Sep
19
For the last couple of months I’ve been doing some community management work for Cherokee USA, which is a fancy way of saying I’m in charge of the stuff that appears on their Facebook page. For all my complaining about Facebook (seriously, would it KILL them to add an edit function? Does this not exist because of the fear that someone will post “I LOVE puppies, don’t you?” and 10,000 likes later, swap out puppies for “child pornography”? Because okay, that WOULD be sort of funny, not that there’s anything funny about—anyway, all I’m saying is I hate that I can’t fix a typo without deleting the whole thing and starting over), I’ve really been enjoying the gig. I’m basically just there to try and make the page a non-sucky place for parents to visit, so it’s pretty low-key and conversational—much more fun than the sort of corporate brand-bot weirdness where the writer attempts to pretend they actually ARE the product, not that I’m pointing fingers, BIZARRO-LAND MIRACLE WHIP TWITTER ACCOUNT.
Cherokee and Cozi have teamed up to offer up some Target gift cards to blog readers, and today I’m jumping on the giveaway bandwagon. I’ll get to that part in a minute, but just so everything’s all up front and tidy: not only is this a sponsored post, it’s sponsored by a client of mine. I’m just saying, if I was selling out any harder right now I’d have to launch an eponymously-named fragrance.
The general topic for the giveaway is back to school clothes—specifically, first day of school outfits, and how parents choose to capture the moment. This isn’t a subject I’m much of an expert on, frankly. On Riley’s first day I mostly looked for an outfit that wasn’t wrinkled or stained, and while I’ve seen plenty of inspiration for first day of school photos, I sort of phoned it in with a last-minute printed speech bubble:
So I didn’t exactly knock it out of the park creativity-wise for his first day photo, but I think I’ll try this idea from Kim (aka Miss Zoot): I’ll take the exact same photo—same outfit and all—on his last day, too. Check out how Kim’s first day/last day photo of her daughter turned out:
Cool, right? I would love to have a photo like that to see how Riley changed over the year.
I’m not super fussy about what he wears to school, but I do set out Riley’s outfit the night before. It makes things easier in the mornings, and also ensures that he’s not heading out the door in a pair of swim shorts with a Spiderman pajama top. My standards may be low, but they do exist.
Here’s my question for you, if you’ve got an opinion on the subject: what do you care about more, your kid’s outfit for the first day of school, or their first school picture day? I see by our calendar that our picture day is on October 21st, and I suspect I’ll be in a tizzy the night before trying to find a photogenic outfit for his FIRST PICTURE DAY OMG. Hopefully they have a different backdrop than the Infamous PenisTurtle Theme of ’07.
And with that unsavory image, on to the giveaway! The prize is a $100 gift card for Target, which you can of course use to buy a stack of new Cherokee clothes—or, you know, whatever else captures your fancy. To enter, leave a comment on this post (any comment will do, just be sure and include your email address). Contest ends . . . let’s say Wednesday morning, okay? Two days from now on the 21st.
Good luck!
PS: there’s another big giveaway going on where you can win a $1000 shopping spree from Cherokee and a $300 smart phone from Cozi. Contest info is here.
PS part deux: if you’re a Facebook user, I’d be super honored if you would visit Cherokee’s page and maybe even hit that Like button—only if you want to! No pressure!—if you’d like to see my updates appear in your, uh, stream-hole.
*** Contest now closed, winner to be announced soon ***
Comments
-
My product review site:
[
Picture day over first day. Although I’ll let my 5-year-old pick her own outfit for both days. I might hide the favorite dress that I don’t like in the laundry the night before picture day… but beyond that, she can totally pick her own outfit. Anyway, I go for realism in our photos. (I might still be scarred from my 6th grade photo day, where I fought my mother mightily to let me pick my own outfit, and she finally agreed and let me go in my Panama Jack sleeveless tshirt over popped-collar striped shirt, with twist-a-beads to match. I don’t know, it was 1985. I KNEW I looked cool. Then when I got to school my teacher asked me if I’d forgotten that it was picture day. Niiiice.)
Ooh pick me! Pick me! New.Michelle@gmail.com
Definetly the first picture day. That photo will always be around to be looked at. No one remembers what they wore on the the first day of school.
I worry more about 1st day. I don’t know why?!
First picture day because there will be evidence and those class photos never go away!
I hadn’t even started worrying about this yet, but now I certainly will. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
My son wears a uniform. Everyday. He’s not very flexible, so even when they have out of uniform days, he usually wears his uniform. So I have a variety of first day of school pictures AND school pictures with him wearing kakhi colored pants and a hunter green polo shirt. I’ve just learned to go with it.
I picked out a really cute outfit for Lilia’s first day. She chose to wear an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt with ballet accessories on it, even though she does not dance. She did want to dress up for picture day, though. I’m kind of dying to see the results. She always poses goofily.
I can’t believe that picture of Riley is 4 years old. It still cracks me up.
Mostly I want them in clean and matching clothes – and hopefully something new, but that’s not always possible. kshaddix@hotmail.com
My kid is only 17 months, so I haven’t experienced these specific events yet (altho he just started a new daycare and I did take a little extra care with his 1st day outfit), but I will mostly likely over-worry about both 1st day, on which I will definitely take a picture, *and* picture day. Who am I kidding — I over-worry about every “first” outfit. ;)
I care more about the pictures. Honestly, I think I only took a picture on the first day of kindergarten. I see all these great ideas for first day pictures (or the first/last day idea) and I’m pretty annoyed with myself.
I like the first day/last day idea!
Love the website. For my daughter’s first day of kindergarten, she picked out the outfit, but because she has to wear a uniform her choices were limited – white or blue polo shirt? (and they were both Cherokee clothes)
Both! The funny thing is both of my boys wore the same exact clothes for the first day of school and 2 weeks later for the photo day.
My kids are both in Middle School (6th & 7th Grade), but any clothing purchasing help is always awesome! They both like to pick their own clothes out these days and usually they do a pretty good job. Our school tends to do gray backgrounds, so anything usually goes!
My daughter needs to change outfits 15 times no matter how much planning we do, so we’ve made a 3-change-max rule (in addition to a no-pajamas-at-school rule) and encourage her to pick for herself, which she loves.
That first day/last day idea is adorable. Of course, now I feel like the ship has sailed since my kid is in third grade this year. Ah, well. My youngest hasn’t started school yet. I’ll use her for a do-over.
I put minimal energy into first day of school outfit…I did make sure it was one of his favorite shirts and comfy pants (read: no scratchy jeans, MOM) but that was about it. I set it out the night before because wow, mornings are one huge effin’ tornado around here. As for his school picture I will let him wear whatever he wants, his favorite shirt is fine because I’m much more interested in the memory of what he was into than of the perfect outfit picture…that he hates to wear. And wow, it’s been awhile since we’ve seen that penis turtle picture holy heck!
Picture day…the photography group at my childern’s school only gets the top part of the child. It is hard to have a cute outfit from the neck up.
Our school pictures only show the top inch or two of whatever shirt they’re wearing, so I don’t put a whole lot of thought into those outfits beyond “not too busy.” First day of school, I take my own pics, so I put slightly more thought into those outfits. But either way, it’s not something I generally worry too much about (which is a switch for me; I worry about everything else, I suppose!)
My boys have picture day next week!
Love the kindergarten speech bubble! My little girl is almost exactly a year younger than Riley, so we will be trying some of these ideas then… :)
And I do love me some Tar-jay!
I let them wear whatever they want for the first day of school. School pictures are the ones I really put the planning into.
I always try and sneeze right when they take the picture… Ah Ah Ah CHO!
Around here, both are important! However, with girls, I find that HAIR is more important on picture day…we go all out with braids and fancy bows!
My daughter has just outgrown all the hand-me-downs from my nieces… I would LOVE $100 to spend at Target!
Picture day totally. My husband mocks me since I try to find the best shirt to bring out my son’s blue eyes.
Still snorting about the PenisTurtle! And hey, I’d love a Target gift card!
sarahviz(at)yahoo(dot)com
This year I was more concerned about the first day…but it was the first day of kindergarten and will most cetainly be more burned into my daughter’s memory (and mine) than her first picture day. I let her pick an outfit she was excited about wearing to help ease the transition.
Definitely focus more on the picture day outfits! They can wear whatever they want on the first day of school, but mom gets to pick on picture day!
Our school pictures are so predictably awful, that I don’t really care too much about what the kids wear. I try to get them in a shirt with a collar and that’s about it. Every year I gripe about the school pictures, same method as when I was in school: pay in advance before you see the pictures. The kids preschool was so much better. They would take the pics and send home a proof sheet and you could choose. They would also take pics of siblings together. Some of the best pictures we have. But the old public school photos we get at their school are the pits.
My vote: I try to get a cute picture on the first day of school. My boys pick out their own clothes. Sometimes I’ll suggest that they may want to choose a different shirt to go with those shorts, but they never take my advice and go change. Oh well.
I got the Kindy school picture photo thing this week, and I am already trying to figure out how to talk him out of the ratty Star Wars t-shirt. On the other hand, that’s just so him. But really it’s that K picture that follows you. It goes in your file, it’s everywhere!
My girl isn’t quite school age yet, but I know that by the time she is, I’ll be taking about a trillion photos of her before school, no matter what she’s wearing!
I don’t have kids but I LOVE Target so I’m hoping to win.
Well we are part of a virtual school, so no picture day for us here. But I have done first day of school type pictures, with information for his teachers. I look forward to having a whole collection of them when he graduates from high school.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crumleydotorg/6067575558/in/photostream/
Ah, that turtle picture cracks me up every time!
School photo day, because the photo goes on his school ID card. Invariably, he freezes in some unnatural expression. Ah, autism. The retake generally comes out better (you didn’t think I was gonna PAY for those horrible photos, did you??), but the school never puts the retake on the school ID or in the collage of the class photos, so I’m stuck with the photo of kiddo with the frozen grimace all year. I wrote a note to the aide to PLEASE help him obtain a natural expression this year. You’d think the photographer could do that. And we bought the shirt for this year’s school photo AT Target, so that means you should definitely pick me suemorgannanamama@gmail.com !!!!!
I also love the 1st day of school photos, and must say they are equally important as the official school day photos.
But what I was not prepared for was a *Spring* official photo day too! They had it on the schedule and I just assumed it was just for kids that missed it in the fall. Nope, it was for all kids and just trying to get more $$ from us. And let me tell you, those pictures were AWFUL. Absolutely no planning at all and I don’t think I could have had my child looking worse for pictures if I tried!
love the idea of first & last day of school pics…we’ve just done first
I’m curious of this is open to Canadian residents as well? There are over 200 comments..I’m not about to read everyone :S
We have Cherokee at Zellers in Canada, and I have to say I have loved the brand since I was 10! (Ok, so not THAT long ago{13years} ..but for me it feels like a while) so I would LOVE the gift card! (We’ll be getting a Target in the next year or so
I love the idea of first/last day pictures. It’s amazing how much they change in a year!
to be honest, i didn’t care much what she wore on the first day or on picture day (today). I am more focused on her being happy and moving in the morning (as in, getting out of the house in time to catch the bus). If I cared more she probably wouldn’t be wearing a yankee cheerleader uniform for the first day of school – but it wouldn’t have been worth the fight.
I have my first back to school pictures on the 19th for my own Riley (a girl!) I haven’t picked out an outfit and would love to get something suitably new and adorable from Target Cherokee.
First day photo was huge…school photo not so much..my kids didn’t take the best school photos. I always preferred the ones I took. Thanks for the contest
Oh, good God, woman, I’ll never get that card. Oh, well. I *used* to do the first day of school pic, but this year–girl is in fourth grade–it fell by the wayside. I’m more interested in school photo day looks, frankly. But even so, at this point in time, the girl has definite ideas of what she wants to wear, so I just nod, smile, say “Yes’m”, and if she tries a midriff or something that has lots of holes in it, I nix it, she bitches, I bitch, and then we work it out. :D
Picture day is a mech bigger deal. You know those will be looked at in yearbooks by tons of people and it would SUCK if you were the one wearing the rediculous looking shirt with flowers and turtles and airplanes all in one:)
I’ve always taken just a generic first day of school picture with my daughter. With her backpack. But, I still make her, even though she’s 13!
Probably 1st day of school clothes. I don’t like posed pictures that much, I’m much more into candid, so I really do despise school photos. I know I’m going to get a dorky smile or no smile in that school photo, last years looked like a mug shot, a cute mug shot, but you know what I mean. If I can get my kiddo out the door with clean clothes on and w/out a fight over what shirt he’s wearing and it wasn’t what he wore the previous day, I call it a victory! :)
I don’t actually plan on ever buying photos from picture day. They’re SO BAD.
We homeschool, so there isn’t really all that much to-do over the first day of school outfit. But I would very much like some Target bucks.