The Mabelhood

Be An Organized Volunteer With VolunteerSpot

Tanna Clark — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:21:26 +0000

Room Mom Survival Guide & School Party Ideas

Have you ever taken on a volunteer project and felt overwhelmed by all that was involved? You had the best of intentions when you agreed to start that fundraiser, or the neighborhood clean up, oh and don’t forget that time you volunteered to be room mom at your child’s school!

Sometimes we look at the big picture of a volunteer project, without realizing how many small steps are involved. You end up managing multiple people and activities and it can really end up taking more time than you anticipated. If only you could organize these projects better, right?

Well, you are in luck! If you are ready to tackle those volunteer projects with confidence look no further than VolunteerSpot to help you get organized! VolunteerSpot is a one stop resource to help you organize all of your project information so that “doing good just got easier”! Here are a few features that I am loving on VolunteerSpot!

• Organize contact information – Not only can you track volunteers names for a project but you can keep track of students in a class or team roster.
• Manage schedules – Make sure everyone knows where to be and when. Easily update everyone when a change is made.
• Automatic reminders – No more missing schedules and missed appointments. Everyone will be notified when a date is upcoming or a change has been made.
• Track details – From meals to supplies you can track all that is needed from each person that volunteered.

VolunteerSpot goes above and beyond data management, they also give you ideas for projects too! Through their collection of E-books, VolunteerSpot provides ideas for family friendly volunteer opportunities, kid friendly fundraisers and so much more!

If you just signed up to be your child’s Room Mom you must check out Volunteer Spot’s newest E-book, the Room Mom Survival Guide & School Party Ideas. This guide gives you all the info necessary to plan great classroom parties and activities as well as tips on keeping communication open with the other parents. Mabel’s Labels even teamed up with VolunteerSpot to share some classroom organization tips in this handy guide!

Mama Friendships – Are Yours At Risk?

Julie Cole — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:36:02 +0000

Maintaining friendships when you are a mama can be a tricky business. Often already juggling a hectic home life, work and children, while also trying to carve out a bit of time with Daddy-o, can leave little room for your girlfriends.

The way I see it, there are a few friendship fizzling high risk situations:

1) You become a mama: Many report that their friendships with single/childless girlfriends suffer. Mama feels they don’t understand why she doesn’t want to ditch the kid to go dancing every weekend. This has not actually been my experience. My single friends have shown extreme interest and understanding when it comes to my kids. And I am equally keen to hear their Sex in the City lifestyle stories.

2) You have a child with a disability: Hate to say it, but mamas of kids with disabilities get ditched. I’ll explain why it happens in the autism world: you have a friend who brings her 3-year-old over for weekly playdates. Her kid can’t talk, has meltdowns for “no reason”, maybe he’s a bit aggressive, doesn’t relate to the other kids there and his behaviour is disruptive. The mama host thinks “Hmmm…this playdate would go much more smoothly if that kid with the problems doesn’t come”. The playdate invitations stop.

3) You constantly bail on plans: When you regularly drop out of social plans at the last minute, eventually your friends will stop inviting you. I generally don’t accept invitations in the first place because of my bailing stats. But, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate receiving a low pressure “turn up if you can swing it” invitation. It makes me feel that I have not been forgotten, and also that there is some understanding about my situation.

4) You become a Mama of Many: Right around the birth of your fourth child, families you normally socialize with suddenly stop inviting you over. Who can blame them – your family takes up their whole house.

How have your friendships survived? What are the biggest friendship hurdles you’ve encountered in your mama life? Are you still close with the friends you had pre-kids, or did you shake it up socially when you hit the mama scene?

Mabel’s Labels Has Teamed Up With Ziploc® brand!

Caitlin Madden — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:30:09 +0000

This Back-To-School season Mabel’s Labels has teamed up with Ziploc® brand with a fabulous offer, when you buy Ziploc® brand Sandwich 100 Bags you will get $5.00 off Mabel’s Labels!

We want to know if you’ve seen our promotion with Ziploc® brand in your city – and we’ve made it interesting! If you see Mabel’s Labels at your local store take a picture, email it to fan@mabel.ca and you can win!

For every picture & description you send, you’ll be entered into a draw to win 1 of 3 Mabel’s Labels Colourful Essentials Combos just in time for Back to School. We will be posting all the pictures that are submitted to our Facebook Fan Album “Mabel’s Labels & Ziploc® brand!” so be sure to become a fan today!

For more information on our $5 off coupon visit www.ziploc.mabel.ca

Contest is open from August 27th until September 3rd, 2010 to residents of Canada only (excluding Quebec). We will be drawing the 3 lucky winners on September 7th.

Full Rules and Regulations Here.

Stay Organized By Clearing Your Counters

Tanna Clark — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:08:19 +0000

There is nothing worse than waking up to last nights dishes in the sink, grime still on the stove and the weekend paper scattered on the table with last weeks mail. That is no way to start the day! Cut yourself some slack and make this simple change in your routine to get yourself on the right track!

After dinner take the time to do the dishes and shine your sink! FlyLady teaches that simple routines will help you rid your house of clutter and I totally agree! Take that extra time before bed each night to clear off the table and the counters and put everything in its place.

If you want to take things a step further make sure you have things ready for the next day like laying out the lunch boxes in order to make lunches or cereal bowls for breakfast. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up to a clean kitchen all prepared to begin a new day?

I’m Telling!!!!!

Nanny Carrie — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:44:14 +0000

My boy and his best buddy. They’ve just learned how to ‘tell on’ each other and have been practicing—a lot!

My kids are always tattling on one another. Even the youngest one has started giving me a play by play of their disagreements. Should I intervene? Or should I be letting them figure it out on their own?

The parallel play phase seems to end right around the time that verbal skills are really taking off. And as they start interacting with other kids, whether they’re playing with siblings or with friends, at some point, inevitably somebody is going to get upset. Then they have two choices, get into an argument with their playmate, or report it to the authorities. And you, mama, are the sergeant on duty.

1) “What are you going to do about it?” I’ll never forget my 6th grade teacher. This was her tagline. Whatever issue you brought to her—problems with a classmate, a forgotten dayplanner or lost assignment, she’d look at you with a deadpan expression and say “What are you going to do about it?” At the time it seemed harsh, but the theory was a good one. Kids have more problem-solving skills than they realize, and sometimes they just need a grown-up to make them stop and work through the issue on their own. Try putting the ball in their court with questions like “What do you think you should say to your friend?” and “How can you guys fix this so that you can keep playing together?”

2) Let them sort it out—the supervised way. If you say “I don’t want to hear it! Go figure it out yourselves!” she may get discouraged and feel un-heard when she comes to you with a problem. Instead of stone-walling (which can be tempting after the millionth “He’s in my room!” “She touched my arm!”) let her know that you will keep an ear out in case the problem gets too big, but that you trust her to figure out the smaller issues without a grown-up having to come in and interrupt the fun.

Nanny Carrie Wants to Know: How do you manage ‘tattling’ in your house? Is it mostly among siblings or with friends? Do you handle them differently?

Organized Memory Keeping For Time Crunched Moms

Tanna Clark — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:44:23 +0000

When I had my first son I was an avid scrapbooker and loved putting together a page with all of its intricate details. Now that I am a mom of three and a small business owner I am lucky to get a picture printed out never mind the intricate scrapbook. Over the years I have learned a great way to keep track of those special memories.

Every month I upload my photos to a photo storage and sharing site like Shutterfly or Snapfish. Not only are your photos safe, secure and sharable, but while you are in the system you can also create a digital scrapbook with your photos. When you are done uploading your photos for the month simply create a few photo pages and at the end of the year you will have a memory book ready to print!

What is your favorite way to keep memories?

What’s the Deal with Blogging?

Julie Cole — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 03:23:26 +0000

As you can see, we Mabel gals take our blogging conferences VERY seriously!

Just back from BlogHer ’10 in New York City and quite frankly am feeling like I need a bit of a holiday. So much squealing and excitement on the first night left me with a nasty case of laryngitis. I spent the rest of the conference struggling to speak. But, you can imagine the energy of a conference with 2400 women bloggers all in one place. Having the opportunity to spend time with so many online friends and supporters of Mabel’s Labels was just awesome.

As a blogger, I’ve had several non-bloggers ask me many questions – from how to get started to why I like to blog. The answers are long and wordy, but a few quick points include:

1) If you’re going to blog, blog about something you love. If you are not passionate about what you do, it’s going to, well…suck.
2) Don’t go into it for the money. While bloggers often receive products to review, free diapers and diaper cream won’t pay the mortgage. The money *may* follow if you have enough readers that advertisers will pay to be on your site – but counting on that happening is probably not the best plan.
3) Know your limits. If you’re going to talk about your kids, have a big think about privacy before you get started. It’s one thing to talk about toilet training but if your tween catches wind that you’ve been blogging about her training bra, you’ll be in the doghouse faster than you can say “Justin Bieber”.
4) Blogging creates one heck of an awesome journal. I feel like my kids will have great fun in a few years looking back at their childhood through my eyes.
5) Blogging gives you a spectacular feeling of being heard. It is powerful.

So if you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, what is stopping you? I’m hoping to see you at BlogHer in San Diego next year, because there are many lessons to be learned at BlogHer. The biggest for me this time around was that even with a shocking case of laryngitis, I still have a voice.

Sew Easy!

Tanna Clark — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:30:04 +0000

Do you have clothes folded in a corner waiting to be mended but you never get around to it? Perhaps you don’t have time or maybe you just haven’t made it easy enough to get the sewing done. Get those clothes mended now by creating an easy sewing kit!

First you will need a decorative box… something that can sit out and not scream sewing supplies! Then, gather the basic necessities like scissors, needles, common colors of thread and a few patches. Keep a small plastic bag to hold extra buttons and a mint tin is great for storing loose needles.

The one thing that hinders us most when making repairs is not having all the supplies readily available. Keep your “sew easy” box out so the next time you need to mend a hole you can get it done right away. Better yet, make an extra kit for the laundry room so you can make a quick repair as you find it coming out of the laundry!

A Back-to-School “Getting Organized” Checklist

Caitlin Madden — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:30:52 +0000

The back-to-school season is one of the most exciting times of the year, but it can also be quite stressful. VolunteerSpot teamed up with Mabel’s Labels to create a downloadable “Getting Organized Checklist” to help you remember the season’s to-dos!

Just download, print and place on the refrigerator to feel more organized today.

What’s Volunteer Spot? It’s an online community that enables ANYONE to quickly mobilize and coordinate volunteers in their community through FREE online sign-up forms and volunteer scheduling. Feel free to explore their site while you’re there!

BlogHer’10, Mabel’s Labels & Love

Caitlin Madden — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:34:54 +0000

Melissa Blais outside of the conference hotel; The Hilton

@EverythingMom, @Mumby @littlemissmocha

The 3 Julie's! Cole, Kenney & Ellis

Scott Stratten a.k.a @unmarketing

Community Keynote: BlogHer Voices of the Year

This past weekend Julie Cole, Tricia Mumby, Julie Ellis, Melissa Blais and Caitlin Madden from Mabel’s Labels traveled from Hamilton, Ontario to New York City for the BlogHer’10 Conference. Our fabulous BlogHer’10 Contest judges Kathy Buckworth, Erica Ehm and Scott Stratten joined us and our Contest winners Stacey, Kim & Laura for the event.

We loved meeting old friends that have known Mabel for years and reminiscing. We loved creating relationships with new friends while making plans for the future. Hugs were given out liberally and the overwhelming feeling of love for Mabel’s Labels was incredible.

Thank you all for welcoming Mabel’s Labels with open arms, open hearts and open minds at BlogHer’10. We are lucky to be apart of such an incredible community.

We have some BlogHer’10 swag leftover and would love to send it out to you to enjoy. Drop Caitlin a line at Caitlin (at) mabel (dot) ca and we will hook you up with some Mabel goodies!