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Organizing, Money and musicMagpie: a Sponsored Post

April 11, 2013 By Maryann

I have been compensated for the following post.

Problems

Now that I am finally starting to feel like a human being again, the two older boys are in school full time and littlest man is capable of playing on his own, I have decided to tackle something that has been a real annoyance to me. And that is getting this house in order. We moved in 5 years ago and we still have things in boxes! The kids toys take over everything and we have a lot of plain ole stuff. I’ve really set my mind to purging and pairing down to try to make our home feel less cluttered and more organized; more livable.

So what did I find in some of those unopened boxes we have been storing all these years? DVD’s, CD’s and Games. Obviously I don’t need them since I haven’t even missed them, but what the heck was I going to do with them? I hate to just throw things out since they are still in good condition and I NEVER want to contribute to our landfill problems, so I went in search of other ideas of what to do with them.

IDEAS

1. turn them into CD or DVD art using a microwave? Maybe not. I found out the fumes let off from microwaving a CD are toxic. I don’t need that.

2. turn them into a disco ball? Sounds like a great idea, but really, how many disco balls can a girl have?

3. turn them into guitar picks? But I don’t play guitar.

Solutions

As you can see I wasn’t coming up with any good ideas, then I saw something called musicMagpie. musicMagpie allows you to make money off your old CD’s, DVD’s and Games. You simply enter the bar code off your CD, DVD or Game (minimum of 10) , pack up your items and ship them to musicMagpie using their free shipping labels and either UPS or USPS. Once the items have been accepted by musicMagpie you will be cut a check! It is that easy.

I love the idea of cleaning up the house, recycling my CD’s, DVD’s and Games, AND getting paid to do it. musicMagpie even has a convenient app you can use to scan your CD’s, DVD’s or Games, edit your details and check on the status of your check.

Wordless Wednesday – Matthew

March 27, 2013 By Maryann

Matthew asked that I put up his picture. So here are a few that I snapped after we went swimming. Excuse the crazy hair!

Eye Can Art Review

March 5, 2013 By Maryann

I love art. Do you? There is something about creating art that just releases the soul and makes you feel joyful. At least that is the way with me. Whenever I am around art supplies I need to touch them and I want to feel the weight of them in my hand. Their amazing textures, their smells, everything about art supplies makes me feel good.

Eye Can Art has this really cool Collage Print Making Kit ( one of 8 kits) that I had to try out with Lorenzo. Lorenzo is 3 so I helped him a bit but he was so interested in the kit. He and I have taken some mommy and me type art classes through Recreations and Parks so I suspected he would be really excited about the Eye Can Art kit. The neat thing about this kit is that it really has everything you need to create a piece of art. The Eye Can Art Collage Print Making Kit contains a glue stick, instructions, tag board and paper, printing ink (2 colors), crayon, brayer (roller), and scissors. The only thing we needed was newspaper to cover our work area, a plate or cookie sheet to roll the paint on and some creativity.

The instructions suggested making a face and I thought this was a brilliant idea for a child Lorenzo’s age. Children need to know how to recognize faces and the different parts of a face. This was actually something we worked on with Matthew during speech and occupational therapy. Lorenzo used the crayon to draw the shape of the head and I cut it out for him using the scissors provided. He then drew the other shapes on the remaining tag board and I cut them for him. I helped him apply glue to the pieces and then let him adhere them to the face. After we let it dry for a few minutes I helped him use the roller to ink the collage. Then we used it to make a print on one of the papers we were provided with. We used the brayer to apply the other color to make the halo effect.

This was loads of fun. So much so, that I had to make my own collage print. I decided to stray from the face theme and made a cityscape. I love how it turned out. It reminds me of island art. It has depth and a primitive quality to it. I can not wait to get my hands on it again and create more art. Eye Can Art would make a fantastic gift for any child, or even adult, that likes to dabble in art but maybe doesn’t know where to begin.

I was provided with the Eye Can Art Collage Print Making Kit to facilitate my review. All Opinions are my own.

The Fairy Hobmother has visited me!

March 4, 2013 By Maryann

If you don’t already know who the Fairy Hobmother is, let me enlighten you. He is this awesome fairy guy that goes around the internet looking for really cool and interesting blogs to visit. Usually he gives the blogger a little something under the table *wink wink* to talk about the business of his fairy overlords. Oddly they are inappliances, who knew? Anyway, I was lucky enough to have the Fairy Hobmother “pay” me a visit. After spending a little time talking with him I started to get a real good idea of what he looks like in real life. I keep seeing these other posts about him and they always have him dressed in these silly fairy outfits, carrying a wand and stuff. But I know that isn’t true. I mean, he has overlords! Overlords do not allow their workers to carry wands and “twinkle” about.

No, they have guys that look like this working for them.

They have mayhem. See, this Fairy Hobmother is one rough and tumble kind of guy. Think Michael Madsen. But he is smart and sexy and the kind of guy you want working for you, if you happen to be a fairy overlord. Or at least I would. So if you want the Fairy Hobmother to stop by and um “pay” you a visit, leave him a message in the comments. I heard, from a very good source, that he likes to keep track of things and reads all the comments. And don’t be surprised if his overlords take notice of you too!

This is a sponsored post and I have received compensation.