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Share your favorite soup recipes during National Soup Month

January 13, 2012 By Tori 6 Comments

Did you know that January is National Soup Month? After a holiday season full of large meals and tempting sweets, a month of warm and nourishing soups sounds so appealing — don’t you think?

We asked our friends on Twitter which soup recipes they were most excited about and @sahopson shared this with us:

Of course this peaked our interest, check it out — how delicious does this look?

soup recipes

Brazilian Fish, Shrimp and Mussel Stew from Food & Wine Magazine

 

After drooling over this soup on Pinterest (check it out here and follow the link for the recipe), we had soup on the brain. This next find had our tummies grumbling:

National Soup Month

Spiced Butternut Squash and Apple Soup from Martha Stewart

This  Spiced Butternut Squash and Apple Soup looked too good not to share. So we pinned it on Pinterest and shared with our hungry Twitter crowd. Turns out it was perfect timing as our friend @DianaScimone was just about to make dinner. She saw our tweet and decided to make this recipe for dinner.  How cool is that?

She officially sealed the deal on our soup cravings with her tweets. Good thing we have a whole month to drool over recipes like this and test out new soups one in our own  kitchens.

What are your favorite soup recipes? We’d love to know! Share with  us in a comment below.

And if you are on Twitter, be sure to follow our friends @sahopson and @DianaScimone because they have delicious tweets!

We’d also love to connect with you on Pinterest and Twitter — let the recipe sharing begin!

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Bringing Pinterest into the classroom

December 19, 2011 By Tori 1 Comment

It’s no secret that we’re completely hooked on Pinterest — and the new Grommet ideas are flowing here. About a month ago we corralled some of you to help out by pinning your favorite finds.  And we’ve really loved hearing about how you’re using Pinterest in your day-to-day lives. In fact, over 50 of you spoke up and  told us what Pinterest means to you. We’re learning so much and loving the conversation.

In fact, we recently heard from one of our community members, Tara, who told us how she’s made Pinterest part of her classroom and is using it as a learning tool:

Tara, tell us a bit about yourself

My name is Tara McCrackin and I’ve been teaching at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, MI since 2000.  I’ve also been a practicing interior designer with a focus in commercial office design.  I’ve worked on projects for Steelcase, multiple showrooms across the country and their facilities in Grand Rapids — and I completed a LEED Gold project for RackSpace in San Antonio, TX.  You can see some of my work here. I’ve been doing a lot of consulting for Turnstone in the past couple of years on color and space planning tips.  You can see their profile of me at the bottom of the page here.

How were you introduced to Pinterest? Did you bring it into your classroom or was it the other way around?

A former student told me about Pinterest and I joined in early October.  Then I told my students about it and suggested some ways that they could use it for classes (it’s not uncommon for me to share technologies with my classes, and vice versa).  I also suggested that it would be a good organizational tool for inspirational images and for any furniture or accessory information that they collect for projects.

How are you incorporating Pinterest into your instruction?

So far I’ve used Pinterest as a suggested technology to support the class projects.  I haven’t required that my students use it.  My expectations are such that I intend to learn from the students as much as they learn from me  (I am a self identified “Digital Immigrant”).

What’s the most surprising or helpful thing about using Pinterest in your instruction?

What has had the biggest “wow” moment for me has been to see how effective it is for group projects.  That the team can work collaboratively and “like” or “dislike” pieces and then share the images which has been very effective.  They all have on demand access to it, so I don’t hear, “Well, Suzy has it on her hard drive and I don’t know where she got it”.  The student who is working on specific areas can post images, and classmates who are working on the drawings can go to the websites and get dimensions, etc.

Here’s a screen shot of what some of my students (Emily and Claire)  have been pinning for a recent project:

Tara: Thanks for sharing this with us and for giving us a peek inside your classroom. It looks like your students are using Pinterest in a really practical way, and I’ll bet the visual (and convenient) aspect of the platform is making it more exciting for them as well.

We’d love to keep this conversation going — tell us, what are some of the interesting ways you’re using Pinterest? What’s the most exciting aspect of the tool for you?

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A feast for the eyes

November 20, 2011 By Tori 3 Comments

Yesterday, we invited entertaining expert Chris Nease to share  stylish tips for your Thanksgiving table. Today, we’re delighted to have design blogger – Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo here to continue sharing great holiday decor inspiration and ideas.

by Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo

My name is Amy Beth Cupp, and nearly five years ago I married Mr. D. That makes me ABCD! I write a blog about making your house a home which is aptly named ABCDDesign. I am a trained chef, artist and floral designer. I have worked in event planning, floral, stationery and interior design. I am thrilled the Daily Grommet asked me here to talk about decorating for the holiday season.

 

Who is planning to entertain at home in the next few weeks? So much of the holidays are focused on sharing time at the table with close friends and family, so I am going to focus on tabletop decorations today. A huge percentage of pleasure at a meal is about the visual experience. Make it a feast for the eyes!

 

China, Stemware, and Flatware! My motto is simple: Life is short. Eat off the good china! Whether you are throwing an event for two or twenty, I think it is important to make life’s little moments into memorable milestones. Unless your wedding china was handed down from your great, great grandmother chances are that a broken dish is either still in production or can purchased at replacements.com. So don’t be afraid to USE the pretty stuff.

One of the biggest trends we see in tabletop is mix and match china. It’s all about layering, layering, layering. Notice all of the linens are natural color. This makes it easy to repurpose them at other times of the year. Napkins are either folded alongside the plate, placed in the top dish, or slipped between the top and bottom dish – there are no rules.

The mood we have in these images is nostalgic, it’s cozy, mis-matched. We have a combination of materials that help lend an antiqued feel to the space. Do different textures on your tabletop: wood, moss, bark, greenery, combining gold and silver finishes and pine cones add a fabulous foil to the cool, sparkling china and the glimmer of crystal. The use of linen, wood, twine, and mixed metallics compliment the combination of clear and mercury glass.

Speaking of which, mercury glass is everywhere this holiday season. It’s wonderful because it looks as fantastic at the 4th of July as it does at Halloween and Christmas. It doesn’t show fingerprints and it gives an instant feel of history to the table. Other trends we’re seeing a ton of in Holiday ornaments and decorations: crowns, woodland animals and mushrooms.

When decorating your table for the holidays, think about starting with a neutral palette on all the basics (tablecloths, and napkins especially) and then dress it up at the with pops of color that don’t necessarily have to be a predictable fall colors for Thanksgiving or the traditional Christmastime red and green color palette. By mixing in fresh greenery, Christmas bulbs and other wintery elements, we get a decidedly ‘holiday’ feel.

Lighting: Flicker LED candles are all the rage. They won’t blow out during an event and save on clean-up after a party. But personally, I love the soft glow that orange and peach color candles give a room, so I always add them in regardless of whether I am using LED lights or not.

Centerpieces: Be certain not to use highly scented flowers such as lilies. Keep your flower budget low by using only one or two varieties of flowers in your arrangements. Get creative and reach for old family pieces. Soup tureens, galvanized buckets, crystal bowls, water pitchers, coffee pots and tea cups all make interesting containers for floral decorations.

Fill bowls, vessels and pitchers with seasonal fruits; persimmons, apples, oranges, cranberries and pears. I chose to do a mixture of clementines and tangerines. They’re fantastic this time of year, and will be happily snacked upon long after the dinner party is over. I like to carry the mood throughout the house. I put Christmas bulbs in big bowls in nearly every room.

Prizes! Party favors are not just for kids parties any more. We’ve been seeing more and more hostesses giving token gifts out to their party guests. I have designed these letterpress matchboxes that play double duty and act as place card holders at the table. All my guests can go home with a handsome parting gift at the end of the night. They last far longer than any bottle of wine or tin of cookies, they also make a terrific Hostess gift for any Winter party.

Speaking of hostess gifts: one of my favorite finds this year were MyDrap linens on a roll. They’re eco friendly, 100% cotton and linen. They are washable up to six times and come in a myriad of colors. They’re an amazing way to add quick, reasonably priced color to your table for a themed event, or make for a fabulous hostess gift.

Ideas for easy entertaining at the holidays: Highlight what you are good at. Hire out what you do not do or can not do yourself. Throw a Winter Solstice Cookie Party: I bake every cookie and holiday treat I have the recipe for and invite my friends in for dessert. I serve homemade eggnog, champagne, coffee and tea. It is such an easy, fun way to throw a celebration. All the work is done ahead of time and I can truly appreciate my guests without worrying that I am burning something in oven -OR- Consider throwing a New Years Day open house: prepare a pot of soup, serve rolls, a cheese and olive plate on a buffet. Let people come and go and help themselves throughout the afternoon.

Jingle-Jingle! And most of all, ENJOY. xo ABCD

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Would you like more holiday help? ABCD, and several other expert bloggers will be joining us for a fun and festive Twitter party. We’ll be sharing more ideas and tips for holiday food, decor, gifts, plus much more! More info here. We hope you’ll join us!

Filed Under: Featured, Guest Post Tagged With: , , ,

Do you Pinterest? This giveaway’s for you.

October 14, 2011 By Tori 51 Comments

We’re all about discovery here at Daily Grommet. Whether it’s an innovative product,  a cool new gadget, or a unique designer, we’re all about the process and thrill of discovery (and sharing it with all of you). So, it’s easy to see why we’ve become such big fans of Pinterest. In case you haven’t discovered it yet, Pinterest is  a virtual pin board where you can organize and share your finds from across the web — and, more than that, Pinterst is an avenue for discovery.

Here’s how they describe themselves: “You can browse pin boards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.”

Sound good? It does to us. In fact, we’ve become downright hooked these last few months, pinning and re-pinning our favorite finds. Can’t wait to hear from you and see what you’ve discovered.

brands on pinterest

Our pin board of 'Talented Artisans' we've discovered

Are you pinning? We’d love to know, how do you use Pinterest? Does it help you keep track of decorating ideas? Crafts and projects you’d like to try? Gifts you’ve spotted on the web? And of course we’ve been seeing you pin the stuff you love from DailyGrommet.com — so cool.

brands on pinterest

Our dailygrommet.com finds on your pin boards!

The Pinterest Giveaway:

Want to win $100 to spend on Daily Grommet? Leave a comment and let us know how you are using Pinterest – you could win a $100 Daily Grommet Gift Certificate to spend on something you’ve pinned and have been wanting to buy.

And if you leave a link to your Pinterest profile, we’ll follow you too (here’s our profile if you’d like to follow us: http://pinterest.com/dailygrommet/)

To enter the Pinterest Giveaway

Leave a comment telling us what you like about Pinterest or share something you’ve discovered and pinned. We’ll choose one person at random to win the $100 Daily Grommet gift card. Good luck and happy pinning!

giveaway on pinterest

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General contest rules: To enter, you must be a U.S. resident and at least 18 years of age and you must leave a comment or question on today’s post. No purchase necessary. One entry per person. The winner will be randomly selected and notified via email. Employees, contractors, and the families of employees and contractors of Daily Grommet, Inc. are not eligible to enter. You are not eligible to win if you have received a prize or giveaway from Daily Grommet in the last six months. Void where prohibited. Contest will run from 11 am PST October 14, 2011 to 10 pm PST October 17, 2011.

Filed Under: Contests & Giveaways, Discoveries Tagged With: ,

Operation Shower

September 14, 2011 By Tori Leave a Comment

Every day here at Daily Grommet, we are making new connections and learning the stories of so many people doing impressive things. Our online community is expanding daily, and we enjoy getting to know each new friend. Whenever we get the chance to meet up (in person) with  our virtual community, we jump at the chance.  I recently had a opportunity to meet up with several of our friends from Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere at an event in San Diego. There, I hit it off with Amy Belle Isle, the Chief Event Planner for Operation Shower. After learning about the amazing work they is doing, I knew I had to report back and help spread the word!

Q&A with Amy Belle Isle

Tell us a bit about Operation Shower, what is it and how did it begin?

Operation Shower started in March 2007 as a simple project, when founder LeAnn Morrissey, was looking for a way to give back to her uncle who was deployed overseas. LeAnn asked her uncle what she could do and he replied that many people send items to the soldiers but what she could do was send a card to four women who were expecting babies while their spouses were deployed. That sparked an idea, so LeAnn got family and friends together to send a “shower in a box” to each mom. After the reception those first boxes got, she knew she was onto something that really made a difference to these women and to their husbands. She teamed up with a friend and held the very first unit-wide shower at Ft. Bragg, NC in June 2007. Since then, Operation Shower has showered more than 450 women on military bases and other locations for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National Guard.

How do you organize (and execute!) these wonderful baby showers?

Little sleep!

From a party standpoint, I am fortunate that I have made so many wonderful friends in the event planning, party printables and online party blog world. That helps! Time and time again, these wonderful women volunteer to help design printables, send gorgeous product for our dessert tables, set up if it’s in their neighborhood etc. Once we decide on a theme and I have a general concept in mind, I work with the graphic/printables designer to get a feel for the paperie. Then it’s off to come up with centerpieces, feature areas, locate local vendors…the works!

From a product standpoint, we are working on securing companies to donate to all showers for a year or for multiple showers. We are gaining more success with that, but still often must secure most product for each and every shower we host. See below for ways to help!

What has been the most surprising and/or rewarding part of working for Operation Shower?

Surprising? Maybe that it never, ever gets old being at a shower with the moms. Each one is as special as the other because, for those moms, that is their only Operation Shower experience. That or how much has happened in just this past year alone. While still an extremely small organization we have managed to accomplish some really big things.

One of the special parts about Operation Shower is that we give every event as much love and attention as if you were hosting a shower for your best friend. A recent mom-to-be said our shower was “the one thing during this whole deployment she has been looking forward to.” That is big to us. It is our duty to make sure she, and every other mom that walks into our showers, has the experience of a lifetime.

To that, the single most rewarding part is being in that room with the moms when they open their Showers In A Box and win the amazing raffle prizes. Seeing the smiles and, often, the tears are the biggest joy you can imagine. At our last shower, one mom I spoke to said, “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.” After we hugged and both cried a little I told her that she has already paid tenfold with her family’s service every single day. There is no greater reward than knowing that you made a difference to someone.

How can others get involved?

There are many ways to help! As a non-profit, our biggest need is financial support. We have on-line donation through Paypal and Google Checkout on our website (www.operationshower.org) and also gladly accept checks to the address on our site.

We’ve got an Amazon Wish List where anyone can purchase items and have them sent directly to us to be included in our Showers In A Box. This has been a great new way for people to help without having to head to the post office! Lately, we’ve had some wonderful groups of people around the country get together and host events in their home for Operation Shower. The Wish List is a good way to see what we are most in need of at this time. People can point their guests to our Amazon Wish List or possibly pick a theme from our Shower Kits list. Simply host a party and have every guest brings donations. It’s a great thing to incorporate into all of holiday parties that people might be hosting soon!

Operation Shower event with special guests: First Lady, Michelle Obama and Second Lady, Dr. Jill and Martha Stewart

What’s next for Operation Shower?

Lots of fun things! First of all the continuation of our “Fall Tour” of 4 states. We’ve just completed a shower in Groton, CT and are about to head to Norfolk, VA and Atlanta, GA this month and then off to Ft Campbell, KY in November. It’s a busy Fall full of lots of happy moms!

We are also currently working on planning where we will be able to go in 2012. Our goal for 2012 is eight unit-wide showers. Where we are able to go is dependent upon securing sponsors, so we’re working hard on that to plan our calendar! Sponsors welcome.

As mentioned, we are also starting to work on a program to better utilize those around the country that want to volunteer. So much of what we do cannot be “farmed out” at this point but we know there is a way we can involve others in our mission. We look forward to coming up with the plan that works for everyone and helps us grow and reach more moms!

Oh, and 2012 is the year of “Ellen.” A small non-profit can dream, right? We had a goal of having the First Lady attend one of our showers to honor our moms. Well, earlier this year the White House reached out to us and asked us to help kick off the Joining Forces campaign at Camp Lejeune, NC. First Lady Michelle Obama, Dr. Jill Biden and Martha Stewart were all there! Following that, we were listed in a Parade Magazine article as one of three of Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden’s “favorite groups that are helping America’s military families.” So, next stop on our “dream list” is is to be a part of Ellen’s Mother’s Day special where she honors military moms. That, or we’ll take any other episode, too! We’d love to come up with an effective social media campaign to get on Ellen!

Thank you Amy for taking the time to share Operation Shower with us. Keep up the amazing work, we know you will continue to grow. Ellen, here they come!

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Disorganized drawers be gone

August 24, 2011 By Tori 1 Comment

Anytime we get a phone call, email, or post from a satisfied customer, we do the happy dance here at Daily Grommet. We especially love to hear how our Grommet discoveries make their way into your lives — a gift happily received or a problem solver that makes your day-to-day lives a bit more enjoyable. A couple weeks ago, we got one of those emails from Julia Wright, a professional organizer. She wanted to tell us how she’s been using Drawer Decor to help  clients who want to take back their drawers and clean out the clutter. Not only does Julia reaffirm how useful Drawer Decor is, but we’re thrilled to know she’s passing along this wonderful Grommet story.

Here’s the note Julia sent us:

Hi Daily Grommet:  I’m a Professional Organizer, and when I saw the Drawer Decor on your site, I was blown away. It solves so many organizing problems, and offers such a nice bright pop of color in a drawer that it really makes life better.

I suggested Drawer Decor to a client who purchased the item and I was able to install it with ease. The grid system made it very easy to cut to fit. My client was over the moon about the colors, especially for the bathroom. The fact that they’re silicone is the greatest feature, because it stops things from moving around in the drawer; everything stays in its place. The attachments that come with it are so well thought out, and I particularly liked the triangle shaped ones for holding round cups.

We’ll be purchasing this for our own homes as well as continuing to recommend it to all of our clients. Thanks for introducing it to Genius Organizing.

Here are some before and after pics:

Bathroom drawer [Before]:

how to organize drawersBathroom drawer [After]:

how to organize drawers - BathroomCosmetics drawer  [Before]:

Cosmetics drawer [After]:

Looks great – thanks for sharing your Grommet success pictures with us, Julia.

We love hearing about how our Grommet finds fit into your everyday lives… keep the stories coming!

Filed Under: Behind the Scenes at Daily Grommet, Featured Tagged With: ,

3 Great Tech Tools for Busy Moms at Back-to-School

August 15, 2011 By Guest Leave a Comment

What’s a busy mom to do? Tech to the rescue! Guest blogger Carissa Rogers is here to share time saving tips just in time for that back-to-school rush!

by Carissa

August supplies meteor showers, hot afternoons and the crazy of back to school time! Shopping for school clothes, school supplies and plenty of worrying about class schedules or the perfect-fit teacher are enough stress for any mom to handle. What a mom doesn’t need is more stress about her OWN schedule.

Food On The Table

Throughout the summer, it’s easy to fly by the seat of your pants when it comes to meal time. A hot dog at the pool or nachos at the ballpark work May through July, but once the school year sets in, you need a plan to sit down and enjoy meal time together. Food on the Table is a mobile app that helps you plan meals around the sales at your local grocery stores with quick, kid-friendly recipes and an organized grocery list.

VolunteerSpot

The last things you need on the first day of school are multiple clipboards of sign up for this, list your email for that. Imagine a free online sign up sheet where long reply-all email chains are a thing of the past! With VolunteerSpot, a room mom or teacher quickly sets the schedule of needs and parents sign up to help with a tap on a smartphone or click of a mouse – it will even remind them before the event. Magic!

VolunteerSpot is terrific for organizing classroom readers and parties, your library and carnival volunteers, soccer snack schedules and tournaments, or just about any other parent supported activity. Be sure to tell your child’s room mom to check out VolunteerSpot.com! And best of all, because it’s so easy to sign up to help, MORE parents get involved and that makes less stress for all of us!

*You can even jump over to VolunteerSpot’s facebook page for a chance to WIN $500 in School Supplies for your favorite school!

Cozi

When the kids head back to school, they also head back to sports schedules, music lessons, school projects, you name it. Which means parents head back to the mad scramble involved in making sure everyone gets dropped off and picked up (with the right gear in hand), not to mention volunteer stints, PTA events, birthday parties, teacher appreciation duties and so much more. If you try to remember and take care of all this yourself, your head might explode.

Cozi gives you a place to park your whole family calendar in one place, so everyone can see it – whether from a computer, a smartphone, or a tablet like the iPad. No need to sync; since all your family’s schedule (and lists) are shared in one account, everyone sees the same thing. Add an appointment, input the school calendar, even include all the times and locations of the soccer schedule – including notes like “bring the potluck dessert” or “meet at the front gate”.

Back to school can be a calm and fun experience for everyone. Jump in with these techy tools to get your mom-world organized and take out the stress!

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Do you have any back to school tips to share? We’d love to hear how you stay organized!

About the author: Carissa Rogers is a busy mom of 3 and blogs at GoodNCrazy.com and VolunteerSpot. When she’s not playing photographer, dancing up a storm, leading the PTO, or chasing kids to and fro she’s connecting, consulting, freelancing and lots of other ings …a mom of all trades.

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Daily Grommet sandwich throwdown?

August 11, 2011 By Tori 3 Comments

As the Community Manager here at Daily Grommet, I spend a good part of my day on Facebook chatting with our great fans and friends. I’m always delighted to see how eager our Facebook crowd is to jump into the conversation, whether we’re taking a poll, asking for opinions, or just bantering back-and-forth. Because I know our Facebook community especially loves talking about food, I decided to ask everyone to name their favorite sandwich (August is National Sandwich Month after all). In a matter of seconds, the responses were flying in. From traditional favorites to more adventurous recipes, it’s obvious our Facebook crowd is all about their sandwiches.

Take my conversation with one of our members, Al …

It’s not like Al was calling me out for a challenge (no, I’m not competitive at all really), but I just couldn’t let Al down. So, I decided to test this famous recipe out for myself.

peanut butter and bacon sandwich

The ingredients: Bacon, bread (no sourdough on hand, so I went with wheat), and creamy peanut butter — as per Al.

At this point I was a little lot skeptical. I am not a big bacon fan (I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority here) BUT I do love peanut butter, so who knows?

peanut butter and bacon sandwich

After cooking up the bacon, I assembled the sandwich. At this point I was thinking, “am I getting this right?”

peanut butter and bacon sandwich

And there she is. Bread, peanut butter and bacon. Do we call this a PB-B? Okay, and now for the moment of truth…

Not too bad Al, not too bad.

Now, who is up for making some of the other favorites sandwich recipes? Did you see Heather C.’s favorite? Tuna fish and banana — I’ll let you all test that one!

Filed Under: Behind the Scenes at Daily Grommet, Featured Tagged With: , ,

How does your garden go?

July 14, 2011 By Jeanne Leave a Comment

If you watch the Grommet videos very closely, you might occasionally spot the Lexington Farmers Market in the background – it’s the perfect setting to shoot some video for stories like ChicoBags (creator of reusable produce bags). Every Tuesday, from early summer into the fall, dozens of farmers and artisans set up shop on our village green, just across the way from Daily Grommet headquarters. And last Tuesday, Donna, Daily Grommet’s master of finance, headed over to meet Charlie, “the Boston Truck Farmer.”

It turns out, the guys who produced the award-winning PBS documentary, “King Corn” had started a new movement last year by growing a garden right in the bed of their old Dodge truck and driving it around to urban farm sites. This year, there’s a fleet of 25 trucks scattered across the country doing the same — and Charlie, from Arlington, MA,  is the Boston truck farmer.

Charlie will be visiting 25 sites throughout the season, and we’ll be watching for the next time he’s back in our neighborhood so we can check in on his garden’s progress.

lexington farmers market

I especially like how these guys describe what they’re doing as a “mobile community farm” … as well as a “public art and education project.”

You can take a look at  www.truck-farm.com to see if there’s a truck farm in your neighborhood and find out more about this cool project.

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Grandparents.com is back with a great offer!

April 6, 2011 By Sara Leave a Comment

“When all else fails, ask Grandpa” should be on a wall plaque in my house. My kids adore their grandparents and vice versa! And what’s not to love? We also love the site Grandparents.com dedicated just for, you guessed it, grandparents!

We like Grandparents.com’s smiling vibe as a resource and haven for today’s grandparents who are more active, more involved and more connected to their grandchildren than any other generation of grandparents.  According to the NY Times, the downturn in our economy has caused the role of grandparents as both caregivers and financial supporters to increase dramatically. We’re glad to see sites like Grandparents.com be a place for grandparents to hang out and share laughs, ideas, gripes, passions and inspiration.

Our friends at Grandparents.com are all about helping grandparents and fostering and nurturing the relationship between grandkids and their grandparents. They do this in a really fun, lighthearted way. Each day they dish up creative activities, crafts, travel and gift ideas, expert advice, and conversation. They host affinity forums where grandparents can exchange ideas and opinions on whatever’s on their minds. They have groups like “Mothers-in-law Anonymous” where you can dish or ask for advice about the mother/daughter-in-law relationship. “Grandparents Caring for Grandkids” and “Grandparenting from Afar” are super support groups, and there are groups around hobbies, health and wellness, education, money, you name it, they’ve got a group of people talking about it!

Grandparents.comWe’ve checked out their newest resource, the Benefits Club that serves up great deals that grandparents and their families can use. Membership in the Benefits Club gives access to discounts and incentives on everyday products and services and on bigger items like travel and vacations. Jeffrey Mahl is the president of Grandparents.com and is here with us today for a Q & A and to give our Daily Grommet community a free gift!

Jeffrey, Grandparents.com is the go-to site for grandparents these days. Can you tell us a little bit about today’s grandparents?

Today’s grandparents are more dynamic and healthy than those of the past, and there are more of us alive now than at any other point in history. People over the age of 50 control 75% of the wealth in the United States. They tend to spend generously on their families and themselves, but they like to spend wisely, too. That was a primary motivation for us to create the Benefits Club. We think AARP has done a great job but they were created 50 years ago, for seniors of the past – not for the boomer generation. We provide a more modern alternative. We like to think of ourselves as AARP with a smile!

The Benefits Club looks great, what kinds of deals are included?

We have more than 160 partners in the Benefits Club and we’re adding new partners every day. Our members can save on travel, with great discounts on cruises, hotels and car rentals, on gifts – whether it’s toys and clothes for the grandkids or flowers and jewelry for a friend. They can enhance their health with vitamins, gym memberships, weight loss programs and spa services. They can buy books and theatre tickets. We also have great giveaways that are available exclusively to our members. And we offer discounts on insurance, too. We just added our first insurance partner – Foremost, which offers great ways for our members to insure RVs, motorcycles and boats, among other things. Basically, we’re focused on creating a place where our members can get discounts on things they need as well as things they want.

Sounds like the Benefits Club is a pretty good deal for everyone, not just grandparents. Can anyone join and tell us how extended families can use it as well?

I’m so glad you asked this question! You don’t have to be a grandparent or be any particular age to join the Benefits Club. Membership is open to anyone. Our mission, as you said earlier, is to nurture the relationships between generations. So when you join the Benefits Club, you’re automatically entitled to share that membership – for free – with four additional family members. How’s that for something to smile about?!

Jeffrey, we’d love to hear about your generous offer to give ourDaily Grommet community a free one-year subscription to the Benefits Club.

My pleasure. For the next 90 days, anyone in the Daily Grommet community is welcome to sign up for a free one-year membership to the Benefits Club. You don’t need a credit card; just log onto Grandparents.com, click on the Benefits Club and use the promo code GrandGrommet. And you’re welcome to share this offer with your friends and family, too. We’d love to have you as part of the Grandparents.com family.

Jeffrey, thanks for talking with us about the Grandparents.com Benefits Club and for the free memberships.

If you have any questions or comments about the Benefits Club, Jeffrey is around to talk with us today.  Just leave a question/comment below. Thanks!

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