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!

As many of you know, we remodeled our basement this last summer, so we had some extra room in the house. We now have a huge play area for the kids. However, even though the basement itself is warm, the floor is freezing cold. We have been looking for sandals and/or slippers for Will that he wouldn’t easily be able to take off. We found the perfect match with the Polliwalks shoes. These shoes are not only cute, but extremely functional too. For the winter time, we got him the puppy dog shoes. They are super warm for him. I love that the bottoms are nonstick. We have hardwood floors upstairs which also get very cold in the winter. I can never put him in socks, because he either doesn’t leave the socks on or he slips and falls wherever he tries to go. With these shoes, he can’t easily get them off (though I can easily get them on), and he isn’t falling all over. He also is a huge puppy fan right now, so he loves them just because they are puppies.

Now, for the summer (or when we can’t find his puppy shoes), we got him the Fish Shoes. I love them. These shoes include the back straps that ensure that they stay on your little ones feet. It also makes it super easy to adjust for a custom fit for your kids’ feet. They are super easy to get on and my son has yet to try and take them off.  The fish lips change color when exposed to UV rays of the sun too!  How cool is that?  Right now, these are only in select Dillards stores and online at Zappos.com.  They will be available at all of their retailers in Jan/Feb.

Overall, I am impressed with the Polliwalks shoes that we got. They are made out of high quality material, and try as he might, my son has not figured out how to wreck them yet. They are cute and can definitely take a beating. These are shoes that will easily be passed down from kid to kid and still look great!  Now, since these are so great, I want to offer pair to one of my lucky readers!

1. Leave a comment on this post.  Check out the Polliwalks site and tell me which pair of Polliwalks shoes you would want.
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
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For 5 additional entries,

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This giveaway will end on December 14 at 8:00 pm CST is available to US residents only. Good luck!

If you are looking for a unique gift for either yourself or your family, then allPopart is a place you need to check out.  They take pictures that you send in and turn them into beautiful pieces of art.  We personally chose the 4 panel Warhol style for the kids pictures.  However, they have so many styles to choose from that you can easily spend an hour or two deciding what you want (trust me, I know from experience).  The next hardest part after deciding what style is deciding what pictures to use!  Once you have those two decisions made, the rest is breeze.  Everybody loves this picture.  Madison thinks it is the coolest thing ever to have this on the wall.  Will just says “see” to everybody, so they look at it.  I am currently waiting for Bill to hand it in the basement.  However, for now, I have it on the ledge:

It loks awesome there too, and it completely goes with the color scheme we have down there.  I have had several people already ask where we got it from!  This is an excellent heirloom to pass down and a great way to mark your children’s youth.  I highly recommend allPopart for their quality and for their customer service.  I am 100% satisfied and have told everyone they need to get some art for their house from allPopart!

If you have anyone in on your Christmas shopping list that you don’t know what to get them, a Cloud 9 Living gift certificate is the perfect gift.  This is like no gift certificate that you have ever have given or received.  Instead of getting something, your person gets to chose an experience, and there are over 1,700 experiences to choose from using their gift certificate.  You can choose everything from dinner cruises to cooking classes to racing Nextel Cup Style Stockcars to hot air balloon rides.  There is truly something for everyone.  You can buy certificates as low as $40 all the way up to $100,000.  80% of the experiences are under $500 and 50% of experiences are under $200.  Cloud 9 Living has partnered with companies like Land Rover, BMW, and ESPN Golf School to ensure that you have an excellent experience.  Some more experiences you can pick from include the CSI Experience (now, my birthday is in March if anyone would like to get me that), drive a stockcar, walking food tours, helicopter tours, bull riding lessons, segway tours, chef for a day, trapeze lessons, etc.  Some of the VIP experiences include star in your own film, formula one racing, golf with a PGA Pro, and flying a Russion MIG.

If you want to give a gift that noone will forget, Cloud 9 Living is the way to go.  Instead of “stuff”, you are able to give an experience of a lifetime.

Over the past week or so, I have been reading an awesome book called The Secret of Wellington’s Map.  Granted, this isn’t my normal reading genre (usually if I can get a few minutes away I pick up Stephen King or Dean R Koontz book), but you know what?  I enjoyed this book just as much as I do books by those authors (though I think this book would be considered in either the sci-fi or mystery genre).  I would say that The Secret of Wellington’s Map is probably geared towards the ten and up crowd.  However, as an adult, I truly enjoyed the book too.  I found the author’s style a joy to read, and she really caught the essence of teenage girls in this book.  I also enjoyed finding a book that girls are the heroines.  The other thing I liked is that even though the main characters are teenage girls, they weren’t boy crazy.  Granted, there were a few boy mentions, but their lives didn’t revolve around boys.  The author had the girls talking, acting, and dressing like teenage girls, so I found them very believable.  There is also a bit of real life history intertwined into the story.

The story centers around two girls, Jaime and Nicole, that had expected a carefree summer.  However, after they come across a magic map, they go on an adventure of a lifetime.  I hate to go into more of a synopsis of the book, because I don’t want to spoil any part of it for you.  I will tell you that the map is somewhat of a time space portal, and they do go through it and end up in 1885.  However, if you want to find out why and if they make it back, you have to go read the book!