The Gift of Time Together: One More Reason to Love Kiwi Crate

December 2, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Sample provided for this post. However, we are monthly subscribers to Kiwi Crate on our own, and we adore it! Referral links may be included at no cost to you.

Earlier this week my girls and I spent an hour putting together a gingerbread house. This particular house wasn’t sticky, messy or tempting to eat. And this particular house came with all the supplies we needed to create it, while still leaving plenty of room for creative license.

We got a gingerbread house kit from Kiwi Crate and we absolutely LOVED it. We had such a blast coming up with different ideas (with a little help from the included inspiration cards) and cutting and gluing and just being merry together. It will be one of my favorite holiday memories this year, for sure.

Kiwi Crate is such a reliable company. I am consistently pleased with the products I receive from them each month as a subscriber. I’m so impressed, in fact, that I’ve also done some of my holiday shopping with Kiwi Crate, as you can purchase individual crates or special craft kits like this gingerbread house. They even offer some awesome book titles!

If you haven’t yet tried Kiwi Crate (or their sister brands designed for younger or older children) I want to strongly encourage you to go for it. It’s our favorite subscription service and it’s worth every single penny we spend on it each month. We get good quality time together, fun crafts (that don’t stress this non-crafty mama out) and we learn fun new things, too!

M is For Monster Subscription Box for Pre-Readers

June 10, 2015 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Sample box provided for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone. Affiliate links may be included.

Today I want to show you a subscription box service that is absolutely perfect for you pre-reader. By pre-reader, I mean kids who are starting to work on identifying letters and/or letter sounds, but who aren’t yet writing or putting letters together to read words.

This makes the M is for Monster subscription box not quite the right fit for my oldest, who just finished kindergarten, but spot on perfect for my youngest, who just turned 3.

The box comes with a list of activities included (as well as supplementary resources if you want to dig a little deeper. I really love that extra thrown in there!). And the activities are grouped together by the suggested week. Each week is like it’s own little present to unwrap. This might be one of my very favorite things about the box…you get to experience the joy of seeing something new every single week instead of all at once! That’s just perfect for a preschooler!

I have kept our goodies under wraps so that Layah can have the full box experience each week, but here’s a peek from M is For Monster at the entire contents of the May box, which should give you an idea of the types of things you might find in any monthly box.

We started with week 2 (I know…OUT OF ORDER!) because I really wanted to read that book and because it included scratch ‘n sniff stickers, which is something I loved as a kid but that I’ve completely forgotten about and have never purchased for my girls. They were loved very much! 🙂 I also noticed that they happened to be from Peaceable Kingdom, which is a brand I recognize as having very high quality products.

We also had a lot of fun with the strawberry beach ball, though we quickly realized that it should be played with OUTSIDE. 😉

M is For Monster boxes deliver very high quality, and very thoughtfully curated activities for pre-readers.

The downside? M is For Monster is on the pricey end for kids’ subscription boxes. A single box is $42.95. You can save a bit by doing a month-to-month subscription for $38.95 (which you can cancel at any time). And I did notice a coupon on their website for getting 50% off your first box (I think you have to sign up for their newsletter).

This is the type of subscription that you would probably only want for 6 months, or so, and that may be why they don’t offer a set number of months for an additional discount.

Bottom line: I think it is very much worth a try, especially with that 50% off coupon!

I’d love to hear if you’ve tried this box, or if you have tried any other subscription boxes that you particularly love!

Craft Subscription Box I Love the Most: Kiwi Crate

July 3, 2013 · by Tiffany Merritt · 7 Comments

Best Craft Subscription Box

I have reviewed quite a few craft subscription boxes over the last year. Every box I have posted, I have loved, and the ones I haven’t loved, I didn’t even highlight here (yes, there have been craft subscription boxes that I thought were just ok…”ok” is not worth sharing, in my opinion). But of all the boxes I have tried out, the one I was sent from Kiwi Crate has been my very favorite.

We made a pom pom creature with our latest box. It came with VERY detailed instructions. This has been the biggest issue for me with some of the subscription boxes I have seen: they assume you have a basic level of craftiness and don’t need to be told every little step. This is simply not true for me, and that’s why I order craft subscription boxes: I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS STUFF ON MY OWN!!!! I rely on the instructions to hold my hand and guide me through the process. Kiwi Crate knocked this element out of the park!

Kiwi Crate also had the most creative craft projects I have yet to see. Not only did we make a little creature (which was adorable) but we also got to make a play area for our little creature. This extra activity helped bring the little pom pom to life even more.

As I said before, if you have seen a craft subscription box on my site, I have loved it. You cannot go wrong with any one I have featured. But if I was forced to pick just one to recommend, based on my experience, it would have to be Kiwi Crate. We’ll be ordering another box, for sure. Right now Kiwi Crate is offering a Summer Discovery Series that focuses on nature and getting outdoors. July’s box has all sorts of water based activities. It looks SO fun!!! Subscriptions start as low as $16.95/month. If you’ve been on the fence about trying out a craft subscription box, let me offer a little nudge. This is the one to get! 🙂

What craft subscription boxes have you tried at this point? Any hits or misses for you? Have you tried Kiwi Crate? Don’t miss that 10% off coupon they are offering (use code fireworks).

I received a complimentary box for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

Homegrown Collective Subscription Box Review (Giveaway!)

March 31, 2013 · by Tiffany Merritt · 93 Comments

So this whole subscription box concept has really taken off, huh? I actually met a woman in my city a few days ago who is starting one up, and in the past month, I’ve probably read 15 different reviews for 15 different companies that offer this monthly gift service. Some of them are amazing. Many of them are just overpriced and not at all useful. But today I’ve got a real winner for you, at least I think so!

Check out Homegrown Collective. The concept behind this monthly box is to, “receive seasonally appropriate, professionally curated products that deliver the satisfaction of living a more self-sufficient & sustainable lifestyle to your doorstep each month.”

I recently received the February box from the company, and it was all about bees. We had all kinds of very interesting goodies to play with, including raw honey, bee pollen and beeswax, as well as essential oils and round tins for making our own lip salves. We even had a ball jar to use for adding rose hips to some of the honey so we could infuse it with a delicious special flavor. Darah asked to introduce you to the kit by way of a video. She is SO stinkin’ cute! Perhaps she needs to work on her product presentation a bit more, but still, I think we have a blogger (or perhaps a vlogger) in the making!

What I love about this kit is that the products are VERY useful, and that you have the opportunity to really learn something every month. I also think this box is EXTRA awesome for families with children, as children love to get to do experiments and to get to learn. Darah was a captive audience and a full participant in the process of making the lip balm and the rose hip infused honey. We talked a lot about the different products we were using and their purpose, as well as some of the extra things that we could do with them (the salve, for example, is good for diaper rash and minor scrapes in addition to being great for the lips!).

I would highly recommend the Homegrown Collective Box for families who are interested in sustainability, “do it yourself” remedies, natural solutions to problems, and opportunities to mix and create something yourself. You will find all of those needs met through this one service. Remember, summer will be here soon and it will be SO nice to have some really cool projects that you and your kids can work on together to help pass the time in a meaningful way. Note Darah’s butterfly wings in the picture. She doesn’t have a bee costume, but she thought this was a fair substitute.

Monthly subscription boxes are $39 plus $9 shipping. Or if you bump up to a 6 month subscription then shipping becomes free. If you do an entire year, you get free shipping AND one month totally free. Are you a little put off by the price? I can tell you from experience that everything in the box is VERY high quality and worth what you pay for it, but we all understand the need to choose wisely how we spend our hard earned money. Homegrown Collective would like to offer readers a special 10% discount off your purchase. Simply enter STUFF10 at checkout!

Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader will win the April Homegrown Collective Box, which will feature an assortment of products to get you ready for gardening season!

Be sure to enter to win my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my page.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received a complimentary product for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own. This post may contain affiliate links.