Magic Years Nursery

Posts Tagged ‘birthdays’

You have your baby’s first birthday gift shopping list penned, now it’s time to check it twice! The list is only the starting point. Even with a list in hand you are unprepared to navigate the shopping land mine. The next step for seasoned shoppers is research. You know what your toddler wants, but it is easy to become distracted by other gifts that are just too cute. If you have created your list with care then the treasure chest, easy bake oven and red wagon will be just the right stuff.

Research begins with sale advertisements. Get your hands on as many of those sale circulars as you can and begin to read. Find out what is on sale; amend your list if necessary. A word of caution here: don’t let a good sale draw you off target.

Holiday Shopping Diva Secret: Hold the course

If your list is complete, and each child on it is well supplied with gifts to fulfill their birthday fantasies don’t be tempted to add to it. At a certain point one more gift becomes gluttony. I had a friend who made this her mistake. She just could not pass up the good deals. Sometimes, the children have so much to open they got bored, asked when they could be finished and eventually they simply stopped opening gifts. Abandoning wrapped packages, they went off to play.

The unopened gifts were scooped back into hiding and made their debuts for birthdays the following year. Some even survived a yearlong hibernation to re-emerge the following year. My friend confided in me that she even had more gifts than what she and her husband had chosen. They had already decided they had gone way over board and never even brought some gifts out.

Holiday Shopping Diva Secret: Research-based choices

As you research, you will find many good deals. Carefully decide if it is the deal or the gift that is too good to pass up. If the gift itself is perfect, then adjust your list substituting appropriately. This is one advantage to doing the research before you begin shopping. Your list becomes the super list! You will know that not only are you getting the best possible toys for your baby, toddler or teen, but that you are also getting amazing deals.

After you have combed the sale ads and you know where your best deals are, arrange your list in some sort of priority pattern. If the Radio Flyer wagon is the most important item, then you had better put it at the top. If saving money is your number one goal then the priority list needs to be arranged by the best deals.

To further boost success you can group items together by location. This prevents the need for second trips because you forgot something. It could happen in the excitement of scoring that coveted train table for Joshua, that you forget the baby cradle for Lucy. This means you’ll have to go back to the same store again.

Saving time and money can be done effortlessly with an intention to do so, in a fun manner and easy manner. After all, buying birthday presents should be fun for the gift-buyer, too.

Buying baby gifts online can save all the hassle of fighting the local mall crowd. Enjoy baby gift coupons and free shipping (lower 48 states) at SimplyUniqueBabyGifts.com for even more savings and discounts.

Throwing a sports themed baby shower is becoming more and more popular, especially among young parents in their twenties and thirties. Not only are sports fan baby showers a blast, but they are also very easy to decorate for. You can really do a lot with a sports theme baby shower; from the food you cater to the decorations you use, sports themes are pretty easy to plan.

Although sports themed baby showers are usually held for baby boys, there is no rule that says that one cant have one for a baby girl. This theme is usually reflective of the parents more than the expected baby. Some young couples are huge sports fans, and decide to focus their baby shower on their favorite sport or team.

College graduates often decide to theme their babys shower after their college sports teams, and invite many of their fellow colleagues and friends. In fact, a sports theme is great for a coed or a couples baby shower. Sports themed baby showers can be focused on a specific sport, a favorite college or professional league team, or can be a general sports party.

If you decide to have a general, broad sports theme, you will have an easy time decorating the shower. Balloons, streamers, and decorative posters come in a wide array of shapes and sizes that have to do with sports. There are many football, basketball, baseball, and soccer decorations out there that you can find in party decorating stores. Balloons often come in the shapes of sporting goods like basketballs, soccer balls, footballs, baseballs, and baseball bats. For a sports medley theme, combine several of these balloons and arrange and distribute them throughout your party space.

A really cool idea that will really set a basketball atmosphere is to use basketball hoops that you can stick on the walls to decorate the place. Use black tape to form a court design on the floor, and buy toy basketballs that your guests can play with. You can even use these items to set up a mini basketball game. Everyone will definitely enjoy playing real basketball as a baby shower game!

For a baseball theme, use green and orange rugs to create a floor setting that resemble a baseball court. Use real baseball bases and set them up in the room. Have baseball and baseball bat balloons all over the room, and buy toy baseballs and baseball bats for a mini game.

You can use similar ideas for football and soccer. For instance, for soccer, set up a goal net and give out toy soccer balls to your guests. For football and soccer, you can use green rugs or a green floor overlay and white tape to create the illusion of a court.

Remember to hang up banners and posters to add to the theme. It is also good to have some pompoms on hand to give out to the girls. A cute idea for centerpieces and prizes are trophies. These will look fabulous on your tables and your guests will love to take one home!

Today, it seems as if every celebrity is designing and marketing his or her own perfume. Cosmetics and fragrances are among the three most profitable consumer products in the United States. Fragrances, perfumes, and colognes are more popular now than ever, and the act of designing your own perfume has become a recent trend. This trend does not only have to apply to the business world or the celebrity atmosphere.

You can design, make, bottle, decorate your very own perfume to your taste, and give out mini fragrances as party favors at your baby shower. There are many fragrance companies and labs that provide all the necessary ingredients and materials and offer their facilities for a fee. You can also decide to make your perfume on your own, purchase all the necessary ingredients, and complete the whole process in the comfort of your own home. Which ever route you decide to go in, there are a few basics that you should know before you make your own fragrance for your baby shower party favors.

First of all, perfumes have three components: the essential oils, alcohol, and water. Essential oils are the natural components derived from plants that will give your perfume its fragrance; they carry specific scents that you can choose from when making your own perfume. Now, there is such a thing called fragrance oil that you can also use instead of essential oils.

Essential oils and fragrance oils have pros and cons. Although fragrance oils have a significantly lower cost and have a wide variety of scents, essential oils carry health benefits derived from the plants, and, some people argue that essential oils are necessary for top quality perfume. Really, whether you use essential oils or fragrance oils is completely up to you and your preference. Perfume alcohol is pretty hard to find in most countries, so most of the time, people use 100 proof vodka for the alcohol component in the perfume.

The water component cannot just be tap water; it will need to be spring or distilled water. The ratio of the components can vary slightly depending on how strong you desire your fragrance to be, but a rough estimate of the ratio goes as follows: about 15-35% essential or fragrance oils, 70-85% 100 proof alcohol (perfume alcohol or vodka, preferably), and 5% spring or distilled water.

If you are going to make your fragrance at home, a first suggestion is to read up on the different notes of a perfume. Perfumes have four kids of notes: base, middle, top, and bridge notes. Base notes last the longest on your skin and remain strongest when the other notes fade. Middle notes stand out once top notes have faded, and top notes are the first ones you smell when you first apply the perfume.

Bridge notes tie all the notes together. Popular bridge notes are lavender and vanilla. Combine all the ingredients together and pass them through a coffee filter, Distribute among small bottles and decorate them for an unforgettable and totally unique party favor.