Our Favorite Resources – Best Products & Services!

Below are a few of our favorite things and services that we use frequently. We highly recommend them!

*Some links below are affiliate links. When you click on them, there is no additional cost to you, but we may receive a small commission of any sales that are made through the links. If you’re going to purchase these things anyway, we appreciate you doing it here! 🙂 

Our Gear

Here are the products we use to shoot our vlogs and take pictures!

  • Canon EOS M6 Mirrorless Camera – We love the many features and easy portability of this camera for vlogging. We started with the Canon G7X Mark II (another great camera), but decided to upgrade to this one for a few reasons. You can see Laci’s video review of the M6 HERE for details. 
  •  Fotopro Flexible Monopod – This is a neat bendable tripod/selfie stick/monopod that’s very versatile. You can wrap the grippy legs around objects to hold your camera in non-stable areas, and use the adapters to record with your smartphone or hold extra accessories like a light. It even comes with a bluetooth remote! It’s a must for travel vlogging. We like to put the camera on the lowest mount, hold the mini tripod legs in one hand and bend the long arm around to make a second handle to help keep things extra steady. It works well! 
  • Rode Videomicro Mic – A great little compact microphone that plugs directly into cameras with a mic input. It comes with a wind filter and mount. It allows you to capture great sound on the go, without adding a ton of bulk.

Business Resources

Things that make our jobs a lot easier, or that we hope will benefit your own businesses!

  • Laci’s “Breaking Into Voiceovers” course at Udemy – Laci gets asked all the time about how to become a voice actor, so she built a video course explaining just that over at Udemy.com. If you’ve ever secretly dreamed of being in a cartoon, or you just want to improve your narrations in your videos and presentations, it might be a fun class to take! Udemy also holds a TON of other courses for just about every subject you could ever want to learn about, so it’s fun to browse.
  •  Blogging Courses at It’s A Lovely Life – If you’ve ever dreamed about starting a blog of your own, or getting sponsored opportunities, Heather and Pete Reese are the gurus you should be studying! We’ve learned SO much from them about the do’s and don’ts of travel blogging and how to create an income from a blog. We highly recommend these courses!
  • Freshbooks Accounting System – When Laci started freelancing back in 2008, she quickly learned that she needed a way to manage her billing and expenses. Freshbooks has been her trusted partner for many years. It is easy to use and customize, has a great system for storing clients and contacts, plus clients love the options for quick and hassle-free payment! Freshbooks also makes tax time very simple, with their reporting system. 
  • Box – This is a wonderful file management system. We use it to instantly transfer all the photos off of our phone and upload them to the cloud, where they’re easy to send and download later.
  • More Coming Soon!

Stuff We Use...A Lot.

Random things that make our life better.

  • Misto Olive Oil Sprayer –  We use this just about EVERY DAY when we cook. Makes greasing a pan or adding oil to vegetables super easy, without all the icky aerosol chemicals.
  • The Lillebaby baby carrier – Both Brendan and Toby LIVED in this thing. It is the comfiest, most easily adjustable baby carrier we tried, and has made attending events and going to theme parks SO easy. We joke that it has magic sleepy dust inside it, too. 🙂 Read our post all about why we love the Lillebaby HERE. 
  • The Ebates browser toolbar. –
    Ebates Coupons and Cash Back
    If you don’t have this installed in your web browser, you are MISSING OUT. This handy little feature notifies you if a site you’re shopping on has any coupon codes, and they are partnered with most businesses to give you a percentage of cash back when you make a purchase. At no cost to you! It is super helpful when we make large purchases especially, like tech items or hotel stays. It’s really nice to get a check in the mail for something I would have done anyway!
  • More Coming Soon!

Educational Resources

Kid-approved learning tools! These are some of our boys’ favorites.

  • ABC Mouse –  Both my kids are a huge fan of this site/app. They can build an avatar that looks like them and dress it up however they like, then follow a path full of learning activities. Songs, art, science videos, puzzles and books…it’s got it all. My kids especially love the music videos that teach them the building blocks of reading. They’re really catchy, so they sing them around the house all the time!
  • Subscription Box kits – These are such a fun surprise for my boys when it comes in the mail. Each month is a different theme that revolves around a particular book. The box holds all kinds of things that go with that theme…you might get a toy, crafts, a game, a science project, coloring sheets, and more surprises. And they personalize it with your child’s name! I especially like how IvyKids boxes allow you to get a sibling add-on kit for only a little more. That way if you have multiple kids, they make sure there is enough craft materials for everyone to participate. So smart of them to realize!