I found ZaZa Gallery awhile back when I started following them on Twitter (@PhotoCanvas). Recently they tweeted a special coupon for 20% off until the end of the month using promo code “JUNE” so I wanted to share! To me, photos turned into canvas art for your walls, is just about the coolest way to personalize your living space.
I recently did a ZaZa Gallery canvas of this beautiful photo, one of my ALL TIME favorites by Kristin Eldridge, taken when Morgan was about 4 weeks old. It is one of my most treasured pieces of decor.
There is nothing I would rather look at on my wall than the faces of my children!
The quality is absolutely fabulous, crisp and clear, and I was just thoroughly impressed with the product, especially for the price. 8 x 10’s start at $25, click HERE for their pricing. And, it is so easy, you just upload your file online. Love the idea of making your family into pieces of art!
{Disclosure: I received my canvas for free in a special Twitter promotion for bloggers, but this is in no way a compensated post. I was honestly, thoroughly impressed with the quality, I know you will be too!}
I met PosePrints back at the SV Moms event in February and I was one of the lucky raffle winners that won a gift certificate! Since I have my baby’s first birthday coming up in a few weeks {seriously, how did THAT happen?} I decided to use PosePrints to do a cute little invite for her!
Her birthday is July 2nd so I thought a 4th of July birthday theme was only appropriate! And they had the CUTEST design! I was sooo excited!
Their site is so amazingly cute. You create your OWN caricature to put on your stationery. So, you customize the hair color, eyes, outfit, accessories, etc. etc. Just go on their site and play around with it for fun!
So I did my little caricature, but then I had a question about fonts to see if there were more options. They emailed right back with more options. Then, I asked if I could do the single barrette in red, and they totally could! They were able to customize and had the most AMAZING customer service.
Here is my little invite…
And a recent picture of my ALMOST 1 year old! The look in her eyes in this picture totally reminded me of the caricature!
I love fun finds & unique ideas! I think you will love this company too…
Two important things before I start with this long post about how muchI LOVE the Keratin Complex Smoothing Treatment! Tera Rae Stephens is going to be GIVING away a treatment!!!!! It is valued at $300! So, please make sure you read at the bottom on how you can enter to win if you like wearing your straight, but don’t like spending hours blow drying and flat ironing.
Tera is also extending a special deal to first time clients that are Tiny Oranges readers! If you book a service and tell her you found her though Tiny Oranges, you will receive 20% off your first time visit! That is HUGE. You can schedule online through her website and if you want to go directly to the page to schedule an appointment click HERE. You can enter promo code “tinyoranges” when booking! Or, give her a call at 714.614.5588.
Here is my Keratin love affair from start to finish…
I got this email from a dear friend from San Francisco several months back. It was titled, “Keratin, here you come?” This is what she said:
“…What is so nice is your hair looks brand new – .. so SHINY, so undamaged -oooh you will love. You can blow dry in literally 3-5 minutes (WOW) and if you have really good hair (not me) you can walk out the door with wet hair and not look like a homeless person(me again) . If you ever had fuzzy, frizzy hair you can say BYE BYE but it will cost you good $$$ – but hello never have to do your hair again – oh and say bye to the flat iron! It lasts 3 ish months but I’m on month 4.5 – it still only takes me 3 minutes to blow dry and my homeless hair has not come back.”
Sold.
I immediately went online to try to find a stylist that does the Keratin treatment here in OC. My former salon offered the Brazilian Blowout, but that is different. My friend stressed that the treatment of choice is called “Keratin Complex Smoothing Treatment by Coppola.”
I couldn’t find much on Google so I put a tweet out there to see if there were any Orange County Keratin leads, and @whoorl who has the fabulous blog Whoorl and alsoHair Thursday, tweeted back and raved about Tera. Super conveniently located for me, so I called immediately. Tera picks up the phone and we talk for 20 minutes. I feel like she is an old girlfriend. I make an appointment for a cut and color, but have to wait for the Keratin because I was still breastfeeding. This treatment is not recommended for pregnant or breastfeeding moms.
I was patient. Then come last month when I finished nursing, I called to make my appointment and it has been one of the greatest things to happen to me since the invention of the DVR!
This is the step-by-step in what is involved, sorry in advance for the length of this post and for the endless pics of my mug. Just look at the hair! HA!
Let me first say that I love curls and curly hair. This has nothing to do with being anti-curl. What I have never loved about my particular hair is that I have a frizzy wave and I like to wear mine straight. See, this is what happens when I let it air dry…
Here is another close up of the back before…
Okay, so this is the step-by-step breakdown!
Step 1 & Step 2
Wash with Clarifying Shampoo by Keratin and blow dry hair 100%
Step 3
Apply Keratin Serum to head, put on plastic cap & sit for 20 minutes
Lovely. I can’t believe I am putting these up for all to see! Oh well, want you to get an idea of the FULL experience!
Step 4
Blow dry 100% (the serum stays in your hair)
Step 5
Flat iron entire head – do each section thoroughly – the heat seals treatment into the hair
Tera was completely meticulous with this part. She took so much time and care into the flat-ironing, which she says is the crucial part of the process.
Step 6
Done!
When the flat ironing is complete, you are finished! You then cannot wash your hair for 72 hours and cannot put any clips in in, any sunglasses on your head, or any basically anything that would mess with the shape. Here are the afters! Keep in mind, it is straighter than it will be normally because of the intense flat-ironing! And there were lots of fly away whispies up top which settled down eventually.
And the back…
The whole process takes about 2 – 3 hours and this treatment is supposed to last 3 – 5 months depending on how much your wash it. The less you wash, the longer it lasts. It is important to wash it with the special Keratin shampoo and conditioner as you cannot have anything with sodium cloride in it.
So then I waited the 3 days, and in those 3 days, I have actually never gotten so many compliments on my hair. From the preschool teachers to my doctor, every single person that saw me commented on how much they loved my hair. I even had people reach out to touch it!
Then the magic happens…
The first time I washed it, I wanted to cry because of how happy I was. To blow dry my hair before with the round brush and then flat iron would usually take me about 25 minutes +. Who has 25 minutes to spare when you are a mom?! I wore a LOT of ponytails.
I timed it, to blow dry it quick, my hair dried from out of the shower wet to dry in 3 minutes and 43 seconds. When I want to spend a little extra care shaping it, it takes around 5 minutes and 30 seconds. SERIOUSLY! Here is a picture just from this week, 3 weeks post treatment. This took me 5 minutes with NO flat iron!
You guys, this is just WAY too many pictures of me, I am dying! BUT I have to shout from the rooftops how much I LOVE THIS treatment!!!
I could never get my hair to go like that above, even with 30 minutes drying and flat ironing, it still had some frizz to it. To be able to style it like that in 5 minutes is seriously life altering!
So, in closing, for anyone who straightens their hair either by having to blow it out or use a flat iron, this will be a seriously miraculous treatment for you! And, there is no better person to do it than Tera. She is extremely knowledgeable and talented. Plus, it helps when you actually really LIKE your hair stylist too! Since she has three kids, two of which are close to age to mine, it is just fun to chat about mom stuff for hours.
Here she is talking about this treatment…
Hooray! It’s a Tiny Giveaway!
Tera Rae Stephens is giving away a FREE Keratin Complex Smoothing Treatment (valued at $300!)* Here are the entry options, please leave a separate comment for each one. You can also comment to ask Tera questions.
Contest runs all week, through 5pm PST on Sunday, 6/27. I will Facebook & Tweet the winner on Monday morning! Good luck!
*Includes treatment only & not gratuity. Tera didn’t tell me to add this, but I felt I should because of how much time and care she puts into her work!
{Disclosure: I received this treatment free of charge but this is in no way a compensated post. Just ask my family and friends who cannot get me to shut up about Keratin!!}
I was thinking about Father’s Day the other day and almost had to laugh out loud at how MUCH our lives have changed since we became parents 4 years ago. I mean, what did we DO before with all our time? It also got me to thinking about how much my idea of romance has been so drastically redefined since having our two kids. Things sure are different now, but I couldn’t imagine it any other way. So this is a personal post in honor of the daddy in our house this Father’s Day!
I met my husband on February 20th, 1998 at Malarkey’s Bar in Newport Beach by the jukebox. I wasn’t supposed to go out that night. I was nursing a broken heart and crying to the Titanic CD in my room. No joke. But my roommates got me in a party outfit and coerced me into going out with them to get me out of the “My Heart Will Go On” loop.
When I saw him across the room, I thought he was the cutest guy I had ever seen. I still do. It really was love at first sight. A couple hours later and with a little liquid courage, I spoke to him first. From that moment on we have been together ever since.
He called me two days later (this was the age of the movie “Swingers” – tell me you remember this part!) and asked me out to dinner. I bought new make-up, a new outfit and dreamt of where we would share our romantic first date. He picked me up (still as cute as I remembered) and when we get in the car he told me he was thinking we could get pizza.
OH NO. PIZZA?! Really? Major romantic red flags. Months later after we had been dating for awhile I asked him, “WHY pizza?” His response? “Everybody likes pizza.” That quote still makes me laugh. He’s practical, that husband of mine. And, he had a point.
As we talked over pizza that night, I found out that in addition to a shared hatred of mushrooms, we had lots more in common. He listened more than he talked, asked me questions, and really genuinely seemed to care what the answers were. He really was the nicest guy I had ever met.
But in the beginning I found myself hung up on his so un-romantic gestures. I once received a BBQ for a birthday gift (and didn’t ask for one) and a chimnea fire pit thing for the patio (huh?!) There were no expensive restaurants or surprises. No wining or dining. No romantic weekend getaways. Except for that one time to Palm Springs. With a time share catch. Ouch.
But I am a fairly low-maintenance sort of gal and I fell in love with him and all of his endless amazing qualities over many more Malarkey’s night outs and pizza dates. We were married just about 3 1/2 years later and started our family about 4 years after that.
When we had kids I had NO idea just how much my idea of romance or romantic gestures would be so drastically redefined.
Now romance is how he lets me sleep in on the weekend while he takes the girls grocery shopping. Or how he makes the brownies for my daughter’s preschool snack day.
When we have a barfer, he immediately does the clean up as I hold the hair and bucket.
Now it’s romantic to me how he cleans the kitchen at night after the kids go down because I have to go blog and work.
Romance was how he was my biggest supporter as I wanted to leave a “real” job (and paycheck!) and start my businesses. He is the first to tell me I can do something. He puts my happiness above all else.
We are a TEAM as parents and in life. He always told me that from the beginning, we are a team, way before we were even talking about marriage or kids. I had no idea how important our little team would turn out to be.
But most of all, how his girls, all three of us, are his most important priority. We are first. There is never a doubt.
He is my rock. The yin to my yang. My best friend. The person I would rather be with above all others. My most favorite person in this entire world.
So, if I had to tell my 23-year-old silly, hung up on where he would take me to dinner self, a lesson, it would be that there is a WHOLE lot more to life than expensive gifts or fancy restaurants. The real, priceless gifts lie in the every day gestures. The type of partner on YOUR team.
As my girls grow up, I know they will look at a man, their dad, that was always there for them. That made them #1, that sacrificed everything for them, that loves them no matter what, that treats them with love and respect. And, when THEY go to look for a man to marry, I know they will have the same expectations.
So, this blog is two-fold, number one a thanks to MY DAD and a very happy father’s day. Because he is the man that taught me how I deserved to be treated.
And, to the father of my children, happy father’s day (and incidentally, happy birthday!) to a man who shows me just how much he loves us, every day, …in the most UN-romantic ways!
We’ve got the beat, we’ve got the beat, we’ve got the beat, yea, we got the beat! And the BEAT goes on this summer at the fabulous OC Fair with lots of fun in store for the whole family. Love the fair? Enter to win 4 freeSuper Passes to get in free all 23 days! Details below…
The OC Fair invites guests to a deep-fried summer on a stick as it celebrate its 120th anniversary July 16-August 15, 2010.
The 2010 OC Fair, open Wednesday-Sunday, will feature the premiere of a 120th anniversary exhibit showcasing a decade-by-decade look into Orange County’s favorite tradition.
This year’s theme, “The Beat Goes On,” honors the heart of Orange County – the OC Fair – as it continues to beat.
The 23-day celebration kicks off with free admission and parking for everyone during the first hour of the 2010 Fair (Friday, July 16, Noon-1 p.m.)
Other 2010 promotions include the Super Pass for $30 (adult price), allowing those guests who cannot get enough of the Fair daily access at one low price; in support of our heroes, active military (with valid ID) receive free admission daily; “We Care Wednesdays” offer free admission and one carnival ride with an appropriate donation at the gates (check ocfair.com for donation details as they vary each week); Thursdays offer children 12 and younger free admission and Fridays celebrate seniors (60 and older) with a discount on admission and free select carnival rides.
The Fair is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
The Fair would not be the Fair without its abundance of food. Everything under the sun that can be deep-fried, on a stick and so much more. Approximately 80 vendors offer a variety of food choices, including colossal Mexican funnel cakes, giant turkey legs, mile-long hot dogs, cinnamon rolls, frozen lemonade, deep-fried Smore’s, chocolate-covered bacon, roasted corn and much more.
Prices – Admission: (Children under 6 are free everyday.)
Single Day: General $10, Senior (60+) $7, Child (6-12) $5. No fees for customers who use Ticketmaster’s TicketFast (print-at-home) option! Group Sales (15+): General $8, Senior (60+) $5, Child (6-12) $3. (Mail or fax order form by July 2.) Super Pass: General $30, Senior (60+) $25, Child (6-12) $20.
Prices – Parking: General $7, Preferred $12.
Hooray! It’s a Tiny Giveaway!
You will have TWO weeks to enter this one as the contest runs through 5pm PST July 1st, 2010. One lucky winner will win 4 free Super Passes! To enter, please do the following:
1. Simply comment below and tell me your favorite thing to do (or eat!) at the fair – 1 Entry
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