You all know how much my Colin loves Cars. After months and months and months of him asking “Can we see Cars 2 today?” (sidebar: Why do they release movie trailers so early?), we finally saw Cars 2 this weekend. It was fabulous. Colin was THRILLED, laughing and cheering and making stage whispered comments to me throughout the whole thing.

Of course, one of the most exciting things about Cars 2 is…  more cars!   Colin has about ten Lightening McQueen cars. See?

the lightening tower

And about eleven zillion other character cars. But when he started seeing new Cars characters in the store, he noticed. And wanted them all!

Colin was thrilled to get a few Cars toys in the mail, courtesy of Mattel! They are already well loved! The Mattel Die-Cast Cars are the best – we had a few plastic ones and they broke so easily. And they never win races on the racetracks we have! Even Colin knows the difference and prefers these. He says these cars are “SUPER COOL!” and “FUNNY!”  He especially loves the Light & Sounds Cars – and I love that they say more than one thing. It makes them way less irritating than other talking toys. Here we are sharing! (Sorry his face is cut off. I’m a super camera person like that.)

Mattel has TONS of Cars 2 toys that look super fun. I highly doubt we’ll stop with just these four. Colin is dying to get his hands on the Grand Prix Race Launcher and the Tokyo Spinout Track Set! Friends, Family… your Christmas and birthday shopping for Colin is complete. You’re welcome.

disclosure: we received some cars from mattel to facilitate this review. all opinions are mine. or colin’s.

We love photography and constantly take pictures. We love surrounding ourselves with pictures in our home.  We often change out the pictures in the frames so we can enjoy some new photos of our family as our kids grow up and we have new adventures.

But there are those few pictures – I can think of maybe 5 or 6 – that I just love. I love them so much that my grandchildren will probably remember these pictures hanging up in their grandma’s house.  One of my favorites is one that my husband took of me and my son. It was on our birth announcement and it even won a photo contest. This was the picture I turned into a gorgeous canvas print with Easy Canvas Prints.

It turned out so, so lovely:

Easy Canvas Prints is super simple:
Step One: Choose your size and thickness of the canvas. You can choose either .75 inch thick standard wrap or 1.5 inch gallery wrap. I chose the 1.5 inch because I wanted it to stand alone without a frame. I got an 8×10, but next time I will definitely go bigger. It is so gorgeous – I’d love to get a 16×20 for over the fireplace for my next picture!
Step Two: Upload your image. Easy canvas Prints will tell you if your image quality is high enough resolution, which is a great check that you’re getting a great product.
Step Three: Choose your border. You can get a solid color, a mirror image or you can stretch the photo around the canvas. I chose mirror image, since my photo didn’t have a huge border around the central image.
Step Four: Optional retouching (extra charge) or change your image to black and white or sepia (also extra charge).

A tip from a graphic designer (me) when you edit and crop and such in Picasa, you lose image quality. For something like this, when you need a really high resolution, use Photoshop or let them fix it.

I was very pleased with the whole process. It was super simple, much more affordable than some other photo-to-canvas services and the final product was gorgeous.

Check out my fashion blog, All Things Chic: we’re giving away a 8×10 print from Easy Canvas Prints this week!!

Pictures on Canvas

You may have been reading about the recent changes I’ve made to our diet. Like cutting out High Fructose Corn Syrup and Food Dyes and switching to more organic foods. Well, my next big step was to give up soda. My kids don’t drink soda. But I love it. I would drink one soda with my lunch. I loved that soda. Of all the changes in diet we’ve made, that has been the hardest for me. I miss soda. But when this arrived in the mail, I cheered up a bit:

I jumped at the chance to try out the new line of Lipton 100% Natural Iced Teas. A way to get my shot of caffeine with simple, all-natural ingredient list! We were going camping for the weekend, so I stocked my cooler with all 6 flavors.  My husband and I tried out all of them.

We loved them all. By far our favorites were the two new flavors – the Green Tea with Passionfruit Mango with the Iced Tea with Pomegranate Blueberry being a close second. Everyone who was with us tried them too and was raving about how good they were. The diet flavors, Diet Green Tea with Watermelon and Diet Green Tea with Citrus, were also good, but both we definitely preferred the regular flavors. I love that companies like Lipton are going more natural and are providing their customers with such healthy options!

Lipton is celebrating the Natural Side of Music with Pandora:

“We created 100% Natural Lipton Iced Tea because we believe that the ultimate iced tea refreshment starts with great tea and simple, natural ingredients,” says Mary Barnard, Vice President and General Manager of the Pepsi Lipton Tea Partnership. “You could say the same is true with an acoustic performance that showcases the raw and natural talent of a musical artist. PANDORA internet radio is a great partner for this summer-long program that encourages consumers to express individuality through their tea and music preferences.”
Fans can interact with the natural elements of music on Lipton PANDORA internet radio stations to cater to their
musical preferences. Stations include Lipton Pop, Lipton Country, Lipton Rock and Lipton Hip-Hop.

How fun is that?? Check out their Facebook page for more details!!