Last week's contest winner

Congratulations to Audrey Larson of Bloomington, MN.
She's last week's mi-SPA/Blend Creations mi-COLLAB winner of a 20" coral bells foliage necklace.


That's 3 winners down with one last drawing to go. Enter this week by using this form, and get an extra ballot for each purchase you make at Blend Creations or mi-SPA
.

BIG! GINORMOUS! SALE!

Hey, what are you doing reading this?
Blend Creations is having a sale today! (In fact, I should probably be in the shop filling orders...)

The sale's for 24-hours only, so go check it out now.

If you're still reading this and you feel like buying me a present, I just saw Kristen's (of Cool Mom Picks' fame) cool "Mominatrix" t-shirts:


They're $30 and I want one. This is mostly a hint for Eric to go buy me something ;)

Last week's contest winner

Congrats to last week's mi-SPA/Blend Creations contest winner, Mindy Blair of Omaha, Nebraska! She's chosen our pretty scattered flowers cards as part of her prize:


So, that's two winners down, with two more to go. To enter the contest, fill out this form. Make sure to enter by this the end of tomorrow to be eligible for this week's draw. Then, enter again next week to be eligible for the last of the draws.

New products, and pssst, there's going to be a SALE!

Have you seen our latest of pretty new things?





Those are two of our new laser-engraved wood-inlay stainless steel necklaces and pendants (say that 5 times fast). As you can see, we've been putting our laser-cutter to good use :)

And in other news -- we're going to be having a SALE this Friday, aka "Black Friday". A number of our most popular items are going to be on sale at more than 20% off. The deal is even sweeter if you're privvy to any of our coupon codes since the codes WILL WORK on sales items for extra money saved.

Happy shopping!

Last week's contest winner

Congratulations to last week's Blend Creations + mi-SPA mi*COLLAB winner: Stacey Brown of Shippensburg, PA!

Stacey chose this set of our lovely laser-cut blank cards, the "Broken Baroque": Emblem 2 set:




So, that's one winner, with three more to go.

We draw EVERY WEEK with a whole new batch of ballots, so if you entered last week and didn't win, then make sure you enter the contest again this week (and the week after, and the week after that).

For more details, and a contest ballot, just go here.

Toys R Us of the 1950s?

We're the parents of a walking toddler (boy) who just happens to have an affinity for anything that looks like good, wholesome, cleaning fun -- a swiffer, a mop, a broom, what have you. It's become more and more difficult to actually be able to use these in his presence because he insists on "helping". Being the clever parents that we are, we thought, "Hey, I bet they make toy ones that would make him let go of our toys!". (If only cleaning were actually so much fun).

Being interweb-oriented, I went to Toys R Us' Canadian site, and found two possibilities when I searched for "cleaning", since "broom" yielded no results. Of the two relevant results, I was rather surprised with what I read.

For the first set: "14 Piece Cleaning Playset English Edition", by "Just like home":


It's described as, (and I quote):
"This Mr. Clean playset will help get the house spotless, just like mommy does!"

Now, I try not to rant in our blog, but WTF?, "just like mommy does!"?! It's 2007, not 1957. After reading that I thought, "well, this has got to be the exception" since I would think that a major toy store wouldn't fall prey to such gender-biased stereotyping.

Then I went to the second set: "Cleaning Set", also by "Just like home":

This one is described as, (and I quote again):
"This toy is sure to be a favorite for the little girl who loves playing house."

Now, both sets are made by the same manufacturer, and there's a good chance it's a Chinese manufacturer (as 95%+ of toys are these days) that had badly translated copy for their product. But, for Toys R Us to actually have this as the copy for their website is pretty unbelievable. It seems that it's the rule and not the exception for Toys R Us website copy writers to try and pass on gender-based "roles" for the next generation. I'm not sure if I want to go look at "play kitchens" next.

I've got to say, I'm very disappointed with Toys R Us, and I'm now thinking that when we find a toy cleaning set, it won't be from them. So, do any indies out there make a toy cleaning set?

Update: Mrs. Tiggy Winkles (our favourite local toy store), has a cleaning set. But, notice it says, "Help mum and dad clean up!" That's more like it. I know where we're buying our toy broom from.

It's funny 'cause it's true

"Goodnight Moon, hello martini" by Sloane Tanen -- the same author who did the book "Bitter with baggage seeks same" (which I love). I was surfing around imagekind.com and came across her work, and was quite pleased to see that you can buy prints of the different chicks from her various books, starting around $13! See her full gallery here. (Incidentally, imagekind.com is a great site for finding some great artwork by both new and established artists.)

Our foray into the land of cute

We've just added a new line of pendants to Blend Creations: Chinese zodiac pendants.

This year is the year of the pig. (It'll be the year of the pig until the next Chinese new year, February 7, 2008).


The illustrations were taken straight from the pages of our sketchbooks, and while we're responsible for all of them, we each have our favourites. Eric's is the "rat":

(Just so you know, next year is the year of the rat!)

My favourite is the "dragon":

I like him best probably because I thought he would be the hardest to illustrate, but he just kind of flew onto the page.

Both Eric and I were born in the year of the "tiger",

so he's a bit special that way -- and now, if you do the math, you can hazard a pretty good guess as to both our ages. (Yes we're old! ;) but we still like cute things). You can see the full set of Chinese zodiac pendants here.

November already? and giveaways!

We're experiencing a bit of a sugar high here, in the post-Hallowe'en gluttony. Last night we took our son out trick-or-treating for the first time. Last year, he was just too wee to go out and we were much too sleep deprived to even contemplate it.

And because the costume was much too funny and cute not to show, here it is:


Now that Hallowe'en is over, the reality has just set in that's November already! Only two more months left of the year!
It also marks our month of giveaways! This month, we've teamed up with Mimie Wong of mi-SPA in her mi*COLLAB giveaway for November.



We'll be giving away a prize pack that has mi-SPA's luxurious whipped shea butter, and a pack of our laser-cut cards or one of our foliage necklaces.

To enter the contest, just fill out an entry right here. You can also increase your chances of winning: every time you buy something from Blend Creations or mi-SPA, you'll get an extra ballot. Simple enough? Well, then go enter the contest already! :)