photo books Archives | Cool Mom Picks

5 tips to help you take better holiday photos of your kids

We know the holidays are full of photo opps, and lots of parents taking advantage of them. We also know that kids can be notoriously difficult to photograph, especially when there are presents and cookies to distract them from being their adorable selves on camera....

12 creative ways to display kids’ artwork, from DIYs to clutter-saving services

by Caroline Siegrist | Art + Decor, Storage + Organization, Tips + Tricks

One parenting conundrum that seems timeless: the search for creative ways to display kids’ artwork. From the preschool doodles and finger paint portraits to the kindergarten collages, to the papier maché sculptures that would look just perfect…where,...

12 wonderfully creative photo gifts for Father’s Day | Father’s Day Gift Guide 2018

by Caroline Siegrist | Father's Day Gifts

I’ve always felt that creative photo gifts for Father’s Day make some of the best gifts of all. Because for busy dads — and okay, moms — ordering prints or printing photos tends to get buried on the priority list. If you want to go beyond a...

The baby book that will have you wanting to make a baby book.

by Ellyn Exley Dvorkin | Baby

Like most new parents I know, you’re probably wanting to keep a baby book to capture all those firsts: first smile, baby steps, first blurbs (trust me, they’re blurbs not words). But if you’re as harried a first-time mother as I am, you may soon discover...

A comparison of our 13 favorite custom photo book services, for one of our all-time favorite gifts (Updated for 2021)

by Kate Etue | Art + Decor, Baby, Tips + Tricks

Since one of our very favorite Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and teacher gifts are custom photo books, we thought it was about time to take a fresh look at our favorite custom photo book companies. There are now so many out there, it can be hard to...

5 creative ways to display kids’ artwork – beyond stuffing it in a drawer

by Kate Etue | Art + Decor, Storage + Organization

How do you display all of your kids’ precious artwork? It’s an age-old parenting conundrum. Between school projects, art they bring home from summer camp, or just creative time they spend around my kitchen table, I end up with way more art than I can...

7 smart sleepaway camp essentials that help stave off homesickness.

by Christina Refford | Cards + Stationery, Family Travel

If your little camper is heading off to sleepaway camp this summer, possibly for the first time (sniff), you’ll likely receive from the camp a long list of all the essentials to pack — extra socks, bug repellent, water bottles, headlamps. But, on top of...

6 amazingly sweet keepsake Father’s Day photo gifts and how to make them even more special

by Cool Mom Staff | Father's Day Gifts

So many dads in our lives are awesome, plain and simple. So we are always looking for meaningful Father’s Day gifts that say thanks from the bottom of our hearts. Of course, our very favorite gifts tend to be those personalized ones that really show Dad just how...

Tweed wolf: Gorgeous custom photo books with someone else taking care of the customizing.

by Kate Etue | DIY

Have you ever wished someone else would just take your camera roll and turn it into a gorgeous custom photo album? Me too. And, we’re in luck. The relatively new service, Tweed Wolf does it all and beautifully — and just in time for Mother’s Day...

14 smart ways to get your young kids excited about reading this summer

by Cool Mom Staff | Books for Kids, Tips + Tricks

As big-time book lovers here, we’ve learned that a love of reading is acquired and not something kids are necessarily born with, like the color of their eyes or their uncanny inability to sleep past 6 AM on a Saturday. So we love putting together tips for...

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, 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).

We still love what we do every single day. And we're so glad you're here.