A Christmas Thank-You!

I recently ordered some Thanksgiving catering from someone I admire, and I wanted to send a little thank-you (along with my payment!).

I have a stash of Weck jars because they make great gift containers-they're inexpensive and respected and come in unusual shapes. I put one of my mini Santa journals in a cello bag tied with black bakers twine...

added a package of gingham cupcake papers, a spool of twine from the dollar bin at Target, wrote a note on my You're a Little Deer notecard (cause she is!)...

and added a tiny plastic deer to emphasize the point...

I packaged the set in the jar with some shreds and tied a happy Christmas pipe cleaner to embellish...

Cute. To the point. Special. 

Merry Christmas Giving!

Dabbles

I'm a dabbler.

I have a lot of ideas. Some of those ideas stick, some don't.

My mom, The Finder, will show me something and OF COURSE I'll remark, "how cute is that" or sumpin, to which she will reply, "you gave it to me!".

I lose interest or maybe my attention gets divided, but over the years, my tastes have changed and refined as a result of my dabbling.

In packaging a Baby Black Dog sale today, none reminds me of my Transforming Taste more than my logo. I originally created it with an image from a 1940s textbook that looked like Emma, my Baby Black Dog. Along with found text, I cut and glued together my "logo". I took it to Staples and had a stash of copies made, then I glued them to the backs of my journals. 

Years later, I had a graphic designer friend create an updated logo using the same images. It looked cleaner and made me happy. I still take my originals to copy centers, but instead of handing them over in a file folder, I email a pdf and walk out with an organized stack of logos for my business cards and journals.

As I packaged today, the difference made me stop...

I originally wanted an Etsy shop so I'd have a destination for my dabbles...a place where I could say, "yes, you can buy that here"...a spot where I would prove to myself that I could do a "new thing". I just turned 55 and I'm certainly no "old dog", but if I were, I'd say that today I just wanted to encourage us old dogs that it really is never too late to learn new tricks...

BabyBlackDog.Etsy.com

A Valentine Thought...

My oldest GrandBoy's preschool Valentine's party is this month. His first as a preschooler, my first as a Munny. Of all the holidays, Valentine's Day isn't my favorite, but, oh, the hearts! The pinks! The reds! The "give one to everyone"! 

Not that anyone asked, but I searched and found such cute ideas for classroom pass-outs, and showed several to him, to see what he thought, as I am always itching for a party-project. He was uninterested till he saw a photo of little cereal boxes, and said "Okay, that one!" 

In the next couple of weeks, my eye was drawn to printed cards, those with gold foil to be exact. But he would have nothing to do with them. I thought this was a general "no" to classroom treats, but then he said "just the cereal, Munny". I had forgotten all about those! It had been days! But he remembered and the plan was forged.

I found packages of little cereal boxes, bought plastic silver spoons, alphabet beads and striped ribbon...

His classmates' names I spelled out on the spoon handle, and lightly-glued them to the boxes. He helped me assemble them somewhat (cause, hot glue), I printed up tags for them, matted and strung them on the ribbon...

And attached them to the boxes of cereal...

Cutest valentines ever!

Moments of Little Discoveries and Light-Bulbs

My oldest GrandBoy is 5 and he lights up our world. He's funny, confident, almost too-independent and, he's uber-creative. You can almost see the gears in his brain moving, designing and thinking. All the time. It's one of my favorite things about him.

Yesterday we went to enjoy the sunshine by doing some painting on a (washable!) blanket in the backyard, as his favorite subject to paint are sticks and he and his Papa had just collected a few of them.

We usually have a stack of freshly-painted sticks hanging around...

But yesterday, I watched him break up a small, thin one, try to paint it and then discover that he could dip the ends in the paint without the brush. It was such a gift to watch this discovery, that light-bulb moment...

We picked them up and placed them in an Angry Bird paper cup...

...because I thought they were spectacular, and wanted to "save" them cause I've got big plans for those sticks...