First Tweens Cheer Justin Bieber at "Christmas in Washington" Show

Meeting Justin Bieber is quickly becoming de rigueur for the First Tweens. Malia and Sasha Obama again welcomed Justin Bieber to the annual "Christmas in Washington" show this weekend at the National Building Museum. The Biebs was the big tween draw last night, but other tween favorite performers included Victoria Justice, Jennifer Hudson, Cee Lo Green, Conan O'Brien, and The Band Perry.

The First Tweens were dressed in colorful holiday attire for the show: Malia Obama wore a bright yellow silk dress by the fashion house "Elizabeth and James" (which parents may recall as being the clothing line developed by former tween stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen) with black tights and flats accessorized by a long chain necklace, and Sasha Obama wore a ballet-inspired lilac tulle dress with plum-colored tights and metallic flats.

This was the 30th Annual "Christmas in Washington" event, and it benefits the Children's Medical Center. Mr. Bieber has also performed at the White House Easter Egg Roll and at the 2010 Christmas in Washington event. You can tune into the TNT channel broadcast of "Christmas in Washington" this Friday, December 16th at 8pm EST - or click here for your local broadcast time.



Credits: AP, WireImage for Turner; video from whitehouse.gov

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A Justin Bieber Singing Toothbrush?

Tween Justin Bieber fans will rejoice: a company called Brush Buddies has made a singing Justin Bieber toothbrush. The idea behind this "build a better toothbrush" is that the toothbrush plays a song for the full amount of time that one is supposed to brush your teeth. The Justin Bieber line plays "Somebody to Love" or "Baby" or "You Smile", and there's also JB floss (which looks like a CD), and a travel kit. Given the star's mega-watt smile, it seems the company has chosen a good product model.

Available online at BrushBuddies; $1.99 for the toothbrush

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Meet Justin Bieber at the New York City Launch Event for Someday

By now you've probably seen the television ads for Justin Bieber's latest project, a fragrance for girls called "Someday". What you may not know is that all sales of the perfume benefit charity.  The product was created by the Give Back Brands Foundation, and ALL proceeds benefit the following organizations:  Give Back Brands Foundation and Communities in Schools LA West.

In addition, Mr. Bieber is auctioning off the opportunity to accompany him at the official Someday launch in New York City on June 23.  The proceeds from this auction will also benefit Communities in Schools and the Give Back Brands Foundation.

While a bit schlocky, here's what the star had to say about the fragrance: “Someday is the idea that we can change the world, make our dreams come true, and even be with the one person that means everything. Giving back has always been incredibly important to me, but let's be honest... I wanted to create a fragrance for my female fans that I can't get enough of... that I want to get next to and I can't stay away from. I know they'll love the scent, but also the opportunity to support some amazing charities. It's a gift that gives back.”

The auction for the June 23rd launch event is being run by CharityBuzz, and bidding is currently at $3500.00 (the auction ends on June 21st). The perfume itself is considerably less expensive at $45.00

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Dolce and Gabbana Heart Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber is on his World Tour, and this weekend he played in Milan, Italy. Major fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of Dolce & Gabbana threw a party for The Biebs after his concert on Saturday night. The designers are fans of the star, and he has been sporting their clothes at recent awards shows.

Dolce & Gabbana hosted the party at their restaurant, Gold, and set up a VIP area with the star's name in huge gold letters. Mr. Gabbana said: "We like him a lot, although he's very young, he's very attentive towards style and he takes care of his look".

Photo credits: The Telegraph

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A Tween's Review of "Coke or Pepsi?"

When I had my store, Twixt, we ran dozens of workshops with tween girls on topics ranging from Inauguration Ball gown sketching to how to cope with peer pressure to her dream room interior design to mother-daughter relationships. We began nearly every workshop with an ice breaker and the most fun ones came from the book series "Coke or Pepsi?"

"Coke or Pepsi?" is a book with questions for girls to ask other girls about their interests, their likes and dislikes, etc. Our own tweens love to bring these books on sleepovers, to parties, on road trips, etc. The publishers just released out a new edition of the book, and our eldest tween's review of it is here:

"I thought the "Coke or Pepsi?" Girl Diary was awesome! It is chock full of great diary entry spurring ideas! Some of these ideas include a virtual tree to carve your own personalized message into, space to write the letter you’ll never send, and a page to turn your own drama into a movie poster. I also really enjoy this because even if your not a writer there is still ways to get your feelings on paper. Only suggestions - maybe a more discreet cover for privacy you know? Thanks "Coke or Pepsi?" for a GREAT space for a girl to unwind at the end of a day!! <3 "

The publishers gave us two copies of this series to give away, and we're thrilled to share this with our readers as our April giveaway (congrats to our March giveaway winner, Hailey, who won the Justin Bieber Special Edition 3-D Glasses). To win these books, you all you have to do is become a fan of MsTwixt on Facebook and post a comment on our Wall about this book (if you're already of fan of ours on Facebook (thank you!) - just post a comment about this book on our Wall). We'll select two winners at random from those who post comments, and you can post as many comments as you'd like. (NOTE: Tweens: if you would like to enter this contest, you must have your parent enter. As Facebook's policy is that you must be 13 years or older to have a profile, we hope that this helps to ensure that parents only enter. This is because we want to respect the privacy of tweens and will not collect personally identifiable information on kids. As always, please be smart online - see our tips on online safety for tweens as a reminder.) We'll draw one winner on April 8th and another on April 15th.

Note: as a reminder, MsTwixt is strictly editorial and there is no pay-to-play. We receive lots of requests to review products and turn down nearly all of them. This is one of those few times when what we love and have recommended in the past matched up with a chance to share the item with our readers. Unlike most blogs, we never do paid product reviews - you're getting the dish straight-up.)

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Is Willow Smith the New Gamma Girl?

We've just seen Willow Smith's newest video, "21st Century Girl" and can't help but wonder if she's a new Gamma Girl role model. You can check out the video below and on YouTube.

The song is a sort of dance-y mantra for girls going their own way and living life on their own terms. Unlike a lot of music videos out there, "21st Century Girl" features totally positive images of girls doing everything from dancing to skateboarding to riding BMX bikes to just rocking out. It's just been released and reviews are still coming, but we think your tween will really flip for it.



Ms. Smith was just honored by the NAACP and is opening for Justin Bieber's European tour (they perform in Dublin tonight), so she's got a lot going on at the moment. We can't wait to hear what else she's got to say about girl power.

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Online Safety for Tweens

Teaching tweens how to be safe online is an ongoing conversation in our house. Our tweens want to go online to look at websites, connect with their friends and family via our family's Facebook page, and check out funny videos on YouTube. And increasingly they need to go online to do research for school projects and turn in assignments via their school's intranet. We've also recently heard about a computer virus on Facebook that targets fans of Justin Bieber through a tactic known as "clickjacking" (our recent Justin Bieber contest is NOT part of that scheme).

We had the chance to chat today with the Children's Advertising Review Unit, a self-regulatory body that monitors websites and blogs to make sure that advertising to kids and the collection of information meet the of COPPA (the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act), and earlier this week we interviewed the CEO of Imbee, a new online social network for tweens (we'll post that interview later). Both conversations focused on the growing trend of tweens needing to and wanting to interact more online. (BTW, this blog does NOT collect personally identifiable information, and we have a strict editorial policy - there is no pay to play on MsTwixt.com)

With tweens going online in record numbers (see our report of the latest stats on tweens online), we thought it'd be helpful to post some of the tips we've gathered:

• NEVER post personally identifiable information online. This includes your first and last name, birthdate, address and phone number. Our own tweens use their nicknames for their email addresses to make sure that both their first and last names are not used together.
• Our compromise with Facebook as been to create a family page that both our tweens and we have access to. Facebook's stated policy is that one must be over 13 years old to have an account, but this is easily worked around as there is no verification (did you know that 28% of tweens who are online are on Facebook?).
• We've prevented auto photo tagging on Facebook - see our instructions here.
• We've set strict privacy settings on our family's Facebook profile - our guidelines for these are here.
• We've set our browser settings to a "high" security level to prevent downloads without express consent.
• We've set our Google search settings to "safe search" to help screen out inappropriate search results.
• Computers are not permitted in bedrooms; our tweens can only go online while sitting in common rooms of our house. Although we're well aware that this is impossible to monitor outside the home, we are very clear with our family's expectations on this matter.
• We monitor the online visibility of our tweens by regularly "Googling" them - that way we can keep on eye on information others can see about them.

We're taken the position that rather than prohibit our tweens from going online, we're teaching them what to stay away from online. The Internet can be a great resource - our challenge is to help them get the most out of it.

What other tips does your family have to keep your tween safe online? Please share your comments below.

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A Justin Bieber Birthday Gift For Your Tween

We've had a tremendous response to our post on a Justin Bieber/"Never Say Never" themed-birthday party, and we appreciate everyone's comments and emails!

To thank our readers, we thought we'd share the love and give you a little something to celebrate the Bieb's birthday in style:  we're giving away a pair of limited edition purple Justin Bieber 3D glasses! (We purchased several of these for our youngest tween's birthday and it turns out that we overestimated by one pair - our  error is your gain.) They are brand new and in their original packaging.

To win these cool purple shades, all you need to do is post a comment below about how you and/or your tween marked Mr. Bieber's birthday yesterday (our tween's report is here).  We'll need your email address as well, so send it to us at mstwixt@gmail.com (we NEVER sell or lease your information, and if you are a tween, please have your grown-up send us their email address).

We'll draw one lucky tween's name from the list of comments on Saturday, March 5th. Happy posting!

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A Tween's Report: How Our School Celebrated Justin Bieber's Birthday

Even we were a little surprised by how wide-spread celebrations for the tween idol's birthday were today. Here is our tween's report on what happened in her school today:

"Today in my grade everyone was doing one of the following:

• Screaming
• Singing JB songs, or 
• Covered in purple

There were pictures of him everywhere in the school. And at the end of the day, my class sang "Happy Birthday" to Justin Bieber. Two people even brought in brownies and cupcakes that spelled "Happy B-Day Justin Bieber."

There was not one class in which his name was not mentioned, and no one talked about ANYTHING else but him. There was even a touch or two of gossip and girl-talk that had to do with JB.

Girls in my school were:

• Singing him Happy Birthday in the lunchroom,
• Wearing purple-purple hoodies, and
• Posting messages on our announcement board with hilarious clip-art pictures."

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What's Cool for Tweens in March: MsTwixt's Calendar

Ms Twixt's Calendar

• Mar 1 Justin Bieber's 17th birthday!
• Mar 1 Sprinkles Cupcakes pre-opening party in D.C.!
• Mar 1 Daniella Monet's (from Victorious) birthday!
• Mar 1 National Pancake Day
• Mar 1 National Peanut Butter Day
• Mar 1 "Race to Nowhere" screening at Washington Hebrew
• Mar 1 Ron Weasley's birthday!
• Mar 2 Dr. Seuss' birthday!
• Mar 3 M&M's birthday!
• Mar 4 "Beastly" starring Vanessa Hudgens & Alex Pettyfer opens
• Mar 6 Allstar Weekend plays in Baltimore
• Mar 8 "Race to Nowhere" screening at Avalon Theatre
• Mar 8 International Women's Day
• Mar 9 Barbie's birthday
• Mar 10 Emily Osment's birthday!
• Mar 11 "Mars Needs Moms" opens
• Mar 12 Girl Scout Day
• Mar 17 Mia Hamm's birthday!
• Mar 19 National Chocolate Caramel Day
• Mar 24 National Raisinette Day
• Mar 25 "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" movie opens
• Mar 26-Apr 10 National Cherry Blossom Festival
• Mar 27 Brenda Song's birthday
• Mar 27 National Cherry Blossom Kite Festival
• Mar 27 830pm is Earth Hour
• Mar 28 Lady Gaga's birthday
• Mar 31 "Scorpia Rising" (the last Alex Rider book) released

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A Justin Bieber Birthday Party for Tweens

Justin Bieber's 17th birthday is today, March 1st, but our youngest tween's (age 8) birthday was this past weekend and she celebrated with a Bieber birthday party. The girls had so much fun that we thought we'd share how we put together this birthday extravaganza:

We took the group to see "Never Say Never, the Director's Cut" and made sure the tweens were properly outfitted for the show with special Bieberized purple 3D glasses and purple glow sticks. Pre-party prep included getting ready with purple rock star hair and Bieber Silly Bandz.

At the movies, the girls took over the last row of the theater and rocked out to the show. They had a blast and a few left converted as true "Beliebers".

After the show they had a sleepover and made their own bedazzled "varsity" tops inspired by the "Never Say Never" movie poster - here's how:

We used sheets of sticker-backed felt and printed out 8-inch high varsity letters; then
We traced the letters onto the felt and cut them out.

Then we outlined each letter using a silver Sharpie pen, and glued on differing sizes of silver rhinestones. Then we affixed them onto a (purple, of course) tank top.

The girls flipped over their custom tops!

We also found this amazing party planning site, The Party Animal, with fantastic ideas for planning a Justin Bieber bash - enjoy!

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Justin Bieber's Birthday Plans

Justin Bieber is a busy boy, but he plans to spend his 17th birthday (on March 1st) with family back home in Canada. His only request is for his grandmother's homemade cherry cheesecake and to relax before kicking off his world tour in England on March 4th. He said, "Hopefully my grandparents will be out here and I'll be able to spend time, a little bit, with them. My grandma makes the best cheesecake - cherry cheesecake. She made that for my 13th birthday." 

It's nice that a teenager still appreciates his grandparents, isn't it?

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Justin Bieber's Version of Locks for Love

The tween world is a-twitter over Justin Bieber's recent haircut, but what we found most interesting is that he's donating his locks to charity. Well, not the hair itself, but boxes of famous 'do are being auctioned off with 100% of the proceeds to benefit charity. Ellen DeGeneres received her box when Mr. Bieber visited her on her show yesterday (yes, the same show that Maria Aragon sung "Born This Way" on - we wonder if the two Canadian, YouTube-discovered kids met backstage?).  Proceeds from The Ellen Show auction will benefit The Gentle Barn, which rescues abused and neglected animals and invites high-risk children to visit them to help them feel less alone.

Photo credit: Justin Bieber's Twitter account

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10 Year Old Tween Maria Aragon Invited to Sing With Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga has invited ten year old Maria Aragon to join her onstage at her Toronto concert to sing her hit, "Born This Way". Ms. Aragon joins Greyson Chance and Justin Bieber in being the latest music sensation to be discovered via YouTube.



Her mother uploaded a video of her singing "Born This Way", and Perez Hilton saw it and sent it to Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga was so impressed that she contacted Ms. Aragon and invited her to join her on stage.

Ellen DeGeneres had Ms. Aragon on her show yesterday - we loved her interview and the reasons she expressed for wanting to cover the song.

Lady Gaga's Monster Ball concert plays at the Verizon Center in Washington tomorrow.

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Justin Bieber Voted MVP in NBA All-Star Celebrity Basketball Game

It was a big weekend for tweens and basketball: the President coached local tweens on Sasha Obama's basketball team yesterday morning, and Justin Bieber was voted the MVP at the All-Star Celebrity Basketball Game in Los Angeles.

Although much shorter than his teammates (who included Scottie Pippen and Rick Fox), the Biebs scored 8 points and had 4 assists and 2 rebounds Friday night. More details and photos here.

Mr. Bieber's team was coached by Lakers legend Magic Johnson, and he played alongside Modern Family's Ty Burrell (he plays clueless dad Phil on the show). The public voted on the MVP award, and the tween star recruited his legendary Twitter following to garner the most votes.

Photo credit: Getty Images

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Tween Fashion Blogger Tavi is a Justin Bieber Fan

'Turns out that Justin Bieber's appeal extends to the high-brow couture crowd: tween fashion blogger Tavi is a fan.

Ms. Gevinson took time out to see "Never Say Never" during Fashion Week and was hooked. She writes, "I am pro-JB because someone has to be a tween dreamboat pop boy and he's not going away, but what started out for me as 'I'm just gonna embrace him' has become a bit of an obsession. Plus he started out playing on steps outside a theater."

I have to say it's comforting to know that one of the most important new youth voices is still a young girl at heart who has to do homework and has teeny-bopper crushes.

Photo credit: thestylerookie.com

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Fashion at The Grammys

The Grammy Awards are a night for fashion as well as music. Here's some photos of favorite tween stars from this year's show:

Justin Bieber wore a white tux from D&G

Lea Michele from Glee wore Emilio Pucci

Selena Gomez wore J.Mendel

Willow Smith wore her usual inventive ensembles

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A Lesson in Grace For Tweens: Justin Bieber at The Grammys

With the blockbuster opening of his "Never Say Never" movie this weekend and coming off of a very successful My World tour, you'd think Justin Bieber has it made. He performed with his usual style at The Grammy's last night, and our tweens were excited to stay up late and watch the young star and Usher tear up the stage. Despite a sold out concert tour and indeterminable press, the young Mr. Bieber was not awarded his industry's highest honor.

At the tender age of 16, he could well have handled this news poorly, but Mr. Bieber instead took the high road and responded with maturity and grace. He continued to sit at attention in the front row of the Grammy Awards (no doubt the hot seat of the evening and the last place anyone would want to be seen after being so publicly overlooked for the honors) and applauded his fellow nominees, winners and performers. Justin Bieber has historically taken solace with his fans via interactions on Twitter, and notably, he did not turn to his Twitter account until after the awards ceremony was over.  It was a sign of professionalism and respect that he waited until the end of the show to interact with his fans and provide them with his reaction.

And his reaction was gracious and honest: he tweeted:

• "As for the awards...of course I wanted to win. Its been and still is a dream to win a grammy. Was I upset...yes. But I was happy for her also"
• "Someone said to me tonight its not your successes that define u but your failures. I lost..but I don't plan on this being my last chance...."
• "I do this because I love it..and I do it for my family friends and fans who support me. I was grateful for the honor and this..."
• "...Is just the beginning. #NeverSayNever" 
• "Now we have so much to celebrate!! Leggo!"

We were reminded of Taylor Swift's grace under pressure during the Kanye West VMA debacle and are pleased that his reaction lived up to his reputation. (Of course we'll NEVER hear the end of him now that his status as tween idol has been martyred, but we're pleased that thus far he's been a stand-up kind of guy.)

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In Case Your Tween Missed It: Live Footage from the "Never Say Never" L.A. Premiere

The premiere of Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never" movie was last night in L.A. As with everything "Bieber", the star made full use of digital and social media to share the event with his fans. Here's the video footage from the red carpet, courtesy of Live Stream:

Watch live streaming video from bieberpremiere at livestream.com

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ABC News is Backstage with Justin Bieber in L.A.

To help explain the mounting ferver surrounding Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never" movie release this week, ABC News went backstage with the Biebs during his L.A. movie premiere - check out the video below:




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