Try These Girls Toys For Your Daughter
Written by StrathyDolls
Of course it goes without saying that girls love dolls. So girls toys that include dolls have to be discussed. Instead of buying a mass-produced doll, why not try and make one yourself. Or, have the Grandma do it if she is the more accomplished seamstress. When making a doll, involve your daughter in the process. Take her with you to the pattern store to select the doll pattern she likes best. Or, better yet, get her to draw a doll and then have the adult develop a pattern from that. Allow her to choose the hair color and the clothing fabric as well. It will mean more to the child to have a doll she helped to make than a doll that was purchased from the store. It will be something she will treasure for years to come.
Books
Photo Story Junior is really practical as a boys or girls toys selection. It is a kit, through which your child can create his or her very own book. Your child is the author, illustrator, and photographer of their very own book that the manufacturer will publish and bind. The kit includes everything from the tape to adhere photos to marking pens, and the envelope and pre-paid postage to send the manuscript in for production. If your child prefers, Photo Story junior can also be used on the Internet.
Crafts
Strictly a girls toys selection, Girls Crush Hair Beader kit will keep your daughter busy beading her hair with the special beading machine. It only takes a few strands of hair placed gently in the beading machine, and a pull on the trigger to have instantly beaded hair. This is a favorite girls toys selection.
The Aqua doodle is one of the best girls toys for moms. The Aqua doodle is a mat that children can use for doodling. They doodle and draw with a special water-filled magic pen. The drawing magically appears on the mat, then dries up and disappears. This is drawing with no paper, no mess, and no clean up. No wonder it is a parents’ favorite among girls toys. I can personally attest to this toy as my two year old daughter uses it. The mess-free aspect of this toy makes it perfect for in the car.
Barrel of Crafts is another favorite among girls toys if strictly for the variety it provides. It literally is a barrel of crafts items, featuring pom poms, feathers, chenille stems, clay, craft sticks, wiggle eyes, foam shapes and sheets, dough cutters, buttons, spangles, rainbow cord, sequins, pony beads, and glitter glue pens. Your little girl will have hour and hours of fun making her own imaginative creations from all these crafts materials.
Play Toys
The Paint and Pretend Mini Tea Set is one of the best keepsake toys for girls. It’s a mini tea set with unfinished teacups, teapot, saucers and cream and sugar dispensers. Your little girl gets to design and decorate the entire set with the paints and palette provided. Once the paint has been applied, the tea set can be baked in the over to make the paint set. Your daughter is left with a play tea set personally designed and painted by her own hand. The set is very durable and should provide years of tea party use long after the paint has been applied.
The Easy Bake Real Meal Oven is the latest rendition of one of the classic girls toys of all time. Your daughter can bake pretzels, chocolate chip cookies, macaroni and cheese and more. These are meals that she can enjoy and even the family can help to eat. The oven is safe for use by small children and the food is real, and it tastes pretty good, too.
While we realize that we have described these as girls toys, we recognize that some of these toys are just as much fun for boys as well, so be sure to include them in playtime too. Have fun shopping for the little girl in your life!
Cheap Toys Your Kids Will Enjoy
Written by StrathyMake Your Own Cheap Toys
Of course, you may not even need to spend a cent if you make your own toys. This is probably the best way to get cheap toys. Some ideas would be to make a sock puppet, make a little diorama or scene out of a box, sew a costume, make a boardgame or even make some snowglobes.
The teddy bears at left were made using felt scraps and other bits of things found around the house. You can easily draw your own patter up. Kids toys don't have to be perfect - just think colorful!
There are many DIY articles online that will help you make cheap toys. Have a look around and check for supplies in your cupboards and you may be surprised with what you can come up with.
Dollar Store Cheap Toys
Be sure and check out your local dollar store for cheap toys. You can find toys for $1 a piece and it is a good opportunity to stock up. Buy a small selection of cheap toys and keep it in a cupboard for when a surprise birthday comes along or another occasion that you wish you already had a gift to bring along.
Second Hand Cheap Toys
When yard sale season rolls around, this is one of the best places to look for cheap toys. People are in the mood to clean out their houses in the spring and more often than not, if they have children in the house, they will be apt to get rid of toys... and cheaply. Year round, be sure and check into thrift shops and charity shops. Things can be had for very cheap there.
Other Cheap Toys Ideas
Morph-O-Scopes are a really great selection for cheap toys. They are basically distorted coloring pages. They come with a cup shaped mirror that you set on the page to bring the objects into clarity. These things are fun and entertaining and kids love to do the reveal with the mirror.
Joining the Morph-of-the Month Club is less than ten dollars and you get links to ten morphs, a mirror, crayons, and links to new morphs. This toy promotes concentration and imagination in kids six to fourteen.
The Zolo Ha Ha Mirror and rattle is a cheap toys selection for babies. Babies enjoy looking at themselves and playing with rattles. Here are two for the price of one. Zolo Ha Ha Mirrors cost less then ten dollars.
The Star Fountain is a cheap toys bathtub selection. It costs around ten dollars and flashes a blue light as water shoots out the star in a sprinkler effect. It will be a hit with parents because it gets the kid in the tub every night.
Appleletters is a spelling game in a red apple case. Its one of the best cheap toys because its not only cheap, but educational as well. Children can play it like dominoes, only using letters instead of dots. It comes with other, more challenging, game instructions, too. Children really like the carrying case, also. Appleletters cost around seventeen dollars.
Rainbow Brushes are colored markers that you can snap together to write or draw in rainbows. There is a DVD in the introduction kit to show how to mark bright colored art. You can also get kits with dinosaurs and flowers. At ten dollars, it is one of the best cheap toys for the aspiring young artist.
The Play-Doh Burger Builder is one of the classic cheap toys, at under fifteen dollars. This kit includes five cans of Play-Doh, and a press to create onions, pickles, lettuce, and a brand new Play-Doh chip maker. Building the burger is pretty much intuitive.
Cahootie is a variation on the fortune-telling game kids used to play with slips of paper. The kit features eleven themes and forty reusable stickers, so the game is always different. It is always fun to tell fortunes, especially at seven dollars or so.
The Crayola Box of sixty-four crayons is only about five dollars and it now comes with a code for Crayola’s Lights, Camera, Color!, which is a new system they’ve created that turns family photos into coloring pages. You can get twenty-four hours of free uploading with the code. Lights, Camera, Color! Even allows children to add borders, backgrounds, and comic bodies to the coloring pages. This is probably the best cheap toys deal.
The key to finding cheap toys is to keep your eyes and ears open. Put the word out to friends and family of things that you are on the hunt for and they will also be aware of such deals to pass along.
How To Get Rid Of Silver Stretch Marks
Written by AprilIdeally you should treat stretch marks as soon as they appear on your skin because then you’ll have a better chance at getting rid of them. At first they will be red, pink, purple or brown depending on your skin color and end up a silver or white color. When they are silver or white they are normally accompanied by deep indentations.
If your stretch marks are silver then it’s probably because you’ve had them for some time. Now, it will be more difficult to eliminate them however please don’t despair. There are still a number of options at your disposal including topical treatments, laser treatments and microdermabrasion.
You will see certain treatments on the market including cocoa butter, wheat germ oil, vitamin c, retinoids, topical tretinoin however these are better suited to stretch marks that are early on in their development. There are also treatments such as glycolic acid, relastin and products containing peptides however they really haven’t been proven to be affective.
Stretch Mark Laser Treatment
A better option, albeit expensive, is laser treatment. Laser treatments can be used for both early and established stretchmarks. Basically a beam of light removes the thin layers of skin that surround the stretch marks. This might worry you because lasers are often used as cutting tools.
When it comes to laser stretch mark removal an excimer laser used and puts out a high-energy UV light to disrupt the molecular bonds in the skin tissue. This is a process known as ablation. The beauty of this kind of cosmetic surgery is that the healing time is very quick and effective. However at first the treated area will be red and tender. This is due to the fact that the scarred skin has been taken away.
Remember, if you have silver stretch marks it’s because they are old so having laser treatment might not work 100% first time. It might be that you need as many as 10 treatments for the problem to be completely eradicated. Each treatment costs in the region of $200 so it’s not cheap. Everyone is unique and will respond to the treatment differently. Have a talk with a surgeon or dermatologist to get their feedback on your individual case.
Microdermabrasion For Stretch Mark Treatment
The process of microdermabrasion involves a crystal flow to sandblast the skin so that the marks effectively become eroded. It also encourages the formation of new collagen and elastin. You will probably need anywhere in the region of 6 to 12 treatments to see the results you are looking for.
Conclusion
Many people waste a lot of money trying to get rid of stretch marks because most of the products on the market don’t work very well if at all. Having silver stretch marks means you will also need to be more careful because the age of the marks means you will need treatment that is that bit more intensive. Talking to a dermatologist is a good idea because they will be able to look at your skin and decide what the best course of action is.
Get The Best Baby Toys
Written by StrathyFirst, we consider Playskool’s Busy Ball Popper (shown at right) to be one of the best baby toys because it engages the infant in a lot of activity. Some baby toys don’t do much. This is not true of the Busy Ball Popper. Balls are placed on a track. The balls roll down the track and are then popped back up amidst sound effects and music. Babies find this extremely entertaining, in fact, so did I. The entertainment factor aside, this toy teaches infants the basic skills of grasping and lifting. It also helps infants develop hand-eye coordination skills. Combine these positive educational effects with the sheer entertainment and you have certainly gotten one of the best baby toys on the market. This toy is for babies nine months old and higher.
Next, we have to have a look at one of Fisher Price’s best baby toys. The Peek-A-Blocks Incrediblocks, featuring lights, sound, and loads of action are a great item for baby. There’s plenty for infants to do with the peek-a-blocks. They can be stacked, spun with music and lights and stuck through holes where baby can see them disappear. These blocks allow an infant to be very imaginative. They encourage hand-eye coordination, grasping, and holding. Peek-A-blocks run on three C batteries, that are not included. They are one of the best baby toys for infants nine months and older.
The Learning Drum from Leap Frog is a very responsive toy. Your baby beats on the drum and a response is given in music or a recitation of numbers and letters. This is an interactive toy for infants that elicits curiosity and communication. The baby will hear a voice encouraging them to hit the drum. The drum responds not only audibly, but by displaying numbers and letters on it surface as well. The featured settings for the drums responses can be changed from follow the beat, to ABC, 123, or interactive song. It is the varying type of available interaction that makes the Learning Drum one of the best baby toys.
Our next toy has been one of the best baby toys for a long time. They are snap lock beads. Brilliant Basics from Fisher price has good snap lock beads for babies. Babies learn problem solving through snapping and unsnapping the beads, along with hand-eye coordination, colors, and shape recognition. This is one of the best baby toys for infants six months and older because of its simplicity and durability.
So, there’s a little idea of what is out there as far as best baby toys. Everything from animated interaction to simple basic, old-fashioned colored plastic. All of these toys, and an assortment of others, are available online and in stores now.
We’ll start with The Iron Man Repulsor Power Figure by Hasbro (shown at left). This choice of action toys features two yellow missiles for its repulsor launcher. Iron Man’s boots emit take off and landing sounds. If you push the button on Iron Man’s chest, he will confirm who he is with the statement, I am Iron Man. The power Figure boasts upgraded armor and unbeatable battle technology loaded with missiles and repulsors. Iron Man comes with three AAA batteries. How’s that for power?
Our next action toy is by LEGO. It’s a thirty-inch Batman based on the Batman Begins character. It’s called the My Size Batman and it is an excellent reproduction of the smoldering anti-hero. The tall replica features a removable cape and the detail is done so well that it is very realistic. Kids think this is one of the coolest action toys, and so do collectors.
Spin and Kick Spiderman does just that. Spidey has long been one of the best selling action toys. This one comes with a barrel and boxes that will shatter under the spinning attack of Spiderman. Just wind up his leg and push a button and watch him do a spinning kick. Spin and Kick Spiderman comes to you from the folks at Hasbro action toys.
Transformers Optimus Prime vs. Ravage is a combination of two action toys. The set includes a robot mode Optimus Prime and a beast mode Ravage. Man, are these two ready to fight it out. They go at it with galactic technology and a range of special weapons. The two are going to set two different fighting styles against each other to determine who is the greatest of the action toys.
Okay, now we come to Indiana Jones with whip action. This twelve-inch action hero is based upon the most recent Indiana Jones movie. Just press the whip for sounds and action. Indy carries a pistol in his holster and a messenger bag for packing up all the treasure he can find. Indiana Jones is fully outfitted for adventure with a messenger bag, holster and removable gun, pants, shirt, boots, hat belt, and a sixteen-inch whip.
These are all very popular action toys that you can easily find online or in stores. Remember that action toys are products that elicit sheer imagination. They are a good choice for children and actually help them act out dramas in their imagination that help them cope in life. By the way, they are just plain fun, too.
How To Get Rid Of Household Mold
Written by April
If you at all suspect that you have mold in your home then you ought to tackle the problem fast. You might already understand that mold can cause serious problems if it is allowed to get out of control. Of course, it’s also a lot easier to remedy any household mold problems when they have only just begun rather than holding off for ages.
The first thing to do is to find out if the substance you believe to be mold actually is mold. From time to time, people assume that a substance is mold when it isn’t. What’s the point in trying to rectify a problem that isn’t a problem? The way you identify mold is to use a mold testing kit. These are available from a number of different outlets including Lowes, Home Depot and Wal-Mart. How much they cost really depends on what kind you buy however they are available for about $30.
If you don’t want to do the testing yourself then you will want to get a mold inspector out. They will be knowledgeable in detecting mold and also what’s required in order to get rid of it. There are so many different types of mold and means of getting rid of it, a professional should know what to do.
Anyway, if you have received a positive identification of the mold then you need to know what steps are involved in killing it. The most important thing is that you should find out why the mold is growing in the first place before you even consider cleaning it away.
Mold spores can be floating about in many homes, however unless the conditions are right the spores will never grow into mold. In order for the spores to grow into mold they need warmth and dampness. It’s a good idea to buy one of those pretty cheap humidity meters. If your meter is reading above 50% you need to find a way of bringing the humidity down.
The rooms in the home most affected by moisture problems tend to be the bathroom, shower room, kitchen, basement and crawl space. If you don’t have good ventilation the vapor cannot escape and therefore builds up. So if you don’t have a ventilation system you should look into having one installed in the affected area.
Another measure that can be employed to reduce humidity is to buy a dehumidifier. This is particularly good if you have suffered some sort of flooding and you need to get the dampness away as quick as possible.
You should also be looking for other ways that moisture can be getting into your home. Leaking pipes, blocked guttering and rising damp are the most common offenders. If you don’t attend to these matters the mold will simply come back.
An air filter is another step you can take when it comes to tackling mold problems. There are many different air filters on the market and they are not all the same. It is a HEPA air filter that you will want to buy as this can filter mold spores. This can be costly option, however, because you need to buy replacement filters so you will need to do further research to decide whether you want to invest in such a unit.
When it comes to cleaning the mold you need to ensure you wear protective clothing in the form of goggles, mask and gloves. This will prevent you from breathing in any mold and also protect your skin from coming into contact with whatever cleaning agent you choose to use.
There are many different products on the market designed to clean mold however many folks opt to use a mixture of bleach and water. Please note that if you decide to use bleach, make sure you don’t mix it with any other detergents that contain ammonia because it will produce toxic fumes. The area that you are working in ought to be well ventilated too which means you need to open the windows, doors or use a ventilation system.
Some surfaces infected with mold simply cannot be cleaned. Porous and absorbent materials that you find in drywall, carpeting, ceiling tiles etc might simply need to be thrown away. Because there are tiny crevices in these materials, it’s near impossible to completely remove the mold which is why throwing them out can be the only option.
Once you have remedied the affected area you might want to look into mold-restant products that are on the market. These include drywall, insulation, paint, carpeting, flooring, caulk, shower curtains, plaster and ceiling tiles. Of course, you really only need to consider buying these products in rooms that suffer from mold problems otherwise it would be a waste of money.
As you can see, getting rid of household mold is not an especially straightforward task and there’s a lot to think about. Remember cleaning the mold off without finding the reason for it being there in the first place is not a good idea because it will just grow back. Also, don’t simply paint or paper over mold hoping that the mold will be “out of sight, out of mind” because it will just come back to haunt you.
