bank for all of those people you want to remember on a particular date. Because it’s paper-based, it’s super-easy to use, and will never go bad or accidentally delete the records.
02/25 : Alice.com $10 New Customer Gift Card
You can probably think of a thousand things you’d rather do than drive to the store again and again for toilet paper, toothpaste, trash bags and the dozens of other home essentials that keep your home running. Enter Alice! You tell Alice what you buy—choosing from great deals on 1000’s of products—and Alice goes to work. We organize all of your products, find coupons and deals for you, remind you when you might be running low, and help you order just the items you need so you can avoid that trip to the corner drugstore or the big-box store. And all this convenience comes direct to your door with free shipping included!
02/26 : Mabels Labels Custom Neat Freak Combo
The Custom Neat Freak Combo makes home organization easy with several popular labels for storage, sundries and spices packaged in one convenient combo. And because every household is different, each label in this combo can be personalized with any text you want! A pack of 30 Bin Labels, 16 Canister Labels (pictured) and 52 Spice Labels.
GRAND PRIZE
Annual Membership to Clutterdiet.com
The Clutter Diet® is an innovative online program that helps you “Get Your House in Shape!”® by providing unlimited, direct, personal access to a team of Certified Professional Organizers® for about the price of a pizza. Weekly project plans, hours of audio content and multimedia tutorials, bonus workbooks, and hundreds of searchable articles allow you to get organized online with the pros. There is even a monthly members-only Q&A webinar included with founder Lorie Marrero, along with special member discounts and other features.
Buttoned Up Would.You Pad
We’ve piled more on our plates today than ever before—yet asking for help can be difficult. You’ll be amazed how much more you can cross off your list by enlisting the help of others via the WouldYou.pad. The request has already been made for you, all you have to do is fill in the appropriate blanks and highlight your overall level of gratitude! A perfect addition to kitchen counters everywhere.
Muji Chronotebook
Pocket size notebook. The pages are divided by AM and PM. The left hand side of an open page has a graphic of a white clock which represents AM and on the right hand side has a dark clock which represents PM. Simple but functional, new way to plan your day out.
$10 Alice.com New Customer Coupon
You can probably think of a thousand things you’d rather do than drive to the store again and again for toilet paper, toothpaste, trash bags and the dozens of other home essentials that keep your home running. Enter Alice! You tell Alice what you buy—choosing from great deals on 1000’s of products—and Alice goes to work. We organize all of your products, find coupons and deals for you, remind you when you might be running low, and help you order just the items you need so you can avoid that trip to the corner drugstore or the big-box store. And all this convenience comes direct to your door with free shipping included!
Erin Condren $50 Gift Card
Erin Condren creates beautiful personalized paper products to help you stay organized and look great doing it. Family planners, gift labels, notepads, labels and calendars, all in her signature cheery colors and personalized for you and your family.
Fine Print:
Winners will be picked randomly. You must have a working email address and phone number to accept the prize. All standard rules and regulations apply. This is not transferable. If at any time you violate the rules in the agreement we have the right to revoke the prize.
* We never add you to our mailing list, sell it ,or give it away. You do not need to give us your mailing info unless you win.
* No purchase is necessary to enter any giveaway.
* You must be a*facebook fan* to be eligible for our facebook giveaways.
* One entry per mailing address, except for when you qualify for extra entries.
* You must be 18 years of age to enter any of our giveaways.
* You must be willing to give us your full name, address, and phone number if you are the winner
* We select winner(s) via random.org and will contact the winner via the email address they have given us. The winner has 4 days to respond and we will only attempt to email twice. If we have not heard from the winner within 4 days we will select another winner via random.org. We are not responsible for our emails going into your junk folder.
* we will announce the winners name on our facebook and twitter accounts- if you do not want your name published please do not enter.
* We will share your name and mailing address if another company is sponsoring the giveaway and are shipping the merchandise (for shipping purposes only). We not responsible for third party privacy rules. We *never* share the non-winners’ information, even with a sponsor.
* Specific rules stated in individual giveaways apply.
Mothercraft reserves the right to change or alter these rules at any time, so check back often.
3 comments - Add a comment
Tweet about this post
January 20, 2010
I’ll admit it, I am a recovering food gadget junkie. I used to haunt kitchen supply stores, scanning the shelves for the next “great thing” that promised to take my cooking to new heights. Many a fetching hand-held beauty would come home with me, only to find itself jamming my kitchen drawer or collecting dust in the back of a cupboard. I have since seen the light, and after several kitchen cleanses the gadgets that remain are the tried and true (and often the least expensive). Here are 10 gadgets under $20 that absolutely make me a better cook (including one that will cost you nothing!)
1. Oven Thermometer
You turn the dial to 350 degrees, but is your oven really at 350 degrees? The only way to know for sure is with this low-tech tool that will save you from baking disasters and timing mishaps. If you’ve ever cooked (and cooked, and cooked…) a turkey on thanksgiving while hungry people give you the stink eye, you need one of these, pronto.
2. Silicone Spatula
Say what you will about silicone in your bra, but it’s fabulous in the kitchen. This spatula is heat-resistant and squishy-soft, so it won’t scratch your non-stick pan and wont melt in it either. (I’ve burnt many a plastic spatula in a batch of scrambled eggs— not tasty.)
3. Salt Cellar
Shaker, be gone! The very best way to control your salt intake is to get up close with how much your using. I keep my salt cellar full of kosher salt (milder flavor and better for you than the usual table stuff) and right on the counter so that I can grab a pinch for whatever I have simmering on the stove.
4. Bottle Pour Spout
Like the salt cellar, attaching a spout to your bottle of olive oil or vinegar gives you greater pouring and measuring control. They fit on most bottles you’d buy at the grocery store and they reduce the likelihood that you’ll accidentally glug too much oil into your salad dressing. Plus, it gives you that Molto Mario feeling in the kitchen.
5. Mini Chopper
Before I owned one, I might have dismissed the mini chopper as yet another unnecessary gadget, but it performs two powerful functions in my kitchen: It takes the tears out of chopping onions, and it gives my kids one more way to get involved in the kitchen. They can make fast work of chopping garlic, carrots, or whatever you throw under the blades.
6. Kitchen Timer
This is possibly the most valuable thing I own because in spite of my passion for cooking, I’ve been known to get distracted at the most critical of moments and burn an entire dinner. Whether your boiling an egg or baking a batch of shortbread (and especially if you’re trying to do both at the same time!) your kitchen timer is the most humble and powerful of tools.
7. Silpat Mat
You will never, ever burn your cookie bottoms and nothing ever, ever sticks to it. Enough said.
8. Microplane
I’m not sure what I did before microplane graters— how did I get billowing clouds of parmesan on my gnocchi? How did I annoint my latte with chocolate shavings? There are so many uses for these fabulous tools, you’ll send your old box grater packing.
9. Mandoline
It slices! It dices! It makes you look like a pro in the kitchen! When you need paper-thin cucumber disks, julienned carrots or waffle-cut potatoes, a mandoline makes fast and easy work of it all… just watch your fingers!
10. Empty Jar
This is my most treasured and totally-free kitchen gadget. I have used an empty pickle jar to make every salad dressing my family has eaten for years. Just throw all the ingredients in and shake— no need to whisk to get that perfect emulsion.
2 comments - Add a comment
Tweet about this post
January 19, 2010
I got this email from a mom not long after I launched The Perfect Moms Finish Last Interview Series:
“Carley— Is PMD contagious? Sometimes I’m okay doing what I want, and other times I’m racing around trying to keep up with my friends who have Perfect Mom Disorder, buying what they buy, doing what they do and listening to how they say I’m “supposed to” be parenting my children. Before we hit preschool, it was easier to trust myself, but now it feels like I’m *always* questioning my decisions.” — Jillian K.
Sadly, Jillian, it’s true. PMD is contagious. All the self-assurance in the world won’t inoculate you against the occasional affliction. Why? Because unlike an Ikea bookshelf or your PVR, there’s no instruction manual for motherhood, no way to know if you’re doing it right, and lots of opinions along the way to let you know that you suck at it.
Normally, this wouldn’t rattle you— you’re an intelligent, resourceful woman with a some degree of confidence, right? It’s just that raising your kids is kinda the most monumental, never-ending, mega-important job you’ll ever do. And, once you become a mom, it doesn’t seem to matter what else you’ve accomplished in your work and life: You are judged on how well you do that job above all others.
As a result, we’re all trying to validate our own choices by seeing what other moms are doing. Instead of looking inside ourselves, trusting our intuition and instinct, we’re all looking around, measuring ourselves against others. So what seemed like a solid decision when you made it can suddenly turn humiliating if you’re in the wrong company (Read: moms who have made a different decision than you– and aren’t shy about letting you know).
Listening to the interviews in the Perfect Moms Finish Last Interview Series is like a Z-Pak for your PMD. The personal stories and tips that these 20 fascinating moms share will give you a shot of inspiration for your life. According to these successful moms:
- It’s okay to say “no”
- You don’t always have to be “right
- It’s critical to take time for yourself (unless you enjoy fainting at business meetings and landing yourself in the hospital– true PMFL stories!)
- Pursuing great work outside the home is in the best interest of your kids
- It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about how you parent— you get to write all the rules, and you have the brains and intuition to do it.
(I think they’re on to something.)
These moms offer sage advice and share personal stories that will change how you think about your most-important job. Sign up now, grab all 20 interviews and start listening— Perfect Mom Disorder is like a Z-Pac for your PMD!
Add a comment
Tweet about this post
The Perfect Moms Finish Last series was featured today on Vital Juice : Moms Edition. Vital Juice, a free daily e-mail newsletter and website, brings you the latest must-read information about fitness, nutrition, beauty and wellness. Imagine getting a tip every morning from your healthiest, always in-the-know friend! Vital Juice is all about maintaining a healthy body and mind, so it’s no surprise that they were into speading the word about PMFL, which is all about squashing the pressure to be “perfect” and living life as a healthier you.
