Grand Avenue Baby

Advice for the Perfect Holiday Photo: Let Kids Be Kids

We had every intention of getting our family holiday cards ordered and out early this year, but once again finding the right family photo has slowed us down. Rather than get caught up in finding the “perfect” picture, we remembered what we learned from Julie Floyd, the founder of Classic Kids Photography. 

 

Julie offers one very important piece of advice: let kids be kids.  “When a child is doing what comes naturally, the photographer, whether it’s a parent or a professional, will capture that personality on film,” she explains.  True personality is often lost in the perfectly posed holiday photo. To avoid this, Julie offers the following tips for anyone gearing up for the holiday photo shoot:

 

1. Never say “smile” or ask the children to say “cheese.” The mouth will smile, the eyes will not. You must work for your smiles by entertaining your subjects.
2. Get down to their level. The photographer needs to bring the camera down to eye level. Even lay on the floor if necessary.
3. Fill the frame with your subject. A nice close shot is far more interesting to the viewer than seeing a lot of background.
4. Leave props out of the photograph unless the object is something your child can’t live without.
5. Make the shoot fun. If your family of four kids has to sit still for the picture, be sure that you are very entertaining. Enlist help from another adult if necessary.
6. Let kids be kids.  Don’t stress about Band-aids, braces, bruises and black eyes. Imperfections are charming and make kids look real. Don’t insist that hair is perfectly styled. Natural truly is timeless.

If you have other suggestions, please leave a comment. We'd love to hear them!

 

LA's Best Kept Secret: Sample Sale Days at California Market Center

Sample Sale Fridays are generally held the last Friday of every month, but during the holidays California Market Center welcomes the public EVERY Friday.  Located at the heart of Los Angeles’ fashion district, the California Market Center is home to hundreds of wholesale showrooms for apparel, accessories, gifts and home décor. Great prices can be found in showrooms throughout the Center.  

 

Grand Avenue Baby is taking advantage of the California Market Center’s Friday Sample Sales to give consumers what they want this holiday season: deals!  The Grand Avenue Baby Showroom (Suite B601) has been transformed into a holiday boutique with great finds from Millions of Colors, Red Wagon Baby, Miatom, Sage Creek Organics, Tiny Revolution, Besitos and Namaste, Inc. Featured product includes children’s t-shirts, apparel and accessories and women’s handbags at 50-60% off retail prices. 

 

Don't miss the chance to stock up for the kids or find fabulous gifts for everyone on your list!  Sample Sales continue every Friday through December 18.  Check out the California Market Center'swebsite for showroom information, directions and parking.

 

Finding Inspiration in Housewares

If you've read InStyle, O, Elle Decor, Real Simple, Metropolitan Home (and the list goes on) in the past few months, chances are the hip housewares from Alice Supply Co. have caught your attention. The brainchild of two fashion industry executives, Alice Supply Co. came alive with help from the creative genius of Clive Piercy, the founder of design office Air Conditioned.

Clive has crafted visual identities for companies like Roxy, Ekla, Quiksilver, Fathers Office and Hillstone (Houston's, Gulfstream) and generously shared his knowledge with small business owners during an evening with SMARTY. Very quickly into Clive's presentation it became enormously clear why I find myself coveting a garden hose and tool box.

It also became clear how important it is for a company's visual personality to reflect their product or service. If you're trying to create differentiated positioning in the marketplace, ask yourself:  What is your brand spirit?  What are the adjectives used to describe your brand? And then invest in design.

Great Design and Fabulous Giveaways: Join Bel Bambini and Oeuf at Plan A BABY

 

Style-savvy moms with an eye for design will not want to miss this! Bel Bambini and Oeuf NYC, have partnered to showcase and giveaway luxurious layette pieces and must-have baby essentials at the first-ever Plan A Baby event on Sunday, October 18 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Bel Bambini is giving Plan A Baby attendees a chance to win celebrity must-have products from Aden & Anais, Cloud B, Safe Sippy, Best Ever Mat and beautifully-designed, handcrafted knits from Oeuf’s Clothier Collection. To enter, guests must simply stop by the Bel Bambini and Oeuf NYC showcase at the event. Winners will be drawn and announced every hour. Oeuf NYC will showcase its practical and stylish essential Classic Crib, Dresser and bedding and offer guests a 10% discount on all Oeuf products exclusively at the event.  

Expectant parents that sign-up and start their Bel Bambini baby registry at the event will also automatically be entered in Bel Bambini’s Baby Registry Sweepstakes. Running through October, the Baby Registry Sweepstakes gives expecting parents the chance to win $250 Bel Bambini gift certificates and the complete collection of celebrity must-have products featured at Plan A Baby.

Plan A Baby is a one-day celebration of new and expecting moms. Featuring high-end products and services, expert speakers, including The Baby Planners and Dr. JJ Levenstein, a silent auction, spa treatments and fabulous gift bags, it’s a grown-up play day filled with information and indulgences. Tickets can be purchased for $35 online at www.planABABYevent.com or at the door for $45. Or stop by Bel Bambini this week. The first 20 people to come into the store and mention Plan A Baby will receive a free ticket to the event!

Expectant moms don’t miss this opportunity to see many of the finest names in baby under one very chic roof. Grand Avenue Baby will be there. We hope you will too!

 

Stop Dreading "I Want to Help" and Help Your Toddler Become a Partner

“I want to help.” Hopefully I’m not the only parent that cringes when I hear these four simple words. Any parent who has ever tried to make dinner, bake cookies or wash the dishes with the “help” of a young child teetering precariously on a step stool must dread hearing these four words. The problem is, saying “no” may seem like the safest reply, but it’s not the best for your child’s long-term development.

Carol Gamble, a mom with more than 16 years of experience in the Montessori system, offers parents a solution: The Learning Tower. The only step stool on the market carefully designed to meet the specific needs of toddlers 18 months and up, The Learning Tower is a sturdy, non-tip structure that allows children to safely participate by raising them to countertop height where they learn by mirroring their parents and develop their sense of self by contributing as an active member of the family.

A perfect tool for kids in the kitchen, The Learning Tower’s unique accessories, the Art Easel and Playhouse Kit, expand children’s use of the Tower and sparks their imaginations. Little Partners is giving away an Ebony Tower in time for Halloween cookie decorating! Become a fan of The Learning Tower and post a Halloween picture of your little one for the chance to win. Visit http://www.facebook.com/LearningTower to enter.

 

5 Minutes For Mom Mother's Day Giveaways - It's Not to Late to Enter!

5MinutesForMom is giving away thousands of dollars in prizes this Mother's Day. Prizes include a Crock-Pot® Smart-Pot® Slow Cooker; a Mother’s Day Bouquet from Teleflora; a $300.00 gift card to The Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts; the HP Mini 1000 XP Edition; a $50 Macy’s Gift Card and the ultralightweight Toshiba Portege A600 Laptop!

Click on the button to enter - now through Saturday, May 9. Winners will be announced on Mother's Day (Sunday, May 10.)

Good luck!

"Be Good to Yourself, Be Good to the People You Love"

One of the commitments I've made this year is to myself. With the support of my husband (and free daycare at our YMCA) I've made working out a priority. At the end of each nausea-inducing workout,  my favorite instructor, Michele (a mom in her mid-forties with a rockin' body and an amazing attitude,) ends her class by telling us "Be good to yourself, be good to the people you love." I love this saying because one of the things I've learned as a parent is: it's easy to be good to your loved ones when you're taking care of yourself too.

This spring, Weight Watchers is encouraging women to be good to themselves with the Momentum Walk-It Challenge. Walking is a great way to lose weight, enjoy the spring air and is easy to do with little ones in tow!

Walking is also a great way to support a cause that's close to your heart. Our friend Nancy Horn (Mommies With Style) is taking the Walk-It Challenge and walking to raise money for Austism Speaks' 5K Walk in NYC on June 14. Nancy's goal is to recruit 8 members to walk the race and raise $300. We have no doubt she'll be able to do it!

Happy Earth Day: Ideas to Inspire a Deeper Shade of Green

In honor of Earth Day, we’ve put together a few ideas that are easy to incorporate into busy lives and really can make a difference for our planet.

 

Replace bottled water with reusable bottles. Each year more than 10 billion plastic water bottles end up as garbage in landfills and many plastic bottles leach chemicals. Head over to SIGG to find a great  selection of lightweight, durable, eco-friendly, leak-proof water bottles and enter SIGGEARTH at checkout to score $5 off your bottle! BONUS: SIGG always contributes 1% of global sales to environmental causes, but if you use this code, they’ll donate an extra $1 for each bottle sold.

 

Stop eating meat on Monday. Meatless Monday is an international movement that offers people a powerful weekly cue to meaningful action. The environmental impact of meat production is too long to list. If forgoing meat just one day a week can make a difference, why not give it a try!

 

Use reusable bags when shopping. Whether you are grocery shopping or clothes shopping, take your own bags. Keep bags in the trunk of your car for trips to the grocery store and consider buying a compact bag you can carry in your handbag. We love ENVIROSAX chic, inexpensive and compact bags. This Earth Day, if you buy a pouch (set of five) you’ll be entered into a drawing for 20 new Planet Green™ bags.

 

Unplug! Appliances continue to draw energy even when on standby or not in use, so unplugging them can really be an energy savings.

 

Watch the premier of “Big Green Lies” on the Fine Living Network tonight - Earth Day, April 22 – 9pm ET/PT. The myth-busting video and television show, produced by Seventh Generation, gives a taste of the widespread confusion on green issues.

Earth Week: Take the Bucket Test

Between 1950 and 2000, the U.S. population nearly doubled, but the public demand for water more than tripled. According to the US EPA, Americans now use an average of 100 gallons of water each day. This increased demand has put additional stress on water supplies and distribution systems, threatening both human health and the environment. 

 

With water on all of our minds as California suffers its third consecutive year of drought, Earth Week offers a great opportunity to think about how we use water. Sophie’s teacher gave us a great wake-up call today by challenging the kids to take a “bucket bath.”

When Sophie mentioned the “bucket bath” at dinner we were skeptical. After record heat (the thermostat hit 100) and a baseball game, none of us thought Sophie could get clean with a bucket of water. Sophie even sent her teacher an email explaining that she would not be able to take the challenge tonight. We tried it anyway, although fully expecting to use multiple buckets, and to our surprise and delight she got clean (hair included) with less than a full 5-gallon bucket.

 

If the average five-minute shower uses 15-25 gallons, Sophie saved between 11 and 21 gallons of water today. She may not bathe over a bucket again, but we’ll definitely be taking shorter showers and lowering the water level during bath time.

What do you want for Mother’s Day?

Jewelry, handbags and massages are wonderful and we’d never turn them down, but as busy mothers of two, we have some other ideas on the wish list: Barbie wants her husband to manage the kids’ extracurricular activities for a week (she gets to delegate knowing who has what, where and when) and Karie wants her husband to handle meal planning and grocery shopping for a week (she’ll still cook, but won’t be in charge of “what’s for dinner” for at least 5 nights.)  

We want to know what you want! Please leave a comment with your Mother’s Day “wish.” We’ll compile the wish list and share it before Mother’s Day so you’ll have plenty of time to get more ideas and start dropping hints.

If this seems like wishful thinking, Cool Mom Picks’ Mother’s Day Gift Guide is out and full of ideas. Check it out -- even if your wish comes true, you probably have other special mothers in your life to think of!