How to Train Your Dragon 2 CD ZinePak Review and Giveaway [Ends 7/25]

July 11, 2014 · by · 7 Comments
SAMSUNG

How to Train Your Dragon 2


 

I think almost all of my friends on Facebook have seen or have talked about wanting to see the movie How to Train Your Dragon 2. So I couldn’t wait to check out the CD that featured music from the incredible movie!


You may recall not too long ago, a review and giveaway on an ACM Awards ZinePak and I absolutely loved the layout of the booklet you get with the CD and the little prize you get when you buy the CD. When I was contacted about doing a review on that movie soundtrack from the same people sent me that other CD, I was so excited! I just knew that I would enjoy every bit of what I would receive.

And I was definitely not disappointed. As you can see from the photo above, each How to Train Your Dragon 2 ZinePak comes with an amazing poster (I have no shame in admitting I’ve put that poster up on my wall) and an iron-on patch along with a booklet filled with activities and games inspired by the movie.

Then you have the music itself – I really enjoyed this music a lot. I love write short stories and when I need inspiration to write, music one element that never fails to get my creative juices flowing. With this music, it felt so adventuresome! I enjoyed listening to it on my way into work, it made me feel inspired. So whether you have kiddos who may LOVE have this playing while they take off their own adventures, or you are adventures or creative yourself and need that extra boost, this music is perfect for you. And this actually made me want to see the movie, so don’t worry if you haven’t seen it, because I’m certain you will enjoy this.


Overall, I enjoyed the CD and the ZinePak overall and I think this is something everyone should go out and buy whether you are fan of the movie or not.

And the best part of all, is that I get to giveaway a How To Train Your Dragon 2 ZinePak to one lucky reader!

Buy: Purchase your own for only $14.98 (on sale for $10.00 online today!).


Follow: Follow ZinePak on , , and .

Win: Enter to win a How to Train Your Dragon 2 ZinePak using the Rafflecopter below! Giveaway ends 7/25.

 


nicole

 


I received a complimentary copy of the ZinePak in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. ZinePak is responsible for sending the prize.

Filed Under: giveaway, music · Tagged: , ,

Jam Jar Wine Review [And Giveaway of Excellent Summer Gear!] [Ends 7/20]

July 6, 2014 · by · 13 Comments
jam jar wine
jam jar wine
During the summer, I have the hardest time figuring out what type of wine that I can enjoy. I love to end my evening with a glass of wine – usually red, sometimes white, but the heat always makes it tough to enjoy (and I don’t like heavy liquor). So when I had the chance to try out Jam Jar wine, I couldn’t wait to see how they fit into my summer time problem!
Their website says that Jam Jar was created because consumers didn’t have the option of finding quality sweet wine!  I’ve always been a huge fan of sweet wine, so you can tell why I was really excited for this opportunity.
There’s been a heat wave over here in the Pacific Northwest, and this type of wine was perfect. Both bottles I tried, the white AND the red had to be chilled. I had the chance to try out their Sweet White Wine and their red wine called, Sweet Shiraz.
Of the two, I usually prefer red wine, because I feel like it has more to it, but I can tell you right away that both wines were so good.
The first wine I tried was the red, the Sweet Shiraz. I let it chill for a bit and poured myself a glass as well as my mom and brother (they like a glass of wine at night too!). Immediately, I could see why this wine needed to be chilled. It’s very sweet, and not dry at all, and this was perfect cold on a hot day. I was really surprised, because usually I don’t enjoy red wine chilled, but this was an exception for me.
The next night, we tried their Sweet White Wine, and I was really surprised. Usually I don’t enjoy white wine as much, but this was an exception for me. My family enjoyed this bottle too, probably just about as much as the wine. Although I do have to say, my oldest brother isn’t a huge fan of sweet wines, but he still appreciated the flavor.
Overall, I will definitely buy this wine again and look for it in the store. This makes for a perfect summer wine, and if you are planning picnics and cookouts this summer and want your guests to enjoy a glass of wine, you will want to add this to the menu.
I will also be giving away some great summer gear to one lucky reader! You will receive a pair of flip flops, a baseball hat, and a tote bag. They have some pretty adorable gear!
Buy: Find out if Jam Jar Wines is located near you to purchase a bottle of your own by using

Follow: Follow Jam Jar Wines on , , and .

Win: Enter to win Jam Jar branded flip flops, a baseball hat, and a tote bag by using Rafflecopter below.  Giveaway ends on 7/20. 


nicole

I received the two bottles of wine in exchange for my honest review. Jam Jar Wines has sponsored this giveaway.

Filed Under: giveaway · Tagged: ,

Truly Organic Foods Review and Giveaway [Ends 7/15]

June 26, 2014 · by · 34 Comments
Truly Organic Foods


I have really started to embrace my inner healthy person, so I’ve been looking for companies to try fit the type of lifestyle I lead and can provide me with good, healthy food to fit into my diet. I was so excited to find Truly Organic Foods and couldn’t wait to try out some of their items.

started out with the desire to share the raw food lifestyle with the world and help people achieve their healthiest selves. This company strives to keep the nutrients in foods even when the food hits your plate.  I love the philosophy they share on their about page, “You won’t need to resort to junk food or stimulants to “feel better” anymore. Living really can be that great, just the way it is!” I strongly suggest you take time to peruse their website too as you will find many, many tasty recipes and this will inspire you to think creative with your meals at home while still staying healthy!

Truly Organic Foods


I got to try a few of their amazing items – their Kalamata Olives, Raw Cashews, and Salted Caramel Walnuts. Let me tell you that my experience with all three of these items was pretty amazing and I am now a huge fan of this company.

Salted Caramel Walnuts: I admit that as you can see in the photo above that the bag is already almost half gone. That’s because the second I got these in the mail I tore into them and scarfed a handful or two. But when I actually put them into food – YUM. I mixed them into my morning breakfast of blueberries and yogurt and these just enhanced the entire experience. Next time I have these I want to stir some into oatmeal. These are worth buying in bulk to me and I can’t wait to buy these again.

Kalamata Olives: Timely enough, when I got these I was about to make a salad, and I love these types of olives in salad! Probably the only downside is these olives did have pits, but it wasn’t  too big of a deal to me to spit them out. To me, I thought these were excellent tasting and I felt like I was having a treat when I ate these.

Raw Cashews: At first, I will admit, I had a little trouble with these because these cashews didn’t have any salt in them and they were just very…raw. But after I started tasting a few they weren’t too bad. I would say that had a touch of a sweet flavor that I tend to miss when  they are coated with salt, so I was glad to have that experience. Overall, I think these are good but I want to warn all you salted cashew fans that these may not be what you expect, but they are much better tasting (and better for you)

And I’m so excited to announce that I get to giveaway all three of the items that you see above! Just enter via the Rafflecopter below!

Buy: Purchase your organic foods and snacks by visiting  

Follow: Follow Truly Organic Foods on , , and .

Win: Enter to win olives, cashews, and walnuts (as featured above) by using Rafflecopter below.  Giveaway ends on 7/15. US Only Giveaway.


nicole

I received this items in exchange for my honest review. My opinions are 100% my own.

Filed Under: food, giveaway · Tagged: , ,

California Delicious Gift Baskets [Review and Giveaway Ends 6/27]

June 10, 2014 · by · 173 Comments
California Delicious Gift Basket

California Delicious Gift Basket

 

I don’t know about you, but I think gift baskets make for excellent gifts. And I jumped at the chance to review one of the amazing gift baskets made by California Delicious, a California based company that selects item from the sunny state, making sure each item is quality and chosen with care.

I received this amazing gift basket of Starbucks coffee and treats, and it reminded me of something you would definitely want to send to a grad going away to college for the first time . I could just imagine them opening this up and seeing all the coffees, treats, hot chocolates, and tea selections and being so excited. Because I certainly was!

I will admit the first thing my family and I did when we got the gift basket was tear into those tasty Starbucks biscotti’s! Sure, I’m supposed to be going gluten-free and I’ve been very good about it, but I couldn’t resist. There were four in the gift basket, too, which made for excellent sharing! Plus there were two caramel wafers and two chocolate bars and let me tell you these are excellent with coffee.

There was salty caramel hot chocolate and despite the summer season, I can’t wait for a bit of a cooler day this week so I can enjoy it! Plus there was even iced coffee included and this is perfect for the summer season! Finally there was also calm chamomile tea which I absolutely loved (I’m big on hot tea – winter spring summer or fall). Then the coffee. Of course, and Starbucks coffee is 100% quality and I am never disappointed and I wasn’t this time around either!

Overall, I highly recommend this site for any gifts you preparing to buy. Probably the only downside is maybe the expense of the gift baskets, but after seeing the variety I got with the Starbucks gift basket (priced at $59.99 on their website) it’s worth it. You get so much for the amount you pay. Plus, I recommend signing up for their newsletters for special deals and coupons.

Best of all, I get to giveaway a $50 gift card to their website!

Buy: Purchase your own gift basket by visiting their website the. 

Follow: Follow California Delicious on , , and .

Win: Enter to win a $50 Gift Card to California Delicious using the Rafflecopter below.  Giveaway ends on 6/27. US Only Giveaway (Gift Baskets ship to physical addresses only).


nicole

I received a free product in exchange for my honest review. Opinions are 100% my own.

Filed Under: gifts, giveaway · Tagged: , ,

Grace Hightower & Coffees of Rwanda – Review and Giveaway [Ends 6/27]

June 7, 2014 · by · 60 Comments
coffee

I am an admitted night owl and probably half of that reason is because I drink so much coffee! So I couldn’t wait to try out the coffee made by Grace Hightower and Coffees of Rwanda.

coffee

The is absolutely incredible. It was started by Grace Hightower, the wife of Robert DeNiro was so inspired by the Rwandan people that she wanted to create a company that supported the coffee farmers of Rwanda as well as celebrates the rich culture of the area. This allows the people of Rwanda work towards a better future.

And you must watch their video they call “LOVE,” it will really tell you the story of the coffee and where they come from and the people who make it. It will actually inspire you to buy a bag of coffee!

I tried four different flavors of coffee -

Medium Light Roast
Medium Dark Roast
Espresso Roast
Signature Series

Of these four different blends, I absolutely loved the Medium Dark Roast and the Espresso Roast. These were the darker blends and I do tend to lean towards darker roasts anyways. You can just tell the quality of the coffee – the taste was rich and smooth. It made for an excellent morning coffee. In fact, I made sure to bring all four bags with me when I went away during Memorial Day weekend and it became part of a luxurious vacation experience!

And I have to say, I was a little hesitant with the Medium Light Roast coffee, because of that dreaded word – LIGHT roast. But I was very surprised, they made a blend of coffee that although was a light roast still had strong flavor. I saved most of the Espresso Roast beans because that did tend to lean towards a medium/light blend, which will make for excellent iced coffee during the hot season!

And now for my favorite part, I get to giveaway coffee to one of my lucky readers! You will be receiving the same 4 different coffees that I received!

Buy: Purchase your own coffee online by visiting their website .  

Follow: Follow Coffee of Grace on , , and .

Win: Enter to win four coffees from Coffee of Grace using the Rafflecopter below. Ends 6/27.

Thank you to Coffees by Rwanda for providing me with the coffee to review and for sponsoring this giveaway. My opinions are my own.

nicole


Filed Under: food, giveaway ·

Coffee Beanery – Coffee Review + Giveaway [Ends 6/22]

June 3, 2014 · by · 108 Comments
coffee beanery

I am an admitted and unashamed coffee fanatic, so I couldn’t wait to try coffee from the Coffee Beanery and jumped at the chance to review some of their coffees.

The Coffee Beanery started out in Michigan in 1976 and it’s become an industry leader over the last 30 years it’s been in business.  They have over 100 locations across the United States and continue to bring quality with every blend of specialty coffee they make.

When I received my “treasure chest of coffee,” honestly, it’s almost as if they know me way more than I thought they did, because I couldn’t figure out what I was more excited about – the varieties of coffee to try or the treasure chest itself!

coffee beanery

 

I was SO excited to review these coffees. Each one had a different flavor from the unique such as Green Apple (which turned out to be my favorite) to more familiar flavored coffees such as Hazelnut and Double Chocolate Fudge (yum!).

Here’s a list of all the coffees that I got in the treasure chest (I got this full list of coffee names from the ):

Colombian Supremo
 Beanery Blend®    
 Italian Dark Roast 
 Hawaiian Coconut   
 Caramel Apple     
 Vanilla Nut Cream           
 Chocolate Raspberry       
 Double Dutch Fudge
 Swiss Mocha Almond
 Hazelnut    
 Crème Brulee        
 Breakfast Blend     
 Pumpkin Spice     
 Sumatra Mandheling
 Michigan Cherry   

Each coffee was about 1 ounce to 1.75 ounces and what I did was add them to my usual selection of coffee for the morning to enhance the flavors.  It made for an excellent second pot of coffee and every morning was exciting because I got try out a new flavor! I even have a few more that I need to try, but honestly, this is an excellent way to try out a bunch of coffees at once and I know this will be my guide to buying my next batch of coffee from them. This makes for an excellent holiday surprise or a gift for someone’s birthday (or Father’s Day and graduation season is just around the corner!)

The best part about this review is I get to giveaway a gift basket to one of my lucky readers! Just in time for Father’s Day! Also, everyone gets a 15% off discount for any of your online orders.

Buy: Purchase your own coffees and gifts online by visiting their website .  All online orders through June 30th will receive 15% off using the coupon code: GOLDENTICKET

Follow: Follow Coffee Beanery on , , and .

Win: Enter to win a gift basket from Coffee Beanery.  Giveaway ends on 6/22.


nicole

Coffee Beanery provided me a free item in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are 100% my own.

 

Filed Under: gifts, giveaway · Tagged: , ,

Hongar Farms – Benissimo Flavored Oils – Review and Giveaway [Ends 6/19]

May 29, 2014 · by · 49 Comments
Benissimo Flavored Oils

Like I’ve said before, I am a huge fan of adding olive oil to my diet any way I can. It’s such a healthy alternative to butter and when I heard of the Benissimo Flavored Oils, I couldn’t wait to give them a try.

Benissimo Flavored Oils

Benissimo Flavored Oils , which dates back 450 years ago to a farm in the Austrian Alps. I love a company with a rich history, you can just taste their quality. While the Hongar Farms date back many centuries, their “flavor infused oils” were created within the 19th and 20th century. Their products are 100% natural with no artificial flavors or coloring and no perservatives, sodium or cholesterol. They’ve been manufucturing products in the United States for nearly 10 years, primarily on the east coast and meet or exceed the FDA requirements (along with having been tested by the Georgia Food Products Division).

You can tell that quality and using the healthiest and freshest ingredients is part of this company’s tradition.

I can tell you this – it didn’t take long for this bottle of Benissimo Flavored Oils to get eaten up in my house. Especially considering this flavor was Mediterranean Garlic (remember my comment about not dating vampires? Yeah, this is further proof that my relationship with one would never work out. I love garlic).

I was a little hesitant about using this because of it using canola oil in the ingredients list. But since that is such a common ingredient to use when I cook and use recipes, I couldn’t wait to give it a try. I gave this a try as a dipping oil for breads and salad dressings, but then I also gave it a try for cooking up vegetables (nothing fancy but I usually love to cook grilled peppers or broccoli or Lima beans).

I thought this was an excellent addition the vegetable dishes I made, and I would highly recommend cooking with this ingredient. It didn’t seem to work so good with salad dressings but it completely enhanced the flavors of veggie dishes! My next challenge is to cook this with meats and see what might work best. I would say this works best as a cooking olive oil rather than used for dressings on salad. I would say that because the flavor is rich enough to pull off use in cooking, which I am so glad for!

Better yet, these oils make excellent gifts for the foodie in your life. The prices listed on their website are EXTREMELY reasonable (for the bottle of oil I got above, you would only pay $4.99 per bottle!) which is a significant drop in price from what you would pay in the store. So make sure you visit their website to s  (or other . Also, if you want to shop locally, they have a that carry their product on their website.

Overall, I highly recommend this. This olive oil can enhance any dish you use it in and I am so excited to be able to giveaway a bottle of Benissimo Olive Oil to one of my lucky readers!

Buy: Purchase your own bottle of Benissimo oils by . Make sure to visit their as well for some tasty meal ideas!

Follow: Follow Garlic Gold on ,  , and .

Win: A bottle of Benissimo oils. Enter below and good luck! (US & 18+ entrants only please)

nicole

Thank you to Hongar Farms for hosting this giveaway and providing me a free bottle of Benissimo Flavored Oils in exchange for my honest review.

Filed Under: food, giveaway · Tagged: , ,

Moustache Coffee Club Review [And Get a Free Trial!]

May 28, 2014 · by · 1 Comment
moustache coffee

You all know that I am a huge caffeine addict, so I couldn’t wait to try out this coffee from this company called, “Moustache Coffee Club.”

moustache coffee

Before I get into the nitty gritty details of how their coffee tasted, I wanted to read over their company and what they were all about. They founder, Sean Reilly, born in Ireland who founded the company in Los Angeles after trying to find the right beans roasted within the last week, but wasn’t satisfied with anything he found. Ambitious, and he’s kind of cute, too. Isn’t that an excellent combination?

The Moustache Coffee Club is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a coffee club that ships out new coffee beans to it’s members every month. You can sign up for a weekly subscription and get one 12 ounce bag of coffee every week or try out a 12 ounce bag every month (or every other week). Their prices are reasonable, although maybe a bit more money than I would usually spend on a bag of coffee (about $17.49 for a 12 ounce bag of coffee per week).

Now to the review! At first, I was a little hesitant about trying this blend of coffee because the beans were a  bit lighter than I usually like to drink. But lucky for me, this coffee came in around the time a big heat wave came through the Portland area, so I made a big batch of coffee and turned this hot coffee into iced coffee. I thought this was an excellent coffee to use for an iced drink.

I wouldn’t say that would it be my first cup in the morning, but for an afternoon or evening drink or something colder, I would highly recommend it. I did a little digging on their site and they tend to use lighter roasts in general. I’m really picky usually with coffee and do go for the more darker roasts, but I would definitely buy this for a friend with a more flexible palate when it comes to the coffee they drink.

Buy: Get your own free trial of Moustache Coffee Club by  or get started with your own weekly or monthly subscription by visiting the same webpage.

Follow: Follow Moustache Coffee Club on  and .

 

nicole

 

I received a free bag of Moustache Coffee in exchange for my honest review.

Filed Under: home, kitchen · Tagged: , , ,
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