Let's talk reviews

If I added all the reviews I have done over the past few months (I have been doing DVD reviews for kids for a longer time) we would literally be talking thousands of dollars, that is how much Estimated Retail Value of the free stuff I am getting is adding up to.  I really kind of just fell into it, I saw a post on NCircle that they were looking for Mom's to review kids DVD's and I responded, then i started getting a free kids DVD once a month.

When I started to follow Coupon Clipinista I noticed all the talk about reviews and getting stuff free in the mail and needing Amazon Prime.  It's all mostly true.  I belong to two review sites, because those are the ones that work for me, and I also am a member of several exclusive type sites that you have to work a little harder at but that get you really nice big stuff to review.  For example here are a few of the big things I have gotten:

$200 Star Wars Toy
$80 Elmo Toy
$800 Vacumn Cleaner
$100 Soda Stream
$300 Bullet type blender
thousands of dollars in small items
hundreds of dollars worth of beauty supplies

the list goes on.

These are the two I use daily:

AMZ Review Trader (You really need to have prime to save on shipping, you also need to have a good Amazon reviewer score, you should be posting pictures and videos whenever possible to get picked for the types of things you want)

iLovetoReview  (They randomly email you when free items become available, you need o be super quick on responding to that email)

These are the sites you can sign up for and they require you to really work at getting chosen, but they can pay off big:

House Party (awesome free stuff, you need to complete tasks and usually email 10 friends to sign up for your "party" within an hour of an acceptance email)

BzzAgent (Great free stuff to try, sometimes big, sometimes small, the better your score the more you get picked, your score determined by your participation in missions)

Smiley 360 (test out free stuff and share with the world, just complete missions and get picked for more stuff)

CrowdTap (take mini polls and earn entries into monthly gift card giveaways, also partake in missions to get samples of toys and items)

So that's about it, you could also work directly with brands, I have been a brand ambassador for NCircle, Fabreeze, Snuggle, and more.

Win #301

I do tons of reviews and it isn't everyday you get to review something that you truly LOVE and know like crap tons about.  Sorry, I am not wordsmithing like I would like to be today.  Thanks to BzzAgent I received a new Star Wars toy that costs over $200 to review.  Not only do I love Star Wars more than life itself but I also used to work for a toy company that made Star Wars Toys and I also wrote their Star Wars blog.  This wound up being the perfect review gig for me and I am chalking it up as a HUGE win!  I finished all my reviews but here is what I had to say, in case anyone cared:

I am a long time Star Wars Toy Collector, I even worked for the Lucas License designing action figure packaging many years ago. I think of myself as both a Star Wars Expert and also a Toy expert, I am also a mom to a six and four year old who share my love of both. The Star Wars Jedi Master Yoda is impressive, I know what it takes to create a toy like this and the amount of time that goes into it, im sure this was years in the making. He is a great size, he’s about quarter scale to what I imagine he would be in real life, his skin and eyes are lifelike and akin to an animatronic that would be movie/television quality. I love and appreciate his facial expressions and the movements you get in his eyes and mouth.
His clothing and accessories are realistic and true to the movie, my kids enjoyed putting his hood up and down and playing with his cane and lightsaber. His sound quality is amazing, the voice projects and sounds clear. His voice recognition system is great, he even understood both my kids who have terrible childhood lispy accents. We have the R2D2 with voice recognition and they get very frustrated with him. I would say he is more for older children given the amount of skill in using the key words to interact with him and also the importance of placing his accessories in his hands without damaging the connections.
His light saber skills are awesome, he really moves in 360 degrees, he swings his saber around and the noises he makes crack the kids up, it’s as lifelike as you can get with a toy. I enjoyed all three modes of his phrases and interaction, one is force training, the other is lightsaber, and then wisdom mode (use the cane). Out of all three modes the lightsaber Jedi training mode was the most fun, watching him dance around is delightful. My children enjoyed the force mode because you can actually put your hand up and he will walk backwards as if you are using a force push on him. In all the modes you can ask Yoda yes or no questions and he will answer you, this was a huge hit with me, my husband and our kids, we are all apparently going to be rich and famous someday, according to Yoda.
There are a few things I was displeased with. Our lightsaber did not function correctly for about the first 15 minutes of play, I really thought I was going to have to return it, then all of a sudden it started working. Because it didn’t work at first I reverted to the instructions for help and there is no trouble shooting whatsoever. The instruction manual left a lot to be desired, I would have like maybe a nice color trifold that really got in depth explaining what he can do. He also take 6 C batteries which are not included, so be prepared to drop about $20 every time you want to replace his batteries. I also got a lot of repetitive answers from him, I know I have to interact more and then he should up his game, but I hated hearing him say the same thing several times in the first 5 minutes of play.
In conclusion my whole family loves this toy, it will be a hit at Christmas for anyone who purchases him and saves him that long! I think he’s a great addition to any Star Wars collection and a must have for the serious collector.