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You Could Win Your Wish List at Growing Tree Toys!

October 24, 2010 By
Plan Toys Chalet

How would you like a chance to win $1000.00 worth of toys? How awesome would that be!! Can you imagine, a THOUSAND dollars worth of high quality educational toys for your kids of any age? Your dream could come true and all you have to do is create a wish list at Growing Tree Toys!

Growing Tree Toys is a family-owned retail store in State College, PA, and a fantastic website for ordering a huge variety of toys, books, games, and so much more! Everything on the site is carefully and thoughtfully selected to be both fun and educational. Brands they carry include Melissa & Doug, Playmobil, Plan Toys, Ravensburger, Lamaze Toys, Schleich, and so many more. If the site says an item is in stock but they can’t ship it right away, it’s FREE! Orders placed before 12:00 p.m. EST ship the same day, and returns are easy and hassle-free. It’s one of my favorite toy websites!

After it was such a success last year, Growing Tree Toys decided to bring back the Win your Wish List contest! Anyone who creates or edits a wish list at GrowingTreeToys.com from Oct. 1-31, 2010 is eligible to win – up to $1,000 in toys!  Just register for the site, start browsing for items you’d like, and click “Add to Wish List” on each item’s page. Add as few or as many as you like – it’s fun knowing that this could be the items you will win!

I had tons of fun creating my dream wish list, there are so many things I would love to get for Kaitlyn but that are out of my price range. Here are a few of the things I put on my wish list:

Plan Toys Chalet Dollhouse With Furniture ($206.95) – Our library has a Plan Toys Dollhouse and Kaitlyn runs straight to it every time we go there. Considering how many kids have played with it over the years, the dollhouse, dolls and accessories are holding up really well. I know Kaitlyn would have hours of fun playing with it!

Playmobil Horse Farm ($99.99) – Kaitlyn LOVES Playmobil, especially anything farm-related. She loves moving the little figures around and having her other little toy figures come to visit :)  I know she would love pretending that the two horses that come with this set are the Mommy and the Daddy and that the pony is their Baby.  We have some Playmobil animals from our Advent Calendar set that I’m sure would move right in!

Land of the Fairies Glitter Jigsaw Puzzle by Ravensburger ($12.95) – She started with 9 piece puzzles, then 24, then 63, and now my almost-5 year old daughter can put together 100 piece puzzles by herself!   I was so surprised the first time she said “Mama, come look”, and she was showing me the 100 piece Fancy Nancy puzzle she had put together with no help!  I chose this puzzle for the Wish List because it has another of Kaitlyn’s favorite things – Fairies. And Glitter! This would be a huge hit and would be put together and taken apart pretty much daily!

Hurry, the contest ends October 31st 2010. Have fun and good luck!

disclosure: As a member of the Growing Tree Toys Blog Network, I am eligible for a Blog Network-specific contest: a chance to win one of three gift cards. I’ll earn 1 entry into the contest for making my wish list and writing this post, and up to 3 bonus entries for linking to my favorite toys on your list.

Filed Under: Contests Tagged With: , , , ,

KT Tunstall’s Tiger Suit CD Review

October 22, 2010 By
Tiger_Suit_cover

The name might not be familiar, but I bet you’ve heard one of her previous hit songs, like the Grammy-nominated “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” “Suddenly I See,” Other Side of the World” or “Hold On“. Tiger Suit heralds the beginning of a new musical adventure for KT Tunstall. Organic instrumentation is blended with dance-friendly textures, the results of which she has dubbed “Nature Techno” to encapsulate the album’s collision of raw, upfront rootsiness and sleek electronic textures.

“Tiger Suit” marks KT’s third studio album and heralds the beginning of a new musical adventure for the multi-platinum, Scottish-born singer and songwriter. I received a copy from One2One Network for review, and gave it a thorough listen before writing this. While none of the songs on “Tiger Suit” felt as powerful to me as “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” or “Suddenly I See”, I think with a few more listens, it will grow on me. My favorite song so far is “Push That Knot Away”, here’s the video for it:

Why Tiger Suit? I got this from the Amazon.com page for the CD – KT Tunstall has had a recurring dream since she was a child. She sees a tiger in her garden and goes outside to stroke it. She returns indoors and is seized by the fear that she could have been killed. Over the years, it has occurred to her that the reason the tiger responds so passively is that she herself is disguised as a tiger. That she is wearing a tiger suit.

Track List:

1. Uummannaq Song
2. Glamour Puss
3. Push That Knot Away
4. Difficulty
5. Fade Like a Shadow
6. Lost
7. Golden Frames
8. Come On, Get In
9. (Still A) Weirdo
10. Madame Trudeaux
11. The Entertainer

BUY IT: Amazon.com has two super-affordable options – you can buy the Tiger Suit
CD for an amazingly low $11.88, or get the Tiger Suit (CD/DVD) [AMAZON EXCLUSIVE VERSION] for $14.99. If you have a KT Tunstall fan on your Holiday Gift List, pick this up now!

disclosure: As part of the One2One Network; I received a free copy of this album for review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are 100% mine. The Amazon.com links in this post are affiliate links and I earn a commission on any sales.

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: , , ,

Smelly Towel Cleaner Review

October 22, 2010 By
Smelly Towel Cleaner

Okay, it has a funny name,  but the thing is, it WORKS.  My husband kept telling me I was just being overly sensitive, that the towels didn’t really smell like mildew, but they did.  I was constantly re-washing towels because I hated stepping out of the shower, picking up what I thought was a clean towel, and having it smell like mildew! Who wants to smell like that?  Finally one day he pulled a clean towel out of the linen closet and said ‘oh, you’re right, this does smell like mildew’.   I hated being right about that!

I had no idea what we were doing wrong. We were washing towels on Warm with a Cold rinse, even though we used Cold/Cold for everything else. I tried setting the dryer hotter, instead of the energy-efficient setting I usually used. No matter what I did, the towels just stunk.

So then one day I get an email from a guy who wants to know if I’ll review a product called Smelly Towel Cleaner and I replied back “um, YES PLEASE.”   It arrived in the mail, I grabbed an armful of towels and marched down to the laundry room.  Inside the jar I found a pale pink powder, and on the back the directions said to add one teaspoon to a load of towels along with my regular detergent. So I did, setting the washer on Warm/Cold.

When they were done, they went right into the dryer, and when the buzzer went off, I grabbed one and took a big sniff. It smelled CLEAN! Woo hoo! But the real test for me was, how would the towel smell after it cooled down, got folded, and sat in the linen closet for a couple of days?  So a few days later I opened the linen closet, pulled a towel off the stack, and put it up to my nose. STILL FRESH!  Hooray!

Seriously, I know it seems goofy to be so excited about this, but after months of weird smelling towels, it was so nice to finally have them smell clean again!   Smelly Towel Cleaner is made by the same company that makes Smelly Washer Cleaner, and their blog says that what makes clothes and towels smell musty or mildewy is bacteria building up inside the washer. The culprits are always using cold water which doesn’t kill germs inside the washer, and leaving the lid of the washer down instead of leaving it open so the washer can dry out.  I was guilty of both.

So thanks, SmellyWasher.com, for sending me Smelly Towel Cleaner and making it pleasant to smell my towels again! LOL

Filed Under: House & Home Tagged With: , , ,
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