Comments (102)

By Mom Unplugged, October 25, 2008 8:07 am

I was very excited to receive an email the other day from Courtney at Bright October asking if I would be interested in hosting a giveaway.

Well, yes!! Bright October is one of my favorite Unplugged Toystores so I knew that whatever Courtney wanted to give away to a reader would be wonderful.

At mom-run Bright October, there are no mass market, licensed character toys. All the toys they offer are excellent quality, safe, open-ended, and simply beautiful.

In addition to popular, high-quality brands such as Haba, Selecta, and Kathe Kruse, you’ll also discover some that are less well-known (here in the U.S. anyway): Blabla (Peru), Sevi (Italy), and Vilac (France) for example. I personally love the totally cute organic stuffed animals!

Courtney is very generously offering a $50 Bright October gift certificate to a randomly selected Unplug Your Kids reader, as well as a 10% discount for ALL Unplug Your Kids readers.

To enter, all you have to do is:

1) Visit Bright October to pick what you might want to buy with your gift certificate (this is hypothetical, if you win you can still change your mind and pick something else).

2) Leave a comment here on this post saying what you picked. To enter, leave your comment here at Unplug Your Kids (not at Bright October).

3) That’s it!

I’ll leave comments open until next Saturday, November 1st at 8PM Pacific Time. After all comments are in, I’ll pick a random winner and announce it here on Sunday morning, November 2nd. (I wish I could enter too, but I guess that wouldn’t be very fair!)

Even if you don’t win, you can still take advantage of the 10% off coupon. Just enter unplug at checkout to get your discount. The code will be valid until the end of the year, December 31st, 2008 so you can do a little Christmas shopping with it.

Thank you Courtney and good luck to all!

Comments (1)

By Mom Unplugged, May 11, 2008 5:18 pm

I don’t usually get too excited about giveaways, but dkMommy Spot is hosting one that I would actually really enjoy winning! So would most of you I think, especially if you like hanging around my Unplugged Toystores page while dreaming of a little online shopping.

If you stop by her site you can comment for a chance at winning a $35 gift certificate from Wild Dill, a wonderful store featuring organic, fair-trade and natural children’s clothing, toys, bedding, and various other accessories. I liked the look of Wild Dill so much that I felt moved to add it to both my Unplugged Toystores page and my Unplugged Eco Shopping page.

You can also subscribe to the dkMommyspot blog and/or write your own post about the giveaway for additional chances to win.

I probably won’t win since I rarely win anything, but hopefully one of you will. Good luck and I hope you enjoy checking out Wild Dill!

Oh…and the giveaway ends on Tuesday, May 13th so hurry up and enter right now if you are interested.

Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, May 6, 2008 8:02 pm

I promised prizes to two random participants who completed the 2nd Annual TV Turn-Off Week Blog Challenge. The prizes are the following:

• A $10 Amazon Gift Certificate
• A complete CD set of the Adventures of Billy Brown children’s audio plays (thanks very much to Jens Hewerer of Giddio.com for offering this one!)

I threw the names of all the participants (who completed the challenge by writing and linking to their final post) into a bowl. My two oldest children each drew a name. The results?

Congratulations to:

Learning Umbrella who wins the Amazon Gift Certificate (please send me the email you would like to use to receive the certificate);

and to…

MatschMomma who wins the Billy Brown Audio Play Collection (please send me your name and address)!

Thank you all for joining in. I wish I had a prize for everyone!

Hopefully you are not completely sick of this by now, because I am planning one last post summarizing what I learned from your experiences.

Enjoy your evening!

Comments (22)

By Mom Unplugged, March 7, 2008 1:41 pm

For the last few weeks I have been talking about The Bubblegum Books TV Turn-Off Week contest: Show Your Shiny Side (open to all preschool and elementary-aged kids, whether traditionally schooled, or homeschooled - deadline is next Friday, March 14th). The contest is based on a neat book entitled Something Shiny, Something Round by Julie Goulis and illustrated by John Ferguson.

I have a fun surprise today: Brad Hauber of Bubblegum Books very kindly sent me an autographed (signed by author Julie Goulis), hardcover copy of their book Something Shiny, Something Round to give away on my blog! Thanks Brad!

The book’s rhyming text tells the story of three children playing outside on a snowy day. While they play, they come across a shiny, metal hubcap in the snow. The children imagine all sorts of different things that the hubcap might be and the colorful illustrations show their imaginings inspired by the shiny, round disc: a pirate adventure at sea, a warrior with an ancient shield, etc.

One of the most fun things about this book are the activity ideas at the end based on some of the children’s adventures. This is a very clever and useful tie-in to this story of children engaging in simple, imaginary fun.

There are two other books in the series (also by Goulis and Ferguson): The Things a String Can Be (the theme for last year’s TV Turn-Off Week contest) and the most recent, The Topsy-Turvy Towel. Let’s hope that Bubblegum Books continues this very worthy series.

I am so happy to be able to give away a book that really illustrates and encourages imaginary play. This seems to fit in so well with my recent posts about the newly discovered benefits of simple, creative play (Imaginative Play and Cognitive Function and Creative Play Makes for Kids in Control), as well as the Shiny Side contest.

So, if you are interested in winning this autographed book, please leave a comment. I will close comments next Friday night and will randomly draw a winner who will be announced here on Saturday, March 15th.

Even better, is that you have TWO chances to win. Head over to Wildwood Cottage where Jenny is also giving away a signed copy of Something Shiny, Something Round. She too, will announce her winner on Saturday, March 15th.
Good luck!