Talk about Clever: Brad and Jera Deal made up a creative way to teach the alphabet to their daughters then transformed it into a personalized gift business.

As a way to introduce the alphabet to their daughters, Brad and Jera Deal made a game of ‘letter hunting’ while out for walks or spending days in the park. Since, like most parents, they always had a camera with them, they took pictures of the letters that they spotted whether they were in nature, art or surrounding architecture. Soon they had pictures for every letter in the alphabet. Read the rest »

Are you a Clever Parent who “cares about quality, detail and who appreciates cleverness and humor”? If so, nina and tom is for you. Love and Peace, My Sign, I Eat My Vegetables and Der Poopinator are a few of the popular sayings screen printed with water-based inks on organic cotton shirts for babies, kids and adults. All nina and tom shirts are designed and screen-printed manually, rather than by an automated press, which requires a great deal of craft and results in a high quality product.

The idea for the business all started with a dust covered four head screen printing press a friend had given the couple. Since neither Nina nor Tom knew how to screen print, Tom took a class at a local craft center to pick up the basics. After printing some onesies and t-shirts for themselves and receiving good feedback, they decided to get a business license and go for it and nina and tom family fashion was born.

Visit www.ninaandtom.com to buy shirts for someone you love and be sure to check out their very cute holiday line.

See the Clever Parents vidcast featuring Nina and Tom holiday shirts.

Friends from their college days, Elise Nappi and Eileen Schneidman worked in television production and marketing until the lure of motherhood called, resulting in five children between the pair. Sharing woes one night about neverending piles of laundry and minivans designating them as officially ‘off the market’ and partly inspired by Eileen’s need for kitchen renovation funds and Elise’s shopping addiction, they got to talking, and to laughing, and the idea of starting a business was born. The premise: moms like to laugh; moms like nice clothing — why not combine the two? With the tagline, ‘Apparel with an inside joke and you’re in on it’ Planet Mom delivers on both fronts. Read the rest »

Season Moore has had an interest in photography for about as long as she can remember. That interest was piqued with her role as high school yearbook editor and again when a studio hired her as a photographer soon after graduation. “I worked closely with their experienced photographers and was just in awe of them. I traveled to schools all over the state of Georgia and would spend all day shooting cheesy, posed yearbook pictures. When I got lucky, I would get to go to a sporting event or dance and shoot candids. At that point I already knew where my real interest lay; not in posed or forced pictures, but in capturing real expression and moments as they happen.” Read the rest »

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been a sucker for traditions. Whether it’s my grandmother’s peas at Christmas or our weekly family breakfasts at Big Ed’s on Saturday mornings, there is something comforting in the anticipation and realization of those special times. If you like a good family tradition, or if you’d like to create a new one, The Box Girls’ Box of Questions is for you.

Fueled by six hungry children, two hungry husbands and a dinner that seemed to take forever to arrive, longtime friends Cece Feiler and Heidi Haddad decided to avoid a mealtime disaster and started asking questions that anyone at the table could answer. What sort of questions were the topic of the day? Skipping the fluff of reality TV and celebrity gossip as well as trivial topics of sports and geography, the two friends brought up serious, thought-provoking questions touching on everything from ethics and charity to family and society. The meal and dialogue was a huge success and The Box of Questions was born. Read the rest »

When you’re in the oft sleep-deprived state of new parenthood, it’s tough to remember the details about your infant’s feeding, diapering and sleep habits. If you like to track those details, you probably have a notebook with scribbles noting the last time your baby nursed or had a bottle, when the last diaper change was and how long the latest nap lasted. If you’re sharing baby care duties with your spouse or another caregiver, you’ve probably asked or have been asked, “How long has it been since the baby ate?” or some similar such question.

New parents Greg and Kris Sheldon tried charts and journals to track their newborn son William’s details, but when Kris came home from work to stay-at-home dad Greg and swapped baby duty, they seemed to say to one another again and again, “I can’t remember how long it’s been!” So they invented a better way: the ITZBEEN Baby Care Timer. Read the rest »

Are you looking for a clever holiday or birthday gift for a loved one? Perhaps you’d like a keepsake for a child’s special birthday that they will cherish for years to come. Part scrapbook, part photo album, and without the mess and hassle of doing it yourself, Pam Turos of Enduring Notions offers beautiful custom digital story books and more.

Pam Turos has always been creative, whether it’s scrapbooking, crafts projects, or even digital design, she’s always challenged herself ‘to create things for less than what I can purchase them in a store.’ Prior to having children, Pam applied her creativity to her job as a social worker helping terminally ill children and cancer survivors “create photo keepsakes to share with those they love and preserve the ’stories’ of their lives.” Read the rest »