Père Music Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner to the Père Music Giveaway!!!  And the winner is...

 

#136- Megan Gaworecki

 

Congrats Megan!

 

We sent you an email.  

You will need to respond to the email within 48 hours or a new winner will be chosen.

Thanks for everyone who entered!

 

Last Day to Enter!

This is the last day to enter the Père Music Giveaway!   So hurry and enter to win a $900 package!
 

Sponsor Ad Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner to the Sponsor Ad Giveaway!!!  And the winner is...

#206- Stacie Skinner-Hoxsie

Congrats Stacie!!

We sent you an email.  

You will need to respond to the email within 48 hours or a new winner will be chosen.

Thanks for everyone who entered!

 

Giveaway: Père Music!!!

We have an absolutely amazing giveaway that we are offering you today! It's from Père Music.  And it's worth $900!  

You are going to love this concept!  I know that I did!
This is a perfect and unique keepsake to give to your baby or as a gift to another!

This is what Père Music is all about:

 Music written just for your baby

A unique keepsake

We create classical music inspired by your baby. Send us photos and videos, or just tell us about your little one's personality.

We’ll send you a short musical sketch

After just a few days, Ken will create a piece of music for violin, inspired by your little one. We’ll let you take a listen - tell us if you have a few tweaks you’d like to hear or if you love it the way it is. Once you’re happy with the sketch, Ken will finish up the rest of music.

With your approval

You'll take one last listen to the completed song (to make sure you really love it) before we create a high quality recording. Afterwards, we'll send you a link to your song and send you the music (framed and ready to hang) as well as Ken's original handwritten score to keep.


Isn't this just absolutely amazing?  I was so excited to hear about Père Music.  I love music!  I grew up playing piano and violin.  And now I have all five of my boys are in piano lessons, two of them take violin lessons, one is in cello lessons and one in viola lessons.  So this is all near and dear to my heart.  And I love that they create a song especially written for your baby. 

They created a beautiful song for my newest baby, Rosie Grace.  Here is the link:

http://peremusic.com/rosie_grace.html

 It is simply beautiful and delicate, just like Rosie!

Here is the framed music that they sent me:

And here is the sheet music.  I'm really looking forward to my boys playing this for Rosie during the summer months!

 
 Here are the wonderful people who put all this together:

We are two longtime friends and artists who recently found ourselves surrounded by the adorable babies of friends and family. We started Père Music to capture the personality of newborns through classical music. Père composes etudes for violin using descriptions, photos and videos provided by parents.

Ken

Ken is a classically-trained violinist and pianist, but enjoys working in many different genres - most recently, baby music. With nearly 20 years of music writing under his belt, Ken has a knack for storytelling through music. Check out his website here.

Cassandra

Cassandra is a visual artist with over 10 years of marketing and advertising experience. She’ll be your point of contact as producer and partner at Père.

Aren't Ken and Cassandra amazingly talented?
And they are so graciously offering their SONG package to one of our readers.  Here is what it includes:

A unique piece of music written for violin, inspired by your baby
A high-end recording delivered as a downloaded audio file via a custom microsite
Baby’s song as sheet music,
in a high quality, black frame
All original, handwritten notes and sheet music
Free domestic shipping

 I love the way the music looks in Rosie's room! 

You are not going to want to miss out on this!  So hurry and enter!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sponsor Ad Giveaway!!!

Hey Everyone!   We are going to extend to Sponsor Ad Giveaway and will announce the winner next week!  The winner will receive the HUGE Sponsor Package!   Come by and enter HERE!

EASY Toddler Bed Makeover!

We recently moved from Amarillo, TX to Mesa, AZ.

During our move my daughters bed got destroyed!  When I found this toddler bed at a yard sale I knew I had to redo it for my daughter.

This is the bed in my daughters room now!  

It definitely fits her Shabby Chic room!

This is what the bed looked like when I bought it... 

Pretty dinged up, but for $5 I couldn't resist.

We were actually lucky it made it home in one piece, because it blew out of my truck driving down the road!!

To redo the bed, I used Krylon Paint & Primer Spray Paint.  I roughly sanded the bed down and then went to town with the spray paint. 

 This bed actually used 3 cans of spray paint.  It was SUPER easy and definitely worth the $5!

My New (Refinished) Computer Table

Years ago, we found this table on the side of the road.  I was so excited!  I couldn't believe that my neighbor didn't want it any more!  So I quickly enlisted my boys to walk down to her house and pick up the table and drag it to our house.  I knew that I could use it for something. 

 For a while, this table served me well as my craft/sewing table.  I always had the intention of painting it and making it look cute, but I just never took the time to do it.  It needed a bit of work before I could paint it.  It was pretty wobbly.  

Fast forward about 4-5 years...

I finally finished the table!  My husband made the table sturdy, my boys sanded it down and helped me paint it and then I glazed it and...I love it!

I can't believe that it took me so long to finish!  One of the reasons it did take me so long was that I remained indecisive on what paint color to use.  I debated over white and black, then turquoise.  But when all was said and done, I decided to use Valspar's Bungalow Gold.  Since we are renting right now and all our walls are white, I wanted to do a splash of color to decorate around.  And this was the perfect choice! 

After the sanding and painting, I decided to glaze it.  I tinted the glaze with ebony stain.  I painted it on and then wiped it off.  I  really liked all the imperfections of the wood, so I left as much glaze as I could in all the knicks and scratches and grooves of the wood.  It turned out amazing and is now the new home of my computer!  

Sponsor Ad Giveaway!

Have you ever wanted to advertise on Babblings and More?     Now is your chance!!     Today we are giving away a HUGE ad space for one month which includes a Sponsor Post featuring your blog or business!     Let me first tell you a little bit about our blog...  We are 4 sisters who started our blog when we all moved away from each other.  Briana is in El Paso, TX,  Brittany in Thatcher, AZ, Bridget in San Tan Valley, AZ and Brooke is in Mesa, AZ.  We started it to show each other what we were working on and to stay motivated!         Between all of our sisters we have 21 kids with 1 on the way.  Bridget is due any day!!!  We will keep you all updated!   Since we have started our blog we have 955 followers through GFC, 2300+ Facebook followers, 1200+ Twitter followers and over 3300+ followers in Pinterest between us!   Now on to the giveaway...  Today we are giving away one HUGE add space which includes a post featuring YOU!!!   Just enter below...     a Rafflecopter giveaway

Arizona Chili-Cheese Rolls

Believe it or not, but my husband doesn't care for sweets...
 What's wrong with him?

 He would rather have an extra helping of mashed potatoes and gravy, over pie and ice cream. I have been pondering on a special treat to make him.  I was Really, Really surprised how yummy my creation turned out. So I wanted to share it with everyone.
 This recipe you will not want to pass up!!

First, start out with Briana's Good Ol' White Bread Recipe.  

While the dough in kneading, saute' 1/2 finely chopped onion in 1 TBS of butter until it turns clear. Once the dough is done mixing, divide it in half and roll it out just like you would when you make cinnamon rolls. About 24" x 12" x 1/2" thick. Spread 1 small can of chopped green chilies, 3/4 c. shredded cheddar or colby-jack cheese, 1/4 c. bacon crumbles, and the saute' onions evenly around the rolled dough. 

Now gently roll it up, slice the rolls about every 3 inches, and place in a lightly greased 9 x 13 pan. 

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for 20-25 min. 

With the other half of the dough you can either make a loaf of bread, or roll into balls and make dinner rolls, or make a batch of cinnamon rolls. 

Birchbox Love

I recently joined Birchbox!  I have heard of Birchbox before and put it on my list of things to do or sign up for later.  Now that I have signed up, and received a couple boxes in the mail, I'm sad that I put it off until later. 

Birchbox is a great way to discover new beauty and lifestyle products.  You can subscribe to the monthly box for $10 per month and that includes shipping!  And then every month, they will send you a box full of samples and even an occasional full-size product to try out.  Then you can earn points buy purchasing products and referring friends to get more products for free!

So this last Birchbox that I received had two full size products: a lip crayon and under eye rollerball!  And the samples are so much fun as well!  There was cologne, face cleanser, hair product and more!  You should definitely consider giving Birchbox a try!  You will love it!

I also bought the Special Edition Garden Birchbox!  Occasionally, they offer Special Edition boxes that you can order separate from the monthly subscription.  The Garden one was so fun with seeds, lotion, a cutting knife (for all the fruits and veggies from your garden), a notepad, cologne, a candle and more.  And the packaging is so cute!  It's like getting a fun gift from a friend!  I love it!

So what are you waiting for?  Don't regret waiting to order, like I did.  Try it now and see just how fun it is!

NOTE:  There is a waiting list to join the monthly subscription, but the wait isn't very long.  :)

Printer Ink Tip

I always wondered if paying for a XL ink cartridge would be worth the money. A regular HP 60 cartridge is around $19 and a HP 60 XL is about $34. 

So I put it to the test...

I took a small labeling sticker and dated it when I put the new cartridge in. Then when I was out of ink I dated it again. Almost every time the regular cartridges lasted one month exactly while the XL had about a 3 month duration. 

So is it worth the money?

Here is the breakdown...

If you buy a Regular ink cartridge for $19 x 3 months= $57

While the XL $34 lasted 3 months= $34

I think so. 

Disclaimer: Now all printer ink cost differently at different stores, and everyone uses their printer at different frequencies than others. So give it a try and see if the XL cartridges are worth your money. 

Let us know how it works for you.

Giveaway Winner!

We are excited to announce a winner to our Fluffy, Funny and Fabulous!!! Drum Roll.... And the winner is...   #105- Tiffany Lauren Hutto   Congratulations Tiffany!!!    I have sent you an email.  You will need to respond to the email within 24 hours or we will pick a new winner!  Thank you to everyone who entered!     If you didn't win, you can always click on over to The Five Sisters Website and order a book!  And we have some really exciting giveaways coming up, so stay tuned!!