Showcase: Vegetarian Baby and Child

http://vegetarianbaby.com


About the Biz:
From vegbaby to veganteen, Vegetarian Baby & Child Online Magazine is the ultimate resource on veg parenting. Articles, Interviews, Recipes, Contests and more! Updated quarterly and 100 percent free content. Send us your healthy veggie kid story!

Price Range:
$5 to $20

Running the Business:
I started VBC as a print newsletter back in 1999, but with the demands of a homeschool family led me to switch to a fully online publication in 2003. I used to update twice monthly, but family comes first, so I've cut back to updating the site content about four times per year. I went from 40+ hours per week down to about five hours per week. Most of my time now is spent answering emails, editing articles, seeking out and managing product reviews and interviews, fielding advertising inquiries and updating the site. I have a part-time assistant, Lisa Steele, who is my devoted helper and who keeps me organized! I also manage Vegetarianteen.com Online Magazine in my "spare" time.


Meet the Family:
We are a family of four, including my husband, Paul, and daughters, Kalli and Mackie. We have lived overseas since 1994 moving from country to country with the Peace Corps. My husband works as a Peace Corps Medical Officer taking care of the volunteers. We've lived in Albania in Eastern Europe, Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, and Mongolia in northern Asia. We've been here in Mongolia since 2000. Our home in the US is Minnesota where we have a home in the country awaiting our return. We are devoted to consuming organic vegetarian food. I've also included a photo of our beautiful, organic garden. Courtesy of my husband's hard work each summer, we have a freezer full of greens for the winter.

Family Interests:
Kalli and I love the Internet and technology - for work, play, and study. We enjoy researching, creating websites, and experimenting with the newest gadgets. I am currently working on my masters in educational technology. We are also a family of avid readers. Paul and Mackie would be happy to live out in the garden. We have two cats, Stasey and Mayla, a hedgehog named Hermione (from Harry Potter), and a hamster, Pearl.

Contact Info:
Melanie Wilson
Email: melanie@vegetarianbaby.com
SKYPE: vegbaby

10 Work at Home Ideas for Both Introverts and Extroverts

Do you have an outgoing personality, or are you more on the shy and quiet side? For social butterfly moms, it’s hard to imagine sitting at home all day selling through the computer. On the other hand, if being in front of a crowd brings on an anxiety attack, you couldn’t possibly entertain the idea of organizing home parties. Luckily there are home based opportunities for both introverts and extroverts alike! Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Introverted WAHM ideas:

1. Administrative work: Home jobs are available for data entry, research, or customer support.
   
2. Website: Build your own website and either become a reseller or sell your own goods.
3. Blog: Start a professional blog and make money selling e-books, ad space, and through affiliate sales. Problogger is a very helpful resource to help you get started.
   
4. Auctions: Resell items or sell your home made items via online auctions.
5. Freelance work: If you have a skill, there's a good chance you'll be able to get freelance work. There are several sites where you can look for work. Just google "freelance work".
   

Extroverted WAHM ideas:

1. MLM: (Multi-Level Marketing) Avon, Mary Kay, Melaleuca, Usborne, AIM, Amazon Herbs, etc.
2. Childcare: Simple research will lead you to the steps needed to get licensed in your area.
3. Home parties: Tupperware, Party Lite, jewelry parties, etc.
4. Welcome wagon: Start your own welcome wagon service for your community.
5. Delivery service: Start a delivery service or errand running service.

Use your imagination...create your own work at home business. Follow your passion and find a way to make a living doing what you love!

Article: 13 Ways to Keep Kids Busy While You Work At Home

Being a work at home mom comes with plenty of "adorable" distractions. There are many ways to help keep your children entertained for a little while if you have to get some work done while they’re awake. These are some of the first ones I usually turn to after a simple “Go play for awhile” doesn’t quite work for them. I normally do most of my work while they are asleep at night, but sometimes I need to be on the computer for a little bit during the day. (If your children like background noise while they play, instead of turning on the T.V., play some music or books/stories on tape/CD. Our kids especially love the Growler series.)

1. Play dough or modeling clay. You can use the store bought kind or make your own with ordinary kitchen ingredients. You can even search online for edible play dough recipes so no one will poison themselves while you’re checking your email. Set the kids up at the kitchen table or smooth floor surface.

2. Free drawing/Card making. Set out a stack of paper (construction and/or plain white paper) and drawing supplies (pens, pencils, colored pencils, washable markers, crayons) and ask the kids to draw you some pictures. Or fold a piece of paper in half or quarters and have them make cards to send to the grandparents, or other relatives. Keep their artwork in a big binder so they can look at them easily whenever they like! (My kids each have a folder to keep their daily drawings in. We also have a huge binder, with three dividers tabbed with each child’s name. Once a week, we empty the folders, 3-hole punch the pages, and put them into the binder.)

3. Print out coloring pages. There are many free coloring page sites on the internet. Just ask your child what he wants to color and Google it. For example, today my daughter wanted to color a unicorn, so I typed into the search bar: "unicorn coloring page" (without the quotes) and got a bunch of sites. You can also search in Google Images, where you can view the coloring pages all on one page, which is more time-efficient, but you will get less results that way.

4. Word puzzles. You can buy books full of word puzzles for kids, or create your own (this requires time and effort ahead of time.) My kids always love doing the puzzles from our Literary Child magazine.

5. Jigsaw puzzles. If your kids enjoy cooperating, have them work on a puzzle together on the kitchen/bathroom floor (or if you have hardwood floors, anywhere!) Or set each child up with his own puzzle!

6. LEGOs. Or any other building block type toys. We have this awesome board that holds the LEGO creations in place. We also have two different sized LEGOs. The bigger ones are easier for toddlers to handle. The smaller ones allow more flexibility and creativity for the older kids. If they are bored, give them a theme to get them motivated. (Castles, neighborhoods, pirate ships, etc.)

Helpful LEGO tip: Before playing, lay a sheet down on the floor. Then when they are done, you can pick up the sheet, scooping up all the LEGO pieces together. This is much easier than picking them up one by one. And this way you won’t miss any and step on them later!

7. Lite Brite. This game always keeps them entertained for quite awhile. If you run out of black backgrounds, cut a square of black construction paper and use that instead. Have them create their own designs as they go. (See the helpful tip at the end of #6 above…this sheet idea works great for the tiny lite brite pieces as well!) We have the Lite Brite Cube, which has 4 sides, so up to 4 kids can work on their own design at the same time, it's great!

8. Scrapbooking. My kids (ages 6, 4 and 2) have their own “scrapbooks” that they work on. They are 3-ring binders with page protectors in them. When it’s time to “scrapbook”, we get out colored construction paper, white paper, crayons, colored pencils, markers, glue sticks, stickers, shaped hole punchers, photos, child safe scissors, etc. I also give them some family photos to use (ones that I don't mind being messed with or potentially ruined). They draw and cut and paste until they have a page or two done. The pages usually have to be left somewhere to dry for awhile before putting in the page protectors because the kids aren’t exactly meticulous with the glue. (Glue STICKS are highly recommended…I would not mess with the white liquid glue, especially if you’re going to be off on the computer or phone at the time. Glue sticks are much less messy!)

9. Silly songs and dancing. Put on some silly kid music and have the kids get some cardio in by dancing as silly as they can! We have some personalized music CDs (Veggie Tales) that use the kids’ names in each of the songs. They LOVE this! The only problem is that they’re always fighting over who gets to listen to their CD first!

10. Reading. If your kids are old enough to read on their own, ask them to pick out some reading material and read for a bit. Have an older child read to younger one(s).

11. Fold laundry! Yes, they actually love to do this! You may have to fold it all over again, but you would’ve had to fold it anyway. Don’t require them to do it “correctly”. You’re not trying to get a chore done; you’re trying to keep them entertained so you can work for a little while! Give them a huge pile or basket of clean, unfolded laundry. Have them pick out whatever clothes belong to them, and fold them. Matching socks is always fun too! Really!!

12. Play “Bag 15”. Now this really is a chore in disguise. We have a game we call Bag 15. This is the way we clean up sometimes. Everyone gets a plastic bag (from the grocery store…if you’re fancy, you can use nicer bags for the game). Have each child pick up 15 items that need to be put away (or less if they can’t yet count to 15, or if the room’s not that messy.) Once they’ve put 15 items in their bag, have them reach into their bag, and one by one put each item where it belongs. (Optional: Make it a race, and see who can do it the fastest.) Repeat as necessary!

13. DVD & Snack Combo. Yes, you can always just plop in a movie and give them a healthy snack and they’ll probably be content for awhile. Favorite movie snacks around here include fruit (fresh, frozen or dried), nuts, organic popcorn, and nut balls. (Quick recipe: Mix equal amounts of walnuts and raisins in a food processor until a sticky ball is made. Roll into bite size balls and chill for an hour. Keep in fridge until ready to serve.)

Home Biz Tools

Here are some handy tools to help with your home based business. I will only be listing links here that I have personally used (or use on a regular basis) and find very helpful. As I come across more, I will share them here!

HTML
HTML Lessons/Tutorials (Awesome & FREE!)
HTML Color Codes (by Webmonkey)

Free Fonts
1001Fonts
FontFreak

Stats/Counters
RetroStats (Free web stats with style!)
StatCounter (Free web stats, including "invisible" style)

Browsers
Mozilla Firefox (Everything looks better using Firefox...and you can't beat the features!)

Baby and Child Goodies

Literary Child A unique book club and innovative literary activity magazine for children!

Usborne Books at Home Educational books for children of all ages.