ducks goose

11/06/2018

Move Over xBox – STEAM Activities Bring Back the Timeless Appeal of Innovative Play

What can engage a child for hours, lights up in a prism of colors and does not involve a controller? KiWi Co’s Tinker Crate, which could be a home’s salvation from video games. In a straightforward box with easy to identify parts, this is not a 300+ piece puzzle where one missing item can turn the entire production into pandemonium, thereby creating frustration (parents included). Children read easy-to-follow directions and assemble projects tested by kids for kids.

A project that a kid can connect with without specialized glue, nimble pieces or an outlet.

In fact, while adult participation is always welcomed, your child may boot you off production because they are having so much fun. They’re also picking up useful STEAM skills without realizing it, so it’s not necessary to harp on the educational benefits because they prefer to be inspired on their own. Overall the project boosts confidence while successfully earning their innovative thinker’s cap.

: 1. Motivation innovation.

: 2. Easy to follow parts.

: 3. Learning STEAM skills.

: 4. The brilliance in seeing a project come together.

: 5. Tinkering promotes thinking.

: 6. Create a crystal that’s a handy nightlight or mood enhancer.

Want your kid to impress you? Watch and learn!

Tinker Crate

Special Offer:

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Posted By jdemontravel

11/02/2018

18 Pumpkin Products You Need to Try Before Fall Ends

If you want to make a girl squeal, and this is a family-friendly site, give her a pumpkin pie latte with a spice scented candle. Come fall, women obsessively search for pumpkin flavors to amp her senses. (Note to reader: Buy in bulk due to pesky limited-edition availability.) Move over fall foliage and chunky sweaters worn with to-the-knee boots, pumpkin flavors are the true autumn attraction.

Pumpkins are to the fall what peonies are to the spring–capturing the best of the season.

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Posted By jdemontravel

10/27/2018

How to Stay Calm During Airport Travel

We have come to an understanding that a flight’s arrival time is more like an estimated time. Airports are synonymous with the DMV, antiseptic structures filled with cranky attendants in an endless stream of uncontrollable hiccups. In the bygone era of elegant voyaging passengers dressed for a flight and luggage was sturdy enough to moonlight as a dorm room table. The staff were attentive and polished, leading to the speculation that stewardesses have a degree from an airline school where they learn such things as putting on their origami shaped hats and wielding warm towels from a tong. Now the chasm brought from modern advancements has shifted travel culture. Kiosks cough up tickets or phones become your life device. Travelers drag wheeled luggage with wires sprouting from their ears, foam pillows cuffing their necks.

If your day involves an airport you must mentally prepare for the events ahead. Security is a series of undressing, discarding everything from shaving cream to peanut butter, and performing athletic poses in your closet experience to what it’s like to be scanned. There’s the forced smiles to the inspector as a plea to avoid a potential body search that would have #MeToo fanatics in an uproar. The frugal pack empty water bottles in their allotted one free bag. Others will pay $15 for a wilted iceberg lettuce salad in the terminal. Pulses race when reviewing the flight status screens. On time, delayed or the dreaded canceled. [Read more…]

Posted By jdemontravel

10/18/2018

Time to Winterize Your Home – and We’re Talking Warm, Textured Interiors

Cool weather equates to warm interiors, which is more than simply turning up the heat. Homes that are filled with rich colors, texture and accessories that cannot be sourced. The ideal spaces if you have an afternoon to dwindle and book to finish, which is what the British do so well. Enter Nina Campbell. If designers were to have a monarchy Campbell would be the queen.

A combination of bespoke pieces to unify color and scheme create a personalized Manhattan living room. Photo credit: Joshua McHugh

In her new book, Nina Campbell Interior Decoration: Elegance and Ease (Rizzoli, New York), Campbell features a range of international homes from her half-century career. Her inauguration to the trade began with such firms as Colefax & Fowler and Mark Birley before embarking on her own interiors firm. The designer’s esteemed pedigree infuses her designs. The rooms are cozy without diminishing their elegance. Detailing abounds with matching lamps, weighty window treatments and portraits of mannered ancestors blocked within heavy frames. Despite her layered technique, the style lacks museum-quality fussiness due to their inclusion of fresh colors and a stealth addition of a modern pattern or accent. Perfect for gatherings with guests who you rather not see leave.

: Campbell calls upon her elegant and rich color palette that are beautifully supported with stately pieces. Photo credit: Paul Raeside

: Restorative, timeless and comfort are the strong traits that complete this bedroom’s look. Photo credit: Paul Raeside

Campbell has worked with an exclusive clientele that includes everyone from Rod Stewart to the Duke and Duchess of York. She came to be identified as the arbiter of traditional English style for the dweller who craves their own personal interpretation of the cultivated design no matter where their home may be pitched. Campbell is a firm believer of the collaborative process so the client can tailor her oeuvre in a way that connects to their lifestyle.

Classic English design realized in this elegant bedroom. Photo credit: Bethany Nauert

3 Design Traits that Hallmark a Nina Campbell Space:

The home is a series of rooms that can remain connected with a unified color or pattern.
Take classic elements into the present day with an attention to modern elements and understated luxuries.
Create spaces with fine detailing and craftsmanship by adding specified joinery and bespoke pieces.
An example of Campbell’s balance between wit and function via an injection of contemporary patterns and reflective mirrors aside open windows to bring in more light and the illusion of a larger space. Photo credit: Simon Brown

A home with Campbell’s imprint will make a confirmed minimalist reconsider their aesthetic. Though cluttered spaces they are not. Every piece has a deliberate purpose in relation to the overall scheme. The design mentality is less concerned about square footage allotted to garage space yet reveres craftsmanship. Comfort and style coexist, diminishing the likelihood of a seasonal redesign.

Scenes from Nina Campbell’s comfortable and classic British childhood. Photo credit: Collection of Nina Campbell

Resources:

Nina Campbell Interior Decoration: Elegance and Ease: Rizzoli, New York

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Posted By jdemontravel

10/13/2018

Melania Trump and Her Message to Stop Bullying, Adults Included

In a rare interview with the press Melania Trump said how she is one of the most bullied people in the world. The sentiment resonates as bullying has a tendency to be considered a schoolyard issue. In fact, you can see bullying happen everywhere from mother’s who helm school auctions to the White House. The media, for which I am a member of, sets a weak example to the world which they have such intimate access to.

Melania Trump on a cover I created for Hamptons Country Magazine, photographed by Chuck Baker. She was one of my favorite models to work with from her quiet demeanor, professionalism and hard work. A graceful spirit that lights up an environment.

Melania is a mother and wife who happens to be married to a controversial president. Our country leads the world because it is founded on free expression. However does that mean we can be nasty and unmannered? Is it fair to make personal attacks on everything from Melania’s style to her son? Melania is a thoughtful, intelligent and humble woman. I had a few encounters with her in my days in New York as an editor and panelist at the Miss Universe pageant. She was extremely complimentary of her cover and engaged with plenty of warm smiles that weren’t with an agenda. In her position she could put on an air of exclusivity but she did not. She was poised, funny and mannered. Many of the reporters who write about the Trump family could benefit from some lessons from her. Keep to the facts and do not make it personal. Perhaps an issue may not go your way but that is not a reason to be mean-spirited. If we know bullying is damaging to children, have the sense not to continue it in the grownup years.

Posted By jdemontravel

10/10/2018

Before You Adjust to Your Electronic Signature, A Shout Out to Calligraphy

There is something tragic in the exclusion of today’s children not learning penmanship in school. How they will never have to provide a signature on their marriage license or first home they purchase. That the flourish of pen to paper will be as quaint as the quills and ink wells used for signing historic documents. This is partly due to fraud control, another byproduct of the digital age that has given us Chip-and-Pin, signature cards that sound more like a program a preschooler would watch. In respect to the model our new world follows, many of our more cultivated oeuvres will face redundancy. The human connection lost to efficiency but craftsmanship is a standard to be esteemed. Calligraphy is a fitting tribute of the written word that upholds beauty in a classic form.

Children practicing their penmanship with quills and handmade walnut ink wells.

An invitation written in calligraphy could have followed the same demise as listening to the Sambuca at an event until tastemakers mark it as a craft worthy of our attention. Before her days as a royal, Meghan Markle earned extra money as a calligrapher. Considering all things she touches, no less writes, assures an instant surge on the trend barometer calligraphy is back in vogue. Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls is another celebrity calligrapher—a highly esteemed artist and designer with works featured in Martha Stewart Weddings and Design *Sponge. Her second book, The Gift of Calligraphy: A Modern Approach to Hand Lettering, is testament to the craft’s awareness reboot. This stunning book is a work itself with a basic introduction to the technique and 25 projects.

Imasa-Stukuls secures calligraphy as an art form, showing that talent and the human connection shrouds the appeal of a computerized font by comparison.

Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls represents calligraphy for the modern day in The Gift of Calligraphy.

Reprinted with permission from The Gift of Calligraphy: A Modern Approach to Hand Lettering with 25 Projects to Give and to Keep by Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls, copyright (c) 2018. Published by Watson-Guptill, a division of Penguin Random House, Inc. Photographs (c) 2018 by Thuss + Farrell.

Resources:

The Gift of Calligraphy: A Modern Approach to Hand Lettering with 25 Projects to Give and to Keep by Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls: Amazon

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Posted By jdemontravel

10/02/2018

Pink – So Misunderstood

Pink has a lot in common with the dumb blonde who’s really smart–seems like fluff and fun but there’s a deeper side. Pink’s association as the signature shade to announce the birth of a girl connects it to all things girly. Pink ribbons, lipgloss, frosted cupcakes and a young girl’s bedroom accented with fairy lights and unicorns further portray the color as ultra feminine. Though pink has grown up and, historically, has had diverse connotations. Says Valerie Steele, chief curator of FIT in her new book Pink: The History of a Punk, Pretty, Powerful Color, “The stereotype of pink-for-girls and blue-for-boys may be ubiquitous today, but it only gained traction in the mid-twentieth century.”

Fenty Puma by Rihanna, Spring/Summer 2017. Photography: Tim Walker. Stylist: Jacob K. Creative direction: Rihanna. Photo courtesy of Puma.

[Read more…]

Posted By jdemontravel

09/25/2018

12 Shopping Resources for Kids in the School Year

If the architects of the calendar were to create a redesign, the year would begin in September. Households are whipped back into reality, shaped into discipline with school, activities and iPad-free weeks. To keep the structure manageable we created twelve editor-tested resources for kids that includes everything from school necessities to dependable party vendors.

: School-ready with a pocket-friendly backpack and durable clothing.

: Hydro Flask is a solid water bottle with a secure top so backpacks don’t come home drenched.

[Read more…]

Posted By jdemontravel

09/19/2018

Kids who Rock Climb Really Do Go to the Top

Squirrels are gathering, leaves are beginning to fall and I am in a total panic. The onset of an endless winter presents a seasonal challenge. Do you think The Shining could have been set in the summer? Thus I’ve begun crafting a robust itinerary for the kids. Active ones where they are not losing themselves in digital worlds. One sport that stands out is rock climbing.

Rock climbing is an exceptional outlet for kids in a digital world.

[Read more…]

Posted By jdemontravel

09/11/2018

We Love Great Legs – And We’re Talking Furniture

Great legs aren’t designated to models and paleo dieters, they are also a covetable feature in home decor. Jenny Lind furnishings is a popular design, which has carved, knobby legs that look like a stack of Christmas ornaments. (The name is attributed to the Swedish opera singer who was the Victorian’s version of Beyonce due to her fame as a Barnum headliner.) The style evoked the cottage elegance of New England summer homes of the time. Today the look still reigns and is fashioned for a contemporary aesthetic. You’ll find pieces with slim silhouettes, bright colors, and varying scales to mark a designed quality to any space.