Monday, October 20, 2014

October sampling: Fast-acting Advil film-coated

It's time for my newest Crowdtap review! Up next: Fact-acting Advil. Except when I'm pregnant (admittedly most of my married adult life-I've got four little ones!), i'm an ibuprofen girl when it comes to managing head aches. My husband is a little less picky, he'll use whatever I buy. When I have coupons, I love to stock up on advil (and hubby swears it works better than the generic brands, I don't see much of a difference). I jumped at the chance to try out the new film-coated advil. It's being advertised as fast-acting, and that's a pretty cool thing when you are dealing with pain.

that coupon will get some use! :)
 I put mine aside and rounded up some volunteers to try it out. My husband was the first to step up to the plate. He works crazy shifts (inventory control in a warehouse overnights) and wakes up in the morning to do the school routine with our brood while I head to work. He used his fairly quickly, as daily life can cause him headache. He said it's definitely better than any generic he's used, and he thinks it's faster than normal advil as well. After a particularly long work shift and a night of fighting boys, I was able to try my sample late last week. I got heart burn right after taking it, which I googled and read it's a pretty common reaction to ibuprofen if you are sensitive to it. It's never happened to me before, and I use it fairly regularly. Heart burn aside, I did find that it alleviated my head ache faster than normal. I'll chalk the heart burn up to a random fluke and give it another go before switching back to my advil liquid-gels.

I'm so excited to try this!

My husband being silly :)

ah, teen angst



Saturday, October 11, 2014

October sampling: Skintimate Raspberry Rain shave gel

The wonderful month of October continues! As a couponer (and one of four basically adult female children and quite a few close friends who've been part of my family for years) I love finding the best bang for my buck. I've tried just about every brand of shaving cream/gel you could imagine. One of my favorites is Skintimate. Last month, I got the opportunity to sample the mandarin burst scent for myself. This month, I was blessed with another opportunity to try a different scent--and to share some with my favorite ladies! This scent? Signature scents Raspberry rain. Step one: take lots of photos of my loot and share them to get the word out that I need some samplers! ;) I wanted to get a few people in this one that don't usually participate with my sampling. And who doesn't love free stuff??

I opened the box...

And couldn't believe all the cool stuff I had to give away! :)

Step two: try it out myself! I love to spread the word on products I love. To give honest feedback, you need the experience. So I got ready to lather up and try it out!

It looks so pretty on my bath ledge! :)
Neat fact i never thought about: exfoliating BEFORE you shave helps remove dead skin that can clog up your razor! This is especially true for the winter months when shaving takes a back seat due to cold weather and long pants (especially up here in New England! brr!) or when life is just too crazy! My sampling kit came with some Himalayan salt scrub from the San Francisco bath salt company to do just that. it felt really cool (and smelled amazing!). The Raspberry Rain shaving gel lathered perfectly (I LOVE a good lather when shaving) and smelled so good! I got a nice shave (and no nicks!). So it was time to get my girls together and share!
I had a visit from one sister who couldn't make the party date-she wouldn't take a photo and made baby sister pose instead! ;)
Some of my favorite ladies!
look at all the cute feet!
checking out the bath salt scrub
playing with--errr, smelling--the shaving gel! :)
ready to sample!



Everyone was so excited to be able to take home their own sample shaving gel (and razor!) when they left. I had three ladies not be able to make it  who we brought samples to--can't wait to hear how they enjoyed it!

Thursday, October 9, 2014

October Crowdtap sampling: Ragu pasta sauce

I was so excited when the Ragu brand joined with Crowdtap. It is my favorite sauce brand, ever since I was young. My dad always bought it, and I continued when I moved out on my own. I'm a huge mushroom fan, so i love the chunky mushroom variety. My kids are big veggie eaters, so any of the garden variety always go over well (though my kids practically drink pasta sauce! They will eat it in practically any variety. My seven year old was particularly excited to try the meat kind on our last shopping trip). This crowd tap challenge was to make a dish featuring Ragu. We did a pretty basic American chop suey. I browned the hamburger, added the sauce (chunky mushroom, of course!) til it was heated, then mixed it into a pan of cooked elbow pasta. All of my kids loved it, and the sauce really makes the dish, particularly in a dish like this. The sauce is not too thin (I HATE thin sauce-the very reason I can't buy the generic sauce at the grocery store!) and has plenty of nice mushroom pieces. It has a nice flavorful taste, not too bland like many generic/cheaper brands. At walmart, the price point is $1.69 for the small jars, which makes it very affordable, even for my family's tight budget. I definitely recommend Ragu sauce for all your pasta (or other suacey!) needs (side note: I made a pizza once with the mushroom sauce. Very good. It was amazing pizza!).



Time to go shopping! ;)

Topher showing off our sauce jar
simple ingredients

Logan wanted to help pour the sauce in!

cooking up some yummy dinner!
mixing it all together

finished product!

Kid approved! ;)

Thursday, October 2, 2014

My Monopoly

It's time for me to discuss another site I love! I'm fairly new to it--I've only done one campaign so far, but it's been love at first sight! BzzAgent has you fill out surveys and chooses a campaign for you to apply for based on your answers. The campaign I got was My Monopoly. Anyone who knows me will tell you that's the perfect pick for me! I've collected Monopoly games for quite a few years. The idea of making my own Monopoly game thrilled me. I actually attempted to make my own once when I was a teen with a few of my friends on a camping trip. We called it "hansonopoly" and based it off the the band Hanson, who we all adored. (side note: the band ended up releasing their own monopoly game with the same name years later!) While I waited for the game to ship, I thought of all the different games I could make. it took me longer to think of an idea than to actually make the game. I finally settled on a traveling game of sorts. Half the board is fun places I've been to, and the other half is fun events (based on bands/actors) I've traveled to see. The game came with everything you needed, from the cards, tokens, sticker sheets, ect. You have to make an account on the my Monopoly website to upload your photos and caption them. You can personalize properties, chance/community chest cards, and tokens. It was super easy to use and print. The only issue I ended up having with my game was when the stickers printed, some of them didn't line up correctly and it cut part of the photo off. For some, it didn't matter, but for others it cut heads off! It was an easy fix-I just carefully peeled off the sticker scrap and lined it up (photo below). My oldest helped me put stickers on and set up the game board. Over all, it was a fun experience, and at a price point of around $15 (walmart) it is well worth the price.

the game has arrived!
making my own pieces was super easy!

my sticker sheet!

these are the pieces I had to add the "scraps" to
personalizing tokens :)

In addition to properties, you can personalize cards, too!
completed game board!

Team sweet n low!

I recently got the chance to sample sweet n low. They sent me a neat package with a box of sweet n low for me, samples for my friends, and a neat pitcher (and cups with sweet n low pink logo napkins!). The plan was to have a ladies cocktail night, I ended up splitting it up into two nights, showcasing two drinks with sweet n low. The first night was alcohol-free. I invited my brother and his girlfriend (and let my boys steal a few sips). We did game night (we're big munkin zombie fans!) and shared some strawberry granita freezes. These were so good my brother and I each had two cups! My next plan is to make a wild berry smoothie based off of this recipe.

ingredients!

ready to blend!

yummy!
selfie with my creation!

gave out some samples to take home!
i told him to "hold it up and show me" ;)
L stealing a sip
C stealing a sip


Later on the week, we planned what started as a ladies cocktail night (and ended up with a few boys present!). The plan was to make skinny-mini mojitos. The actuality was ending up with skinny-mini chocolate mojitos! My friend is a gardener and has her own farm stand. So when I messaged her asking if she still had fresh mint available-she suggested I go with chocolate mint. It smelled amazing and had a unique taste. You have to add less (I'd say maybe a half cup) as fresh mint has a much stronger taste. We also added extra lime juice. It was an interesting drink! 

our ingredients
yum! our calorie cutting with our drinks earned us the pizza in the back ground! ;)

mojito selfie!

mom digs it!

sister showing off her drink!

my baby brother is still a year away from participating--so we sent him home with some pizza and a cool sample to add to his coffee! ;)

Welcome October! Vichy sample share

The end of September was a great month of sample shares! I have a few things to type up today and tomorrow, and some more sample shares should be gracing my mail box any day now! One of the many reasons I LOVE Crowdtap! Today, i am going to talk about Vichy skin idealizer serum. I am not a huge skin care guru like quite a few of my girl friends are, but it looked interesting so I thought I'd give it a try.
6 packs of 8 samples to try out the 8-day challenge
ready to try Vichy out!
It even looks pretty! Hard to tell, but it's a shiny pink color.

I put it on my face, and was pleasantly surprised at how it didn't feel gross. Like I said, I'm not a skin care guru by any means, and my limited experience with it left my skin feeling gross. Immediately after applying, I felt like I was de-stressifying. It felt nice to feel like I was pampering myself. I put it on every night, and the feel of my skin really did improve. It felt softer, and the occasionally acne I get did not make an appearance. As a mom of four boys 7 and under working a full time job (with fast food, no less!) it was really nice to add something to my routine that took literally less than five minutes and made me feel better about how I look. So what do I do when I love something? Share it, of course!!

gifting to my lovely mommy!

my sister is so excited!

she calmed down enough to snap this lovely selfie!

I mailed sample packs to my two skin care gurus who I am not lucky enough to live near

I am pleased to share that they loved it as much as I did! :)