Bling helps moms; fills stockings

Bling that helps moms can stuff your stockings

Her are some ideas for holiday shopping, and the gifts could be for yourself:

A purple-beaded lanyard can hold your work ID by day and your funky charms by night. I’m a sucker for purple beads like Kimberly Martinez is a champion for helping people. A Mother’s Promise is a fair trade product of BooJee Beads, part of Bonitas International. After a trip to South Africa, she thought of promises she’d made her children about safety and food. Some mothers live in places where these concepts are sketchy at best. Now she’s working with Guatemalan artists who now have wages that can be applied to food and education for children. Think of that when you’re wearing your bling at work. By the way, there are other colors besides purple. www.BooJeeBeads.com

The skinny

It couldn’t have been a coincidence I got two compliments on my skin after using Envy Medical Inc. Skin Clarifying Acne Treatment Pads with aloe vera and witch hazel. Makers say SilkPeel gives a quick glowing complexion to celebs like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. It’s the salicylic acid formula designed to exfoliate and cleanse the skin of excess sebum and acne-causing bacteria. www.envymedical.com

Here’s another site: www.InventiveEcoOrganic.com is proud of its Elemental Mineral Mist and I’m a fan of a spritz that feels good and offers a chemistry lesson in beauty. Copper reduces wrinkles; potassium is restorative and anti-aging; and silver is an antibacterial mineral. Their Anti-Oxidant Infusion Balm has Omega-3, Argan oil and Vitamin B-5 to do its cellular restoration thing. All this info comes just in time to prepare for drying winter winds.

Get the power

So it’s not so much trouble to keep your phone charged, right? Have you ever been to a conference where grown people were hunched in corners on the floor vying for the last outlet? PowerBar 4200 holds enough battery power to charge any mobile phone, smartphone or iPod device twice. Twice? That’s cool.  Well, just the one time I tried it sold me. When you need it, you need it. Keep PowerBar 4200 in your purse or pocket and you’re ready to go. If I could figure it out, you can. You re-charge your re-charger at your computer. Fatcat sells this pre-charged for your convenience. Can’t beat that.

Gaiam Living

I confess I used to have a drawer full of shabby “weekend” clothes, subscribing to the very common notion that a few holes and tears are good enough for around the house. Men in particular seem to have entire wardrobes of back-up clothes, should they feel the need to paint the house, work on the car, etc. Oddly, the gear stacks up but those projects never develop. It’s not just good marketing that has made me realize after-work togs should feel, fit and look good. It gives you energy for those odious tasks. Gaiam Living’s latest catalogue features a blast of color in high-performance movement clothes that fit the bill. Years ago I wondered how those young things on TV could work out in tank tops without a visible bra. As I began to work out myself, I discovered the secret: the oh-so-necessary shelf bra, built into Gaiam’s new Streamline Tank, with moisture-wicking fabric made from, get this, 90 percent recycled polyester and 10 percent Spandex. I don’t know what life this polyester had before, but it is reincarnated into something better and bright violet and we are having the times of its life. The line’s movement pants are equally motivating and good from the yoga studio (which in my case is sit-ups on the living room floor) to the market and mall. Making the commitment to move more is a step toward better health. If you’re moving in the saggy pants and old T-shirts you wore sizes ago, go to Gaiam.com for ideas that will race your heart.

Games night

With clues like Graceland and two-ply, we easily guessed the answers were Elvis and toilet paper. It turns out my guest was reading the clues from the opposite order of difficulty. When she read the 10 clues on Kwizniac cards in the right order, the game got a bit more challenging. . .  and funny. This is the perfect kind of game for me, because the clue cards fit in a nice small box and you don’t have to do a lot of dice throwing and token moving. In fact, you don’t really have to keep any kind of score, except for the tally of laughs from all your guests. Visit www.continuumgames.com.

ddoiron@panews.com