About Cool Mom Picks

We're just a few moms that track down cool stuff so you can stay busy being fabulous. We know cool stuff doesn't make the mom, but it certainly helps make life a little better.

Our focus is non-mainstream products and services, particularly those from indie or emerging designers and mom/women-run companies. We believe you can stay true to your dazzling design sensibilities and still support an entrepreneur, especially one trying to support her family through her work.

Our writers also look for helpful websites, cool causes, fabulous nursery art, battery-free toys, kid tunes that don't make you run screaming from the room, and pretty much anything else that strikes our fancy. If it’s something we would like ourselves and the website doesn’t scar your retinas, it’s a pick.

While we may be fascinated by that $19,000 Victorian mansion playhouse, don’t count on finding it in our archives. We're moms too. We get the budget thing. That said, some of the things we feature do cost more than your average big box store bargain bin items. You pay a premium for quality items not made by 6 year olds in sweatshops. We're all about promoting more responsible consumerism - buy things you truly adore that will last, and just own fewer of them.

And of course we're very focused on safer playthings for the offspring. Is there any parent who isn't?

If you have an idea or own a company yourself, feel free to send it to us at info[at]coolmompicks.com. You can find more info on submissions here.

We aren’t compensated for our reviews, nor do we get any sort of commissions if you click through--except in our emporium, in which we partner with sites we love and admire to bring you exclusive deals and discounts.

Who Are The Moms Behind The Picks?

Kristen Chase, Co-Founder & Editor, is currently residing in Atlanta. By way of Philly. By way of Mississippi. In her former life she was a published textbook author, musician, college professor and designer shoe glutton, all of which she’s traded for a satisfying new position as military wife and stay-at-home-parent. What she has not given up, however, is excellent taste, a sense of humor and her fondness for a perfect martini. Kristen tries to stay as cool as possible (in all senses of word) while parenting her daughter, Quinlan and her son, Drew.

Liz Gumbinner, Co-Founder & Editor, is a born and bred New Yorker but without the accent. She’s had a successful career as a creative director in the Prada-mandatory world of advertising, has helped found a grassroots organization that assists Bosnian refugee children, writes some parenting columns here and there, and is the co-author of Booty Food (Bloomsbury USA), a humorous relationship guide and cookbook. Liz is equally at home in the boutiques of Fifth Avenue and the aisles of Target, but can most often be spotted around her Brooklyn neighborhood with the love of her life and their two daughters, trying to coax their stubborn English Bulldog across the street.


Kristen and Liz have been featured in both local and national media discussing marketing trends geared towards mothers, safer toys, organic/green products for parents, mom-run businesses, online shopping, and parenting blogs. They're happy to talk to you too! Really, they're very nice. Occasionally funny. info[at]coolmompicks.com will do the trick.


Contributors

Associate editor Julie is the mother of two girls with a boy on the way, living and writing in the wild, wild west. She's the modern reincarnation of a 1950's mom, advocating a return to the lost arts of embroidery, baking, handwritten thank you notes, and turning the cell phone off during dinner. She also likes rap music.

Nancy is the resident Practical Mom at CMP. By day she produces top secret documents for the feds in DC (at least that's how we like to see her job); by night she tracks down the finds that make your life a little easier. Nancy greatly enjoys breakfast foods, fine art and NHL hockey. Occasionally at the same time.

Laura is the mom of a little Hurricane, a VP at an ad agency, and the wife of an extremely lucky dude. Despite the fact that Laura was raised in Austin and surrounding ranches, she's scared of guns and cows. Consequently, she moved to the city, where she currently consumes silly amounts of British music, design magazines, and carbs. She also walks ten blocks to work in platform heels almost every day; she's brave like that.

Mir is fairly certain she's not cool, but as the author of one of the most widely-read parenting blogs on the web, the CMP editors have assured her she is. She spends her days riding herd on her son and daughter, marveling at the fact that people pay her to write stuff, and sneaking flax seed meal into everything she bakes. Mir is trying to restore global balance through support for do-good organizations (including years spent volunteering and fundraising for Big Brothers/Big Sisters), attempts to eat local and organic, and more mindful consumerism. And ice cream.

Tina is the first-time newbie mom of team CMP and is that rare woman who actually enjoyed maternity fashion. She somehow managed to wend her way from adolescent punk rocker to a respected career in child development, to her own business combining art and child psychology. And yet she still finds time to hone her knowledge of hip kids music. Tina loves to bowl. And she loves shoes. But she does not necessarily love bowling shoes.

It's not surprising that Rita has a thing for great children's books, having earned a Masters in Fiction a full decade after her parents begged her not to study English in the first place. (It's finally paying off as she just scored her first publishing deal - ironically, in nonfiction.) Rita has one child, one husband, one cat, one house in Kansas City and she likes it that way. She's got a thing for spicy foods so hot they bite back, and with flat feet, she is (reluctantly) permitted to be the lone shoe-hater on the CMP staff.