blue dominoes Safe Art Finger Paint Review (and Giveaway!)

I am so UNBELIEVABLY excited about this!!! A while back I had the opportunity to try out blue dominoes Safe Art Activity Dough which is not only gluten-free, but is also free of the top 8 allergens, including wheat and soy! We loved the play dough, especially Sam, who built a whole battle scene with the dough (he is very big on battles!).

What I really appreciate, especially as the mother of a child with celiac disease (oh okay, it also eases the paranoia due to my new obsession with ingredient labels and “Frankenfood” Documentaries! 😀 ) is that blue dominoes puts all of the ingredients they use right on the label! They give me the facts straight up so I can make my own decision on whether or not to use the product. It is frustrating as all get-out to try and get art supply ingredients from other companies. I have made a new pledge to myself to support companies that make my life easier! 😉

Filtered Water, Organic Gluten-Free Flour, non-GMO cornstarch, Organic Oil, Citric Acid and Natural Colors. I love this: "For Playing, Not Eating," too bad Luke can't read. 🙂

Blue Dominoes Safe Art also takes it a step further by telling me what is NOT in their products too, (which is exceptionally important to me considering a good portion of it will undoubtedly end up in Luke’s mouth!) :

Finger Paints are made with all Natural Ingredients that are free of Lead, Heavy Metals, Bromine, Toluene and Bisphenol-A

Green from start to finish:  Eco-friendly, BPA 
and phthalate free packaging

What the heck is a phthalate???

And BPA?? (I remember when I first heard about this and Luke was still on a bottle, an Avent bottle to be specific, which contained BPA at the time. It is a real @!%?! to get a baby to change bottles!! Just a quick FYI: I got the following off the Phillips website:

The Philips AVENT Airflex reusable bottle is made from polycarbonate and therefore contains BPA. This product is no longer sold in the United States and Canada. Philips offers two BPA-free reusable bottles in its Infant Feeding line.

I received the following press release and a complimentary sample of the new finger paints from Debbie Lindgren, one of the co-founders of blue dominoes, (BTW, I highly recommend reading how the name blue dominoes came to be. I am 110% in agreement with their philosophy, in fact, it is the same approach I take with my own blog. I want to highlight the key points that reflect my personal views as well because I could not have said it better myself! 😀 ) :

We incorporated the word dominoes to demonstrate how unique each of our paths to healing is and what works for one person may not work for another.

Further, some people even stack dominoes in a line and then knock the first domino over and watch the rest of the dominoes fall into place. This is also the mindset behind using the word dominoes because often times getting on the right path and seeing the domino effect leads us to breaking down those barriers; just as the initial domino caused the momentum to keep going and extend to the other domino blocks.

Okay, so I am no artist. This is *supposed* to be a NO "wheat" sign! The inner scribble sort of resembles a blade of wheat right? Just a little??

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TAKE MATTERS INTO YOUR OWN HANDS!
ECO-FRIENDLY, GLUTEN-FREE, ALL-NATURAL FINGER PAINTS ARE HERE!

No harmful chemicals, free of the eight most common allergens and thoroughly tested – perfect for all the little children in your life!

January 11, 2010 – San Diego, CA –  Finger painting is a wonderful and therapeutic way for people, particularly children to express themselves and have fun. However, if children are sensitive to the ingredients being used in some finger paints such as: gluten, wheat, toluene, synthetic chemicals and dyes – they cannot participate in the activity and that is NOT fun.

Bluedominoes Safe Art™ Finger Paints are made from food grade ingredients, free of the eight most common allergens including gluten, wheat
and soy, made with all natural colors, laboratory-tested to be free of heavy metals such as lead, mercury and arsenic and is free of chemicals
such as toluene. In addition, the Finger Paints have been certified by the Celiac Sprue Association and accepted by the Feingold association assuring the products are free of gluten and do not use artificial colors.

Debbie Lindgren and Linda Manaster founded bluedominoes after Lindgren’s younger son reacted to art supplies being used in his Kindergarten class.  “His teacher realized he reacted to art supplies with yellow and red pigments particularly modeling products and paints.  We together took steps to make his environment and those of the other children in the classroom safer by identifying and providing alternative options,” states Lindgren, who brought in her own formulations for the classroom.  Lindgren and Manaster eventually assembled an expert team who aid in the identification of ingredients and product development.  The team previously developed Safe Art™ Activity Dough, which was recognized in Dr. Toy’s Best Picks Children’s Products – 2009, and was selected as Most Innovative Product by the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

“Since children are tempted to taste art supply products, we felt it was necessary to use food grade ingredients in our art supply products aimed at younger children.  In addition, toxins such as toluene and lead are both absorbed through the skin as well as through ingestion, so we took steps to use ingredients that do not contain these substances and to have our products independently tested by highly respected U.S. laboratories.”  Though not legally required, bluedominoes lists all of its Safe Art™ Finger Paints ingredients on the package.

By complying with rigorous standards, bluedominoes Safe Art™ products are the first to receive certification from the Celiac Sprue Association and acceptance by the Feingold Association. Bluedominoes has a complete line of Safe Art™ products in the pipeline, and the company is committed to the same level of purity, safety and integrity for all of its products. All bluedominoes Safe Art™ products are developed in San Diego, and all of its patent-pending formulas are manufactured in the USA.  Products can be ordered by visiting www.bluedominoes.com.

About bluedominoes, inc:  bluedominoes, with its highly informative website and safe children’s art supply products, is the go-to resource for parents and teachers to keep their children safe and the Safe Art™ brand manufacturer that parents and teachers trust. For more information about bluedominoes green children’s art supplies, including our award-winning Safe Art™ Activity Dough and trusted resources to keep your family safe, visit www.bluedominoes.com.

bluedominoes, inc.  PO Box 3559, Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067

Toll-Free 858.759.7435 www.bluedominoes.com

Now for the fun!

blue dominoes Safe Art Finger Paint Giveaway

Debbie has graciously offered to giveaway (one) 4-pack of finger paints to one of my fabulous readers! WOO-HOO!

**In order to be eligible for the giveaway you are going to have to do a few small things (it will be painless, I promise!):

First, (so I can keep track of the entries and get to know you a bit in the process 😉 ):

Leave a comment to this post telling me what it means to you to know there is a company out there like blue dominoes making Safe Art supplies like finger paints (and play dough) for our kiddos AND volunteering to put the ingredients right on the package label. (My hope is that maybe other art supply companies will read this, read our thoughts on the subject and follow blue dominoes lead by making their ingredients available on their product labels!).

Second, do at least one (or all!) of the following three things (fellow bloggers, please see below):

• If you have a Twitter account, sign-up to follow @bluedominoes (you can follow me too if you want! @adventuresgfmom). Once you start following @bluedominoes, “tweet” about this contest and include a link to this post in your tweet (I highly recommend using Tinyurl). Be sure to include @bluedominoes and @adventuresgfmom in your tweet. Please include any hashtags to community groups you participate in, like #GF, etc.

and/or

• In case you are a Twitter holdout (like I was up until a couple of months ago), you can become a “fan” of blue dominoes Safe Art Supplies on Facebook. Please send me an email at heidikelly13@gmail.com once you have done this.

and/or

• If you do not use Twitter or Facebook, you can subscribe to the bluedominoes ENewletter (upper right corner of their web page). I signed up, and have found it to be a great source of information regarding things like What’s In Your School’s Cleaning Supplies? and Artificial Food and Cosmetic Coloring – A Hidden Source of Toxic Metals (Which reminds me, I need to start trying out natural food colorings, or better yet, learn how to make my own, since I go through such a large volume during my cake decorating courses… and I have one beginning in a couple of weeks! Any suggestions??). Please send me an email at heidikelly13@gmail.com once you have done this.

For bloggers...

There is a teeny tiny little extra in order for you to enter:

Please mention this giveaway (and include a link to this post) in one of your blog posts (thank you kindly). 😀

You have until 5pm Pacific time (8pm Eastern) this coming Friday, January, 29, 2010 to enter. I will then use a Random Number Generator to “pick” the winner. Your comment’s place in line will be your number; for example: if you are the third comment, your number is 3. I will do a post Friday evening announcing the winner. You will need to send me an email with your mailing address by Sunday evening (1/31/10) or I will pick a new winner on Monday, February 1, 2010.

One entry per person please.

blue dominoes is also going to offer a 10% discount on all first time orders until February 28, 2010. Use the coupon code GFMOM at checkout.