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Clean Green Maid for a Day GIVEAWAY!

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I received an email from my friend Emily a couple of weeks ago asking if I would like to review an eco-friendly cleaning service here in SLC called Ecomaids. Um, yes please! Of course I would like someone to clean for me. Little did I know the events that would transpire during the next week making this not only convenient, but practically heaven sent.

I was excited to not only have someone do the work for me, but have a company who uses green supplies eliminating toxic fumes and excess waste. Like these awesome microfiber cloths that hold 11 times their weight of liquid. I also LOVE that they use a different color cloth for bathrooms, kitchens and other areas. I have an aversion to any kind of cleaning cloth or sponge, so I am I love that they are sensitive to cross-contamination. No bathroom cloths in my kitchen!

And let me tell you my house put them to the test. We had been home a total of 7 days out of the three weeks of July that had passed, pretty much to unpack do laundry and re-pack to leave every few days. They did an initial clean at my house which is a bit more extensive than the routine weekly clean (basically adds on cleaning baseboards and doors), though I was shocked at some of the items on the checklist!

For instance, they wipe down every piece of furniture removing every knick knack. They took out every item when they cleaned the shower.

They cleaned chair rails, light switches, and dusted ceiling fan blades! Hoorah!

I was totally loving the Ghostbuster flashback vacuum. They believe in capturing all the dust with their hepa filter vacuums and microfiber cloths, not just pushing it all around with brooms or feather dusters. They also take off their shoes and wear house shoes inside so they never track dirt or pesticides inside.

My favorite thing by far is how they made my son’s bed. AMAZING! I can’t even get the bedspread to look like that. The mattress is insanely snug in the frame. The bunk beds were made for my husband by his Dad when he was young and the mattresses barely, seriously, barely fit. I was seriously impressed with this one.

Oh, and if you leave new linens they will put them on the bed for you. And they fold the toilet paper in a fancy little triangle, which I love.

I’m happy as a clam. I have very few complaints, but to be fair I will share.

  • I wish they followed up some of the dusting with a damp cloth. Particularly, on my ceiling fans in my great room and blinds in the kitchen where they tend to get a little filmy.
  • The price is a bit high for me to do weekly clean. I would totally do an initial clean like they did this time a few times a year for holidays, spring cleaning, party preparation, moving, etc.

The cool thing is that ECOMAIDS allows you to customize your program to your budget. You can have them come weekly or one time. They don’t require you to sign up for any kind of schedule.

Wouldn’t you love to see these smiling faces at your door? A big thanks to Chris and Paige for a job well done on a house that started out full of summertime cleaning neglect.


Chris, Keith {owner}, Paige

To celebrate their grand opening, ECOMAIDS is offering their full-house Initial Service cleaning for just $79! For more details, check their Salt Lake specials.

*UPDATE: ECOMAIDS currently has a deal running on KSL for $49 for a limited time!!

Now, on to the GIVEAWAY!

ECOMAIDS is giving away a $100 gift certificate! You must live in Salt Lake county or have a friend/family member that can use this credit, within SL county limits. AND you can use your gift certificate toward the current grand opening special! Which includes:

  • Kitchen
  • Living room
  • Dining room
  • Entryway
  • Stairs
  • One bedroom
  • One bathroom

For only $79.00! (Add additional rooms for $15 each) Did I mention that includes baseboards, doors, and ceiling fans?!

So if you don’t want to wait, and need your house cleaned ASAP, you can get in on this offer right now! Tell them we sent you.
If you WIN, you can use your $100 towards the special and use the rest of your credit towards another bathroom or area in your home! Awesome right?!

To enter:

Leave a comment telling me the biggest mess you’ve had to clean in your home. Was it a 3 yr old loose with a marker in the playroom? Or a fridge line that broke flooding your house while you were out of town?

For extra entries, you can…

(Please leave a separate comment for each entry.)

This giveaway closes on Tuesday, August 2nd. Good luck!

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Dominos {Giant Syle}

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I am in the process of redecorating our play/game room. I decided to include some over-sized game pieces for an added element of fun. I went with a couple of my hubs favorites to start with chess and dominos. I figured I could easily make some dominos of my own, so that’s just what I did. I thought of using birth dates as the numbers to make them even more significant, but quickly decided against that realizing that the 27th would just not fit. 😉 Instead, I went with our anniversary date.

Dominos

Supplies needed:
  • One 2×6 board
  • Electric sander
  • White spray paint
  • Black spray paint
  • Thin blue paint tape
  • Circle stickers
  • Wax paper
  • Mixing cups
  • Mixing sticks
  • Gloves
  • Brush
  • 4-5 oz. Envirotex Lite pour-on high gloss finish
  • Cups (to hold dominos for drying)

1. Cut your 2×6 board in to five 11 inch pieces (you will have about 3 ft leftover). I had one of the workers at Home Depot do this for me (I call him my Home Depot husband), though he used a HUGE saw and it left deep grooves on the ends which I did not love.

2. Sand down your board so it is smooth and all the edges and corners are rounded like a domino.

3. Spray the front of your domino with a coat of white paint and let dry according to the directions on the can.

4. Use a strip of blue painters tape to make the line in the middle of each of the dominos. Place your circle stickers where you want them for the numbers on the dominos making sure all the edges are down securely.

5. Spray paint the dominos black.

6. After a couple of hours, peel off the stickers and tape to reveal the white dots and lines on the dominos. Let the black paint continue to dry and allow to dry according to the instructions on the paint can.

7. Pick a surface to place the dominos where they can sit to dry (I did it on the kitchen table after the kids went to bed so the dominos would have a good 11 hours to dry before curious little hands were introduced.) and will not be exposed to a lot of dust floating around and is also at least 70 degrees. Cover your surface with wax paper and place the cups to hold the dominos while adding the gloss.

8. Mix up the Envirotex Lite pour on gloss according to the instructions. I just brushed on a thin wood sealant coat. I was going to do the flooding, but ended up liking it with just a “thin” coat. {READ ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE BOX FIRST and wear gloves. Trust me on this. You do not want to mess this part up and it can be temperamental!} I used about 5 oz. of Envirotex, but that is because it started hardening before I was done and I had to mix up and additional ounce. You can probably do it with 4 oz. if you do it in two batches of 2 oz. I just used my breath to get the bubbles out after I applied the thin coat.

9. After you cover them all with gloss, let them dry for a couple of hours, then go around and scrape any drips off the bottom of the dominos. Otherwise, they will become permanent drips.
(I was having fun taking pics with reflections in them, here’s my kitchen light fixture)

10. I let them dry overnight, then moved them to a more secure location and let them dry for another couple of days just to be sure.

Now, I just need an awesome shelf in the game room to house them!

A big thanks to Crafterminds for choosing me to participate in this Envirotex Lite party! I can’t wait to try it out on some more things!

ETI sent me this product to try out. You won’t believe all that you can do with this product. Envirotex Lite was created by Environmental Technologies Inc. (ETI), which is the home for many resin and mold making products.
The use of resin in jewelry making, mixed media and paper arts continues to grow in popularity. Today, artists are using ETI’s products in many crafty ways and they will be showcasing these works of art on their new blog “Resin Crafts”.

Check them out on:
Resin Crafts Blog
ETI on Facebook
ETI on Twitter

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Riverwoods Brand to Blogger Event

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This past Saturday I was invited with a group of bloggers to explore some of the retailers at The Shops at Riverwoods in Orem. I lived in Orem while finishing up school, but boy have things changes!! They have some of the funnest places to visit!

We started off at Blickenstaff’s and you already know how much I love that store. Mix an old fashioned toy store with a candy shop and I am totally there. I know I am a mom, just makes it that much easier to disguise a grown woman in the toy aisles! Kyle, their media savant, is always so much fun!

I just saw on their site that they carry imported candy. If they have Cadbury Wunderbars, I am going to cry that I missed them and then make a special trip down to Orem. They are like a mix of a Butterfinger, Reeses and a Carmello. Uh, you just have to taste it!

Next stop was Called to Surf. Love that name!

Another weakness of mine, swim gear. I have a bin full of swim suits, board shorts, and more in our garage and every color of flip flop to go along. Do I live in Utah, yes. Are there any beaches, no. But, I was born and raised in Long Beach until I was 8 and I attribute my collection to the micro sized portion of California girl in me.

Who doesn’t love a store with a VW bus parked inside?! DYK in high school my dream was to road trip down the Cali coast in a VW bus. Shoot for the stars babe. 😉

I guess if I could not find a VW bus, a three wheeled cruiser would do just fine. I was dying over the bathing suit, see that coral ruched ruffly number in the top right of that pic. I believe it was Juicy Couture $190ish bucks. No wonder I liked it.

I have a thing for tiny shoes and they had the most adorable little boy shoes. Yay for cute boy stuff! It can be hard to find these days!

Last but not least I saw this little gift pack up by the check out and got a good laugh.

Next it was off to explore the Provo Beach Resort. Are you wondering what to do with the kids in this insane 70 degrees one day snowing the next weather in Utah? Well they have a ton of things to do!

They let us try out a few things. Talk about 20 grown women on a carousel. I think the teenage boy running it was totally scared out of his mind.

A few tried their hand at mini croquet. After this pic, she totally made an amazing shot through someone walking in to her path!

This sign inspired some great wicken chat.

Then there is the flow rider! Wouldn’t this combined with the biggest ropes course in the west make for a fun date night?! I told them they needed to open up the flow rider after hours so I could come try it out with out an audience to laugh at me.

Did I mention they have a spa you can escape to right inside the resort. Nice, let the kiddos play while you get pampered.

By this time we were starving; but the owner of Malawi’s Pizza, Kent Andersen, is wise and had beautiful salads waiting for us on the tables. I tried out the Apple Berry Salad,
Chicken Caesar Salad, and Chicken Satay Salad. And that little sliver of bread, divine.


You know how sometimes at pizza places you get your salad and then sit and wait for-e-ver before the actual pizza arrives. Not so at Malawi’s. They had 22 pizzas out in 8 minutes. Amazing! And just look at them. {WARNING: may cause excessive drooling}

Pictured: Malawi Capri Pizza, Spinach Artichoke Pizza, Barbecue Chicken Pizza

The Spinach Artichoke and Pesto Roasted Chicken Pizza were by far my favorites. Yes, I was the one who thought the asparagus was green beans from across the table. Leave it to me to sound like a dork in front of the Chef (the former chef to President Gordon B. Hinckley mind you).


Though the food was delectable, the best part is for every meal YOU buy, THEY will provide a nutritious meal to a hungry child in Malawi Africa. I love it! Not only can you feed your children, but they can help feed the children in Africa. What a great lesson for your kids to know the world is bigger than themselves!

So, now that I have given you a tour of some of the fabulous things to look forward to a Riverwoods I will send you over to my girl Amanda, who hosting a fun giveaway for $40 to Blickenstaff’s and $40 to Provo Beach Resort so that you and your family can go have a fun filled day. Head on over to enter the giveaway on Every Creative Endeavor

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Photo Canvas Land Giveaway

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I have a thing for canvas. I love how it can make a family photo look like a work of art. I love the texture. I love the wrap. I just love the look and feel of canvas.

Know what I don’t love? The price!

I am a mom of little kids. They change almost overnight so I like to update our pictures, A LOT! I am not a millionaire (shocker, I know) so I don’t have hundreds of dollars to drop every time I want to update our family pic.

I was asked to take a look at a canvas from PhotoCanvasLand.com and when I went online to order I was SHOCKED at their pricing. We’re talking under $20 for a gallery wrap 12×10 canvas. Insane. I’m not gonna lie I was skeptical about how it was going to turn out when I ordered.

I got it in the mail and was totally pleasantly surprised. The coloring was great and the quality was totally comparable to other *more expensive* canvases I have on my walls. Impressive.

So what gives? What is the difference between Photo Canvas Land and other canvas companies? Here’s what I can tell in my comparison:

  • The canvas is a bit thicker so the folds on the corners are a tad bigger. (See in photo above) It still stands upright on its own unless you try to put it on a shelf that tilts slightly forward like I did. I just added a little moss under the front to even it out. 😉
  • The wood frame is thicker and thus a bit heavier.
  • The staples are slightly larger.

Ok, so let’s review. All the differences are things that don’t really matter and the cost is super low. Nice.

I will say it took a little longer to arrive than I expected. I ordered on April 19th and got it May 4th. That’s a little over 2 weeks.

My Mom was really wanting to get a big canvas of our last family pic. I am too late for Mother’s Day. Birthday present, check.

Still skeptical?

You could be one of two lucky winners to try them out for yourself with a free 8×10 canvas.

To enter: leave a comment on this post saying what picture you would like in canvas

Extra entry: Let’s celebrate moms and give you an extra chance! Tell me how many kiddos/stepkiddos you have.

If you register at PhotoCanvasLand.com before the giveaway closes, you get free shipping if you win too. Bonus.

If you want to order one now, you can get 10% off by using the code LittleTipsy10Off. The code is good until June 15th!

Giveaway closes Monday, May 9th. Good Luck!

Disclosure: Photo Canvas Land sent me the product to review and is providing the giveaway. The opinions are my own and guess who would have shared a find like this anyway. Me. Oh and I am now a Photo Canvas Land Affiliate, cause why the heck not.

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