Meijer Mounted Photo Review

My sister and I decided this would be a great gift for our parents for Christmas (hence why this blog post is going up so late. Hi mom!). Actually, our family has decided to do Christmas a little later this year and won't be exchanging gifts until this weekend instead of ON Christmas. My mom has promised not to peek here until after she has received her gifts. But at any rate, we thought this would make a great present for our parents so we recruited her boyfriend to go to the park with us on a relatively warm day in November (nearly unheard of in Ohio) and snap a few pictures at a local garden park.

We ended up choosing this picture:

Once we got to Meijer, I asked the clerk behind the photo counter if it mattered which kiosk we used to create our mounted photo. It did not. Sometimes, at other photo places, they have specific kiosks for 1-hour products and specific ones for other products that take longer or need sent out for processing. I'm glad that at Meijer it doesn't matter. Sometimes all of the kiosks are filled up and it would be nice to know that I can go to the first kiosk that opens up the next time I'm shopping for photo products at Meijer.

It took literally less than 5 minutes to click our way through all the on screen prompts and options - choosing and uploading a photo, options to enhance and edit, selecting which product we wanted, etc. There were a lot of options and if you know exactly what you want you should have no problems just clicking your way through everything. If you're a bit undecided on what you're looking for, it will probably be a more time consuming task.

At the end of the ordering process, a ticket was printed by the kiosk and the screen told me it should be ready in about an hour, but to expect it to take a little longer if things were busy. We set off to explore the rest of Meijer in search of some other Christmas gifts my sister needed. We're very familiar with Meijer and regularly get our groceries here, so we weren't really "exploring" as much as wandering around looking for things to catch our eyes.

A little less than an hour later we were done with our other shopping so I went to see if our mounted photo was done yet. It was! We were really happy it was done in less than an hour - they must not have been very busy that day.

This is what we saw when we opened the package:

 
It looks flat in the picture, but I promise it's 3-dimensional. In fact, the sides look like this:

 

It might be hard to tell from the pictures (I couldn't get the lighting to cooperate), but they're actually a brushed silver sort of color on the sides. I don't think there are other options as they weren't presented at the kiosk.

The back looks like this:

So now about the quality. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. I feel that for the money they're a little cheap in construction. For the price I feel either the construction should be better or the size should be larger. They are described as being "mounted on durable, foam core mounting board." Basically this means they're mounted on Styrofoam. That's great for being light weight and all, but I feel that most/many craft-type people would be able to make these at home with very few supplies and time...and less money.

So the big question is: Would I use my own money to purchase one again?

That's a tricky question to answer really. Mostly the answer is probably not. As I'm sure you know by now, I'm a pretty crafty-type person. I feel I could make my own for less money and if I have the time I would probably do so in the future - in fact I'm envisioning the possibilities now. However, DIY projects are not for everyone and this makes a lot of sense for those who are not so crafty or just don't have the time to whip together their own version.

Some other important to know information:

• You can currently only order and purchase these in store. You cannot order them online and pick up at a store. However, in 2013 they will be available on the website as well.
• They cost a little over $6 for a 5x7 and of course increase in price as you increase in size
• Available in three sizes: 5x7, 8x10 and 11x14

Disclaimer: I am a BzzAgent and received coupons to get this product for free

Christmas Cookies Week 4 Sugar Cookies - Foodie Friday

This sugar cookie recipe is a holiday standard at my house. My mom has made them since we were little and we helped her make them since we could stand at the table and push a cookie cutter down. No shortage of memories has been made because of this sugar cookie recipe. It makes a great dough for cut out cookies as well as making great "just plopped" cookies. Icing is optional, but recommended in my opinion!

Ingredients:
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. cooking oil
1 c. sweet or sour milk* (see notation at bottom about milk and baking powder)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder*
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt
Flour enough to make stiff dough

*If you use sweet milk,  use 1 tsp. baking powder. If you use sour milk, use 1/2 tsp. baking powder.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix ingredients together and bake for 10-15 minutes.

What's in my December 2012 Birchbox

The theme of December's Birchbox is "All Wrapped Up" in honor of the holiday season. I was kind of hoping that because of the holidays this month, Birchbox would step up the game and give us some amazing things - more full sized products or at least more generous samples, etc. We'll see how it pans out.

If you want to hear/see my initial thoughts as I opened the box feel free to check out my YouTube channel.

Number 4 Clarifying Shampoo - Full size $32 for 250ml- Sample $6.66

I'm kind of excited to try this because I have really fine hair, but a lot of it. It seems that a lot of shampoos end up weighing it down after a few uses. Hopefully this might be a good every other shampoo type of thing or some sort of pattern to keep my hair from getting too weighed down and heavy.

La Fresh Eco-Beauty Oil-Free Face Cleanser - Full size $9.99 for 30 cloths - Sample $0.67

I have yet to find a face cloth/wipe that I like and can get all my makeup off. I've heard some good things about these and I'm excited to see if they work as well for me as I've heard they do for others. Usually the issue is with my face still feeling gross from still having makeup on it or oily from whatever residue the cloth has left behind.

Apothoderm Firming Serum - Full size $75 for 1oz. - Sample $11.25

As I'm getting older I find myself looking more and more for holy grail anti-aging products that can carry me through my 30s and into my later years. Though a bit pricy at $75 for a full sample, this looks promising. It apparently has a proprietary peptide duo that will firm and brighten skin. Sounds like win to me! Now we'll just have to see how it works on my skin.

Juicy Couture - Juicy Couture - Full size $90 for 3.4oz. - Sample $1.32

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Enough with the perfume samples Birchbox! My fragrance drawer in the bathroom cabinet is starting to become overrun with these tiny vials you insist on sending nearly monthly. While I do like discovering a good perfume every now and again, I might suggest sticking to 1 sample per quarter, perhaps something that may be a good scent for that season? Overall though, I'm not that into this particular scent. I liked the La Fleur version much better.

theBalm cosmetics Mary-Lou Manizer - Full size $24 for 8.5g by weight - Sample $2.82

This is an three-in-one highlighter, eye shadow and shimmer. It's really quite neat and I can't wait to try it out. I personally see myself using it as an eye shadow and/or highlighter most often. It should be a great alternative to the Stila highlighter I got last month.

Box total: $22.72

FriXion by Pilot Pens Review - Influenster Cosmo VoxBox 2012

In case you don't remember, I received these pens in the Fall Cosmo VoxBox from Influenster. It's been a while, a long while actually, since I've used erasable ink. It was probably sometime in the 1990s (yes, that long ago) when I last used it. I have to say that when I had to use erasable ink for school, I was not impressed. The ink seemed really thick and gross. It tended to glob up and if you ever did need to erase it, it tended to smear and create a giant mess. I'm not really sure what the point was if it was such a hassle to use. Using some sort of correcting fluid would have been much easier for sure.

Anyhow, that really isn't the case with these FriXion pens by Pilot.

I'll start by talking about the red pen. As you can see, or I hope you can see, from the photos above, It writes really well. The ink is pigmented and everything you'd expect from a regular red pen. This isn't just an ordinary red pen though. Remember, it's also erasable. In the bottom half of the picture you can see that I erased part of the word to show you how it looks when erased.

Overall it did an ok job of erasing. However, it left behind an orangeish or light red sort of color where the red ink had been. You could also clearly see the indentation from the writing. If you had written something and wanted to erase it to write something over it, you could. I think you'd still see a bit of the original writing underneath though. I would liken the erasability to that of a pencil though. Sometimes when you erase pencil you're still able to see a smudge of it here and there as well as the indentation left by the original writing. This has kind of the same effect, just with ink.

I'd say pretty much everything about the black pen as I did about the red one with a few exceptions. The black ink leaves behind a little bit of a gray cast when erased and it's not quite as noticeable as the orange/red left behind by the red pen.

Both pens were very smooth to write with and I really liked using them. I didn't have to scribble or anything to get the ink going, which was nice.

So the big question is: Would I use my own money to buy these?

Yeah actually I would - but I probably wouldn't erase them much. I like the ink flow and the way the pen wrote more than I cared for the ability to erase it. If I'm writing with pen, I try not to make mistakes anyhow.

Disclaimer: I received these products complimentary for testing purposes from Influenster.

How to get products to review - Buy it myself

A few of you have expressed interest in knowing/learning about how I get the things I review and various ways to make money from blogging so I've decided to do a couple of posts about it. I had originally thought I could make it into just two posts but after starting to write this one about how to get products to review, I realized that it's going to need at least 3 or 4 posts, possibly more.

As I'm sure you've noticed if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, I like to review products. What kind of products? Pretty much anything. I don't like doing it to get free stuff, though that is a bonus. I like doing it because I like to share my opinions with others. I give honest feedback about whatever it is I'm reviewing so that others can use that information to decide if it's something they also want to try. Not only do I write reviews about things I enjoy (my favorite reviews to write), but I also write them if I didn't enjoy a product. I think it's important to share my views regardless of what they are.

So on to the big question: How do I get these things in the first place?

There are several ways I get these things and there are various requirements and rules and the like for each place.

1. I buy the stuff myself

Yes, believe it or not, I do buy some of the stuff myself. Sometimes it's something I pick up on a whim and sometimes it's a planned purchase. Generally speaking though, they aren't products I pick up with the intent to review. It's usually a product I've seen around or heard something about or just plain caught my eye at the store. Either way I get it home, try it and if I have some sort of strong feelings either way - love or hate - I tend to want to share that with my readers. If it's something I was kind of meh about, I might share it but it's not as likely unless I feel my meh opinion is really relevant and would help others deciding to purchase that product or not.

Here is where you guys as readers have some influence too. I don't always get a say in exactly what I get sent from some of the other places I get things to review but I always have a say in how I spend my own money. If there's a product you've seen around and want to know my opinion let me know! I'd be happy to purchase it myself, try it out and possibly save you a few dollars - or suggest you spend it!

As I said as the beginning, this is apparently going to be a multi-post miniseries since one post with everything would be insanely long. That said, the next post about another way to get things to review will be out shortly! If you know of any other ways you'd like to share or think I should check out, feel free to comment below!