The Epson Artisan 810 Printer.  Isn’t it lovely?  I’ve been through a many printers in my day but this one by far takes the cake.  The print quality (Ultra HD) is exceptional and the touch screen is very cool.  One of my more favorite things about it is they Wi-Fi.  My boys can now print from their laptops, making homework reports much easier.  And because we create dvd’s for sports, family activities, and holiday occasions, being able to print directly onto a cd/dvd is AWESOME!  You can print from your iPhone, it uses the Smart Ink System, and even has an app.  Two thumbs up for this high quality, all-in-one printer!

Awww, you’ve seen it the Nintendo Wii, but have been waiting to see if it’s truly worth the money.  Well, let me tell you, it is!  After seeing this around for the past year and a half, and seeing the excitement surrounding it, I finally got one over a week ago.  It’s the coolest gaming system ever and the games to play on it, are endless and full of fun.  Whether you are using it to inspire yourself to do workouts, skateboarding with the RIDE, or racing at DK Mountain; there is something for everyone to enjoy.  What a great way to get those kids off the couch yes?  Maybe even yourself………..

This is probably one of my most favorite beauty products, the Clarisonic Mia Cleansing System.  It’s so dang cute because it’s a travel size so it is smaller than the original Clarisonic.  This is great for me to take with me to the conferences and events to make me feel refreshed, even after those long, crowded 4hr flights.  You can read my full review of it but in short, how it makes your face feel is amazing.  Can’t believe I ever went without it.

External hard drives are fine for weekly backups but when you need portability, they are not so handy.  That’s where the Picture Keeper Drive comes in.  Sitting at 8GB, I can store so many photos to carry with me while visiting family, plug in a digital frame, and even to take the store to get prints made.  It’s functional, small in size but big in storage.

The Sony Pocket Reader is another favorite, mostly because of it’s size. I can easily travel with it and stores up to 350 books on it.  It’s very easy to use, comes in several colors, and has a two week battery charge on a single use! Love it.

I saw the On-the-Go Organizer on Amy’s wishlist and knew that if she’s used every year to stay organized, then it’s sure to help me!  I bought it and got it the other day and I LOVE it! All the different sections and fun little stickers are perfect to help me stay organized.  At under $15 bucks, it’s a great way to start 2010.

1) Up first is some western beauty, for you and your body! Meet Dolce Mia and their fine designs with a little cowgirl/cowboy flavor. I ain’t gonna lie, I totally didn’t want to use this because they are so dang cute! I wanted them to just sit there lookin’ purty in my bathroom BUT, I did use them and LOVED them! Omg, the smells were fabulous and made me feel so good!  Oh, and the have shea butter, ooo la la..so soft:)

2) For an eco-friendly alternative (because I know there are a ton of you out there), try these beautiful hand-carved soaps with lovely horse designs on them from Carved Solutions. You can actually get them personalized to whatever you want! HOW COOL IS THAT!  They also have candles so be sure to check them out!

3) How about a cool Tatt for your teen or fella or even for the ladies. It could be of a horse, your logo, MY logo, or whatever!  UberTatts are made of quality. They apply quickly and remove easily.  The horse on this ride, gives horsepower a whole new meaning!

4) Western whimsical gift idea from CCC Gifts up next.  I LOVE the boots on this hand painted cowboy canvas.  It’s fun, creative, and would make for a beautiful addition to any western home wall.  I adore anything handcrafted.

5) Add a little charm to your arm!  Can’t go this season without these beautiful sterling silver western charms.  I have a charm bracelet with all sorts of western charms and it’s something that I think every cowgirl at heart should have.  They have a gazillion other charms there too. Check it out!

6) Boot Scootin’ in these babies will make the other cowgirls jealous!  Aren’t they purty? Black with white details..oh yeah! Kinda Harleyish that are sure to have them cowboys crushing on you.:)  And how ’bout the boots for the fellas?  ROWR! Cherry hot fo sho.  Durango’s got some hot styles I’d say, including the fabulous Flirt boots!  I own a pair and LOVE them and they have a style for every gal.

7) We love to have books on our tables, books that my husband and brother-in-law are in and history books like this ‘Historic Photos of Texas Lawmen‘.  LOVE seeing real photos of the folks way back when don’t you?  It makes for a great conversation piece and a fun bit of education for the younger generation.  A big ol’ thumbs for this book!

8) Ride ‘em Cowboy! I LOVE this line from Olive Kids. My little cowpoke has a few items from them and the next one of the list is the floor pillow.  I love that you can personalize their items.  Kids love that stuff!  Truett loves his plate and placemat which I also highly recommend.

9) Any of the tees, iphone covers, and koozies would be a great gift from Southern Brand.  I really like their style and couldn’t just choose one thing.  Great stuff there!

10) Ariat, who doesn’t love them. When I worked at Dandy’s, I sold more Ariat than any other boot.  I also enjoyed seeing more and more of their other products like their belts and shirts.  The make high quality stuff and are a name you can trust.  My son wears the horsehair belt, my cowpoke wears those cute red Kid’s Legend boots and I’m dying to have that women’s Rosie shirt…in that color.  I truly enjoy all they have. Great brand.

First let me say that I was overwhelmed with all the gift ideas I received this year which makes it extremely hard to narrow it down to just a few but I did get it done.  I chose items based on uniqueness, functionality, style, and practicality.  I think with the economy like it is, most people are looking for items they can use to get the most bang for their buck.

The 2009 Gift Guide is up but needs some tweaking so bare with me please.  I’ll be adding products to the gift guide every day so keep checking it out. There will still  be a few featured here over the next couple of weeks as well.

If you are looking for gift ideas for the foodie & kitchen lover, check out My Wooden Spoon’s 2009 Holiday Foodie Gift Guide (which also needs some design tweaking).  I’ll also be adding products their daily as well.

I did some shopping myself over the weekend for Black Friday, how ’bout y’all?  You can see my story via Whrrl! I participated in a fun shopping trip to find the best Black Friday Deals and had a blast doing it! I’d love to hear what you got if you went.

Happy Shopping y’all!

I’ve played around on several websites where you can upload a photo and had the darndest time figuring it out and getting my photo to fit just right! At Snaptotes, it really was a breeze. I mean, you upload your photo(s), you can crop, nudge up and down or side to side and like I said, even create a collage. Once you’re done, you get to preview and add to cart. Super easy! Wanna see mine?

Because I love my cowboys so much, I just had to put my favorite pictures of them on my handbag!!  Speaking of bags, they have a lot to choose from.  Very cute little handbags to big diaper bags like the one I chose.  What?  NO, I don’t have a baby but I do have a camera which is practically the same thing and it needs ample room for it’s lovely attachments!

If you are wanting to order a bag as a gift idea, say for Mother’s Day, then you need to act fast!  In fact, you MUST ORDER BY APRIL 30 in order to receive by Mother’s Day. And I also have a coupon code, SHAC10 for 10% off at SnapTotes.com!

I will be following up once I receive my bag and let you know of the quality of the bag and the custom photos that I had put on it.

Have you thought about a gift idea like this??  Or are you like me, selfish and thinking about getting one for yourself??

Are you ready for the scoop on some Black Friday deals that will be happening this Saturday, Nov. 8th???? Well, I totally have it for ya since I’m one of the Eleven Moms and all:)  You can see the Walmart specials for this weekend now.

You can go there and locate your closes store and be ready because the madness begins!
Hot items like this will be at your Walmart Store and you don’t want to miss out.

Compaq laptop with 2g RAM and 160 GB for $298! WOOT!

or

Sony PS3 with 80G of storage and $100 Gift Card!!

Check out more of what’s going to be on sale for the beginning shopping days of the Black Friday Sales!

You can go ahead and shop early with Walmart’scurrent online specials!

I was excited to be able to try Photofiddle out.  I needed a picture of my son up on the wall and decided to use the bronc ride picture that I previously wrote about and turned into black and white.  Only this time, I chose to send in the original color version and asked for the oil painting version.

Photofiddle takes your original photos and turns them into works of art.  Examples of what they can do include, oil paintings, comic book, abstract color boxes, charcoal sketches, filmstrip collages and more.  Not only that, they can also remove imperfections, restore photos, and even adjust colors.

From the website:

Photofiddle.com is the only website that allows a user to instantly transform their uploaded digital photo into various styles of art. The user can order their design in practically any size ranging from 8″x8″ to 6 feet by 20ft in canvas or art prints, framed or unframed, the choice is completely yours. We enable the novice to produce high quality artwork, just like limited edition artists do. We offer many online designs to suit almost any vision!

Here is the original I sent them.

The entire process was very quick and shipping was very fast. You can actually see samples online of what you’re canvas will look like.  You get emails letting you what’s going on with your image/artwork and you can login to see everything that’s going on.

As you can see below, the finished product is outstanding.  Of course taking a picture of it doesn’t do it justice but you can tell I think.  I was extremely happy with the final results.  The quality was there and it truly looked like a real oil painting.  Photofiddle says that they are just like what the limited edition artists do and I believe it! My husband that it was perfect!  He said that he wants one with his choice of picture and BIGGER!

I think what they can do with the photo restoration process is amazing and would love to get some done of my grandmother’s pictures.  There are so many wonderful ways to spice up that photo.  What a wonderful gift idea for any occasion!  Lucky for you, Photofiddle has given me a coupon code. cowboy15 just needs to be entered on the shopping cart page in the promotion code box and click apply. This is good until the end of the year so it can be used for both personal home decorating & holiday gifts. WOOHOO!

Just in case you have missed the buzz with Photofiddle, they have been featured at many hot spots like the O list (Oprah) for 2006, CBS Early Show, the Today Show, and many others!

I give it 5 stars, two thumbs up and what ever else there is out there!  Love the product, love the website and will definitely find another project to get done!

And now here’s the artwork on my wall:)  Will be adding some cowboy pieces to the left and right of it towards the top!

Second, I want to give a special thanks to my sister-in-law for watching Truett on such short notice.  And thank you to her husband & daughter for all their help as well.   And thank you for taking me shopping!! And I forgot to make the bed before I left there…I’m sorry!

As soon as I got back from the funeral, I had to get busy making sacks.  Every year, I put together a gift bag of goodies for the women and kiddos around here.  Here’s a quick snapshot of all 10 bags ready for delivery.

What do I put in my gift bags?  It’s different every year. This year the bags consisted of:

• Wooden box–When the dollar store clearanced everything, I bought these little wooden boxes (with a top lid).  They had a design on them already but they were ugly, so I printed out some western designs and decoupaged them over the ugly design.  I thought they ended up really cute.
• Candle–These were also bought from the dollar store.  My plan was to put brands all over them, however, I couldn’t find a sharpie anywhere and I ran out of time.
• Mini Photo Album–Most of my pictures are on my computer but I love to have an album so the kiddos can look through them, etc. 
• Coat Hook–I had some lightweight metal hooks with western designs.  I included one in each sack.
• Treats–Now you can’t give a bag without some kind of treats so I made some cookies and threw in candy canes.
• Personal gift–I don’t normally give EVERYONE a personal gift.  This depends on the items I have handy.  I buy many things wholesale so if I have something left over, I may throw that in.  My close friends do get a personal gift though. 

 The kiddos had different things in there bag.  From little handheld games, giant pencils, foo-foo notepad sets, and buckets with lots of treats.   

I didn’t get to do everything I wanted because the funeral threw me off but I’m sure all will be happy. 

You can be that game-systems will be popular, as well as, digital cameras.  In fact, I plan on buying myself a brand new SLR this year:)  Oh yeah…I’m going big time baby!

There are so many toys to choose from these days that it makes nearly impossible to decide on what to get.  I plan on redoing Truett’s room so I thought I would get him a toy-box for Christmas. Check this one out! It’s so freakin’ cute. 

So what’s everyone planning on doing this year? Are you fightin’ the crowds or laying low and doing some online shopping?  Pajamas, Dr. Pepper, credit card, and my computer is all I need for my black-friday shopping:)  Woohoo!