housewares Archives | Cool Mom Picks

31 affordable Mother’s Day gifts for all kinds of moms, and how to make them more special

by Liz Gumbinner | Living, Style + Beauty

We’ve always said that Mother’s Day gifts don’t have to be expensive — but they do have to be thoughtful. (Well, at least they should be, right?) One of my favorite gifts from my kids of all time, aside from the hand-written cards and artwork...

10 extra awesome Thanksgiving hostess gifts under $30 to make you extra welcome

by Georgette Gilmore | Holiday Picks, Kitchen + Dining

While most of us want to know what we can cook, bake, or otherwise whip up when we head out for Thanksgiving dinner, sometimes there’s a host or hostess who gives you the old, “just bring yourself!” But since we know you should never show up at a...

Decluttering the bedroom night table: Check.

by Liz Gumbinner | Storage + Organization

My night stand is a thing of terror — between the glassware, the paperbacks, the cards from the kids, the remote controls, the empty candy wrappers (what? It’s been a stressful election season), the mini body moisturizer samples, and a couple of photo...

Rainbow housewares to brighten up winter. Or any season.

by Liz Gumbinner | Art + Decor, Kitchen + Dining, Living

January is tough on my but by February I tend to hit the doldrums. Yes, it’s actually light until (nearly) 5:20 so that’s in the plus column, but I start to feel like everything around me is gray, including the remaining snow piles on the sidewalks in New...

10 super hot purchases under $20 at Macy’s right now.

by Liz Gumbinner | Fashion

This post is sponsored by Plenti. If you’ve been using our sponsor Plenti, or if you’re considering joining their rewards program (hey, it’s free to join after all), we thought we’d take you on a little virtual shopping trip through...

5 of our coolest tech picks of the week

by Cool Mom Staff | Best of the Web

In case you might have missed them, here are 5 of our coolest tech picks of the past week from Cool Mom Tech. Enjoy reading while you polish off the rest of those jellybeans. 1. A cool USB electrical outlet we want in every room. Affordable too! 2. We rounded-up 9...

The Peace Exchange: Fair trade accessories from an organization that just gives you more faith in humanity.

by Liz Gumbinner | Doing Good, Fashion

I admit that like a lot of you, that it can get really hard, day after day, learning about yet another violent incident around the world; another area facing political unrest, turmoil, and terrible conditions, especially for women and children. But as I recently heard...

Don’t know much about geometry

by Liz Gumbinner | Jewelry

With the Etsy artists starting to see a decline in visits since the homepage redesign (we have trouble with it too, sigh) you can expect to see a lot more of our favorite Etsy finds here, as well as a new, weekly Etsy find of the week delivered right to your inbox if...

Beating the winter blahs with a shot of color to your table

by Liz Gumbinner | Kitchen + Dining

Lately, I love the idea of my dinner table feeling coordinated but not entirely matchy-matchy. And then I saw these gorgeous handmade cloth napkins at the Shapes Colors Etsy shop and thought, yes! Just like that! The artist, San Francisco mom Samantha Cisneros,...

Wait wait, don’t tell me: Awesome gifts from NPR

by Stephanie Mayers | Holiday Picks

Working in the independent music world, I have a high esteem for non-commercial radio and of course the mother of it all, NPR. Supporting public radio is so important to me, as they rely heavily on listener funding to stay afloat. So if you find yourself still looking...

Hi! We’re Kristen + Liz!

Kristen Chase + Liz Gumbinner of Cool Mom Picks

We started Cool Mom Picks in 2006 to help make life cooler, easier, more organized, more meaningful, and more fun for parents of all kinds.

Trivia: It was called Cool Mom Sh*t for the first two days. (Yeah, we rethought that.)

We had no idea our site would grow to become a major lifestyle network, that we'd end up sharing our finds with the TODAY Show and Martha Stewart, that we'd be able to make a real difference for so many small businesses and women-run companies, or that we'd end up with an incredible community of the coolest readers on the planet. (If we do say so ourselves).

But we did.

And we still love what we do every single day.

We're so glad you're here.