Mamas Like

Welcome to our new blog, Mamas Like! We’re still in the process of updating and making everything perfect, so please be patient.

You can submit your product or site and start advertising right away!

Thanks!

The Mamas, Dawn & Angie

The winner from last week’s contest for one of Angie’s products is Tabitha! An email will be sent to you soon, Tabitha! Congratulations!

Today I’m interviewing Sara from Slinglings.

Hi Sara! Welcome to my blog. I have to say, I was so excited to do a review for your company because I carried my 6th baby in a sling all the time for nearly a year. She was a high maintenance baby and the only way I ever got anything done, was by wearing her next to me. She just thrived on that closeness.

First, I think a lot of my readers are interested in how moms have started their home businesses. Can you tell us when and why you started your baby sling business?

Slinglings officially opened for business in July 2005, however I have been making baby slings and other types of baby carriers since 2001 when my son, Nicholas, was born. I sold pouches on Ebay and locally here in Seattle off and on between 2002 and 2004. I mostly used a Baby Bjorn when my son was a newborn, and never fully realized just how great baby slings are until my daughter, Katherine, was born in 2005. She literally lived in her slings from the minute she was born until she was well over a year old. She still occasionally rides in a sling now, at two and a half years old.

We were on a family vacation when my daughter was 4 months old, and my husband was amazed at the response to my slings. We were stopped so many times by interested people, asking where they could get a sling like mine. We went hiking in the Olympic mountains, walked along the Pacific ocean and visited parks, gardens and shops that a stroller never could have made it through. My daughter was content to sleep and nurse in the sling whenever she needed. That vacation would have been very different if I hadn’t had my slings along. I remember one very specific incident on a mountain trail at Hurricane ridge. There was a family with a stroller, who couldn’t make it any farther along the trail, it was too steep, rocky and narrow. They had to turn around. Our family easily kept climbing up up up to the very top. We touched the clouds that day!

At nearly 6,000 feet on Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park

At the beach:

The idea of starting a business was very overwhelming to me, and much of Slinglings’ success I owe to the help and encouragement that I received from my dear husband. Slinglings is very much a “work at home family” business.

What are the benefits of carrying your baby in a sling?

The main benefits for me are that carried babies cry less and sleep better. Babies are simply easier to take care of when they are quiet and content. My hands are free to do what I need to do. I was able to run errands more easily. Neither of my kids was ever happy in a stroller, car seat or shopping cart for long, so the only way for me to finish a long shopping trip, for example, was to carry the baby while shopping. We didn’t drive for the first 2 years of our son Nicholas’ life, so we relied on Seattle’s great bus system to get around. Using a sling or other baby carrier made it much easier for me to carry a heavy load AND the baby while on the bus or walking home.

Since Katie is a second child, carrying her in a sling made it possible for me to better take care of our first child. I was able to continue with most of the activities that he and I did together before Katie came along. In this way it eased his transition from only child to big brother, and avoided sibling rivalry. I have been a work at home mom since Katie was just over 5 months old, and I did much of that work while carrying her in a sling!

Carrying a baby close to your body can also help regulate their breathing, heart rate, temperature, and encourages frequent nursing. A baby that is carried more cries less and spends more time in the “quiet alert” state. A happy, content baby makes for a happier mother, and can help diminish the effects of post partum depression and ease the adjustment into parenthood. Using a sling is also a good way for fathers, grandparents, babysitters, etc, to care for and bond with a baby. A baby that is used to being soothed in a sling by his mother will be more easily soothed by another caregiver in a sling. It’s a useful tool!

What kind of slings do you sell?

Slinglings Baby Slings are fitted pouch style baby slings, available in 10 sizes and dozens of fabric prints and solid colors. We offer slings both with and without leg padding for the baby.

How do you know what size sling to order?

Pouch slings are fitted to the person wearing the sling, not the size of the baby, and one size of sling typically can be used from birth until approximately 35 lbs. A good fit is important, so we offer a size database for customers to compare their measurements to previous customers. Size exchanges are not uncommon, so we offer one free exchange per order.

I love the variety of stylish fabrics you offer. What kind of fabrics do use for your slings and why?

Most of our fabrics are woven stretch cotton fabrics, either twill weave or sateen weave, 97% cotton 3% Lycra. I started using stretch twill to make pouches when my son was a toddler. I loved the stretch of the home made fleece sling that I had made for him when he was younger, but it wasn’t supportive enough as he got heavier. Stretch twill offers the best mix of support and widthwise stretch, without the lengthwise stretch that fleece has.

We also have an organic cotton/hemp blend stretch twill, and we occasionally offer specialty fabrics such as embroidered twill, stretch corduroy, and reversible slings.

We have recently had our own line of stretch sateen fabrics designed and printed, and they will be available in early 2008. This was a huge undertaking and we are very excited to have these exclusive fabrics. We also had some of our best selling fabrics re-printed. They will be available beginning in late 2007.

Do you sew the slings yourself?

When we first opened, I did all of the sewing myself. My husband very quickly learned to do some basic sewing, and he took over all of the hemming, while I continued to do all the other sewing. In the beginning, almost all slings were sewn to order, yet we still managed to ship orders within 24 hours almost every time. We now have a company that cuts our fabric for us, and we have several sewers/seamstresses that work for us either at their home or ours. We also have a friend who works 4 or 5 days a week packing orders, sizing slings, counting slings, helping with Katie while I’m with a customer, whatever I need done.

I occasionally do sew a sling here or there, but mostly I do customer service, local sales, and I double check all orders before they are sealed and shipped. I keep the books, track inventory, make production decisions, order supplies.

How fast do you ship/do have slings in stock ready to go?

We currently have about 6500 slings in stock. Our current inventory can be searched by fabric, padding and size on our website. New slings are delivered to us every Thursday and Friday, and we try to have them added to our website by Monday. We try to ship orders the same or next business day. We use USPS Priority Mail and most US orders are delivered within 3 business days.

Slinglings start at $36.95 and they are 33% off when you buy 3 or more at once. Doll slings are available for $14.95.

We are happy to also offer your readers an additional 10% off an order of any size with coupon code “BECAUSE”. This code is effective through October 21, 2007 and is not applicable to previous orders.

One unpadded baby sling of the winner’s choice (from our current inventory) will be raffled off for every 200 comments left. If you place an order this week and later win the raffle, then we will refund the price that you paid for one unpadded sling.

We are looking for local distributors, so if you know of any baby shops in your area that would be interested in carrying our slings, please tell them about us!

Our Mission
At Mamas Like, our mission is to pass along the best of what women have to offer to other women and parents. Work-at-Home-Moms (or WAHMs) are hard-working women who stay at home to raise their children, all the while working to help support their family. Many WAHMs design a new product (or products), market their product, and sell their product online themselves or through other retailers. Mamas Like is devoted to helping WAHMs and WAOMs (Work-at-Office-Moms) who have original products or websites they have designed, are marketing, or are selling online.

Our #1 requirement for reviewing a product or website is that you can call the product, business, or site your own. Meaning, you have created the product or website. We prefer working with moms, as we are moms ourselves. We also know that there are lots of women- and men-owned and run businesses that could use a little help as well.

The popularity power behind Mamas Like is Dawn’s blog, “Because I Said So” http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com. Dawn’s blog became astronomically popular overnight in August 2007, because of a set of Pokemon cards she sold on eBay. To see her story, check out her site here: http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/2007/08/adventures-in-grocery-shopping.html

In October, 2007, Dawn decided to start a product review blog connected to her main blog. She asked Angie to be the first review on her new blog. Needless to say, she accepted. On the first day the product review blog was open, Angie’s store, Good for the Kids http://www.goodforthekids.com, experienced an almost 900% increase in traffic in just one day. In the week that Dawn featured Angie’s site, her traffic and sales exploded. During that week, Dawn and Angie decided to team up to bring that same exposure to other WAHMs and women-run businesses and websites.

We cannot guarantee the traffic you will receive from our site to your site, but we’ll do our best to promote your site and product to increase your traffic and business.

Submission Requirements
Our mission is to help women-owned and web-based businesses. In order to help you, please help us by regarding our requirements for submission:
*The product or website MUST be owned or developed by a woman.
*The product or website MUST be your original idea or creation. If you own and run a retail website, you may sell other company’s or woman’s products, but the website must be run and owned by a woman.
*We understand that MLMs and direct-selling companies are represented by individuals, moms especially, working to make money; however, we will not review products or sites such as Tupperware, Shaklee, Arbonne, etc.
*You must have a US- or Canadian-based website from which you sell your product(s).
*Your website must be easy to use and has functionality. We hate to say it, but if your website is difficult to use and is not professional-looking, we will not review your product or site.
*If you are chosen for a review, you must have a coupon or special for our readers that will be used in the review.

If you are a woman with a product or website you have developed, and you meet the qualifications above, please email us at review@mamaslike.com. Please include the following information in your email submission (it’s best to copy and paste into your email):

Your name –
Your company name –
Your website (required) –
Your email address –
The product URL(s) or website you are submitting for review –

Reviewing Your Site or Product
Once you have emailed us your product or website, we will contact you if we are interested in reviewing your product or website. Unfortunately, we cannot return all emails sent to us with a “Yes” or “No” response. If you have emailed us and you do not receive a response within 3 weeks, please contact us, and we will let you know the status of your review.

*If you are submitting a product for review, you must be able to send one or both of us a product to review. Your product cannot be returned. If you would like both Dawn AND Angie to review your product, you will need to send a product to both Dawn AND Angie.
*We will choose to whom you are to send the product to for review. Please do not request a reviewer. We will notify you of the address to send your product for review.
*Once we have received and positively reviewed your product or website, we will notify you of the week you should expect to see your review live on our site.

Everyone loves a contest! If you’d like to promote a contest along with your review, we’d be happy to include it for you. However, we will not run your contest for you. All contest regulations, entries, and details must be handled by you. We will work with you on details depending on your site or product.

Thanks so much for your interest in helping women (and men!) discover new products and websites developed by women. If you have ANY questions, please contact us at review@mamaslike.com.

The Mamas,
Dawn & Angie

I think this blog is a good idea and I fully intend to continue reviewing products and businesses, but I’m going to be making some changes to the blog in the next couple weeks. I’m new to this computer stuff and honestly, your average squirrel has more computer knowledge than I do, so I’m learning as I go.

I didn’t expect to get several hundred requests in the first week. In fact, it’s been rather overwhelming and I had been wondering just what I’d gotten myself into. After talking to my friend Angie from Good for the Kids, I decided I could definitely use some help with this project. (She’s got computer skills, and she can spell!) So, she’ll be helping me out with the review blog. In a couple weeks, we should have the new and improved review blog, “Mamas Like”, up and running. Yay!

For my readers, I will still highlight businesses and products over the next 2-3 weeks on this blog. When we get the new blog going, we’ll still be doing reviews for WAHMs. Nothing will change for the readers. For those who have emailed me about your site, sit tight. I have your emails filed away and will get back to you shortly.

For now, stop by Good For The Kids and check it out if you haven’t had the chance to yet. Next week, I’ll be reviewing another WAHM’s company that I’m really excited about! Check in Monday to learn more!

I will be taking the following week off because I’ll be out of town. I’m thrilled to announce that the wonderful people at Discovery Cove and Sea World in Orlando are flying my whole family to Florida for a vacation! They’ve arranged a limo to take us to the airport, and a rental van for the time we’re in Orlando! They’re sending us to Discovery Cove to SWIM WITH THE DOLPHINS! We’ll be spending a day at Sea World while we’re there too! And we’re staying in this most awesome hotel! Can you imagine? Us! We would never in a million years be able to afford a vacation like this. Ever. We camp. That’s it. My kids are counting down the days until we leave. We’re all so excited. Well, I’m not exactly looking forward the flight with all the kids (namely the 1 and the 3 year olds). I can’t imagine them sitting still in such a contained environment and behaving for that long, but I hear Benedryl does wonders! Actually, I think we’ll have to borrow a DVD player or I fear the other passengers will toss us overboard. Ha - that just brought back a memory. When I was a kid, my family did a fair amount of traveling. Everytime we flew on a plane, my mom would tell my sister and me that if we didn’t behave, we’d have to ride on the wing of the plane. We believed her and we always behaved. It didn’t occur to us that we’d never actually seen any kids riding on the wing of the plane. Nope, we simply behaved. Of course if I threaten my little ones with this, they’ll undoubtedly misbehave on purpose just to get a chance to ride on the wing of the plane.

I am overwhelmed, in a fabulous way! Thank you all so much for all of the kind words you’ve been writing about my site. It’s a complete labor of love because everything you see on the site is me. Meaning, I’ve developed it (with of course help from designers), designed it (again, with help), and have chosen every single item I sell on the site. So, when you email, it’s me. When you call to order, it’s me! All of the products on the site are ones that I or my kids use or I think are great ideas. Many of the items I sell are designed and developed by fellow moms like the Proud Tot shoes, mocobabies sign language cards, and My Throne Potty Training Game. I’m always looking for more products to add!

Like Dawn, it’s a bit difficult to comprehend the way in which you can affect people’s lives just by doing what you like to do. I can’t tell you how touched I’ve felt today reading all of the complimentary posts. I got a little **tear** reading them! Like most of you, I’m “just” a mom trying to do what’s best for myself and my girls with my business. All the while changing poopy diapers and fixing PB&J sandwiches.

As a show of my undying appreciation, I’m posting a 10% off coupon for all of Dawn’s loyal readers and shoppers on my site. Please use code - 6PACKBLOG – for 10% off all of your purchases.

One last thing – If you happen to be a big winner in the comment contest, and you’ve already made a purchase, I’ll happily refund the prize amount back to you! Go ahead and shop now!

And a second last thing – I have a blog, too! I was inspired by Dawn a few months back. Check it out! A Whole Lot of Nothing. Thanks so much for all of your support and kind words (and for shopping)!!Angie

I’d like to welcome Angie from Good for the Kids to my review blog. Angie will be giving away a product with a $20 value for every 100 comments received between now and Friday at midnight Eastern time, so check out her site and leave her a comment here (be sure to include your name and email address just so we can notify you if you win).

Angie, tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m an accidental entrepreneur, domestic manager, and Mama to two toddler girls and one husband. I taught elementary school for 4 years after returning to college where I earned my Master’s Degree in Elementary Education. It really doesn’t mean much except an extra $2500 in pay a year. It costs a lot more to earn the degree than it is to work with it.

When did you start your business?
I started my business out of necessity when I started staying at home with my girls. As a teacher, I was basically working to put my girls in daycare, but when reality hit, we didn’t have more money. So, I started selling maternity clothes and baby items on eBay and Craigslist. I found that I really liked the idea of working at home (it gave me an excuse to sit on the computer), so I started researching what items were selling well on eBay. I spent HOURS researching how to become an online business and what I needed to focus my attention towards. (That’s where the nerd in me comes in to play. See: Master’s Degree) At the same time I was researching online businesses, I needed some Nuby sippy cup spouts for my daughter’s sippy cups.

When I called Nuby, I asked how much the spouts cost, so I ordered 50. I put them up on eBay, and they sold immediately. I learned that there was no place online to find the Nuby replacements, so I hounded, I mean asked, the sales rep about selling their replacements from my developing site. Little by little, I started selling all of their replacements as well as their sippy cups. Once I got a taste of selling baby products online, I started asking more and more companies that I liked to sell their items. Most were very much open to the idea of having a stay-at-home mom selling their items online, but some were opposed. So, I really focused on the companies that were willing to help a Mama out! What turned out to be good timing, has now turned into a full-fledged online children’s and women’s store.

What are your most popular items?
By far, the most popular items are the Nuby replacements. But the second most popular items are the Melissa & Doug wooden toys and puzzles, Zoobie Pets (3-in-1 pillow blanket stuffed animal), and customized address and name stamps.

I’ve never seen Zoobie Pets before, but they look really neat! Can you tell us about them?
Zoobie Pets are a 3-in-1 stuffed animal, pillow, and blanket all in one. They are designed to be a companion for children at home or out of the house on trips. They are EXTREMELY soft and cuddly and their faces are squishy so children can self-soothe and relax themselves. The safari Zoobie Pets are each tagged and collared so they don’t escape and run back to Africa!

I see you’ve added many stampers to your website. Tell us what kinds you have.
Just in time for the holiday season, I’ve added personal address and name stampers to my web store! I represent two companies, Three Designing Women and PSA Essentials, who each have a wide variety of stampers and stationery. Included in the round and square stamper designs are monograms, names, addresses, holiday, and collegiate & sorority logos all meant to be customized for the recipient. The stampers make the perfect gift for the person who really does have everything. I know it’s only October, but it’s time to order them now to ensure arrival in time for the holiday season!

Tell us about your special for October.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In honor of women with breast cancer, I am donating 10% of the gross sales of any order that includes the “Giving” Beanie Baby Bear to Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.

Just for Dawn, I am giving away products from my store for leaving great comments! Some of the products I’m giving to Dawn to give to Dawn Fans are a Zoobie Pet, 2 Personal Stampers, Backyardigans Ty Beanies, and mocobabies sign language cards.