Back to School: Prepping Your Home for Back to School

School shopping, packing lunches, waking up early, and making sure you actually turned the coffee pot off before you head back to school….it’s the back to school rush. Is your home making school mornings easy and smooth or chaotic? All the time it takes preparing to get your kids ready for school, there’s no need to cut out prepping your home for back to school, too. While the kids become little geniuses at school, you can relax in the comforts of your well-prepped “we’re back in school” home.

Lorena Canals

There is nothing better than coming home from a long day at school and relaxing on a soft rug with a good book or a fun puzzle. But if you’re like most parents, buying rugs with children in the house can be daunting. This is why we turn to Lorena Canals – where beautiful, high quality, one of a kind rugs are made completely machine washable!

The learning doesn’t stop once school is over. We want our children to continue exploring the world no matter where they are. This is why the Lorena Canals Vintage Map is the perfect addition to a child’s play room or bed room. Featuring soft neutral colors in a vintage-vibe, this handmade eco-friendly rug is made of 100% cotton and non-toxic dyes. Its beautiful colors portray the world in an artistic manner, with all continents and oceans identified.

While thick, sturdy, and ultra-soft, this rug is also made to be machine washable in a conventional home washing machine. Yep, you read that right – you can throw it in the washing machine! Forget the carpet cleaner or professional services, this rug was made for kids! Let them play, relax, and make a mess – after a long day of learning, it’s exactly what a child needs!

Instant Pot – 9 in 1 Duo Plus

Starting the school day off right means a good breakfast to get the whole crew moving. If mornings aren’t your forte, the Duo Plus Instant Pot can make breakfast a breeze. New for the Duo Plus, the egg program allows you to make perfectly soft, medium or hard-boiled eggs in minutes. Just add the included steamer basket and make sure water is at the bottom of the pot. In just five minutes you’ll be all set to pull out perfectly hard eggs!

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If you want something hearty and warm, steel cut oats are the perfect way to start the school day. Full of fiber to keep your students full longer, steel cut oats are thicker and usually take several hours to cook. In just 15 mins [6 minutes to cook & 8 minutes to depressurize] you can whip up a fresh batch of steel cut oats all ready for the family to personalize to their flavor preferences. Top yours with Cinnamon and brown sugar while the littles use strawberries or banana’s to have a healthy and hearty start to the day.

After the school day is done, who wants to spend hours slaving over a hot stove for dinner? Toss a pot roast in the Instant Pot to cook while you help with homework and reading. By the time school work is done, you’ll have a hot dinner ready to put on the table. Forgot to defrost dinner? No worries, the Instant Pot can go from frozen chicken to dinner no problem! This single kitchen device will put hours of time back into your day.

The Duo 9 in 1 takes one appliance cooking to a new level of simplicity. With the ability to pressure cook, saute, make yogurt, eggs, cake and even sterilize. This fall is the perfect time to simplify the amount of time you spend in the kitchen [at the gadgets in your cupboard].

• Available in three sizes: 3 qt, 6 qt and 8 qt
• 15 smart programs to use included eggs, cake, porridge and more
• Stainless steel pot is dishwasher safe
• Includes steamer rack, serving spoon, soup spoon and measuring cup
• Extremely safe and releases no steam when cooking

Beddi Intelligent Alarm Clock with Smart Home Integration

Getting your child up for a school day is obviously required but if you’re not up yourself, it is unlikely that things will fall into place. Being a parent naturally turns us into early risers but some days we just need the help of an alarm clock to get up and get going. Why utilize those old fashioned alarm clocks that make that annoying “BEEEEP, BEEEEP, BEEEEP” when we could wake up to the glorious sounds of nature or our favorite tune? If this is the way you want to start your morning, the Beddi Intelligent Alarm Clock with Smart Home Integration is the device you need in your life.

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This is way more than an alarm clock and the features are endless. You would never imagine an alarm clock could do so much. The Beddi Intelligent Alarm Clock will not only benefit the person who sleeps next to it but the entire family. Getting back into the school days mindset can be somewhat daunting. Leaving the summer days behind and trading them in for early mornings and busy schedules can leave many families in disarray. The use of an alarm clock that can whip your family into the weekday regiments is the first step in a successful and productive school year. Some of the amazing capabilities of the Beddi Intelligent Alarm Clock include:

• White noise option to fall asleep
• Charging ports for multiple devices
• A wake-up light that simulates sunrise
• Communication with other smart devices
• Room temperature adjustment
• Coffee maker control
• Bluetooth speaker for music
• Weather and traffic reports
• Multicolored mood lights
• Nightlight
• Music streaming
• Multiple alarm settings
• FM radio
• Fully dimmable clock face

The Beddi Intelligent Alarm Clock will completely transform your morning routine. Witti created this alarm clock to do more than tell time. All of the things that take up your time in the morning like turning on the coffee maker or checking the weather, are solved by the Beddi Alarm Clock doing everything for you automatically. And although the technology is invaluable, the look of the Beddi is just stunning. Taking a modern approach different than traditional alarm clocks of the past, the Beddi Intelligent Alarm Clock is sleek, minimalist, and elegant. It is the perfect addition to your nightstand if you don’t already have one and is an upgrade from your old clock if you do have one.

Cuisinart

School mornings are a blur of brushing teeth, shoving last night’s homework into its proper place and hopefully eating breakfast before rushing out of the door. With all the commotion in the mornings, breakfast needs to be fast, easy, and full of nutrients. That is why we love making smoothies in our Cuisinart VELOCITY Ultra 7.5 1 HP Blender. What could make breakfast any better than a delicious blend of veggies, fruit, and milk? Well, a blender that does all the work for us.

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This sleek and powerful blender blends veggies and fruits into a delicious melody with the features like Ice Crush and Smoothie control. It boasts various speeds including a pulse function. You can also set the blender to Smoothie and walk away to manage the morning chaos will your breakfast blends to perfection. Other impressive features include:

• 56- ounce durable plastic jar
• BPA free
• Tight-seal lid
• Soft- touch handle
• 2-oz measuring cap for precision
• Electronic touchpad

The Cuisinart VELOCITY Ultra 7.5 1 HP Blender is just the tool you need to get the school day off to a perfect start. It is time to start blending.

Little Artists Shelf

We all love our children’s artwork, but once the fridge starts to feel cluttered, what do you do with it all? If you like a clean kitchen or want to ensure that each masterpiece stays in good condition, upgrading from the fridge to a place of pride in the house is the perfect solution.

The Little Artist Shelf from Minted allows you to proudly display your favorite drawings or schoolwork and keeps them up away from little hands or kitchen messes. Known for amazing paper products and invitations, Minted’s new line of home decor is perfect for creating a personal and welcoming home for the entire family.

Available in four colors, the Little Artist Shelf is the perfect focal point for your entryway and allows for storing photos and knickknacks on the shelf above the art display. Easy to hang hardware and high-quality clips ensure that this shelf can start in grade school and go all the way up to SAT test results.

As the school year starts, now is the perfect time to get into the habit of reviewing, displaying, and recycling school work that has had its time in the sun. When you have a plan for the school year, combating the clutter of papers is easy. Start off the afternoon by opening backpacks and asking your little one to pick their favorite art or schoolwork to display. With your help, swap out this week’s display piece and add the one removed to a keepsake box or take to recycling. You can always snap a photo for memories later if you are uncertain which you’d like to do.

• Available in three sizes: 2 foot, 3 foot, 4 foot
• Comes complete with art clips.
• Maximum weight is 15 lbs.
• Four colors to match your home decor

Ember Ceramic Coffee Mug

For busy mom and dads trying to just make it through the morning and get their kids to school on time, there’s possibly nothing worse than going to take a sip of your much needed morning beverage and getting a mouthful of cold coffee. It happens to all of us, we start the day off with the intention of enjoying a hot cup of coffee but then we get distracted with making breakfast, packing lunches, and getting the kids dressed. Next thing we know, that once warm inviting cup of caffeine is now a disappointing lukewarm or even ice cold liquid. Well, the days of sticking your cup of joe in the microwave for a warm-up every twenty minutes can now be put in the past thanks to Ember. Ember is a ceramic coffee cup that comes with a charging coaster designed to keep your cup of coffee at the desired temperature of your choosing.

Perfect for your home or your office, the Ember mug holds 10 ounces of your favorite coffee or tea in a black or white ceramic cup. Through the Ember app, you can customize the heat of your coffee by choosing a temperature between 120-145 degrees. Once the temperature of your drink has reached its chosen setting, the app will notify you that it is ready. If your idea of hot coffee is different from someone else in your family sharing the mug, you are able to choose different presets and save the temperatures for different users.

This device is simply genius and will make getting back into the back to school routine so much easier and productive. Even those stainless steel and insulated mugs can’t guarantee that the temperature of your coffee won’t change over time. The Ember mug allows you to enjoy your coffee or tea at your preferred temperature from the time you pour yourself a cup until you’re finished. Ember also offers a travel mug option that maintains your ideal coffee temperature as well.

OttLight Wellness Series

As children get older and spend more time at their desk studying, a good desk lamp is key to protecting their vision for the long term. Time spent on digital devices compounds eye strain, so having good light when you are spending off-screen time is increasingly important. Over a long period of time, regular eye strain can cause headaches, irritated eyes, blurry vision, and other troublesome health concerns.

High school and college courses make burning the midnight oil a regular occurrence and a OttLite Wellness Series desk lamp from OttLite can make late night study sessions feel light it isn’t actually the wee hours of the morning. With LED bulbs tested to last up to 40,000 hours, an OttLite purchased in high school will carry your teen through college and beyond.

The versatile Renew LED Desk Lamp consolidates the number of distractions in their study space and helps your teen keep a clean room.

Featuring an LCD clock, alarm, and temperature monitor, they’ll keep your student on track with their studies and when its time to head to bed. With a battery backup, your student can be certain to wake up for their alarm, even if a power outage impacts the rest of the household devices.

The base of the light includes a five volt USD adapter, allowing students to keep a phone nearby when power starts to wane. They can charge a cell phone, tablet, or any other USB powered device to keep connected with the world at all times.

• Reduces eye strain up by simulating natural light.
• Six brightness levels.
• USB Port for charging cell phones and tablets.
• LCD screen with date, time and temperature.
• Easy to use alarm setting with battery backup.

An Organized Life by Erin Condren

No one ever said that the kids should have all the fun during back-to-school season. In fact, if anything, moms could really use an extra boost after a long summer of hot days with whiny kids demanding a fresh snack every hour, on the hour.

With the start of school, it’s back to a much-needed routine. Back to alarm clocks, packed lunches, and school uniforms. And, if you enjoy staying organized, it’s time for a new Erin Condren’s Monthly Planner. From planners to lunch totes, pens to notepads, Erin Condren easily meets all of your organizational needs and helps you look good while doing it.

Erin Condren offers a boundless assortment of organizational tools, each filled with style, customization, and personality. The Deluxe Monthly Planner is our absolute favorite and with good reason. The 2018-2019 Deluxe Monthly Planner Is a perfect combination of their coil-bound classic Life Planner and their coiled notebook. The experience includes:

• A secure and stylish removable interchangeable cover so you can switch and swap designs as often as you like.
• The choice between various 12-month calendar options to fit your schedule, including a 2019 academic year calendar to the traditional January through December 2019 option.
• Beautiful and durable tabs. And the option to add even more.
• The ability to add up to 80 coiled-in perforated lined pages and say yes to note-taking whenever wherever!
• 2 sheets of coiled in stickers
• Embellished with inspirational quotes and notes. Not only are they beautiful to look at, but provide daily motivation and drive to women who aspire to make each day on this earth better than the last.

Of course, you can (and should!) add in additional sticker packs, tabs, planning pages and stencils to fully customize your planner. While we just got our 2018 edition, we already love it so much that we honestly don’t know how we ever lived without it. When we can finally spend some time adding everything into the calendar, this planner will really come alive.

Now, if you have a high school or college-aged student, you’ll also want to get one of these must-have academic planners.

Designed with a student in mind, these planners feature:

• EC’s secure & stylish removable interchangeable covers that allow you to switch and swap designs by subject, semester or season! You can mix or match a coil color for the perfect finishing touch.
• Dedicated pages for projects and exams that are ideal for tracking project due dates, assignments, and the details needed to complete them.
• 12, two-page undated calendar spreads that allow you to note big deadlines or events and see the bigger picture.
• Weekly spreads that you can use for planning, to-do lists, assignment tracking, study schedules, due dates, after-school activities and more!
• Extras like lined pages before each month and bold, motivational quotes.
• Coiled-in stickers and added extra surprises so students can celebrate each day of the year.

Finally, who doesn’t love a beautiful lunch tote? Whether you’re a mom needing to pack a snack while you wait in the carpool (because you’re one of those moms who gets to school an hour before pick up to be first in line) or a student looking for something unique and beautiful, these new tote bags are the most stylish way to eat. You can even customize it with your name!

So, whether you’re looking to get organized or you just love a good planner, Erin Condren’s planners are an absolute must-have this back-to-school season.

Trunk Crate Pro

Heading back to school for most doesn’t mean just going to school and coming home. Many school days will be followed by busy afternoons consisting of sports practice, music lessons, play dates, and other after-school activities. So what does this mean for parents and their vehicles?…disorganization. However, your car doesn’t have to feel like a mess with the help of a trunk organizer. Trunk Crate Pro has created an amazing organizer to take the back of your car from chaos to clean.

The Trunk Crate Pro is a multi-compartment trunk organizer with straps, pockets, and dividers. Made out of high-quality durable polyester, the organizer is collapsible to fold flat when not in use to save space, yet very sturdy with strong sidewalls and a stiff base for bottom support. The sub-dividers can be adjusted to create interior sections to fit the items you need to store appropriately. A great feature of the Trunk Crate Pro is that it is portable and can easily go from the car to your destination with you. If you are spending a day at the beach, simply load up, organize all the gear you will need for the day, and carry Trunk Crate Pro using the comfortable, heavy-duty handles to bring all your necessities with you.

Utilize Trunk Crate Pro to organize anything and everything that your kids bring into your car such as:

• Backpacks
• Lunchboxes
• Sports equipment
• Shoes
• Instruments
• Umbrella
• Reusable Bags
• Water Bottles
• Extra clothes
• First aid kit
• Gifts for birthday parties
• Beach gear

Available in six colors, the Trunk Crate Pro will fit perfectly in a car, truck, SUV, jeep, or minivan. Keep the back of your car clean by throwing those mud-filled cleats and sweaty soccer uniforms in the Trunk Crate Pro instead of in the trunk or floor of the car. For parents that take pride in keeping their car clean and organized, Trunk Crate Pro is the automotive accessory you need before heading back to school this year.

ChargeHub from The Grommet

As you head back to classes this fall, don’t forget to equip yourself with the behind-the-scenes necessities. ChargeHub is the one item you can’t leave behind if you want all of your devices to be charged and ready to go when needed. ChargeHub from The Grommet is a one-stop charger that charges up to seven devices at once.

Phones, cameras, tablets, watches, and more can be fueled by just one plug from this universal docking station. Because everything is able to connect to just one device, it helps to declutter and clean-up a tabletop or desktop area. This multi-port hub is not only functional but beautiful as well. Coming in a variety of colors, and with the ability to add a personalized photograph to the top, you can easily make it your own.

The technology behind ChargeHub allows each port to individually calibrate energy needs. The blue LED light lets you know what is being powered and also provides a calming glow to be able to access the chords in the dark.

Shopping at The Grommet is a great way to stay on top of the latest trends and gadgets. They specialize in bringing innovative products and unique finds into people’s homes. In this case, they connect us with ChargeHub creator Rock Smeja and his family. Rock is an entrepreneur from Illinois and owns Limitless Innovations.

BubbleBum

Back to school presents new challenges with transportation. Which parent is picking up your little one from school, what if they ride home with a friend, how will you get their huge car seat to and from cars? Getting to and from is a challenge in and of itself. That is why we love Bubblebum and their award-winning booster seat.

Bubblebum is the world’s first inflatable, portable, and foldable car booster seat. The seat not only meets but exceeds the safety requirements set forth by the Federal Motor Safety Standard for the USA. Because of this ingenuity and design, the Bubblebum is the Winner of National Parenting Center of Approval. The seat has been rated the Best Bet Booster by Insurance Institute for Highway Safety 7 years in a row. They have won more than 20 design and innovation awards. The seat has several alluring features:

• Inflates in less than 20 seconds
• Folds small for easy transport
• Comes with should clip for additional comfort and safety
• Narrow so you can fit three across

No matter where this school year takes you. Planes, trains, or automobiles you never have to worry about how you can safely transport your little ones and their friends with Bubblebum. Let the carpools, taxi rides, and fun begin!

Canvas Storage Boxes by kaikai & ash

Super cute storage for toys and school supplies

Back-to-school is more than buying our school-aged kiddos notebooks and pencils; it’s also a great time to organize the playroom. If you’re like us, the toys and clutter in your house multiplied over summer break. Use this time to reclaim your home by keeping the floors clear, the toys put away and all the essentials handy with the help of an adorable storage box or two.

Wrapped in a natural tone, cotton canvas, kaikai & ash’s adorable 13” canvas toy storage boxes are the perfect size for kids to easily toss their things in, making them not only a functional must-have, but the perfect way to organize a child’s bedroom, the playroom, or even a dorm room. And, they easily fit in Ikea Kallax Shelves, Target Threshold, ClosetMaid 1109, and other cube organizers with 13″+ inserts making them a brilliant alternative to standard black, grey and natural.

The whimsical unicorn boxes are especially on trend for 2018 and will be a huge hit with the little girls in your life. Whether she uses it for her toys or as a catch all for her school supplies, she’ll always know where to find her stuff.

We also love kaikai & ash’s newest City Collection, including Hello Rome! From Paris to London to San Francisco, decorate your child’s room with the beautiful cities around the world. Load them up as the toy population expands, or fold them flat when you go through a good purge.

kaikai & ash creates beautiful, felt applique toy storage boxes featuring 40+ designs by their talented team of creatives. From cities around the world, to cupcakes and to cute animals, each box is thoughtfully inspired by experiences and objects that make the owner, Johnny Wong’s daughters,’ squeal with delight.

Back Pain Help Standing Desk

Back pain is a pain like no other. The aching muscles, stiffness, and inability to move, especially if your back is thrown out, can make or break a work day. Sometimes sitting all day can worsen pain, but if you have a desk job or are a student, your options are limited. But, Back Pain Help offers a variety of wonderful solutions – one of them being the Standing Desk.

The Standing Desk is an excellent option for those suffering from back pain, allowing him or her to transition from sitting to standing throughout the day to prevent extra strain on the back. The Standing Desk is also incredibly functional, not only by lifting and lowering with ease, but has enough surface area for a keyboard and two 20″ monitors. The Standing Desk is made of an aluminum steel frame and can support up to 88 lbs.

Even if back pain isn’t your issue, standing at work with the Standing Desk has many other benefits, such as kick starting your metabolism, improving posture and blood circulation, as well as reducing blood pressure and engaging muscles, to name a few.

Whether you are gearing up for early school commutes or gathering everyone in your homeschool room, these must-haves for your home are sure to cut down your prep time. Prepare, organize, feed, and work it back-to-school style, all in the comforts of your home and outside your home.