If you are like me, you are still scrambling to put together a Halloween costume and to gather candy for the big day. Darah has asked to be a ladybug, and I’m feeling thankful that she requested something fairly easy!

Here’s a chance for you to win some naturally good products for your Halloween. Darah loves these lollipops and your trick-or-treaters will, too! And how nice to have the face paint covered this year and not have to worry about if it is toxic! Good luck, everyone!

WELCOME TO THE HALLOWEEN NATURALLY GIVEAWAY FROM BLOG IT FORWARD MEDIA

With Halloween just around the corner, Blog It Forward Media is bringing you the perfect prize pack to get your little goblins ready for the big event. The two sponsors for this event are YumEarth Candy and Elegant Minerals.

YumEarth Candy is offering a 5 pound bag of their delicious Organic Lollipops

YumEarth is a brand of candy produced by YumEarth. Everything YummyEarth makes is certified organic or all natural, gluten-free, peanut-free, tree nut-free, and has no chemical colors, artificial flavors or high fructose corn syrup. YumEarth Organics Lollipops come in eight mouthwatering flavors: Very Very Cherry, Too Berry Blueberry, Strawberry Smash, Sour Apple Tart, Pomegranate Pucker, Razzmatazz Berry, Mango Tango and Wet-Face Watermelon.

To make all your costumes as authentic as possible, Elegant Minerals is offering a complete set of Face Paints in 15 colors along with all the tools you will need to apply the make-up as well as the remover to return your ghoul to normal after all the fun.

Elegant Minerals offer a safe alternative to harsh petroleum-based products. All of their colors are lead-free, dye-free, hypoallergenic and made in the USA. You will get all the benefits of mineral make-up in your Halloween Make-up. The prize pack includes all of these colors: White, Black, Light Blue, Royal Blue, Light Green, Dark Green, Aqua, Purple, Hot Pink, Red, Silver, Gold, Yellow, Orange, and Brown. Also included are: 1 – 12 count package of latex-free sponges, 1 – 5 piece package of latex-free disposable applicators and 1 bottle of organic make-up remover.

Enter to win today! This contest closes on October 16, 2012. Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So I’m thinking about switching up the way I do my contest entries, and I’d love to hear what you think about it.

My thought is to aim for the mandatory entry to always be something that is actually fun to answer. Something relevant to the topic, but giving people an opportunity to share something personal. That doesn’t mean it has to take a long time to answer, though. I’ve done a few of my mandatory entries this way, and so far, I’m really enjoying reading the posts. It’s helping me to get to know my readers better!

Then I thought I’d reduce the number of additional entries offered. Most people find them to be annoying, even if they do some/all of them. I think I’ll try to offer one sponsor love opportunity (like following them on facebook or twitter) and then one blogger love opportunity (like following me on twitter or subscribing). It will cut down on the overall # of entries, which will make the odds better for folks (yay!).

I’m also hoping that it will encourage people to actually do the extra entries more often, since there will only be 2 options. I have to be real, the sponsor and the blogger (that would be me) need people to follow them in these various ways in order to keep going, so we can’t eliminate those elements altogether.

What do you think about this idea? Sound good? Not so good?

Today I’m bringing you a diaper that is making me re-think AI2 diapers. AI2 dipes, in general, have fallen out of favor with me. But if you’ll check out my video review, you’ll see just why SoftBums have made me an AI2 believer once again.

On the whole, I’d say that this diaper is brilliant, and it is one that I would enthusiastically recommend to anyone who is looking to start cloth diapering or add a winning diaper to their stash. One size fits 6-35 pounds, and all without a snap system. Amazing!

Buy it!: SoftBums can be purchased on Amazon and the Echo Dry Touch Basic Pack is $36.95, and comes with 1 shell, 3 long inserts and 1 mini-insert. The inserts cover so well that you really could use the shell multiple times before washing it! It makes 3 full diapers, which equals about $12/diaper. Not bad!

Win it!: Are you flipping out with excitement? You should be, because one of you is going to WIN a Softbums One-Size Cloth Diaper Basics Pack in your choice of color!!!! The contest will run until September 17th at 11:59pm EST when a winner will be selected using Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to their winning notification before the prize is forfeited and a new winner is selected. Open to residents of the United States. Limit one entrant per household, please.

Mandatory entry: Tell me one reason why you are intrigued by SoftBums and who the diaper would be for (you don’t have to list the child’s name, just if they are a son, daughter, niece, nephew, etc.).

Additional entries:
1. Follow SoftBums on Twitter
3. “Like” SoftBums on Facebook
4. Follow Stuff Parents Need on Twitter
5. “Like” Stuff Parents Need on Facebook
6. Subscribe to Stuff Parents Need by RSS, email or Google Friend Connect (only one extra entry, even if you subscribe multiple ways)
7. If you are a blogger (posted something within the past 3 months) put my button on your blog and leave a url so that I can find it.

Be sure to enter my other current giveaways (listed on the sidebar of my home page).

Disclosure: I received a complimentary product for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

I always enjoy dressing up Darah. But at this age, I’m finding that putting her in dresses can be a bit of a hardship for her. It is really difficult to crawl around in a dress!

It turns out, though, that there’s a really easy way to dress her up, without having to actually put a dress on her! I can just put a bow in her hair!

Oh wait. Darah doesn’t really have much hair. So nevermind.

Only not really! You see, there’s a company out there who made products with little girls like mine (i.e. those short on hair) in mind. Check out the No Slippy Hair Clippy! These products are specially designed to STAY PUT, even if there isn’t too much to hang on to!
We were sent two of their headbands and I am just over the moon about them! First up is the simple and sweet Grace headband in white. White goes with pretty much everything, which makes this piece so versatile. I love it.

Second, we received the Reagan in shocking pink. Darah really liked to try to pull this off her head, until I took her to the mirror to show her the pretty headband. I kid you not, she smiled and clapped when she saw it. She totally knew that she looked like a million bucks!

These headbands are so awesome because they make her look instantly dressed up, even if she’s in a simple white onesie. Like I mentioned earlier, I love dressing Darah up, but the truth is, it just isn’t always practical. My mom and I have been in disagreements before because she can’t understand why I don’t put Darah in ruffly dresses, even when we are just going to the store. From my perspective, that is just dumb! More power to you if you choose to do that, but I just don’t have the time or the energy. Now I can just put one of these headbands on her and she looks fabulous. I love style that is effortless!

Buy it!: No Slippy Hair Clippy has an AMAZING selection of headbands, bows, flowers and clippettes for your little one, and the prices are right! Check out the online shop today and just try to resist!

Win it!: Here’s your chance to win a $25 shopping spree to hairclippy.com! Your little one is about to be gorgeous!!! The contest will run until 11:59pm EST on September 15th when a winner will be selected using Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to their winning notification before the prize is forfeited and a new winner is selected. Open to residents of the United States. Limit one entrant per household, please.

Mandatory entry: No Slippy Hair Clippy wants to hang out with you online, so they request that you either “like” them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter!

Additional entries:
1. “Like” No Slippy Hair Clippy on Facebook (if that wasn’t your mandatory entry)
2. Follow No Slippy Hair Clippy on Twitter (if that wasn’t your mandatory entry)
3. Follow Stuff Parents Need on Twitter
4. “Like” Stuff Parents Need on Facebook
5. Subscribe to Stuff Parents Need by RSS, email or Google Friend Connect (only one extra entry, even if you subscribe multiple ways)
6. If you are a blogger (posted something within the past 3 months) put my button on your blog and leave a url so that I can find it.

Be sure to enter my other current giveaways (located on the sidebar of my home page).

Disclosure: I received complimentary products for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.