BuildASign.com Giveaway

**This giveaway is now CLOSED**

Let’s start the week off right with another giveaway! This giveaway is being sponsored by BuildASign.com.

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BuildASign.com makes custom high quality signage, stickers, banners and license plates at a great price. Their signs are printed on high quality materials with some of the most advanced printing equipment available. Their design tool lets you design your own custom signs, even upload your own images.

There are so many things to choose from that could be useful for your family. We were lucky enough to be able to test out one of their products. We ordered a custom road sign for the boys’ room. They love it! I had a much more asthetic placement in mind for the sign in their room, but they wanted to diplay it on their bookshelf with their other “trophies”. So I conceded and let them decorate their own space (to a certain degree mind you).

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Today you will get a chance to win one of the following from BuildASign.com.

a choice of their Custom Street Signs, Vinyl Banners, Personalized License Plates, or Custom Bumper Stickers

To enter, simply head on over to the links above and have a look around. Then come back here and tell us what you would choose if you were to win this giveaway! Only one entry per person and remember to leave a way for us to contact you should you win.

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This giveaway will end of Friday, 14 at 11:59 pm PT. Thanks BuildASign.com for the fun giveaway and good luck to all!

Leap Frog Kids Camera Giveaway

**This giveaway is now CLOSED**

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Guess what? We have another awesome giveaway today! This time it is a Leap Frog Camera. My kids and I were lucky enough to be able to test one out for ourselves. Can I tell you how much my kids LOVED this.

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My kids always see me behind the camera and are always asking if they can take a picture with my camera. Well…I let them but hover over them like a hawk making sure they have a good hold on it. It kind of takes the fun out of their picture taking experience.

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So, they couldn’t believe it when I handed them their very own camera and told them to go and take some pictures. They had so much fun taking pictures of things that were important to them.

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But, one of the best parts for me was looking through their pictures. I got a good laugh at several of their photos. One child stood in front of the mirror and took several self portraits. I loved the insight it gave me into their shorter perspectives and view points. I especially loved seeing what they thought to take a picture of. The only thing I did not like was that the flash seemed a bit too strong. It tended to wash out the subject if the kids held the camera too close to it while indoors. The quality of the photos were fairly good considering the camera has a fixed focus and was being held by a bouncy, excited child!

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And well…Today you are going to get the opportunity to win one for your very own. First you need to be a follower. Then just leave a comment and tell us about your favorite photo a child of yours has taken or one of your own favorite photos. That’s it! This giveaway will close on Friday, May 7 at 11:59 pm.

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We really liked this Leap Frog camera. It is very durable and sturdy. It fits perfectly in little hands. My kids spent quite a bit of time outside looking for things to take a picture of. They also helped me upload the pictures and were able to do it all by themselves.

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Here are a few facts about this camera:

-Digital camera with interactive software – $49.99 SRP
-‘Talking’ Camera focuses kids by saying, ‘Smile for the Camera’, ‘Say Cheese,’ ‘Great Shot’, ‘Bye Bye’, etc…
-Software created by award-winning developer APTE will include extensive creative writing area, ‘book writing’ templates (ie – book about me, things I think are silly, my favorite things), games – concentration, I see (like ‘Eye Spy), visual special relations-type game.
-Children can easily upload their photos and import them into the various sections of the software to become part of the games/stories.
-For ages 4+ – depending on skill and reading ability, some kids will be able to do with little or no help from parents, younger children might see this as a fun activity to do with mom & dad.
Camera mold is unique, 2.1MP and all developed in conjunction with LeapFrog dedicated ‘Domain Experts.’

Marcie Jessie Photography Giveaway


Hey bloggers! My name is Marcie Jessee and I am a wife to a fabulous hard-working hunksband and a mom to three incredibly energetic children ages 4 to 7 months :)
When I’m not cooking, cleaning or crafting you’ll find me taking pictures – I’m a semi-professional family, child and newborn photographer in Utah County, Utah. I LOVE my job :)

Hopefully you all have been following the recent posts from Kristen Duke, and have been brushing up on your photography skills, because now we’re going to put them to work.

I want to talk about one of my favorite subjects: Cheap DIY wall art. I’m currently a renter (boo!) surrounded by boring white walls. I dream of my future lime green kitchen and rustic red living room … but until then, I plan and scheme wall art (you know, the only landlord-approved way of adding color and personality to my boring perma-white walls!)

The easiest way to add interest and pizzazz to your walls is using a tool I’m pretty sure you all have: A camera. Point and shoot or DSLR, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is your subject and your set-up. So let’s get started!

Picking a subject:
I want you to look at that blank wall in your house and ask yourself:
What inspires me in this room?
What is the feel of this space?
What do I want to surround myself with here?

For me, in my kitchen, my inspiration is fruit. I love fruit and I love to cook with fruit. I love the colors of fruit. So guess what I’m gonna do? I’m going to take pictures of fruit. Yep. Me and fruit are having a photoshoot.

See:

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Maybe, you’ll say you’re inspired by pictures you have from your family vacation. They don’t have to be perfect professional pictures. You won’t care about the imperfections, what matters is that he subject matter inspires you.
Here is another way I could decorate my wall, this time using pictures from our summer trips to the berry farm:

Try this in every room of your house. Choose pictures of your family
for the living room, pictures of sewing supplies in your craft room,
architecture for the office and flowers for the kids room. Taking the
time to creatively arrange some everyday items into something
beautiful will create one-of-a-kind wall art that showcases your
family in a way that no store-bought picture could do :)

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Now that you have your subject chosen, and you’ve had a personal photoshoot with the cakes, fabric or family that you will be framing for your wall, let’s talk about the set-up.

You have basically three different (affordable) options
when hanging pictures on a wall: My personal favorite is to have them
mounted on either gatorboard or foam core board. This gives a classy,
modern appeal and is surprisingly affordable (not to mention easy to
hang since you’re not dealing with heavy picture frames).
Here is a psuedo mock-up of a living room with mounted pictures:

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Or you could go the picture frame route. This could be a great
solution for those of you who don’t feel confidant behind the camera.
Printing smaller pictures (say 5×7) and placing them in frames with
large mats gives an instant high-art appearance to what would
otherwise be normal snapshots. This works especially great with black
and white pictures.

See what I mean:

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Just a design note: Unless you are going the large mat route you
really do NOT want to put a picture smaller than 8×10 on your wall.
Even then only use 8×10′s when combined with other larger prints.
Trust me on this one. Bigger is always better in photography
wall displays.

And your third (affordable) option is to get creative. I’ve seen walls
covered with magnetic paint with fabulous magnets for picture hanging,
or wire strung along the wall with clothespins for photo holders. Use
your imagination and think outside of the box :) If you’re still feeling stuck and you’re unsure of what to photograph and then how to arrange it on the wall, check out these helpful links for some inspiration:

Decorating with Photos
DIY Network
Better Homes and Gardens
HP Tips

Thanks for sticking with me to the very end! Now for just one more thing about me: I heart giveaways! SOooo I’m offering a **free** photography session to anyone in the Utah County area (or anyone who might visit the area or anyone who would like to gift their win to a friend/family member local to Utah County). You can book either a child, family (up to 8 people) or senior portrait session, to be taken before October 2010. I’ll give you a hi-res CD with all of your edited photos, with copyright release for printing. And since I would feel bad about leaving out all of you outside of Utah, I’m offering a secondary giveaway: A CD with copyright release for 25 of my photographs that you can use for decorating, crafting … you name it! Pictures vary from flowers to buildings to fruit to landscapes.

SO, here’s how it works:

One comment telling me what you would like to win (what type of session or the CD of free-use pictures) Another separate entry for blogging/tweeting or facebooking about the giveaway :)

And just so you can get a feel for my
photography style, here are some pics of my favorite people:

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Thanks Amy for letting me steal your blog today, and good luck everyone :) This giveaway will close on Saturday, May 1 at 11:59 pm PT.