Craft Fair Preparation Series- Part 3: Preparing Your Booth. While a great product and a bunch of friends is a good start, there won’t be much point if you don’t have an organized, appealing craft booth. This week we will think ahead on how best to arrange, decorate and organize your booth for maximum appeal- as well as share some tips on giveaways & getting new clients. Continue reading
I grew up in a small town where Halloween night was the big event of the year.
All evening long you could follow the throngs of children up and down the 8 or so streets, some followed by parents on foot, others being driven around and let out every so often to hit up a few lighted houses.
We always started at my Grandma’s house at the top of the hill. There, we would help her make popcorn balls. Carefully balling up popcorn after she poured the hot caramel sauce over it. Then wrapping them in cellophane and tying them with an orange ribbon. She would later hand these out to her trick or treaters.
As darkness (and cold) fell, my brother and cousins and I would don our costumes (no doubt something involving a plastic mask) and we would head out into the night with plastic pumpkin buckets ready. And when it was all over, we would return to Grandma’s, Continue reading
Something I have loved the most about being a mommy is getting to be involved in all of the Pickle’s holiday fun. And while I’m not a fan of the ghosts and ghouls, I have discovered that Halloween is one of my favorite children’s holidays.
When else can I create a totally imperfect outfit and still get rave reviews, adoration by my Sweet P, and loads of candy in payment?
Halloween is a dream! The past two years I have loved coming up with a costume that matches her personality. Getting creative. And seeing a final product come together. And let’s face it, you could put a paper bag on a toddler and it would be adorable.
So here is our Halloween costume this year. I call it, “Inspired by Strawberry Shortcake”. Mostly because it’s not perfect. It’s not like the store-bought ones. I’ve never seen Strawberry wear chevrons. But it was inexpensive. It was a blast to create. And it was, for the most part, pretty easy to make once I got going. Continue reading
Before I had a child, I really “saw the world”.
I gazed at ocean horizons. I drank in sunrises from airplane windows. I stood on mountain peaks and gasped at the rippling tops of clouds. The world was a grand, glorious adventure.
Then I had the Pickle.
I remember her first week of life being a blur. The diapers, the visitors, the nursing, the long dark nights, the late mornings. It wasn’t until almost a week after her birth that I suddenly really saw her… Continue reading
Argh! It’s SO cluttered!!!!
I can NEVER find what I’m looking for.
I’m completely overwhelmed and don’t even know where to start.
Every time I go in there I feel like I’m wading through muck, throwing things behind me like some sped up cartoon character.
Then when I find what I want, I immediately lose it again.
But do I clean? No.
Do I organize? Heck no.
Do I keep throwing more junk in there that I will never use (or never be able to find again?) Yes.
Drives me crazy.
I’ve GOT to clean out my Pinterest boards.
Craft Fair Preparation Series: Part II- Advertising! Ask any craft fair coordinator and they will probably tell you the number one method of advertising… is you! With less than one month before our craft fair, we will look at different ways to get the word out so we can ensure the most traffic, and the most success, possible.
My kiddo was sick last weekend.
I hate it when she’s sick, but I also kind of secretly love it because she’s all sweet and sleepy and cuddly. As much as my heart aches for her little feverish head, I love it snuggled up against my chest for no other reason than because I comfort her.
Well… Mickey Mouse comforts her, too. But I’m better.
The only time it really stinks when she is sick is when I don’t notice it. And this weekend, this busy, one-event-after-another, fun, fun, fun weekend, I didn’t notice.
Epic mom fail. Continue reading
So after I ran up to my future husband at a coffee stand in Thailand, and emailed him for two months in blissful ignorance before I learned that he was really pursuing me, I found myself in Taiwan on a computer Skyping with a boy in Thailand that I had spent all of about 7 days with. And I admit… I was falling in love.
We had become good friends in our visits and emails. So on April 8th when he asked if he could “get to know all about me” (aka. date me) it was sort of a natural progression from friend to, I guess you would say, suitor?
Today it reminds me of my Grandparent’s love story. Continue reading
Circa October 18th
Last night after brushing my little girl’s teeth, helping her put on her PJ’s, rocking with her in our chair and reading her a Bible story, I did something a little different.
I crawled in her little toddler bed with her, sang her songs, and lay beside her until she fell peacefully asleep.
If you know me, you know I don’t do this.
It’s a rare occasion when my kiddo gets to share a bed with me. Let alone during such a critical, routine time such as bedtime. It’s been this way since she was 5 weeks old and we moved her to her crib. (I confess… I let her sleep on my chest a lot when she was a newborn… C-sections are worth it, right?)
But last night was special. Continue reading
Let’s face it… you can only go to the park so many times before your child (read: you) gets bored. What about when you don’t want to drive all the way there? (if you’re not lucky enough to live near one) What about when the big kids are swarming recklessly? What about when you just need a change of scenery?
Our little Sweet Pickle has grown up in the same townhouse her entire two and a half years. It’s a nice little complex tucked away in a quiet subdivision behind the airport. Surrounded by thick woods. And flanked by a rumbling train.
It’s where I walked and wondered and prayed over her the last two months she lived in my belly. It’s where I strapped her into her infant carseat and pushed her in the jogging stroller. It’s where she learned to walk, color with chalk, splash in puddles, and, recently, it’s where she learned to ride her tricycle. Continue reading
Rediscovering Yesterday 