• a fabulous Happy Cuddle soother solution;
• a First Class School Label Pack from fabulous Emily Press Labels;
• one of THREE fantastic Maple Leaf Foods prize packs (open to Canadian residents only);
• an Itzy Ritzy Reusable Snack Happened Bag in the fabric of your choice;
• your choice of any Chill Monkeys Darwin newsboy cap.

There are also several GREAT offers for our readers to take advantage of:

• 15% off at Raspberry Kids (enter discount code spiltmilk15 at checkout to receive 15% off of your Raspberry Kids purchase!)

Congratulation to our most recent giveaway winner(s):

TheseHappyDays – the winner of our Lunch Punch giveaway!

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The Happy Cuddle, by ID Selection, is one of those innovative, brilliant ideas I wish I had thought of.  It’s basically a plush, toy-like pacifier holder weighted at the bottom and shaped so that even very young babies can manipulate it to get the soother into their mouth on their own.  It’s big enough to be safe for babies to use in their beds, and also large enough so that it can’t be tossed from the crib through the rungs.  My daughter has been using the Happy Cuddle for over a month now and she loves to cuddle with it.  She can easily use it to get her soother into her mouth on her own, and no more pacifier overboard calls in the middle of the night.

The Happy Cuddle retails for $14.99 USD from the company’s website or from online retailer Amazon for $16.95 USD, and is available in five different colour combinations (blue/cream, pink/cream, green/cream, green/pink, and green/gray).  It is designed to hold all shapes and sizes of pacifiers, and has a washable surface.  The Happy Cuddle is the ultimate solution for lost pacifiers in the middle of the night, and would make a great shower gift!

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ID Selection/International Innovation has been kind enough to provide us with a blue/cream Happy Cuddle to give away to one lucky Spilt Milk Moms reader!

To Enter:  Go to the Happy Cuddle website and then leave us a comment HERE (one per day only, please) telling us which Happy Cuddle feature you like best OR which colour you like best.  Once you’ve entered by leaving a comment, you can gain additional entries like this:

• Follow @SpiltMilkMoms on Twitter and tweet ” WIN a Happy Cuddle Pacifier Holder – no more lost soothers in the middle of the night! http://tinyurl.com/2vfyj6s @SpiltMilkMoms #giveaway “.
• If you ‘Like’ Spilt Milk Moms on Facebook, leave us a comment letting us know for one extra entry.
• Mention this giveaway on your blog for one extra entry.

This giveaway ends at 12:01am PST on Friday, September 24th, and the winner will be selected using Random.org.  The winner will have 7 days to respond to our notification email before another winner is selected.  This giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents only.

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Thank goodness that US company Clementine Art prides itself on producing natural, high-quality, non-toxic, and environmentally friend art supplies.  Their art supply line includes Natural Paint ($13.99 USD), Natural Modeling Dough ($9.99 USD), Natural Crayons ($5.99 USD), Natural Crayon Rocks ($5.99 USD), Natural Markers ($5.99 USD), and Natural Glue ($5.99 USD).

Art-loving Oliver, three years old, and I were really excited when Clementine Art agreed to send us a sample of their Natural Paint to try out (1.7 fl oz each of red, orange, yellow, green, purple, and blue) .  The consistency was a little more fluid than other brands of paint we have tried previously, but I was immediately impressed with the rich, earthy, beautiful quality of the paint (and no ‘paint’ smell!).  And that was before it even dried, because once it did, I was even more excited!  The Natural Paint is made using earth-based mineral pigments and contains no dyes or synthetic additives, and the end result was simply stunning and true to the colours you see in nature.  (Have a look at the Children’s Gallery on Clementine’s website for examples, though most of them are crayon drawings.)

If you are wondering about what exactly ‘natural art product’ means, here is how Clementine “pledges to wear ‘green’ shoes.”  Their art products are made in the United States and all of their (beautiful) packaging is produced using recycled and recyclable paper products printed with soy ink in a wind powered facility.  Their modeling clay is coloured with spinach, carmine, and tumeric (good enough to eat!), the markers with vegetable and mineral pigments, the paint and crayons using earth-based mineral pigments, and the water soluble glue is made using plant-based adhesives.

Clementine Art products can be purchased directly through the company’s website or from the following retailers including excellent Canadian on-line retailer Raspberry Kids.  Be sure to keep up with Clementine Art on Twitter and Facebook, as well as founder Diana’s inspiring Art Blog!

Raspberry Kids carries Clementine Natural Art Supplies and is offering readers of Spilt Milk Moms a 15% discount on any purchase (excluding sale items) from their store.  Simply use discount code spiltmilk15 at checkout – thanks Raspberry Kids!

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I was a little skeptical about the Tag-a-Tag clothing labels (I mean labels that stay on in the LAUNDRY?), but they’ve already survived several washes with no sign of giving up their stickiness anytime soon. I also love the size of the slim labels – they’re subtle and their small size means they can fit on items other name labels can’t.

I absolutely love everything about these Emily Press labels, from the designs to the size to the cute little booklet they come in. I may have also fallen in love with their EP Chic Baby Labels and can totally see using the très magnifique Parisian (belle) labels for myself. (Seriously how cool would it be to have chic labels for all us grown ups?) The First Class school label pack costs $40.95 (for 93 labels!), but is only available until September 30th so don’t hesitate!

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Just in time for Back-to-School, Emily Press Labels has generously offered up a First Class School Label Pack for one lucky reader to WIN!  Thanks Emily Press!

To Enter:  Go to the Emily Press website and then leave us a comment HERE (one per day only, please) telling us which icon best suits your child.  Once you’ve entered by leaving a comment, you can gain additional entries like this:

• Follow @EmilyPress and @SpiltMilkMoms on Twitter and tweet ” WIN a limited edition First Class Label pack w/@EmilyPress & @SpiltMilkMoms http://tinyurl.com/236g8wj #giveaway #contest “.
• If you ‘Like’ Spilt Milk Moms on Facebook, leave us a comment letting us know for one extra entry.
• Mention this giveaway on your blog for one extra entry.

This giveaway ends at 12:01am PST on Friday, September 17th, and the winner will be selected using Random.org.  The winner will have 7 days to respond to our notification email before another winner is selected.

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I have two sons in Elementary School … multiply that by 191 school days … minus 12 hot lunches …  carry the two …  that’s approximately 370 sandwiches I’ll be making this school year!  (When all four of my boys are in school, it’ll be 740!  Yikes.)  I’m proud to say that we are healthy eaters – I know the importance of nutrition, and I feed my family whole, natural foods whenever possible.  I used to make them a sandwich, pack a juice box, a small yogurt or fruit cup, and a recess snack of crackers, pretzels, or something equally easy-to-eat-while-running-and-climbing-on-the-playground.  Then I watched Food, Inc. and I took a good look at the lunchtime staple – THE SANDWICH!  What was I putting into the sandwiches I was making for my kids?  After watching Food Inc., I wasn’t sure I wanted all those chemicals and food-like products going into my little boys.  I’ve noticed over the last few months that natural sandwich options are popping up all over my local grocery store, which gives me options to make sandwiches I feel good about!

Maple Leaf now offers Natural Selections deli meats, which contain no preservatives, artificial ingredients, fillers, or MSG!  In fact, I guarantee you can pronounce each and every ingredient.  With ham, turkey, or chicken deli meats available, I can keep both my eight-year old “I want a ham sandwich every day, Mom” and my six-year-old “Do we have to have ham again, Mom?” happy.  Good times.  You can purchase Natural Selections at your local grocery store, but check out these Maple Leaf coupons before you go.

What is it with kids and those processed cheese slices?  I’m not even sure they should be considered “cheese”.  Try as I might to duplicate the size and shape of these perfectly square and flat slices of processed cheese from my block of cheddar, I just cannot do it to my boys’ satisfaction.  This is why I was so delighted to find Cracker Barrel cheese slices.  They’re slices of Cracker Barrel cheese (yum!) – perfectly square and perfectly flat.  And they’re available in Medium, Marble, Monterey Jack with jalapenos, and Swiss cheese varieties!

We’ve all heard the importance of incorporating whole grains into our diets.  Choosing a whole grain bread for your kids’ lunches is a great way to get started.  It’s wonderful to see so many varieties of whole grain breads on grocery store shelves these days.  I’ve been buying Dempster’s Wholegrains Ancient Grains and Dempster’s Wholegrains Multigrain breads for over a year now.  My boys love them both – they’re soft, not too nutty, the right size slice, and they taste great!  Dempster’s also makes Flax and 12 Grain breads.

I would need a degree in higher math to figure out how many sandwiches my boys will be eating over the course of Grades one to 12.  Needless to say, it’s a lot.  It’s so exciting to see nutritious lunch options sprouting up all over my local grocery store.  Read the labels, try the different options, and find ones that work for your families!  Your children might even thank you one day … if they even realize that they were eating ‘healthy’!

Don’t forget to enter to win a Lunch Punch Sandwich Cutter to cut those school lunch sandwiches into funky shapes!

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Just in time for Back-to-School lunches, Maple Leaf foods has generously provided the Spilt Milk Moms THREE prize packs for THREE readers to WIN!  Two lucky winners will win product coupon prize packs valued at over $25 CDN each, and one really lucky winner will win a thermal grocery bag, a Natural Selections memory stick, a Maple Leaf Butcher apron, AND product coupons valued at $40 CDN! Thanks Maple Leaf Foods!

To Enter:  Go to the Maple Leaf Foods and the affiliated Dempster’s Bread website and then leave us a comment HERE (one per day only, please) telling us which Maple Leaf and Dempster’s products you would use to make your favourite sandwich.  Need ideas – Maple Leaf can help!  Once you’ve entered by leaving a comment, you can gain additional entries like this:

• Follow @MapleLeafPledge and @SpiltMilkMoms on Twitter and tweet ” Win an @MapleLeafPledge Natural Selections & Dempsters prize pack for lunches http://tinyurl.com/3x4kbyf @SpiltMilkMoms #giveaway #contest “
• If you ‘Like’ Maple Leaf on Facebook, leave us a comment letting us know for one extra entry.
• If you ‘Like’ Spilt Milk Moms on Facebook, leave us a comment letting us know for one extra entry.
• Mention this giveaway on your blog for one extra entry.

This giveaway ends at 12:01am PST on Thursday, September 16th, and the winner will be selected using Random.org.  The winner will have 7 days to respond to our notification email before another winner is selected.  THIS GIVEAWAY IS OPEN TO CANADIAN RESIDENTS ONLY.

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Australian company Lunch Punch Sandwich Cutters is all over this concept.  Founder Kiersten, mom of three, invented these clever punches purely with the intent of making lunch more fun for everyone.  And oh are they fun!  Lunch Punches are available in five fabulously fun designs – from puzzle shapes, animals, transportation, princess-themes, and the continents (coming soon), there’s definitely a Lunch Punch to inspire your child’s imagination.  Kiersten was generous enough to send me one of their Match & Munch (puzzle shapes) and Critter Cutters (below) sandwich cutters, and I can’t remember the last time my son was so excited about eating lunch.  He loves choosing which shape he wants his sandwich to be, and the best part is that he eats his lunch without complaint.  All of it.  And then he asks for more!  We found Lunch Punch sandwich cutters super easy to use, and the shapes came out really crisp (particularly when our bread was really fresh).  Since then we’ve gone on to use them for Jell-O, playdough, and as cookie cutters.

You may be wondering if you couldn’t do the same thing to bread by simply using the cookie cutter collection you already have.  What makes Lunch Punches ideal for cutting sandwiches is that they are bigger than traditional cookie cutters and come in two sizes (for both medium and large-sized breads), which means less waste as they’re specifically designed to get as close as possible to the bread crust.  Other Lunch Punch features include:

• made from FDA certified food-grade plastic;
• BPA, Phthalate, PVC, and lead free;
• dishwasher safe;
• easy for little hands to use;
• AND both the Lunch Punch and its packaging are 100% recyclable!

Lunch Punch Sandwich Cutters are a great way to make school lunches fun, and they can be purchased from the following retailers for $14 to $17 CDN depending on the set and its size.  Your kids will love them – what a great way to ‘feed their tummy AND imagination’!

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Just in time for Back-to-School, Kiersten has generously supplied us with a set of Lunch Punch Sandwich Cutters for one lucky reader to WIN (the winner will have their choice of the Critter Cutters or the Match & Munch sets).  Thank you Lunch Punch!

To Enter:  Go to the Lunch Punch website and then leave us a comment HERE (one per day only, please) telling us which Sandwich Cutter set you think your kids would love the most and why.  Once you’ve entered by leaving a comment, you can gain additional entries like this:

• Follow @SpiltMilkMoms on Twitter and tweet ” WIN a set of Lunch Punch Sandwich Cutters for your Back-to-School crew http://tinyurl.com/27ktr5c @SpiltMilkMoms #giveaway #contest “ .
• If you ‘Like’ Lunch Punch on Facebook, leave us a comment letting us know for one extra entry.
• If you ‘Like’ Spilt Milk Moms on Facebook, leave us a comment letting us know for one extra entry.
• Mention this giveaway on your blog for one extra entry.

This giveaway ends at 12:01am PST on Tuesday, September 7th, and the winner will be selected using Random.org.  The winner will have 7 days to respond to our notification email before another winner is selected.  This giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents only.

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Thank you again to Little Inspirations for sponsoring this fabulous giveaway and to our readers for entering!

Don’t forget to enter our other amazing giveaways at the sticky post on the top of the page, and stay tuned for even more great stuff!

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Shucks … we’ve already put life into Back-to-School gear over here at Spilt Milk Moms.  We can’t help it – we’re trying to get organized and that means getting ourselves and the kids ready for school in a few weeks.

Good thing we have an exciting two weeks of reviews and giveaways prepared for you!  Lunch Punch, Beatrix New York, Itzy Ritzy, Chill Monkeys, and Emily Press Labels are all sponsoring fabulous giveaways during our Back-to-School weeks starting tomorrow!  Check back often to find out how you can win … and how to make your life a little easier transitioning into regular routine.

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