CSN Product Reviews

I recently received a $75 gift card from CSN Stores in order to purchase and review some products.  I am very pleased with all my choices and happy to review them here for you!

M recently played with the Melissa and Doug Fold and Go Mini Castle at a friend’s house:He enjoyed it so much and played with it so long that I decided to get one for a Christmas present for him.  It engaged him in make-believe play in a way that not many toys can.  He will love it!  The castle is made of wood, as are the figures.  It comes with a king, queen, two knights, two horses, two thrones, a royal bed, and a treasure box.  I love how this captured his imagination and this little set is a great toy for a girl or boy.  The castle opens up, like this:   It is full of rooms and staircases, has a dungeon, and a working drawbridge.
 
I also chose this set of Junior Design Cards to go with our Wedgits:There are 48 cards in all.  8 of the cards offer instructions on the various ways of wedging the blocks together, then there are 40 cards of designs to build.  These are a lot of fun and add another dimension to M’s playtime with his Wedgits (ok, my play time too – I love them!).  The cards are separated into 4 levels of difficulty, A through D, with 10 cards in each level.  There is a full color image of the finished design on one side; on the other side of each card is a black and white image of each design, along with a listing of each size and number of Wedgit needed to make the design.  It’s fun to try to figure out which Wedgit goes where when using the black and white image only.  M has already gone through the A and B sets, but seems content to do them over and over.  This was going to be a stocking stuffer for him, but he loves his Wedgits so much I broke them out early. :)

Lastly, the choice that I am the happiest with – this little darling: The Electrolux Cordless Rechargeable Vacuum.  I am in love.  The one pictured above is blue, but mine is silver and very streamlined looking.  Where do I begin with all that I love about this vacuum?

1. It’s cordless, so it takes no time to get it out of the closet and start vacuuming
2. It vacuums my entire home on one full charge.
3. It comes with two batteries so you can always have an extra one charged.
4. The charger can be wall-mounted or simply set on top of a counter (which is the way we currently have it).  The battery is simple to remove and replace, and the charger allows either the entire vacuum to hang on it (when wall-mounted), OR you can just charge the battery in the side section of the charger. 
5. The handle removes easily, and converts to a smaller hand-vac, making it easy to vacuum stairs, drapery, etc.
6. It has one setting for carpets, and one for hard surfaces.  The roller brush spins on the carpet setting, and is idle on the hard surface setting, so it simply sucks instead of beating up your hardwood floors.
7. It is bagless, and has a cup that you empty into the garbage.  And, man, does this thing suck up a lot of dirt and dust!  The filter is excellent and I can not believe all that we’ve vacuumed up every time I empty it – it’s amazing!  Not only that, but I really only have to empty once every 3 or so times of using it because the cup holds so much!
8. My absolute favorite thing is that this is light-weight enough for M to use.  He calls it “his” vacuum (I really think he believes I got it just for him), and he uses it at least once a day.  I haven’t had to vacuum in 2 weeks now, no kidding. :)  Vacuuming has officially become his chore, and he really does a great job with this thing.  We haven’t had our regular vacuum with a cord out since we received this one. 

I received the products in this post for free for the purposes of reviewing them.  The opinions stated are completely mine, and I’m very happy with each products, and happy to be able to share them with you!

Have a beautiful day! :)
 

Go Play!

One of my very favorite photos of M
playing in the leaves. :)

Fall really is a great time to get outside and enjoy our world.  Something about the change in seasons makes us want to warm up our homes and let our bodies soak up the last of the year’s warm sunny weather.  It’s a great time for being outside and enjoying the beautiful displays of nature.  

I recently participated in the Shout Go Play initiative, set up to stress the value of play in childhood.

Message from Shout:

”Shout knows play is so much more than fun and games.  Studies show that unstructured play helps kids build fundamental skills like problem solving, coping, and conflict resolution.  In other words; play is how kids become happy, healthy adults.  Fall has arrived with crisp, cool air and new reasons to go out and play.  So, let your kids take that rewarding jump into a pile of leaves.  Take a trip to the park and watch their imaginations run free.  The one thing you won’t do is worry about their clothes; play should get messy and Shout can help.”

I received a package of 3 laundry products from Shout (these were sent to me for free in return for writing a review.  All opinions in this review are entirely mine.) – Shout Trigger, a spray stain treatment; Shout Advanced Ultra Gel, a gel stain treatment with a scrubber brush attached; and Shout Color Catcher, sheets that absorb and trap colors in your wash water.
With two messy boys in our home, and one messy mama, we were able to test two of these babies out right away. :)  All of the products seem to work well.  

M had chocolate stains on a white and blue striped shirt.  The spray bottle says stains can be treated up to a week prior to washing.  Since this was  an old shirt that he won’t be wearing much anymore I decided to use it as our first guinea pig.  I waited 3 days after spraying the stains before washing it.  All but the very worst of them came out in the first wash.  I then used the “Advanced Ultra Gel” on the remaining couple of stains and washed them right away.  His shirt came out looking perfect!  

I have a pretty good laundry system set up so I wasn’t sure I’d get to test the color catcher since I never wash colors and whites together.  However, I did a test with my husband’s newest dress shirt that had never been washed.  I washed it along with some other, lighter fabrics (his shirt was dark blue), and the color catcher sheet really did capture the color and left all the clothes looking great.  I’m not sure how often I’ll have use for this product, but I do think it’s good to have on hand when crises arise or we are sick and regular laundry doesn’t get done – it will be nice to be able to throw everything in the wash together without having to separate it into several different loads.

All in all, I think I appreciate the Advanced Ultra Gel the most, since it really works on stains that sprays just can’t get out.  The spray treatment  worked on par with other leading brands of sprays I’ve used.

I was also very pleased to receive this little pack of cards in our Shout package:



It has 52 cards, each with an outside activity described on it.  These are simple, fun, easy activities to spur on the creativity of children and their exploration of nature. 
 

Have a beautiful day! :)