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Product Review: Instantgram Squares

3/19/2013

3 Comments

 
It's no secret that I love Instagram.  I post pictures often (@atrailife) and I follow TONS of friends, bloggers and celebs.  I love all of the different effects you can add to your pictures and I love that the pictures are always square.  It takes my average cell phone pictures and makes it look I have a clue what I'm doing with a camera (I don't). 

So of course, those are the pictures I want copies of.  Serial and I always talk about hanging our pictures together with maps of our favorite places to create some sort of wall art, but we never seem to have actual, physical copies of our pictures.  Until now!

I've been poking around on the internet trying to find an easy way to turn our Instagram pictures into physical photos that we can hang up and stumbled upon Instantgram.  I sent them an email to see if they would be willing to let me try out one of their products and they responded immediately with the friendliest customer service. 

We got to play around on the website and check out their options.  You can order 9 magnets (2"x2"), 24 squares (4"x4") or 48 mini-squares (2.5"x2.5").  We knew we wanted something for our blank walls so we decided on the squares.

The ordering process is really user-friendly and took us about 8 minutes to complete, but most of that was because we couldn't decide which photos we wanted to include in our order.  The website walks you through the process really clearly, but in general you give them your Instagram handle (the name after the @ symbol), you choose your product and then select your pictures.  They accept paypal (my favorite way to shop online) and shipping took about 10 days for us. 

Here are a few screen prints of the ordering process, so you can get an idea of what it's like.  They are in order, from left to right/top to bottom.
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I was kinda giddy the day that our Instantgram squares arrived.  They are printed on this great, thick photo paper, and they have a slightly matte finish so they keep that low-maintenance, artsy feeling that you get on Instagram.  I really couldn't be happier with them.

I've been staring at a blank wall for too long now and I just want to hang these bad boys up.  We'll probably get to it this weekend, but until then, I'll just keep admiring our new pictures :-)
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This was a sponsored post brought to you by Instantgram.  However, all opinions expressed are honest and 100% my own.  And of course, we only work with sponsors that we feel good about sharing with you. 
3 Comments

Product Review: Ninja Kitchen Mega Kitchen System

2/16/2013

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First things first, let's look at what comes with the Mega Kitchen System. 
  • (1) 72 oz pitcher
  • (1) 8 cup food processor
  • (2) 16 oz cups with lids
  • (1) 1500 watt base (works with all of the above)
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Pros:
  • The single serve cups.  These are perfect for making smoothies and you can drink right from the cup.  We use these almost every day.
  • The large capacity of the pitcher and food processor.  You can make quite a bit of food in either of these containers.
  • The food processor has two blade options.  One is a typical, sharp blade and the other is a dull, plastic (non) blade that can be used for making dough.  It's a nice option for breads, cookies and other baked goods.
  • There are three settings and a pulse option for the pitcher and food processor.  I've made delicate things like salsa with the pulse option and I've made creamy smooth soups with the highest setting.  And everything in between.

Cons:
  • The lids on the single serve cups.  They are the kind that you normally find on a coffee cup and are always a little open.  If you take your beverage to go, you can't just throw it in your purse or backpack, you need to carry it and make sure not to tip it on it's side.
  • The motor is very loud.  Honestly, it's louder than some of my power tools. 
  • The food processor can't grind nuts into a fine powder or into a nut butter.  The pitcher can, but it's such a deep container that you have to scrape down the sides a lot.  Not the end of the world, but worth mentioning. 
  • The price.  It's almost $200 at full retail.  We had a coupon on top of the holiday sales at Target so we got it for $100, but that's still not cheap. 

Overall:
I'm a big fan of Ninja Kitchen products and I'm borderline obsessed with my Ninja Master Prep, but this Mega Kitchen System needs a little bit of improvement before I can obsess over it too.  If the motor was a bit quieter and the blades in the food processor were more efficient at grinding hard ingredients into a fine powder, I'd be sold. 

I do love the single serve cups and I've made a lot of delicious meals with all of the containers so I do think this is a good product; I just don't know if the price tag is justified.  I suspect many see this as an affordable alternative to the more expensive systems like Vitamix, but you could get a lower end or refurbished Vitamix for not much more.  I'm still a loyal Ninja Kitchen girl, but I think I'd be happy with some of the cheaper options.
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You can learn more about Ninja Kitchen by visiting their website.  This is NOT a sponsored post and I was NOT compensated for this review.  These are simply my opinions, intended to help others when considering a future purchase.

If you like what you read, we would love to hear from you in the comments section!  It's fun to get feedback and it helps us create future posts.  And be sure to stay in touch on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS! 
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Product Review: Ninja Kitchen Master Prep

2/16/2013

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I first got this system as a gift from Serial's parents back in 2009 and I've been in love with it ever since.  My original motor died after about 3 years and I replaced it with another because I missed it so much.  But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start with the basics of what's included with this product.
  • (1) 48 oz pitcher
  • (1) 16 oz bowl
  • (1) 400 watt power head
  • (2) storage lids
  • (2) splash guards (for use with the power head)
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Pros:
  • The blades are super efficient.  They can take just about any ingredient and turn it into just about any consistency.  I regularly make almond butter and soup with ease.  I've also made salsa and cookie dough.  The range of possibilities is really broad. 
  • The power source is a push-down button which allows pulsing and blending.
  • The containers and blades are microwave and dishwasher safe. 

Cons:
  • The splash guards that are used when blending are tough to clean.  They have little grooves which trap food particles and require some digging to remove.  The dishwasher does a pretty good job of cleaning them, but sometimes you need to hand wash and it can be annoying.

Overall:
This is by far my favorite food processor and I'll continue to use it for as long as it's available.  I've whipped up tons of healthy recipes with this product and it's crazy affordable.  What's not to love?
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You can learn more about Ninja Kitchen by visiting their website.  This is NOT a sponsored post and I was NOT compensated for this review.  These are simply my opinions, intended to help others when considering a future purchase.

If you like what you read, we would love to hear from you in the comments section!  It's fun to get feedback and it helps us create future posts.  And be sure to stay in touch on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS! 
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Product Review: Raw Revolution Bars

2/4/2013

2 Comments

 
Raw Revolution Bars aren't new to us and we've mentioned them in several other posts, but I don't know that we've done them justice.  We have a lot of love for these bars and today we wanted to really share the love with you guys!

You guys know that we are healthy eaters.  We like to eat live, whole foods and we keep to a vegan diet as often as possible.  We're not fans of processed foods and we almost always make our own at-home versions of things just to avoid preservatives and control the ingredients that we put into our bodies. 

But let's face it, sometimes you need something on-the-go.  Most granola bars have a bunch of extra fluff ingredients that don't really do much nutritionally and just provide empty calories.  But Raw Rev bars are different.  You can count the number of ingredients on your fingers and you actually know what each one is. 

Check out the stuff in my favorite flavor, Spirulina & Cashew:  Organic Dates, Organic Cashews, Organic Sunflower Seed Kernels, Organic Agave Nectar, Organic Almonds, Organic Spirulina Powder, Organic Sprouted Flax Seed.

LOVE. IT.
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And there are tons more flavors that are just as tasty.  We've tried Chocolate & Cashew, Chocolate & Coconut, Raspberry & Chocolate and Cashew & Agave (Serial's favorite).   They're all delicious and filling.

And there are even more flavors that we plan to sample soon.  Especially the Almond Butter Cup and the Cherry Chocolate Chunk - those belong in my belly.   You can see their full product line here.
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Taste is obviously important, but let's get back to those ingredients.  If you're maintaining a vegan or gluten-free lifestyle, you're going to love these bars.  Raw Revolution Bars are Vegan and free of Gluten, Wheat, Corn, Soy, Trans-fat, Cholesterol and Refined Sugar.  (side note - it makes my insides happy when something is vegan AND soy-free).

The Raw Revolution Bars come in a few different sizes, which is great for those counting calories.  The larger bars range from 210-240 per bar (varies by flavor) and the smaller Raw Rev bars are just 100 calories each.  When we were on our hike, we carried the 100 calorie bars in our hip belts and snacked on them while we were walking.  It was perfect. 

These days, we keep a stash in the car and in my purse.  Yes, I'm that chick who always has a snack in her purse.  But with good reason.  Everyone know what "hanger" is?  It's when you get so hungry that your anger takes over and you become a crabby hot mess.  Yep.  It's real people.  Let's just say that after a few hiking trips that ended in beastly hanger during the car ride home, we wised up. 
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So let's review... they taste delicious, they're healthy and they come in two convenient sizes?  I'm sold.  But just to put a little icing on that cake, they have amazing customer service.  When we were planning our hike last year, we wrote to them asking for a few bars to take on the trail with us.  They responded immediately and provided us with enough bars for the whole hike and enough to share with friends.  We stashed a bunch in Damascus so that when we hiked into town, we were able to hand them out to tons of hikers.  It was wonderful. 

This year we emailed them again to see if they'd be willing to host a few product giveaways and once again, they were so helpful and positive.  So stay tuned, we will be hosting multiple giveaways of Raw Revolution Bars and we can't wait for you all to love them too.  In the meantime, you can check out their products on their site.  They're also on facebook and twitter, if you want to stop by and say hello! 
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Raw Revolution provided sample products for us to review, however the opinions expressed in this post are entirely ours.  Thank you, Raw Rev!
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If you like what you read, we would love to hear from you in the comments section!  It's fun to get feedback and it helps us create future posts.  And be sure to stay in touch on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS! 
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A Word on Sponsors

1/6/2013

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We have a bit of news to share with you guys... we are starting to bring in sponsors!  So, like a good little blogger, I wanted to first take a minute to talk about why we chose to partner with sponsors and what it means for our blog. 

The main reason we decided to partner with sponsors is to share products and ideas, that we believe in, with our readers.  If there is a product, business or blog that fits with our lifestyle and blog topics we'd love to pass it along to you all.  We are picky about who we work with and would never host a sponsor that we wouldn't use in our own life.  If we are reviewing it, giving it away or promoting it you can rest assure the we support the product and what they stand for.

One aspect that is not a factor?  Money.  This is a small blog and and as a lot of you other bloggers know, this is not an industry designed for big income.  Unless you're Young House Love.  But they are mad popular and work (ridiculously) hard for that money.  (Please tell me you have this song stuck in your head now.  Yep, you're welcome.)

Starting today, you will see logos on our homepage and we encourage you to click on them and visit our sponsors sites.  And remember, we purposefully chose not to use automatic ad generators and we are the ones who place each and every sponsor on our site (mostly Serial and I, but occasionally Rooney gets in on the coding) so you can trust that anything you find through us is worth the visit. 

The awesome part?  This also means that there are product reviews, discounts and giveaways in the future.  We can't wait to ship off goodies to our amazing readers.  Stay tuned and be sure to follow us so you don't miss anything.  We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and RSS so pick your favorite and connect with us!
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Review: Mama Garlic

9/19/2012

0 Comments

 
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This stuff is perfect and amazing.  Add it to just about anything and it will take care of all of the seasoning.  It's got garlic of course, but it also has other complimentary yummy spices to go with it.  You won't need much more than this.  It's that good. 

Not much more I can say about this.  Go order some!  :-)


**I was not compensated or asked to review this product.  These are my unsolicited opinions of a product I actually use.**

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Review: Sweet Almond Oil

9/8/2012

0 Comments

 
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I'm not exaggerating when I say this product changed my everyday life.  I've always been a moisturizing kind of girl, but I never really felt good about covering my skin with lotion.  I mean, the skin absorbs everything you put on it and one look at the ingredients of my lotion made me squirm. 

I was using the most natural, fragrance-free lotion I could find, but still didn't know what 95% of the components were.  Enter sweet almond oil.  The ingredient label reads "Expeller-pressed and Hexane-free. 100% Pure."  Heck, it's food grade.  Basically that means that they steam and press almonds until they turn into oil.  That's it.

The brand I like is NOW Foods, but there are others out there that work just as well.  It goes on slightly wet like an oil and then absorbs into the skin and quickly dries.  It's that simple!


**I was not compensated or asked to review this product.  These are my unsolicited opinions of a product I actually use.**
0 Comments

Review: Skin Deep Cosmetic Database

9/8/2012

9 Comments

 
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For anyone who isn't familiar with this site, my advice is to bookmark it right now.  The Skin Deep Cosmetic Database is a really useful site that rates the level of toxicity in your everyday beauty products, using a 0-10 scale.  Go ahead, type in one of your go-to products... I'll wait. 

Scary, right?!  Makes you think twice about touching that mascara wand to your eye or slathering that fragrant lotion all over your body. 

Now before you go crazy throwing everything in your cabinets out, keep in mind that it's near impossible to have all zero-rated products in your life.  My advice is to weed out the highly toxic items and work on replacing them with 0-2 rated items, paying attention to which ingredients are making them toxic.  In the database, you can click on the product then scroll down to see the rating of each ingredient.  Pretty great. 

So now you know!   Go share the love and tell a friend.

**I was not compensated or asked to review this site.  These are my unsolicited opinions of a website I actually use.**
9 Comments
    Update!  Life has become busy in a great way, so we don't have a lot of time for blogging these days.  We've left the site up as a reference, and we do check our blog emails whenever we can, but we are no longer actively posting or commenting.  Thanks for understanding and have a wonderful day! 

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    I'm a Chicago girl who loves the outdoors and everything DIY.  He's an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker and addicted to nature.  Follow us as we share our experiences with home projects, recipes and hiking with our energetic Weimaraner, Rooney.

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