Firmoo Eyewear: A Review

My heart skips a few beats when I hear “free”.  So, you can imagine my excitement when Firmoo shot me an email asking if I’d like a free pair of specs in exchange for a review.  I think it took me 0.00001 seconds to reply back with a big, fat “YES”.  The fact that I’ve been wearing the same glasses I’ve owned for about five years now helped kick my enthusiasm in high gear.

Well, I looked, I ordered, they shipped, they came, and here they are:
(The pair I ordered is currently unavailable on the Firmoo website, but when/if they come back up, I’ll be sure to attach a link.)

I’ll start with the good first.  The glasses were super-easy to order; the website really easy to navigate.  I absolutely love the try-on feature!  I’ve always been leery of ordering anything online that pertains to being worn on my person, including glasses, but this feature put that fear aside (even though I did think there was a discrepancy between the online try-on and reality, but I’ll write about that later.)
Sheena, Sheena, Sheena, Sheena, Sheena, Sheena, Sheena, aaand Sheena.

Once I ordered the glasses they were at my doorstep within four days.  I didn’t waste anytime digging in and was pleasantly surprised by all of the goodies Firmoo sent with the glasses.  I was expecting my glasses, wrapped in plastic, and that’s it.  But no, I got a rad hard case, a cleaning cloth, and tiny tool set – and all of that in a nice little drawstring bag.  I’m not gonna lie, I was almost more excited about the tool set than the glasses.  I’ve needed one of those many, many times in the past and now Firmoo has blessed me with one.  As far as the glasses go, the quality is awesome.  You’d never guess that this pair runs well under $100! 
The plastic seems like it can definitely withstand the multiple grabs and tosses of little hands…something I’ve become oh-so-used-to these days.  I especially loved the specs I chose because of their ability to be business/geek in front:

party on the SIDE:

On the down side, the glasses were a wee bit bigger on my tiny face than they initially looked on me digitally with the try-on feature and so I’m still on the fence about whether or not I actually like them on me.  Also, not sure what went wrong with the prescription, but I excitedly put them on only to find that they were a little strong.  I had my lookers checked last year and they didn’t change much in strength yet I found these glasses to be a lot stronger than my current/previous lenses.  Bummer.  I could’ve entered the prescription wrong whilst ordering or could’ve have gotten some incorrect info from the doc but either way, they’re not wearable as they are until I get the lenses replaced.  Other than that, my only qualm was the lack of selection of small-sized frames.  I didn’t know whether I was more of a small or medium but the lack of small sizes made my medium decision for me.

So, with that, I encourage you to hop on over to Firmoo and treat yourself to some new specs for free with their First Pair Free Program!  That’s right!  Your first pair is absolutely free – prescription or no prescription!  All you have to do is pay shipping!  AND, they’re having a buy one, get one 50% Valentine’s Day sale right now!  So, after you order your first pair, you can order more because Firmoo is all about beauty on a budget; high style on a dime.  Their eyewear is budget-friendly!  I know where I’ll be going to pick up a second, third, fourth pair of glasses plus some cool shades for the upcoming summer sun!  Gone are the days when your only option for getting fabulous four eyes are the hundred dollar frames from your optician!  Also out the door is the idea that only fuzzy sight warrants getting glasses!  These days they’re fashion accessories!

  So, with all of that said, let me make it easy for y’all!  Click here ---> http://www.firmoo.com/free-glasses.html to get your free glasses now!

P.S.  A special thanks to my amazing and talented (and pregnant!) sis, Farrah, for the backyard photography session.  :)

Upholstering a Frame Mat

Remember the word art I whipped up for the twins nursery?  Well, I mentioned that the homemade mat I made using the existing cardboard backing looked a little shoddy around the inside edges and so one night while the twins were tucked away in their crib I reupholstered it to get a much nicer facade.

I used some leftover curtain lining I had laying around from our dining area valance project, some masking tape, a little craft glue, and a scissors.

First I cut out a rectangular piece slightly larger than my cardboard mat:

I didn’t worry about cutting the edges perfectly straight since they were going to be attached to the back of the cardboard and therefore unseen like so:To get a snug fit I secured the middle of each side first and worked my way to the corners.  I didn’t have to worry about getting perfect corners either because they’d be hidden under the frame.

Then I cut the excess fabric out of the middle:

And cut some diagonal lines at the corners so that I could again wrap the fabric around the back:

I then put a few droplets of craft glue where the fabric would be laying on the back (to keep it extra tight and secure since the inside edge would be seen) and taped it down the same way that I did the outer edge:

Finally, I put the whole shebang back together and hung it up revealing a much more polished reminder for our girls:

Never will I pay to have a custom mat made for an odd-sized frame while I’ve got some cardboard and fabric laying around!  Think of all the options too!  Colored and/or patterned fabric or even scrapbook paper would be fun to spice up any artwork or photograph!  Decorative edges or even matted shapes would be so cool too!  Anybody else feelin’ the excitement?!  Anybody else made their own mat?  Lay it on me!  I’d love to see!

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I hope everyone has a great weekend!  I’m looking forward to catching up on some projects after a great week with family!  My two sisters, my niece, and my mom were all here for the week and we had so much fun sewing up a storm and loading up on sweets!  Now that they’re gone our house is too quiet and I’m really missing the extra hands, especially since Cecilia has gotten RSV and a double ear infection…boo.  Poor thing has to be attached to a gas mask every six hours and it breaks my heart.  It’s her first real sickness and I’m hoping the last for a long while.  On the plus side though, we’re now proud owners of a pink panda nebulizer!  How cute is that?!  :)

Just Checking In

Hello!  Hi!  Hola!  Salut!  I’m spending the weekend with friends and with family that’s in town visiting for the week so I’m going to trade in my usual Saturday blogging brain dump for quality time with them but I won’t leave you hanging without a little bit of my business. 

THIS made my week: See the new coffee table?  Yeah, that.  I’ve been hunting and searching and hunting some more for a round coffee table with a shelf underneath (to store toys) to turn into an cushy ottoman so that no matter where you’re sitting on our sectional, you can prop your toes up.  Well, this week during one of our little family outings I quickly ran into Goodwill while Anthony waited in the car with the tots and found this little beauty for $12…$12!!!!!  I LOVE the octagon shape and I can’t wait to get started on ‘ottomatizing’ it!  Of course I’ll share all the diy deets on this here blog when it all goes down!  Maybe it’s silly, but I’m over-the-moon excited about it!

You might also have noticed that we moved our big oil painting from the wall above the loveseat to the wall above the sectional, switching out these frames.  It’s previous positioning had always bothered me so I finally had Anthony move it over.  As soon as I find some, I’m going to flank it with some sort of mirror or two or three…we’ll see. 

Anyway, I don’t want to keep the fam waiting so I’m going to skidaddle!  I wish you all a fantastic rest of the weekend!   

Bean Sprouts: 6 Months

Well, we managed to squeeze a six month photo shoot into our busy agendas last week and good thing too, because three, four, and five months got skipped.  Unfortunately, both girls were sniffling and sneezing through it, Seraphia almost oblivious to it per her usual nothing-bothers-me temperament, and Cecilia wondering if her entire life was going to be this miserable.  Nonetheless, we got some goodies of our little squirts on the still unfinished loveseat (we’re going on over a year now…will we ever finish it?) that I’m sure will amuse our family for decades to come.

Still working on ‘cheese’ and synchronized staring at the camera.

We thought we’d throw the two stuffed peas back into the picture, hearkening back to the days when they could fill the same pod: 

Just for kicks, here are the little chicks at two weeks:A little jaundiced and a lot mushy…but we’ll just call it tan and cuddly.  :)

Ah, the first-born: Winning the “Happiest Baby on the Block” award four months in a row now, Seraphia is all daddy from the neck up.  However, her future inability to ever find pants long enough is all my fault.  We’re wondering where her thick mane has gone over the past month as she is slowly taking on the hairstyle of a certain creature by the name of Gollum.  Sleeping is not really her forte and eating anything other than that which I provide isn’t really worth her time.  On her list of accomplishments includes rolling from front to back and vice-versa, smiling a whole lot, spewing slobber for miles, grabbing anything and everything within her reach, and an inhaled and quite weird shriek of a laugh.  You’d never know by her joyous disposition, but she’s got two pearly whites just under the skin of her lower gums ready to make their arrival any darn day now.  As excited as I am to see her little toothy grin, I have to admit I’m deathly afraid of what those two pincers might mean for her food source…   

And then there’s:Well, at first judgment we thought she’d be the calm, cool, and collected one.  Wrong-O.  When she’s hungry, you know it…and every meal is wolfed down like it’s her last.  When she’s tired, you know it.  When she’s filled her pants, you know it.  When she’s been set down in the wrong spot, you know it.  When her pants don’t match her shirt, you know it.  When her sister is sad, you know it.  When you’re not feeding her this new “mushed banana” stuff fast enough, you know it.  She.is.a.handful.   Looks-wise she’s almost all mommy except for that dark, glossy soon-to-be-mullet hair with the few long stragglers that curl up at the ends, the shape of her eyes, and the shapes of her fingernails…and her attitude.
As far as talents go she’s always a step ahead of her sister – rolling over and back first, bouncing away in the little exersaucer first, eating from a spoon gracefully first, learning and spouting gibberish first, and giving us a hearty little laugh first.  You’d think she thinks she’s got somethin’ to prove being five minutes behind at birth or something…  She even sings with me! This chunky monkey (only in comparison to her elder) has the BEST laugh and the most contagious smile.  Whereas anyone other than Mommy or Daddy has to act like an incredible clown for Seraphia to even give them one little smirk, Cecilia will give bare her mega-watt gums for you at a simple glance.  She’ll turn any gray sky blue.  Did I mention that she has the most gorgeous big eyes?

 

I think I’ll conclude with some outtakes of our little shoot.  Turns out six month olds don’t find being photographed that fun…especially while they’re stuck with some pesky cold bugs.
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*Girls, girls!!  Over here!  Look at mommy!  Girls!!!  (I begin the lunatic waves.)

Lean on me. 

Zoned out and petrified.
 Personal space?  What personal space?

Don’t touch me.

BFFs.
(You might’ve noticed Cecilia repaid our efforts to make memories with a bomb of a diaper, the likes of which we noticed only after the whole shebang by the massive wet spot she left in her stead on the loveseat…thankfully, we captured it on camera and can laugh about it now.)

Hooked Up

I finally roped Anthony in and away from lots of studying and work last weekend to help me ‘hook us up’, after being super-inspired by an idea found on good ‘ole Pinterest that I’ve been crushing on for quite some time now.

Exhibit A: One super-cute and functional hook system in an entry way by Jenna Sue at Jenna Sue Design.

Exhibit B: Another cool and so-darn-pretty entry way by Casa de Lewis.

Our entry way definitely has the potential to sport some hooks and functionality and is just begging for some more color and character, as you can see: On the count of three, everybody say “blah”.  Boring, boring, boring.  But the above inspiration in mind, it’s taken a turn for the better.  Here’s what happened:

 First, we picked up a 6 in. by 1/2 in. piece of wood and cut it in two to fit both walls to the right of the door.  (We found it at local lumber store after not being able to find lengths over four feet at Lowe’s and Home Depot -we needed a five foot long board.  The lumber store we went to actually had to cut our piece from a 14 ft. board since that was the shortest they had.) 

I sanded it down and filled in a couple of nicks with wood filler:

Then I primed and painted it (Zinnisser oil-based primer to keep stains from seeping through and Olympic water-based trim paint, the same used throughout our entire house), once again turning our living room into a workshop.

Up went the primed and painted board.  Anthony made sure to screw it into the three studs along the wall for maximum strength…a diaper bag carrying contents for two can get quite heavy you know.  :)  He also made sure to countersink the screws so that they’d be flush with the wood, creating the smooth, trim surface we were going for.  

After the board was up, Anthony filled in the exposed screw heads with spackle and I later went over them with a fine sanding block to make sure each area was smooth before I touched up the paint.

All that was left then was mounting the hooks.  After looking at both Home Depot and Lowe’s, I found these on Ebay for half the price either of them offered:

These hooks were actually my first pick but then I read that they had to be mounted from the back; not an option in our case:

So, here’s our little project corner right before naptime Thursday:

And here’s what the same place looked like after a little naptime drilling courtesy of me:

Still on the entry way agenda are replacing the bamboo shade with a colorful fabric roman shade, stenciling/painting a flat woven rug that will replace the current ‘blah’ rug, possibly (crossing my fingers it’s so) a new light fixture, and adding some art and the most awesome mirror I found at Goodwill many moons ago.  Stay tuned.

In case you’re interested in the measurements of our new little storage spot, here ya go: 

Oh, and as for what we spent:
Wood:  $4
Hooks:  $2 each plus $6 shipping = $14
Primer, paint, wood filler, drill, countersink bit, and spackle:  had on hand
Total:  $16

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How do you stash your stuff?  Are you a have-it-hidden closet type of person or an out-where-it’s-easily-accessible type?  As of yesterday each and every hook on that wall was occupied…I had to lay down the law and tell Anthony that his coats belonged in the coat closet across the way and weren’t allowed to clutter up our little nook.  It’s strictly for baby paraphernalia and/or an umbrella or two.  Obsessive?  Maybe.  :)

P.S.  Linking up at Watch Out, Martha for Martha Monday again!  Hop on over for creativity in abundance!