Female friendships. Aren’t they the most complicated, wonderful, confusing things around? Most women have a collection of friends that vary from being supportive and fabulous to vindictive and negative. So how do you get true friends who will lift you up and treat you well?

In her book Toxic Friends, Susan Shapiro Barash seeks to answer that question. She starts by identifying ten different types of female friends. In addition, she provides some detail on her website as to how she did research, why she decided to write the book, and even offers a quiz that …read more

I’m all for something that can lift us up. If a book or action can have us behave and think more positively, hey, why not? So that’s why I was particularly happy to read Think Confident, Be Confident by Leslie Sokol and Marci Fox.

For those that have read “self help” books before, you’ll find more of the same motivating speech in this book. Where the book differs, however, is in a 4-step approach to conquering doubt. They take you through a series of steps (Label It, Question It, Rethink It, and Take Action.) …read more

I’m really excited about this sweet little giveaway. Perhaps that’s because I baked some cookies from the book today!
Cookie Craft Christmas by Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer contains many new Christmas cookie designs and some festive New Year’s cookies too. It’s 169 pages of inspiration, instruction and full-page, close-up photographs.

The book gives you three basic cookie recipes: rolled sugar cookies, rolled chocolate cookies and rolled gingerbread cookies with tips on using cookie slats for uniform thickness. Some of the tips offered are simple, like putting food coloring in sugar cookie dough or more complex, like flooding and piping royal icing. …read more

We’re having a giveaway! I’m super excited about this giveaway for all the little girls out there (and Christmas is coming up quick, this prize would make a great gift for the little girl on your Christmas list). We’re giving away an Agile myWallaby Doll Carrier.

I wrote last week about the new book “The Safe Dog Handbook” by Melanie Monteiro. Melanie was inspired to write the book after her own puppy was nearly poisoned.
The spiral-bound book covers pretty much everything you can imagine when it comes to the safety of your pup, including foods and plants that are not okay for dogs, and tips on keeping your home dog-proofed and safe.

I’ve got one copy of The Safe Dog Handbook give away to one lucky winner!
To Enter:
~ To enter, leave a comment here telling me what you’ve done to keep your own dog safe — whether …read more

Earlier I said I had a giveaway for from Ford Warriors in Pink and Martha Stewart Living, to commemorate the special episode of Martha Stewart airing today, October 16, 2009.  Now I have all the juicy details for the giveaway we’re holding here at She Knows Parties. The giveaway will include a gift basket with the Symbols of the Warrior Stamping Kit (pictured above), various items from the Ford Warriors in Pink apparel line.

Holiday entertaining can be easy with Sterno’s new full- and half-size buffet kits that come with everything needed to conveniently warm and serve food, allowing you more time to mingle with guests.

The buffet kits, which can be used indoors or out, include a newly designed folding rack for easy storage, standard-size pans so the rack can be reused, and a water pan to keep food temperatures and textures uniform. Each kit also comes with Sterno’s patented gel fuel, a safe and reliable heating solution.
And Sterno is giving away 10 full-size buffet kits to Blisstree readers!
Sterno’s half-size buffet kit …read more

STEPMONSTER: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do, by Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., offers a realistic and new way of looking at women in relationships with men who have children.
STEPMONSTER explores stepfamily life from the stepmother’s point of view. Instead of focusing solely on how new martial partnerships affect children, the book asks how remarriage with children will affect the stepmonther — psychologically, socially and economically.

Martin uses on her own experience as a stepmother, and she interviews other stepmothers and stepchildren. The author also offers insights from anthropology, literary criticism, psychology …read more