Office Max – A Day Made Better

Working to Erase Teacher Funded Classrooms

I was thrilled to be included as a Max Mom in the Office Max campaign to help make a Day Better for a deserving teacher!  They realize that teachers have to spend a lot of their own money for classroom supplies – either because the school district can’t afford to help or the actual students aren’t able to purchase what they need.  They have a goal of erasing the teacher funded classrooms!

I was given an opportunity to either have a contest on my blog so that my readers could nominate a teacher they felt was deserving… or I could present it to a local teacher.  I knew immediately what I was going to do.  A teacher and a dear friend of mine deserved it more than any other teacher I could think of.  For what she has endured this year with a severe injury and her constant drive and determination to make things better for her students (many of which are disadvantaged) … this was a “no Brainer” for me.

I really wanted to present this to her in her classroom, but I just couldn’t work it out.  Debbie had invited a big group of people over for a bonfire at her house and I took the opportunity along with a couple of the other ladies who came inside to present this to her at her home.

Disclosure:  Office Max provide the $100 gift card, T-shirt and rubber band balls for me to give to a teacher for the “A Day Made Better” campaign.  I chose to also give Debbie the Avery gift basket (that I added a Build a Bear, water bottle and some other odds and ends that I got a swag at conferences) that was sent to me to review on my blog.

Disney Social Media Moms Conference

Thoughts on the Disney Social Media Moms Conference

As I write this post I am sitting in the Orlando airport waiting to board my flight home from the Disney Social Media Moms Conference and I am reflecting on how much I got from it.  I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it due to the weather and some other factors…and after missing my initial “great flight that would have had me there by noon” I spent 12 hours getting to Orlando and got into my room about 11:30 pm this last Wednesday.  But it was worth it.  Getting home is another story since I had one of my “old lady brain farts” when I scheduled my trip and instead of arranging my flight for Saturday the 13th at 7:30pm I scheduled it for Sunday Feb 14 at 7:30pm. (Yes…Valentines day). I changed that flight so that I at least get home by 10pm instead of 11:30pm tonight. Just because I’m an organizer doesn’t mean I don’t mess things up. (for sure)

Guy Kawasaki giving his presentation

Guy Kawasaki – Founding partner of Garage Technology Venture & Co-founder of Alltop.com

Our first speaker of the trip was Guy Kawasaki. He gave me some new insights on twitter.   He discussed twitter  and how he uses it and how we can best use it to further our businesses.  He shared that he was originally against it, not caring that “Jimmy was drinking his coffee” , but realized that it can be an invaluable tool in your business.  Some of the tips that I gained from listening to Guy was that we should tweet out 4  times each thing we tweet.  He schedules them about 6-8 hours apart so that he doesn’t lose page views.  He states that more than 4 times is too much, but less than that we are losing valuable page views.  He also doesn’t tweet what he is doing during the day and he is not talking about tweeting out responses to people 4 times.  He is constantly searching for information that others will find interesting and informing us of that on which is linked to his All Top Site which of course then brings him more traffic.  The site is a pure meca of information!  He also stated that we need to have a tweeter-feed. So that each time we post something new…it shows up on twitter. (I need to do that)

Maxine Clark founder of Build a Bear

Maxine Clark – Founder and Chairman of Build a Bear

Maxine if my new idol I think.  She is the founder and chairman of Build A Bear. She shared with us how she has a love of bears and how much her bear meant to her as a child. Persevering and believing in your dreams and working to achieve them was her message.  She was truly amazing. She told us about her 2nd customer and how neat it was that a boy can get a Teddy Bear and dress it up in Army gear and it’s acceptable for him to get that and be a kid too.  She has kept in contact with these people. She listened to a little girl in Canada who e-mailed her and told her she would like a Build a Bear store in her town and why. That little girl was at that store on opening day along with Maxine. How cool is that?  She manages her own Twitter account, e-mail account and answers people back. She is a very busy running a Build a Bear empire….but she still has time to talk to her customers and friends…she is real. She is a gem.

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan – Eleven year veteran of Social media and Author of Trust Agents

To be honest I was excited to listen to Chris Brogan at our conference, but I didn’t know how entertaining  he would be. When I saw him at Blog World speak….he was on a panel with a few other people and no offense at all….he didn’t really get to “shine” like he did when he was on his own. I didn’t expect to be laughing as hard as I was. But he also passed on some really great information to us. Listening….Connecting…Publishing… The 3 pieces to Social Media that Chris spoke to us about and the importance of them.

Marissa Jaret Winkour

Marissa Jaret Winkour – Tony Award winning Broadway Actress and Veteran of Dancing with the Stars

You may remember Marissa on Dancing with the Stars. I never saw her in Hairspray the Broadway play she won her Tony for.  Since she was on Dancing with the Stars she has dyed her hair blond and lost a lot of weight and has a son. She told us she was due to have a baby 2 months after she was on Dancing with the Stars. She shared that she was a cancer survivor and before she under went her treatments she froze some eggs and her surrogate was 7 months pregnant with her child. She then went on to tell us about her life as a actress with a baby and how difficult it was.

Kathy Ireland – Surprise guest appearance

Kathy Ireland was not on our programs and we didn’t know she was going to speak to us. She came out looking beautiful as ever. She told us about her work ethics and a business she began going bankrupt, her 22 year marriage and her new book about daily devotionals due to come out soon. (She didn’t push her book, I think someone knew about it and asked her the question…and she answered)

Maryellen Hooper absolutely cracked me up.

Maryellen Hooper – Veteran in the world of Stand-up Comedy

I can’t tell you how hard I laughed. She was cracking me up.  Her act was about motherhood and life as a wife. She has a blog called  Stinky Flowers that you will have to go visit. You will have to get her DVD…she is really entertaining.

Disclosure:  I was not sponsored to go to Disney Social Media Moms conference.  I paid for the conference on my own. We did however get a discounted rate on the conference, our room and Disney tickets, and some of my meals as that was part of the conference package I purchased. I was not asked to blog on it, so any blogs or pictures I post are because I have chosen to do so.

Craft Room Organization

I recently went to a Build-a-Bear and Stampin Up Sponsored workshop. It took place in Stampin’ Up Mindy Gray’s home.  We first watched the cutest DVD called Hal and Holly Moose.  Then after snacks and the movie, we went down to her craft room in the basement to make cards with the new Build-A-Bear accessories from Stampin’ Up.  The cards came out so cute…but can you guess what I liked loved the best? You bet ya..HER CRAFT ROOM!! It was completely AWESOME!! It was like my dream craft room from the apple green color on the walls with white accessories. I loved and have seen many of these ideas used before in books and magazines…but it was so nice seeing them in person.
Of course this video doesn’t do it justice, but enjoy!

Consultant Mindy Gray
E-mail – Stampwithmindy@yahoo.com
Web – MindyGray.stampinup.net

I linked this blog post to

CraftOmaniac Monday

BlogHer

(I saw this on a couple of blogs and loved the idea…so I did steal the idea of taking a picture of all the business cards. I know I was excited to see mine in someone else’s pile….so look for yours and leave me a comment if you see it!!)

I have so many thank yous to everyone at BlogHer. Thanks yous for putting it on , thank yous for coming up to me and saying you recognized me (those were the coolest!), thank yous for being the first person to introduce yourself in line at the hotel (@mom101), for asking me to sit down and eat lunch with you and your daughter that first day (@Mamacita) my roommate who gave up her free room to help me out since I had 2 people back out on me. (@Military_Mom) A big thank you for helping me feel comfortable in an uncomfortable place and for being nothing but nice to me (@craftymamaof4). I have big thank yous for these two Walmart 11 Moms for treating me as an equal although in the blogging world we are no where close (@mommybrain and  @consumerqueen). Thank you to all the sponsors for all the fun swag they gave us and sponsoring all the parties and food and drinks. I feel I learned so much although I wasn’t able to make it to hardly any sessions. (that is crazy isn’t it?)
Thank you to the Label Daddy team for asking me to eat breakfast with them at the Newbie Breakfast.
Thank you to Annalisa from GM for discussing the GM cars and organizational features for a possible review with me.

Thank you to John Andrews from Collective Bias and who started Walmart Eleven Moms for talking to me. I had never been able to meet you and was thrilled to realize how down to earth and nice you really were!
I will be anxious to see the video I made about how wonderful my husband is…although I stumbled through it. Your team was awesome to talk to at BowlHer.
It was a pleasure to meet Ted Rubin.
Denise from Brother was great to talk to and I look forward to working with you in the future.

I was thrilled to meet so many people that I see and talk to online IRL (in real life…I thought I would translate for a few like me who were slow to figure that one out)

To the Sponsors that I have pictures for…and this is such a small portion of you. But Thank you for all you did. Thank you for talking to us about your Brands and how we can help each other in this economy. Thank you for coming out to BlogHer and making it so much fun.
I especially want to thank my sponsors for helping to get me to BlogHer.
The Sock Sacks are a great way to organize your socks in the washer/dryer. LOL Kids and adults both will put their dirty socks in their own sock sack. Then you simply put your sock sack into the washer then the dryer…bring them out and NO SORTING! No more lost socks in the wash/dry cycles. I love them! Thanks Sock Sacks for helping me to be able to go.
The pouchee purse organizer is my other sponsor (well…that would be me, but I sponsored myself! LOL ) I did not make this purse organizer (I wish I did) but I do sell them because I am sold on how wonderful they are at keeping your purse organized.

My daughter was thrilled with this new Moxie Girlz Doll that we received at BowlHer as part of our Swag. They aren’t coming out until September. My daughter had a blast using the markers and painting the motorcycle and I think her shoes? She was showing me her wonderful art work and was so proud.

The kids ended up with so many fun things….book lights from PBS Kids, also a autographed picture from Nina from The Good Night Show on Sprout, a cute pin from Disney  (plus Disney had wonderful Mickey Mouse ice cream bars that saved me on one of my “I missed lunch” days), Disney also showed us a laptop computer made for kids that has a safe internet environment (Hint..hint…I would love to do a review and giveaway of one of those for you Disney!! ) and bears from Build a Bear, a Mr. Potato Head  from Playschool, coloring books and so much more.
Jump Start was there. It was nice to talk to them as I am going to be doing a review and giveaway for them of one of their programs that my triplets are having a great time using.

Nikon put on a wonderful party and I was thrilled to go.
Pepsico also had drinks for us everywhere!
Tropicana had wonderful and cold juice for us to drink that was lower in calories!
This was the Quaker Oatmeal Smoothie bike! (yummy they were good)
So did you know that Pepsico had more than just Pepsi? I didn’t….they have Tropicana, Quaker Oatmeal, Frito-lay, Gatorade Brands. See what you can learn at BlogHer? LOL

Michelin Tires was there with the Michelin Man!

The Swiffer company had a dress up area (as you can see!) at the SocialLuxe party and it was a riot to watch.
Tide gave us a really cool bounce 4 month dryer bars. I haven’t put it in my dryer to try it yet…but can’t wait. I won’t have to have all those used dryer sheets that want to fall out of the dryer onto the floor floating around any more.
They also had Tim Gunn visit their booth. I didn’t have time to get in line to take a picture with him, so I snapped this one on my way through. I think its funny that it looks like the word bubble is coming out of his mouth. Thanks Tide.
There are many more …I mean many more sponsors…and this post would be way too long to list them all. I just want to give them all a very big Thank you!