Friday, December 11, 2009

RIP Great Magazines, We'll Miss You!

While relaxing and catching up my my Google Reader feeds this week I came across a blog post on Mywedding.com about called "Are You a Magazine Addict?". Though I would hardly consider myself a magazine addict, I do relate to the author's frustration that several highly appreciated wedding magazines have recently been given the ax. The most recent fatality being InStyle Weddings (which was one of my personal favorites).



As far as non-wedding related magazines, I still have not been able to get over Domino Magazine closing it's doors last year. I absolutely, positively loved that magazine. It was the basis of many of the decisions my husband and I made decorating our home.



Have any of your favorite magazines recently bitten the dust? Please join me in commemorating them here. To all the great magazines out there that have recently been deemed "unprofitable", your fans shall miss you!


Bookmark and Share
0 comments
Labels: ,

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Website Love: Wishpot



First, I want to disclose this is a non-paid endorsement of a website I spent some time on this past weekend that I now LOVE!

For those of you who follow and chat with me on Twitter, you may know that I never, ever step into a store during the holiday season. I always do my shopping online. Do I have to pay shipping? Of course! But to me it's a small premium to pay to not have to endure the madness of holiday season shopping in NYC.

So over the years I've come up with several systems where I create lists of gifts ideas for my friends and family, and then go about finding them on the Internet. Usually I'd have to keep some sort of a computer based document where I could then copy and paste the links of everything I've found into. While this system was all well and good, it was a bit too manual for my tastes.

So a friend of mine over the past week or so had set up an Amazon Wishlist account to create a donation item list to send school supplies to the Nuevos Caminos Special Needs School in Ecuador, where she's volunteered before. When I looked at her site to donate myself, it reminded me of several tweets I've seen from @wishpot on Twitter about their service, www.wishpot.com, which is very similar. So I decided to check it out and am glad i did.

Basically Wishpot allows you to set up an account, and then to make "wishlists" using items you find anywhere on the Internet. This would work great for brides who don't want to register at traditional department stores. They even have a browser tool button you can install that let's you add an item to your account from an external website by the click of a button.

The feature I was most surprised by is they also have a section where you can store gift ideas you find for your friends and family and you can keep the list private. Score! I now had my easy, more instant solution for my online holiday shopping!

While on the site, I also made sure to make my own "wishlist" of items I'd like that I would never buy for myself. This way I can forward it to my husband, friends and family to give them a few ideas of stuff I'd appreciate this holiday season. Of course I wouldn't send it to anyone unless they asked me if there was anything in particular I'd like (though this is common in my family so at least I'm prepared).

Do you have a special technique you use to make your holiday shopping experience less stressful? Do share!

Bookmark and Share
0 comments
Labels: , , ,

Monday, December 7, 2009

Top 5 Holiday Greeting Card Etiquette Tips



'Tis the season to send out holiday cards to your loved ones! With so many different holiday and greeting card products on the market today, don't forget to consider the following five items when getting yours together.


  1. Send out your cards anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Most people try to get their cards out at minimum the first two weeks in December, but it's also acceptable for your friends, family and business associates to receive their greetings up through New Years Day.
  2. Write your recipients names inside the card and be sure to sign it, even if your name(s) are pre-printed on the card. It's too easy nowadays to get sidetracked and not think this is necessary being it's now so easy to buy personalized greeting and photo cards. Granted it takes more time to do, your recipients will recognize and appreciate it. For your signature be sure to keep it casual for close friends and family. No need to sign it "Mr. and Mrs." (don't do this even for casual acquaintances) or to even sign your last name. Also, it's customary to sign the card beginning with the father's name, then the mother's and children. Or even simpler, you can go with "and family" in place of the children's individual names.
  3. If you have kids, be sure to include a photo. Especially for friends and family who don't get to see your children often, it's fun for them to get these updates during this joyous time of year.
  4. If including a newsletter on the "going's on" of your family over the past year, be sure to only include it in the messages of very close family and friends. For casual acquaintances they may not be as inclined to appreciate it, plus it just creates more work for you.
  5. If sending a greeting card to someone of a different ethnic or religious background, choose a more generic, non-secular holiday greeting card to send them. Any cards with "Happy Holidays", "Season's Greetings" or other well wishes work well. Otherwise another alternative is to send them either a Thanksgiving or New Year's card.

What was the most memorable holiday greeting card you've ever received? I personally love receiving photo cards from my friends with kids. It's so fun to see how they've grown over the past year!


Bookmark and Share
0 comments
Labels: , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
Blog Widget by LinkWithin