Prima Princessa's TutuZone

Airline Travel With Kids

Spring Break is coming soon and that means air travel for a lot of us. With the news of all these cancellations, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a smooth trip. In the meantime I've been stashing my children's travel backpacks with several fun, quiet toys and books just in case an already long journey gets longer.

Both my kids get a huge kick out of Mad Libs. I always take those along. In fact today, was my son's 9th birthday party and I gave them out as party favors. They were a huge hit! For my  5 year old little princess, I got Mad Libs Junior My Little Pony. She was thrilled.

For my 5 year I also find sticker books provide endless fun. Sticker Dolly Dressing is a wonderful one as it is really jammed packed and never seems to run out of stickers.

Of course we are always armed with Leapsters and my husband always travels with a lap top which the kids use to watch a movie in flight. When all else fails I pull out the gum or Tic Tacs.

Mary Kate - ballet lover

www.PrimaPrincessa.com

Are you Linked In?

Just recently I've become a member of LinkedIn and through this service two old friends with whom I'd lost touch recently found me. My husband uses this service for work and encouraged me to join his network. Most people use LinkedIn for professional networking, but there are those of us who consider it a My Space for a more mature generation. (I'm trying to avoid using the dreaded "o" word.)

LinkedIn is free so check it out at LinkedIn.com.

Prima Princessa Productions - 2 entrepreneur moms having fun

www.PrimaPrincessaProductions.com

Summer is coming soon!

Working Moms Against Guilt

I just love the Working Moms Against Guilt manifesto,

"We're moms. We work all day, bring home the bacon, and fry it up in a pan. Oh, and while we're at it, we're raising young children, along with our spouses/partners. As any working mom knows, we often battle the big "G." Guilt creeps up on us when we least expect it. Join us in our ongoing struggle to resist the guilt and embrace the journey." This is a really interesting site to visit for opinions, tips and reviews.

Sara, from WMAG  just reviewed our DVD this week. Here's a snippet from her review, "I'm always looking for ballet-related books and DVDs, but my standards are high. I want materials that are true to the spirit of the works they represent while also showing dancers using proper technique. I'm pleased to report that there's a new DVD out that does both of these things. It's called Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake, and it's the first in what its creators hope will be a series of DVDs teaching young kids about popular ballets."

Thanks Sara for the review!

Prima Princessa Productions

www.PrimaPrincessa.com

Write the book you dream of!

A friend of mine just clued me into a really cool site online called Lulu where you can list your book and have it published on demand. She's busy working away on her book. I'm too busy with Prima Princessa Productions to write my dream book just yet, but it sure is tempting now that it seems so easy.

Mary Kate

www.PrimaPrincessa.com

Crazy for "Go Tape Crazy"

My seven year old daughter recently received an odd gift for her birthday, and it was not something obviously for a princess or ballerina! It's a big box of tape. I just sort of put it up in her closet thinking maybe we would explore it at some point someday. My mistake! So my daughter this week just pulled it out of the closet and set it on our kitchen table (where all of our daily art activities take place). Pretty soon her five year old sister joined in, and then my three year old and my 8 year old boy and then the neighbor girls who are in the 4th and 5th grade couldn't get enough of it!

What is this stuff you might ask? It's a box with 15 rolls of colorful patterned tape and the kids have been going crazy over making intricate patterns, designs, and whatever they can think of using these fun cool tapes on paper drawings, decorating their water bottles for soccer practice and putting it on their Converse shoes of all things! My 8 year old son even wrapped himself in the bright green tape so he could be really really visible during a game of 'Man Hunt" (like hide-and-go-seek but more runnning around outside, usually in the evening hours).

These tapes have everything from colorful flowers, to fruit, to penguins, to romantic horses galloping into the sunset...princess tape, monkey & banana tape. It goes on and on and on and my kids really love doing art projects with it. What a fun idea, it reminds me of the band-aid craze with cartoon characters, only this to me is much more productive and creative, inspiring little minds to do big things with tape.

For $14.99 Go Tape Crazy can be found on www.CreativityforKids.com and as they say in their promotional materials "our mission is to provide children with experiences that stimulate and encourge their natural creativity."

-Stephanie-

Hip Mamas Place Review and Giveaway Contest

"If your little girl aspires to be a ballerina, a great way to introduce her to the beautiful musical Swan Lake is through Prima Princessa- a hip, fun 40 minute ballet show on DVD that will captivate your child's imagination and encourage creativity through music and dance. This is not one of those boring, slow ballet performances you've watched on TV. This is an animated, highly entertaining, 'almost real' live show for young and old alike- even my own toddler boy enjoyed it! ..." writes Hip Mama Jocelyn of Hip Mama's Place. Check out Hip Mama's Place to read the rest of the review.

If you are feeling groovy Hip Mama's Place is for you! We at Prima Princessa loves this fab site and are thirlled that our DVD  Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake was reviewed here.

Hip Mamas Place is running a contest for a free Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake DVD. Check out their site for more details. Contest ends Friday.

Prima Princessa Productions- the hot spot for your little ballet princess

www.PrimaPrincessa.com

Beautiful Feet

Summer is coming and I have to tell you about the best product for smoothing away ugly calluses on your feet. It is called AmLactin Moisturizing Lotion by Upsher-Smith. It is over the counter, but uually kept behind the counter at the drugstore.

A  foot doctor recommended this prodcut to me and it really works. Get the best results by applying the lotion, wrapping your feet in plastic wrap and then putting on socks before bedtime.

Mary Kate

www.PrimaPrincessa.com

Scratch Magic

   If you have not discover Scratch Magic, it's a great thing to keep stashed away for rainy days. Both my kids who are 5 and 8 enjoy scratching away. You can purchase small Scratch Magic kits or larger books at craft stores, chainstores and toystores. Essentially Scratch Magic is heavy paper coated with black stuff which can be scratched away to reveal to reveal cool rainbow colors underneath. My son also like to just scratch away the whole top coating.

It does get messy but just make sure to keep it either in the kitchen or have them work on tray. If you have a princess crazy daughter she's sure to love the Scratch and Doodle: Princess Magic. Boys will get a kick out of Scratch and Doodle Dino Magic or if they are like my son just scratching away the entire coating is fun!

-Mary Kate-

www.PrimaPrincessa.com

Creating a button for your blog

We recently designed a button for all you blogs out there. Blogs kept requesting them so we decided we better go ahead and create one. What we learned in the process:

1. 125 x 125 seems to be the standard size (think about 1/2  to 1/3 the size of a business card).

2. Giffs work well with graphics and jpegs with photos.

3. Keep your type larger than you would do for a similar size print ad as it is harder to read things on the web.

4. Keep your design simple and make sure to include your web address.

5. Find a designer who has experience designing for the web.

6. Keep the file size small.

-Prima Princessa Productions-

www.PrimaPrincessProductions.com - the hot spot for your little ballet princess

Playthings Magazine - The Business of Play

If you are in the toy business you most like read Play Things Magazine. It's the trade magazine for the toy industry. If you are not in the trade it's fun to check out there website at www.Playthings.com to get a taste of the toy business.

Playthings' March 2008 issue, in a spread called "Engagement Party", features a collection of notable releases of which "Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake" is one. Very cool to see our DVD sharing the spotlight with Dora as well as Ernie and Bert!

Thanks Playthings for the boost!!!

-Prima Princessa Productions- the hotspot for your little ballet princess

www.PrimaPrincessa.com