Design a Heavenly Pet Wardrobe is one of the really cool products on the market that is geared towards older girls (8+). It allows them to design clothing and accessories for 5 paper dogs and embellish with the included glitter, ribbons, sequins, and stickers. You can make over a hundred different pet fashions with this! I love that it requires them to use their imagination. It is one of those gifts that you never know where it may lead. You may find you have a design in your midst. Also, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this item goes to the SPCA International.

English Style Equestrian Sketch Book is a great book for any horse rider or lover (8+). This design guide allows you to design your own horses, riding gear, jodhpurs, boots, saddles, and more for dressage, polo, and general riding fun.  It includes 40 English-themed sketch pad pages, markers, colored pencils, eraser, sharpener, and design guide.  A portion of the proceeds from this goes towards the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Wild Horse and Burro Program.

The Project Runway Fashion Design Challenge Sketchbook is right from the awesome show. The spinner in this kit tells you where to start. The next step is to design a garment based on an endless combination of challenges such as creating a formal gown out of a garbage bag in 30 minutes. This comes with colored pencils, 2 fashion sketch pads, style guide, and pencil sharpener. You are only competing against yourself, but it definitely forces you to be creative.

Project Runway Shoe Design Sketch Book allows you to design a fun and fashionable shoe collection. The sketch book teaches you the history of shoes. You also are able to design your own line of footwear, and you are able to personalize your creations. Included in this kit are 2 sketch pads, 12 colored pencils, and a design guide.

Project Runway Graphic T-Shirt Design Studio Set allows you to make your own custom made shirts. It has a style to help you out, but the creation is all up to you. This includes 6 fabric markers, the Cooler Jeweler Tool (gem and stud setting tool), 50 gems, 50 studs, 2 yards of metallic ribbon, stencils, patterns, design guide and more!

The great thing with all of these kits is that it requires the child to think and use every ounce of creativity they have. The best part is that they are having fun while they do it, and there is not one battery involved.  I found all of these products to be high quality and would recommend the Fashion Angels line to everyone!

This giveaway is over. Congrats to Kimberly and Janet F. I will be contacting your shortly!

I am quite use to living with hard water.  When I lived in Wisconsin and when we lived in Aurora, we had hard water.  Hard water is tough on a lot of things.  However, one of the places you can really see it is in your bathroom.  You will often find you have what looks like soap scum that you just can’t remove.  That is where CLR Bathroom and Kitchen Cleaner comes into play.  When we lived in Aurora, we used this cleaner every time we cleaned the tub.  It was the only thing that take the “scum” we had off.  I can only highly recommend it.  Now that we live in a suburb of Chicago, we don’t have that problem quite as much.  However, over the last couple of months, I have noticed that something is definitely going with our water.  When you get water out of the tap, it is very cloudy (not sure what is causing that).  I have also noticed that we are starting to get that “soap scum” again.  I decided to pull out our go to fix:  CLR Bathroom and Kitchen Cleaner.  Guess what?  It got rid of the mess in the tub yet again.  I love this product, and I can only give it high reviews.  Best of all, CLR has earned the EPA’s Designed for the Environment designation, so you know that it contains no phosphates, ammonia or bleach.

That being said,  I am giving away two Cleaning Bucket prize packs!  The Bucket will include CLR’s entire line of products and various tools to help you clean your house.  Here’s what you need to do:

1. Leave a comment on this post. Check out their products here and tell me which ones you need in your house.
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. Stumble this post. If you don’t know what Stumble Upon is, please read Lori’s post at Blogging Cents. She explains it extremely well.
4. Add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

For 5 additional entries,

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
2. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
3. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed
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This giveaway will end on December 17 at 8:00 pm CST is available to US and Canada residents. Good luck!

Since I have a toddler, I thought the Toddler Tools book line would be perfect for my house.

Listening Time is a great book for teaching your kids about how to be good listeners.  Both my eighteen month old and four year old like to read it.  It is a board book, so it can’t be destroyed either.  I love that it also helps to work on body parts too.  The illustrations in this book are great, and really get across what we want our children to do.  There is also humor intertwined into the story.  It is short enough that it definitely keeps even the shortest attention spans entertained.

Bye Bye Time is another board book that is good for those really hard times when we have to say bye to our kids.  It teaches our children how to comfort themselves when they are sad that we are leaving.  There is also advice at the end of the book parents and caregivers to make this transition easier like prepping your child and to be ready for tears.  The illustrations in this book are great too.  Madison can tell me the story without being able to read it (which is a huge plus).

Naptime is another great book in this series. Like the other books, this is board book. It also has the tips in the back of the book to help parents and caregivers with naptime.  I personally learned that Will should be getting one nap daily lasting 1 – 2 hours, and he should be getting 10 – 12 hours of sleep a night.  This book is all about a naptime routine and getting your little one down for some much needed rest.  Now, if this would only work on a 4 year old.    She likes the book; it just has not motivated her to take a nap (she quit naps at 18 months).

The last book in this series is Clean Up Time. That is something we all need at our houses.  This book rhymes, so it makes it all the more fun to clean up.  This too is a board book and also has the tips at the end to help parents and caregivers.  I personally agree with the “break it down” tip.  Will doesn’t often get overwhelmed at cleaning up; he just thinks it is a game.  However, Madison gets extremely overwhelmed if someone does not help her.  By breaking down what you are going to do (pick up the blocks first), it takes away from how huge of project it is going to be.

This Toddler Tools series is a great bunch of books.  They are books that are hard to destroy and have great lessons in them.  I highly recommend them in anyone who has a toddler in their house.

Another affordable toy out there on the markets this year can be purchased at Macy’s. At $14.99, Skoodlez makes a great toy for your kids or a grab bag, and can be given to kids 4 – 12. The stuffed animal has weighed down hands and feet, so you can easy pose them and hang them.  The cool part is that there is a coin handing around the stuffed animals neck.  You take the code off the coin and use that to access the online world.  On the site, children are challenged to create their own stories.  There are three different settings, so you can taylor it to your child’s age.  Beginner is from 4 – 6, medium is from 7 – 9, and advanced is 10 – 12.  When they finish their story, they can share them Skoodlez community.  They can also print them out.

This makes the perfect gift for the kid who has everything.  The Everday Skoodlez line includes fifteen animals:  hippo, cat, dog, mouse, duck, lion, tiger, leopard, panda, bear, zebra, giraffe, monkeys, and elephant.  There is also twenty four holiday ones.  They is definitely something here for everyone.

Did you know that Baby Einstien has been around for 10 years?  I can’t believe it either.  Granted, my oldest child is only going to be five, so I’ve only been able to enjoy them for half the time they have been around.  That being said I love baby Einstein and all of their products.  We own a ton of Baby Einstein DVDs and books.  I can totally see how they are the #1 selling infant DVD line.  The best part of their DVDs is that they are timeless.  Madison will still watch the DVDs with her little brother Will (who is now 18 months old).  Their DVDs are some of the best ones out there in my opinion.  Not only do they entertain your children, they also learn from them. You can easily interact with your children and talk about what’s on the screen.  It is almost amazing how memorized little kids get while watching these DVDs.  I also love that their music collection.  We have used their Lullaby Classics CD with both of my children.  Baby Enstein’s book collection is also great.  Their books are very interactive.  They include your children as part of the story and require your children to interact with the book.  For example, in Touch and Feel Farm animals, they are able to feel a sheep’s wool, a cow’s nose, and a horses mane.  Will is very much into textures right now, so this is one of his favorite books. Madison still reads their See and Spy shapes book!  Each page asks you to look for a count certain items, and no matter how many times we do it, she still loves it!

Having been a huge fan of Baby Einstein for 5 years, I can only tell you that I highly recommend all of their products.  We have yet to have a product of theirs that we didn’t like.  Their products make great presents for you kids, a baby shower, or just for the fun of it.