Second Story Window

Wee Alphas Print Giveaway + Exclusive Discount

Have you met Wee Society yet? They are one of my favorite new companies. If you haven't been to their site yet, go right now and check out their About Us page. You will be smitten. They are such a fun company. I love their ideas for using the tube your print(s) come in. Don't Toss This Tube! And their You Know What's Awesome?  graphics always make me smile. Be sure to check out their blog for more awesomeness.

They have bold, graphic and adorable designs for the little ones in your life. They have a Wee Alphas app, which we posted about awhile ago, and it is still a favorite around here. And now they have gorgeous prints for your little nursery as well. You can personalize some of them for your little ones too! They recently launched some new prints and I'm kind of smitten with the lion, myself. They sent me a Wee Alphas Print to review and it is amazing. It's huge, for starters, which is awesome (18x24.) And the minute it arrived Addie wanted to look at it and point out all the animals. I love their gold foil logo in the corner too.

Wee Society is giving away a Wee Alphas print to one lucky reader ($40 value) and offering an exclusive 20% off discount to our readers with code SECONDSTORY at checkout. (Can't be combined with any other offers. Standard shipping rates apply.)

Enter for the print using the rafflecopter below! Giveaway ends Monday 12/10 at midnight PST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Petite Lemon Giveaway

Let us introduce you to Petite Lemon, a fun site offering prints, growth charts, clothing and stationery. There is so much to love on their site. The growth charts look like wonderful keepsakes and the posters would look amazing on any nursery wall.

They let us personalize a t-shirt to check out and I chose the Balloon Bouquet Monogram shirt for Adelaide (wth an A, of course.) I was completely impressed with the quality of the both the shirt and the design on the shirt. It was absolutely darling! These shirts aren't cheap, but they would be wonderful for a birthday celebration or announcing a new little sibling. My one and only complaint is that they are not supposed to go in the dryer and I hate when Addie's clothes have special laundry requirements. But for a special shirt like this, it would be worth it. 

Petite Lemon is offering a $50 gift card to one lucky reader. Enter to win using the rafflecopter below. Giveaway ends 12/11/12 at midnight PST. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Back to School: Paper Coterie Giveaway [Closed]

I adore Paper Coterie. I have ordered many personalized memory items from them and they all have been beautiful. I made Addie an ABC book and she especially loves a coil bound photo book I made for her. It has really sturdy pages that she loves to look through. I made a Memory Keeper for our wedding keepsakes (my veil, our invitations, ring boxes, etc.) I've been meaning to make one for Addie's baby keepsakes as well (hospital bracelets, newborn outfit, etc.) I made a photo book of my husband's family reunion for his parents for Christmas. Honestly, I've tried most of their products and they are all stellar.

My favorite items at Paper Coterie right now are the new Documenting series. I made a Documentine Dailies book that I use to make notes for Project Life. It is the perfect size, the quality is wonderful, and it is absolutely darling.

One lucky winner will win a $75 gift certificate to Paper Coterie. Enter the giveaway using the rafflecopter widget below. If it doesn't load, click the link.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enter to win the other Back to School Event Giveaways.

P.S. Paper Coterie often offers special deals on their products. To help keep you informed, I created a page where you can find all the Paper Coterie deals in one place. You can book mark it or pin it and come back to check the deals any time you want to order something.

Back to School: Playful Learning eCourse & Book Giveaway [Closed]

Today's giveaway is a real treat. Playful Learning is one of our favorite sites, and one of the first blogs I started reading. You will find amazing educational ideas and beautiful inspiration there. In addition to their great site content, Playful Learning offers incredible eCourses and Mariah recently wrote an amazing book as well! You will want to add this blog to your reading list right away if you haven't already!

Mariah at Playful Learning is generously offering one of our readers free admission to the Learning Space eCourse ($97 value) as well as a complimentary copy of her book Playful Learning: Develop You Child's Sense of Joy and Wonder.

And as an extra bonus for all of you lovely readers, she's giving 30% off any courses in the Playful Learning Ecademy. Just use code giveaway30 at checkout.

Enter the giveaway for Playful Learning Spaces eCourse + the Playful Learning book using the rafflecopter below. Giveaway ends Friday 8/31.

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Back to School: Night & Day Studios Apps Giveaway (30 winners!) [CLOSED]

You may recall that Peekaboo Barn was Addie's very first favorite app. And Peekaboo Forest is a new favorite, the Charley Harper illustrations are stunning. So it is a real treat for me to get to give away copies of Peekaboo Barn and Peekaboo Forest to you, our wonderful readers! Thank you, Night & Day Studios.

We get to give away 10 codes for Peekaboo Barn for iPhone, 10 codes for Peekaboo Barn for iPad, and 10 codes for Peekaboo Forest (a universal app for iPhone and iPad.) That's 30 winners! This giveaway will only run until Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 10PM PST so enter quickly.  Enter the giveaway using the rafflecopter widget below. Your odds are great! (If you have trouble getting the widget to load, please click the "a Rafflecopter giveaway" link. Sorry!)

In order for us to send out the codes quickly to you, please specify in your comment your preference for apps if you win, for example: 1st choice: Peekaboo Barn for iPad, 2nd choice: Peekaboo Forest, 3rd choice: Peekaboo Barn for iPhone.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enter to win the other Back to School Event giveaways.

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED. All winners have been e-mailed.

Back to School: Nicole's Classes Review & Giveaway [Closed]

Recently, Heidi and I were given the chance to take a class at Nicole's Clases. Nicole's Classes offers online courses in photography, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and more. For ages we've had it on our list to take an Illustrator class and this was just the perfect opportunity to do it.

Alma, our instructor, is an insanely talented illustrator and designer. She is one of the designers of our favorite app, Make it Pop! Her work is so inspiring that I found myself wanting to learn everything about Illustrator as quickly as I possibly could.

The reason we wanted to learn Illustrator is because it's one of the best programs (maybe THE best program) for creating vector graphics. You can do lots of things in Photoshop, but it is not the best program for making your own graphics. If you've ever wanted to design graphics, Illustrator is the way to go

Illustrator 101 covers all the basics of the program. In 4 weeks we covered so much information, yet I never felt like it was too much information to tackle. Alma gave us assignments to practice the tools we learned each week. That pen tool started out as my enemy but has quickly become my best friend!  Heidi had no Illustrator experience when we started and I had only a small amount. We both were amazed at what we were able to create with the tools Alma taught us. Illustrator can be intimidating but I promise you that if you dive in, you will be amazed at what you can learn. I have a long way to go but with Alma's help (and maybe some more of her classes!) I will be an Illustrator pro before long.

One more thing, I highly recommend picking up the textbook as well. I found it a useful reference while working and now refer to it often. It is an incredibly useful and organized book with a ton of information packed in its covers.

Also, be sure to follow the Nicole's Classes Blog. They have amazing tutorials over there and tons of inspiration.

Now that the kids are back in school, it's your turn to take the time to learn something new! Nicole's Classes has generously offered a spot for TWO of you to take one of their amazing classes. You can choose any class from this list. Enter the giveaway using the rafflecopter widget below. (If you have trouble getting the widget to load, please click the "a Rafflecopter giveaway" link. Sorry!)

In addition, they are offering a 35% discount on classes and textbooks, good only until Friday 8/24/12 at midnight PST. Use code 2SW35 at checkout to apply your discount. Thank you Nicole's Classes!

Disclosure: Heidi and I were given complimentary access to the Illustrator 101 class. All opinions, as always, are our own. We only share what we love!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

This giveaway is closed. The winner are Cassity and Ali!

another giveaway- this one's a good one!

We were asked to donate a copy of Banana Splits Match Facts to Rays Homeschool blog. Well the giveaway ends tomorrow and there are zero entries so your odds of winning this one are PRETTY GOOD! :) Banana Splits Math Facts is an activity you'd love in your classroom in 1st or 2nd grade, it's a fun homeschool activity, and it would be a really fun summertime activity to keep the little ones learning. So head over to Rays Homeschool Blog and enter before tomorrow! Good luck!

P.S. Did you have a nice Spring Break? We did! I went to Utah and Heidi went to Europe! I think Heidi wins but we both had a great time. Will be back to regular posting soon!

Guest Posts + Giveaways

You can read my guest post on A Heart For Home about teaching the alphabet here. And check out this post to enter a giveaway for the Alphabet Games Set 1 + 2 games of your choice (that's 5 games!)

Today you can also find a $20 gift certificate to our shop being given away on Simply Utah. That one is a quick one, ending tomorrow. But it's really easy to enter so check it out.

And don't forget about our newest free printable game: ABC City found here.

Be sure to keep checking back for the great information Heidi is sharing about Words Their Way this week. If you have any questions about the program that you'd like Heidi to answer, please leave a comment for her.

Giveaway Winners

Adelaide likes our new Harvest Bounty game.

We decided that since only 3 people decided to enter the giveaway that all of them would win! So congratulations to Shannon, Kim and Joyce. I'll e-mail you about your prizes.

Don't forget:

- You can snag the Harvest Bounty game for yourself over in the shop.
- You can now "like" us on Facebook for updates and ideas.
- You can still download the Veterans Day activity book. This weekend is still a great time to honor our Veterans!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Monday Math + GIVEAWAY!!

Growing up, the focal point of our Thanksgiving decorations was mom's cornucopia. I was fascinated by all the different fabric foods and how they were arranged--especially the mushrooms. I hate mushrooms now, so I'm not sure about the attraction, but I loved to sneak and play with them. :)

Those fabulous 70's prints are as much a part of my Thanksgiving memories as turkey and pumpkin pie!

When I was trying to come up with a design for a Thanksgiving card game, the brightly patterned mushrooms and all their stuffed friends kept coming back to me. Which is how I ended up with this:
It's part of an addition came called Harvest Bounty. Players practice adding numbers--with a Thanksgiving twist!

 

This game is geared toward 6 to 9-year-olds, but by using fewer cards, younger learners could easily play.

Now onto the good stuff...

If you would like to win the Harvest Bounty game PLUS TWO MORE games of your choice, bee bop on over to our Etsy shop and peek around. To be entered in the contest, please leave a comment on this post telling us which two games you would like to own. Contest closes Thursday, November 11 at 10:00 PM MST. We'll announce the winner on Friday.

For 5 extra entries into the contest, do any or all of the following and leave a comment for each:
- subscribe to our blog
- follow us on google friend connect (bottom left of page)
- post about our contest on your blog
- "like" us on facebook
- mention us on facebook
- follow us on twitter and tweet about the giveaway  (include link so we can follow you!)

Please leave a separate comment for each entry!

If you just can't wait until Friday to own your own Harvest Bounty game, starting today it's available for purchase in our Etsy shop.

All games are sent via email. After downloading and printing the file, it's quick and easy to prepare games for use. You may print as many sets as your family or class requires, but please don’t make copies to share with others. Laminating your games will help them last longer.