A professional organizer’s top back-to-school organizational tips for the real world | Spawned Ep 119
While we’re enjoying a little time off for summer, we’re updating some of our greatest hits Spawned episodes you might have missed — starting with “organizer for the real world” (as we call her), Laurie Palau of Simply B Organized. She...
An honest review of Tentrr, the Airbnb of camping.
Last year, our friend Anna Fader of Mommy Poppins fame posted about her positive experience with Tentrr on Facebook. The service functions like Airbnb, except for campsites, and if that sounds like a brilliant idea, you’re right. Particularly for those of us who...
NBC’s Making It contestant Robert Mahar reveals one brilliant thing parents should do to bring out creativity in their kids
Imagine how thrilled we were to learn that our old friend and popular cool mom pick Robert Mahar was a contestant on the popular new NBC DIY craft show Making It. Yes, there might have been squealing involved. We’ve known him since we started our site 12 years...
5 things parents need to know before buying your kids glasses
I’ve worn glasses my whole entire life, and up until now, have been the only one in my family who needed them. Then, in the middle of the school year, we learned my youngest daughter needed glasses — reading glasses, specifically. It’s an issue that...
The best things to do in Nashville with kids, according to locals. (Hint: It ain’t the honkey-tonks.)
Nashville is of course the home of country music, but when you’re traveling here and looking for the best things to do in Nashville with the kids, visiting the honkey-tonks downtown probably isn’t your best bet. So as a native Nashvillian, I’m going...
A guide to the top video games kids are playing and watching, that parents should know about
We know it’s so hard to keep up with your kids’ tech when you’re a parent — there are social channels, apps of all kinds, and so many games! On Out Tech Your Kids, our private Facebook community for tech questions and answers from parents,...
10 things you should do before you leave for vacation, that you might be forgetting.
Whether you’re hitting the road for a quick weekend getaway, or are heading out for a family vacation, getting out the door can be pretty overwhelming. Between packing lists and all those last-minute to-do-before-we-leave lists, it’s so easy to get sucked...
6 of the best tips and tricks for cleaning kids’ sneakers. Because summer shoes stink.
My kids’ shoes never smell quite as bad as they do in summer. It’s the downside to me telling them to get outside and get active everyday. Muddy, sweaty, grass-stained shoes aren’t easy to clean, but I’ll take it over bored and inside all day...
The best affordable drugstore beauty products for the softest, summeriest, not-dry-at-all summer skin.
As a Black woman with darker skin, I’m constantly fighting The Ash Monster. More skin is exposed in the summer, so I take a few extra steps, and a few extra products, to make sure my skin is healthy, moisturized, and gleaming. And it doesn’t have to be...Hi! We’re Kristen + Liz!
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).
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