Small Business Saturday

#ShopSmall Treasures I found

So how do you think the #ShopSmall campaign went in your local town?

I just finished watching the local news on Hawaii News Now and it looks like local businesses benefited from the ads on TV from American Express and very likely Twitter and Facebook as well!

In Hawaii 98% of the 30,000 businesses are Small Businesses (HNN).  I am a small business and have had a few of them myself, so this was a very important campaign for me to support.  I manage Social Networks for a few Small Businesses and made sure to remind the followers and fans to #ShopSmall.

Today I supported the #ShopSmall Campaign by going to a local Craft Fair that featured local artists to do some of my Christmas Shopping.  I got a beautiful hand painted original piece of art by Veralynn Villanueva (I hope I spelled that right).  Some sea shell earrings from Ari’i Mea Hana.

I hope you got some good shopping in today at your local businesses.  If you did please comment and tell me where you found your treasures!

A positive self image for young girls

I just read a blog from a fellow Blogger Aubrie at http://www.poiemalife.com and she had a great post about our young girls and how they view themselves. Have you ever taken a step back and reflected, what type of self image you portray to your daughter(s)?
Here’s the link to her post:

Distorted

Happy Tuesday to you!

Hawaii NEEDS to get on the Groupon Train!

Have you heard of Groupon?  I really see a huge benefit to business’ and to the consumers from this service.  This is a little bit about what they do-  Groupon negotiates huge discounts—usually 50-90% off—with popular businesses. They send the deals to thousands of subscribers in a free daily email, and send the businesses a ton of new customers. That’s the Groupon magic.

You can personalize the deals to your location or maybe a location you are traveling to…

You can buy and redeem Groupons on your mobile device…

You could buy someone a Groupon gift…

You could also get your business on Groupon, so you can offer deals and bring in the bus loads to your business!

If you are interested in using Groupon for your business check out my Service/Mod Profile Management page and I could set it up AND manage it for you!

You can start with getting one of these deals below, enjoy!

 

 

How do I organize all the kids projects and papers?

All 3 of my children love design, color and art as much as I do and tend to have a lot of paper!

Because I hate when there is a clutter of paper and I like things to be aesthetic as well as useful, here is something that I am trying to do, to cut down the clutter of papers and projects that my children bring home from school.

I have a few things I do:
1) I have a receiving basket in the kitchen where it all (supposed to) goes. When we see it piles then we go through what they think is their favorite and then whatever we can part with, but would like to keep a memory of, I then have them take photos of those pieces (it takes much less space).
2) for the rest that we cant part with, I have containers for each of my children, like the scrapbook sort of size and we store those pieces for keeps. Eventually they and you will be able to part with more:)
3) for the permission slips and other papers they need me to see, they have to put it in another basket that I check daily.

I hope this helps:)

It’s a New Year!

It’s a new year and I’m ready for new things!  Like I mentioned before Mama A La Mode is changing it’s face to a whole “new” thing!  Because I LOVE everything that involves design, color, fashion, technology, marketing, networking and so on…..  Mama A La Mode “studio” will be all the things that I love and will continue to grow and evolve as I continue to grow and evolve.  Because I know some amazing people in various fields of design, art, fashion and technology, the hope is that I will be able to collaborate with these amazing talents to create whatever it is that a business or an individual would need.

One of the first things that we will be launching will be Social Network Management which we call our Mod Profile Management! It’s a service for those that need help with their social network profiles, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. Let’s face it if you don’t keep your profile, fresh, up to date and stay connected to it, people will not visit you!  Mod Profiles knows that you can’t be running a business and sitting in front of your computer all day trying to connect with people, so let us help you!
Depending on what a person/company needs, Mod Profile Management can include designing banners to add to your profiles to and share with friends, maintenance for junk comments, management and marketing such as approving friend requests, adding friends, updating status, posting blogs, bulletins, banners, and more.

Don’t forget to Subscribe to my Blog!

Facebook Deals

Have you seen this new option that Facebook Pages launched today? It’s a cool idea but I think it’s pretty similar to an app called Foursquare (I’ll have to try it out). The concept is that if you have a business and you would like to offer deals to your customers that visit you, they can check in when they come to your location and then they will be offered a deal according to your specifications you set within facebook.

I think this is a great tool to utilize and I believe businesses nowadays need to be on the cutting edge with their marketing techniques to be successful!

This is one of the services that Mama A La Mode (I) provide for businesses out there. I know how much time it takes to run and manage a business and I also know that it takes time to get to know what mediums that are available and how to use them takes!

If you are interested in having me manage your Social Networking and/or Marketing efforts, contact me via email and we can see how I can help you!

Meanwhile, go and check out this new app that Facebook has, there are videos that explain it as well at the following link.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/FacebookPages

So I’ve met the “30”

So it’s official I keep taking forever to update my blog! Sorry… to whomever might actually read My Blog…lol Well anyway I finally met 30 last month and I have never been one to worry about age or getting older and all that stuff but, I must admit it’s a little strange… In 9 years my oldest daughter will be 18! Eeeek… I’ve gotta say my 29th year was quite challenging but also such a great growing experience for me, it was a year that greatly challenged my “fruit” and turned me for the better! Through all those challenges I feel that I am even closer to my husband in many way’s and I have a greater appreciation for the simple things that life provides…  BTW this picture was taken when i went on a field trip to Imiola Astronomy Center with my daughters 4th grade class:)

I’m ready to head into the next decade of life that comes with it’s challenges but Awesome rewards!

Life and where it’s taking me

Hello all you beautiful people! So as I have mentioned before, I have many things going on in my life (good things). My newest and biggest venture has been that I am now a student! I am attending school online with IADT and I’m aspiring towards my B.S. in Web Design and Development. I never ever thought I would be interested in going to college but for the past year I have had this desire to learn more and more! So I decided to take a huge leap of faith and attend school and I am glad that I did!

The direction of Mama A La Mode will be slightly shifting and adjusting into a new birth! I am trying to immerse myself in as much design, computer, networking, marketing education as possible, but at the same time keep the balance of God, Family, Church, Work and friends in my life. I’m so excited to see where this journey takes me and all the key people in my life:)

It’s times like this in my life when I take a move into a new direction that the reality of my mother not being here, really hits me and brings tears to my eyes. When I take a step back and look at myself from an outside perspective I see my mother. I wish she were here with me, she was so the bomb at doing anything she put her mind to! It’s thoughts like this that make me truly thankful for all the wonderful family and friends I have.

So as some of you may know I “Do” many things, so my hope is to inspire each and everyone of my readers to LOVE Life no matter what types of challenges come your way… Change and adjust… it’s gonna be ok!

To all the special people in my life… If I haven’t told you lately… I LOVE YOU

So I’m kind of on this health kick…

I say kind of, just because I am not a dieter and never have been. I am trying to be more conscious of what food I put in and what exercises I put out!

I love good food but I also love to have treats! Don’t you?

I have decided that I will not share my weight and fitness goals because I hate when people tell me “oh… you have nothing to lose!” You can’t say that because you don’t live in my body and you don’t know what’s comfortable for my body! For example: If someone of much larger size then me were to say “I feel very comfortable with my body type the way it is!” Then I would say “great!”, who am I to say that I think they need to lose more weight?

I have my fitness goals that I have set for myself for a specific purpose of getting into a healthy routine and preparing myself for the future and older age. I don’t want to wait till I’m 40 and say “I’m not happy with my body and my health.” As we all know, starting a new exercise or routine at an older age is very hard to do!

So I am ending on this note. If you are out there and trying to better yourself in one way or another, I commend you and wish you the best in YOUR endeavor!

Don’t forget to leave your comments and/or thoughts!

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