At the beginning of the year, when I was talking about my finances and saving every penny I had to dump debt, I discussed how shopping online using Ebates definitely brings a whole new spin to saving money. If you are an avid online shopper like myself, deal seeker and all… then getting cash back for purchases you were intending on making is a pretty sweet deal.

If you are a fellow Canadian, then I can’t help but share my excitement… Ebates (US) recently launched it’s Canadian version and a brand new website! and it has made me one happy online shopper! Does that mean you can’t use the US site, No… but when you can actually get paid in Canadian dollars which is fantastic then why wouldn’t you!

How does it work? well it’s pretty easy, instead of going to the site itself to purchase what you wanted to get, you go through the Ebates portal which allows you to get cash back on your order. Cash back amounts vary from store to store, but if you sign up to the newsletter and you like their facebook page, they will keep you posted on double, triple or even 10x the cash back for a limited time offer.

I love sharing the savings with my fellow Canadians so just when you thought cash back was a sweet deal… wait until you hear about the refer-a-friend program. Ebates wants to share the ‘savings’ with the rest of Canada so they give you 5$ everytime a friend/family member signs up using your unique referral link and makes their first purchase of 25$ or more.

Obviously I shop using Ebates every chance I get. Why wouldn’t you? I just love it and I’m so happy my US friends introduced me to the site last year. Now with the new Canadian version I am one happy shopper. The site is so pretty and easy to navigate. You can find all the deals, daily double cash back, your referrals and pending cash back. One thing I can’t wait to have on the Canadian version, is all the list of emails that used your referal link. I love sending a quick “thank you and happy savings” message, but at the moment it isn’t available on the Canadian site (but will be – so a Ebates representative told me via their facebook page)

Have I made lots of money using this service… not a ton… but I’ve made over 40$ and only shopped a few times. I definitely forsee lots more money coming my way in the next year. So if you don’t know about the site, or do but haven’t opened up a Canadian account, then I invite you to do so. (please note by doing so you are using my referral link)

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE great blogs. Great as in the content as much as the design. My new favorite (actually I’ve been reading for quite sometime) is Lay Baby Lay. You will find some great nursery inspiration & delights on that site! Be sure to check it out when you have 2 mins. It’s all about promoting great blogs & designers. Great work Joni!

If I were to re-incarnate myself as a blogger/photographer/fashionista/artist, I think I’d take Jamie‘s spot. I absolutely adore her style, her eye for all things pretty and not to mention her rocking vintage look… and I mean did you see her blog?! All sorts of amazing. Kuddos to the designer of that as well. Like I said, I’d love to be her. Girl Crush! <3

If you don’t already follow her blog, YOU MUST DO SO NOW! It’s very inspiring (well for me it is) and just takes me to this happy place.

[ Images : From Me To You ]

With the recent events in Japan, I can help but be sadden by it all. I can’t even start to comprehend what they are going through, so apart from donating, I decided to take part in For Japan with Love with my fellow bloggers. Tomorrow, is Bloggers Day of Silence. Our way to pay respects in memory for the victims of Japan. Please donate, there is no small amount.

I love blog makeovers, even more so the ones I haven’t done. So when Summer (remember that post about her awesome styling) announced the launch of her new sites, I had to share. If you aren’t getting married then the nesting site you will love, and there is even a baby one if you’ve gone that extra step.

Go check out these site and don’t forget to add them to your google reader. (Though secretly, I would hop on to the site directly… because it is so pretty)

{ Images via Grey Likes Weddings, Baby, Nesting }

Hi everyone! My name is Mandy, but I was also Mrs. Dumpling on Weddingbee, and some of you may know me as The OMG Mom. I get myself into a lot of trouble on a regualr basis, but especially when I was pregnant. One of my Bee friends is pregnant and she was talking about the very difficult time she was having painting her toenails…well, I guarantee it’s not as difficult as my first and last toenail-painting-while-pregnant experience.

So, to save money during my 9th month of pregnancy, I decided to paint my own toenails. Pedicures are $20 and I tip $5 (because they get out my ingrowns so well) and I was going twice a month. Add that up…..$600/year spent on getting my toenails painted. I figured I better start saving that money for diapers, butt cream (for both of us…trust me, you’re gonna need butt cream on your own hiney after you deliver…have fun sitting down.) and formula and I decided to do that during my 9th month of pregnancy. Remember when I told you about pregnancy brain? Well that shit was in full force at this point and I was doing all kinds of ridiculous stuff (like one morning accidentally putting shampoo on my toothbrush in the shower instead of Colgate….and HELLO last night’s peaches ‘n cream oatmeal).

But back to my story.

Here’s my bathroom situation…. Our house has 4 bathrooms. My husband uses the one in our bedroom and i use the one in one of the guest rooms. It’s a messed up situation, but basically I don’t like to share and I don’t like to clean up after myself, so we use separate bathrooms. We don’t even use the same shower. We each have our own. In my bathroom, I have a little black metal stool that I use when I’m putting on make-up or drying my hair because I don’t like to stand up because I’m lazy. It looks like this:

I sit on that stool and I usually prop my feet up on the counter.

Anyways, saving money meant no more pedicures. One afternoon while the hubs was at the gym I decided to paint my toenails OPI red. You know the one- the really really blood red one that makes your toes look slutty/bloody? That’s the one I wanted. So I sat on that stool, propped my leg up on the counter and started painting. Now remember, I was 9 months pregnant and 50 pounds heavier than usual and had the biggest belly you have ever seen….

So there I am, big fat pregnant ass sitting on a rickety old metal stool with my leg on the counter, trying to bend over and reach my big swollen foot.

uh oh….what is that wobbling…..whaaaaaaa…..

BAM!

And I hit the floor. The freakin’ stool buckled underneath my weight.

At this point you might start feeling sorry for me and wonder if I got hurt….Oh, boy DID I.

Down I went onto the tile floor and down with me went the OPI red. Not only did the glass bottle break and spill out onto the WHITE bathroom tile, but it somehow flung itself across the room leaving streaks of red on my mirror, the white bathrobe I was wearing and the bathroom rugs. I quickly scurried to pick it up before it could spill out anymore, but I managed to drop it yet again, only this time the rest of it spilled out on my leg.

*PANIC*…..no, not because I was worried about the baby (i knew she was fine), but because my husband was about to be home and there was red nail polish EVERYWHERE and I was all out of nail polish remover to clean it up. What was I going to do??? Well, kids…I put on my t-shirt and maternity shorts and hobbled it down to Walgreens on Pecos and Wigwam to get more polish remover. Let me paint this picture for you, shall I?

There I was, about a million months pregnant and running into Walgreens with red nail polish streaming down my leg…from the TOP of my leg….and yelling at the 17 year old manager to GET ME SOME FREAKIN NAIL POLISH REMOVER RIGHT FREAKIN NOW if he wanted to live to see his 18th birthday. **Blank stare, cough** “Yes, ma’am…(trembling)..ok, ma’am..right over here, ma’am” “are you ok, ma’am”

WHY are you calling me MA’AM?? Get me the stuff so i can go!!!

I’m sure it looked like I was giving birth right then and there, what with the red polish looking like blood and my belly being so large and me hee-hee hoo-hoo’ing my way out of there, but whatever. I needed to get this crap off my leg and off the bathroom floor, walls, mirror and rugs before the hubs came home.

So i get home and basically soak my bathroom in nail polish remover and get everything out except the stains on the rugs. I really didn’t think it was safe for me to soak my pregnant leg in acetate solution, so I googled how to get nail polish off your skin and decided to sit in a warm bath and let the paint chip itself off. OMG that took forever, so I started rubbing and scratching it off. Well, now my leg looked like it had been beaten to death because there were still big splotches of paint and now there were big red marks (almost bruises) from me rubbing my skin raw trying to get it all off to go with it.

I had to get out of that bath and get to Target to replace the bathroom rugs, like NOW, if I wanted to save myself anymore embarrassment from the hubs (who also told me I wasn’t allowed to paint my own toenails anymore the week prior). So I got the polish stained ones and put them in the washing machine to pretend like I was washing them to buy myself some time. I got in my little car, raced over to Target and demanded that THAT 17 year old manager point me in the direction of the bathroom rug section so I could buy a replacement. OK, great…they don’t have one like what we had…so I had to buy something totally different. I’ll just say I was redecorating (how’s that for saving money?) and got these nice new rugs. Yeah, Good idea, OMGmom.

I got home, switched out the rugs, made sure all the evidence of the great red nail polish fiasco was gone and went on about my business.

Everything was working out and the nail polish did finally come off of my leg. Awesome.

Hi honey! What do you want for dinner? Ok..I’ll call it in. Hey, can you throw some of my stuff in the washer with yours? Thanks.

Whew…I was in the clear. He’ll never know.

***OH SHIT***

“Honey, why are your bathroom rugs covered in red nail polish and sitting in the washing machine?”

Operation Cover-up:FAIL. I forgot to get rid of the old rugs. CRAAAAAPPPPP……

Imagine how embarrassed I was when I retold the story about how I was bending over to paint my toenails and hit the floor because the darn stool gave out…..

The moral of this story, my friends, is to stop being a tight-wad and pay someone else to paint your toenails if you’re pregnant. That, and if you want to show your face again at Walgreens then you shouldn’t assault the 17 year old store manager. (But really, he should not mess with a pregnant lady with blood-paint streaming down her leg. Just sayin’)

In addition to this fiasco, I’ve also peed myself in public, accidentally got drunk when I was 9 months pregnant, and passed out at Banana Republic.  Being pregnant was not a great 10 months for me…..

I always love clean design, and when I came across Mrs. Lilien Styling house it made me smile. Great design elements, paired with images to create unique inspiration boards… I knew I needed to share it with all of yous (well… if you haven’t seen it yet)

She finds elements that you wouldn’t necessarily put together such as jewelry and furniture… but the collages make it seem as though the elements were always meant to be paired together. Here are just two examples.

Whether she is inspired by a photograph, artist or even color, Mrs. Lilien always finds away to make something ordinary… shine. I mean, I always have the sudden urge to purchase everything on EVERY board. Luckily my wallet doesn’t permit that

As perfectly described on her site “Mrs. Lilien styling house blog, an eye-candy showcase devoted to the pursuit of visual brilliance. The styling house blog spotlights Mrs. Lilien’s daily delights, illustrious inspiration and present-day projects. Mrs. Lilien styling house applauds luxury, swears by playful sophistication, adores visual drama and delights in the good life – because it’s just better!”

Keep up the great work!!! You inspire many, including me
Be sure to check out her blog daily for amazing eye-candy. You can even follow her on Twitter

{ Via Mrs. Lilien }