Kelle, Author at Enjoying the Small Things

Craftastic

November 19, 2010 By Kelle

Crafts just done went and blew up in our house this week. It’s been a craftastic preparation for the holidays, and I’m loving it.

I used to think the word “crafts” was dorky. Like, if Brett asked “are you doing crafts again?,” I’d clarify “I’m creating homemade splendor” as if “homemade splendor” was more cool. I downplayed my scrapbooking as “photo journalistic memoiring” and pretended I didn’t have a collection of cool stickers and zig-zag shears hidden under my bed.

But, I’m cool with it now. I’m a crafter. I like crafts. I smoke the craft pipe. I fly the crafty freak flag and admit that my heart does a little two-step when I enter the threshold of Michaels. I can only hope my kids will be droppin’ terms like ric-rac and vellum and battenburg lace while they’re still wee littles.

Just wish I could sew. I toy with a needle and thread once in a great while and pretend I know what I’m doing, but oh the joy if I could really sew.

I am a mad gluer though.

Exhibit A: The holiday freak flags that dangle over the playroom now…(pardon the mess)

Tree Decal on Wall…totally love. Get one HERE and use code DDFREE088 for a free owl decal gift with purchase.

A little bit of ribbon, tacky glue, fabric and pinking shears. Voila.

And likewise, another craft with little effort and perfect for the Thanksgiving table…

Our Thankful banner. Fabric remnants, cut and glued onto stiff felt, trimmed with lace (yup, glue there too), soft felt letters appliqued (oh, who am I kidding…glued there too) and um, glued again to ribbon.

Table’s already set for our annual neighbor Thanksgiving pajama breakfast, not because I’m so put together and prepared but because the house is such a mess and I’m so behind, I needed something pretty that would inspire me to put the rest back together.

Super easy and inexpensive homemade holiday gift: Button Napkin Rings.

We made ours for our Thanksgiving table this year. Unfinished napkin rings from craft store (you can get a bag of four for a couple dollars), spraypainted and, yes, glued with vintage-looking buttons.

Lainey had fun helping. These would look lovely wrapped with cloth napkins and tied with rafia for a gift, or keep and use for your own table like so:

Place settings this year are the trusty old kindergarten craftastic pinecone turkeys.

We made eight of them yesterday, and Lainey named them all. In no particular order, we have Turkey Dan, Lappie, Little Dan, Little Lappie, Yahkie, Lotsapew, Chili and Dookie. Yes Dookie. She named ’em, not me.

This wouldn’t be completely craftastic if we didn’t throw in a couple more, so hang on. Although our town’s tree lighting is this Monday (wahoo…come down to Third Street, Neapolitans!) and our official family tree ceremony is next week, we jumped the gun just a teensy bit on our fireplace.

Mittens serve dual purpose of advent calendar (countown to Christmas…whatever you call it) as you fill each one with a couple treats and pull them off one by one with each day in December.

Toddler mittens in the dollar bin at the check-out in Joanns plus 2 yards of gold cording plus mini clothespins for a grand total of twelve dollah, no hollah.

Last two…

Material plus felt plus frame plus Nella letting me borrow her tiny little hand to trace equals fun kids table decoration.

…and another great easy Christmas gift. Unfinished wood tray ($5, Joanns), spray paint and creative toddler…

Add a fun mug, some favorite coffee, a doily…what have you…wrap in celophane, and you have a pretty gift for coffee/tea lovers. We use trays all the time. I love to serve company on them, and this one’s extra special because it bears Lainey’s smiley faces.

Before I wish you Happy Friday…

For all those that commented on the beach pictures last post, here’s your chance to come visit. In case you haven’t noticed, Poppa’s vacation rental homes has a button up on the sidebar. The homes are entirely dreamy…lots of bedrooms, pool, hot tub, garden nooks for morning coffee. Anyone in the market for a getaway, they’re offering a 25% discount until December 25 (and any other time, 10% off to anyone who mentions Enjoying the Small Things).

I’ve also updated the F.A.Q. tab on top and will try to add to it as common questions come up.

Also, voting for The Bump’s Best Blog award ends Tuesday. How awesome would it be to have “Special Needs” category win…to remind the world that beauty and joy abound within the households of families who may happen to include a child with special needs? Please help us share this message of inclusion. Click HERE. (you have to scroll down to vote)

And a few from Nella’s outside therapy session this week:

the tamborine, her favorite toy.

Have a fantastic weekend. Or if you feel really crazy…get craftastic.

Replenished.

November 18, 2010 By Kelle

It was a long day, the kind where nothing seemed to make its way off the to-do list.

Dishes, laundry, carpet stains, whiny spells all multiply while my patience depletes. I’m edgy, anxious, quick to bite and slow to forgive.

The sun sinks right as my awareness of my frustration rises.

“We’re going to the beach,” I declare.

Blankets are gathered. Suits are stashed. Carseats are buckled.

We hit all four red lights on the way there. My jaw tenses, my fingers grip the steering wheel. I swear under my breath and plead with the sun to wait.

It does.

We don’t say much to each other tonight. They are content without my coddling and I am breathing in the universe, releasing my stress onto the tide where the waves take it away.

A man stands at the shoreline, still and bewitched by the pages of his book rather than by the great ball of fire that slowly falls against the canvas behind him. I make a mental note to add “Stand in the shoreline reading book at sunset” to the fabulous things I want to do someday.

We are covered in coarse sand that sticks to our wet skin like salt on a pretzel. We dip our toes into the soft sand and watch as the sea foam bubbles over our buried feet.

Sometimes it feels like I’m not enough, like I want to give so much but my reserves are low.

That’s part of loving too though…making it through the empty spots and finding ways to replenish the good.

Feeling replenished.

Three treats for you tonight…

A) Happy to announce the renewal of Tina Steinberg’s Sponsorship. I’ve raved about my fingerprint necklaces so much, but seriously…I adore them and everything they mean. A new favorite: feeding Nella and watching her reach up until she feels the edges of the charms…and she’ll clutch and twirl and rub her fingers against them until she’s asleep.

They make a fabulous holiday gift and right now (until 11/30), Tina is offering complimentary additional inscription on the back of all Love Touch designs. Please order early to ensure holiday delivery (she also has gift certificates!) Thank you Tina! We are proud to represent you.

B) Jana Laurene, the artist that painted the portraits of Lainey and Nella in this post is offering a $50 discount on her commisioned paintings. She’s only selling 50 paintings, so yours will be one-of-a-kind (so get it fast!)

C) The giveaway winner for the $50 gift certificate for Lilian Eve Designs is Commenter #592, Gina: I so need something pretty to jazz up my boring tee’s and jeans this winter!

Gina, please e-mail your info to kellehamptonblog@comcast.net, and we’ll have your tees jazzed up in no time.

Oh, and thank you for voting for Enjoying the Small Things at The Bump. I’m sharing with all of you our honor as winner of Best Special Needs Blog. (Hollah!) ‘Cuz we all share the special need of drinking a nice cup of enjoyin’-the-small-things, eh? There really are so many amazing voices out there drawing awareness to special needs and showing that, regardless of abilities or disabilities, we share so much of the same challenges and dreams, so Hollah to them too. We’re all in this together.

With that said (ha ha), the ante’s apparently been upped and now we’re up for best overall blog award. Kinda like a spelling bee tournament. It’s Nationals, Baby. Again, happy to be considered…if you want to give a hollah, vote HERE (and you can continue to vote with the button on the sidebar).

With all that said (whew!), I’m taking my replenished soul to bed.

Mid-November Hollah

November 15, 2010 By Kelle

There are times when it all comes together–when fleeting thoughts in my head are quickly captured and transformed into smooth words that rattle off the keyboard like a moving ticker at the bottom of the screen. There are times when theme prevails and photos and words make some sort of agreement at the beginning of a post to work together to make something meaningful. Then there are times where I want to say so much and like a stuttering kid stunted by a brain that’s working faster than speech capabilities, I just stop. And stutter.

There’s so much I want to write, and I’m stuttering a bit.

The weekend was lovely.

…with coffee and laundry and scattered toys nicely balancing more exciting things like hauling the girls across the Alley for an impromptu Miami trip to see our friend Meg visiting from the North.

Atlantic waves are wild and unpredictable, rhythmically lapping a nice repetition, gaining your trust until you put your baby down for a picture because certainly you’ve figured out their pattern, but no. You back up two sand steps to click the shutter and turn to see a monster of a whitecap slam up the shore, knocking Nella down, chasing Lainey into a crying fit and leaving your almost-see-through dress now basically a soaking wet clear window to the granny panty disaster underneath.

Our winning photo though:

…followed by a mad dash to scoop and swoop and clean off bits of sand and shell that made their way into her suit after the great wave.

We left as the sun was setting, and as I-95 welcomed me for the long drive home, I said goodbye to this:

Florida Novembers are full of promise.

This is the first year I haven’t painfully craved the north this time of year; the first November I’ve spent excitedly anticipating what traditions I’ll add to our own holiday repertoire as opposed to scouring Spiritair.com for cheap tickets to guarantee us a snowy 25th. And there is that part of me that wants to diagnose my arrival at End-of-year-contentment as a direct effect of everything that happened this year, and part of me that chalks it up to the greater conclusion that it’s a grand combination of life–of growing, of learning, of being one year older and one year wiser and yes, embracing the frightening unexpected and finding that it was just what you needed to realize…you are content.

There is so much going on right now–good and lovely and necessary blended in there with monotonous responsibilities. A couple trips coming up. Holidays. To-do lists. And throbbing beneath it all is this recognition that an amazing life-changing year is coming to an end. Within a little over a month, we will celebrate our first Christmas as a new family. We will kiss 2010 Goodbye. I will pack up my beautiful, painful, amazing year of 31 and tuck it next to the others while I pull out a new one. And somewhere, within the next few weeks, I will make a trek to my own Mecca, back to the hospital where I will make peace with it all.

I am so excited–not only to fall to my knees in that blessed birth room and thank its walls for what it gave us–for how it changed us, but for all of it. For stringing Christmas paper chains across the play room and making place mats for our Thanksgiving dinner; for saying goodbye to a good year and hello to new one, full of the unknown.

Oh, how can it already be the middle of November?

Every year, we commence the next blessed weeks of festivities with one little purchase that says “It has begun.” This year, it’s the jammies, the Christmas jammies that await little bodies that will slip into their soft cotton Christmas Eve.

It seems official now. Get your ornaments up (mention “Kelle” on this site and get 10% off.)

My annual brouhaha is unleashed.

In the meantime, we’re enjoingin’ a few little things.

Like Picnics at the Airport where we eat turkey subs to the accompaniment of loud jet-blasts under the shadow of 757s.

And Hidden Treasures like the little coffee/gift shop we passed today and U-ied around to check it out. The shop was closed, but the welcoming cove outside its doors drenched with dangling crystals and birdhouses was open.

Or how about Lainey’s Improved Hoola Tecniques

Or, there’s always a Giveaway!

Introducing our new sponsor, Lilian Eve Designs.

I’ve sung her praises before and love her unique designs. And anyone who can whip up fabulous stuff for not just mamas but babies too deserves a hollah. So, Hollah Lilian Eve!

Spend over $25 (excluding shipping) and mention Enjoying the Small Things in the Etsy Buyer Notes and you’ll receive a free crochet hair band (a great stocking stuffer!).

And one lucky commenter on this post will be winning a $50 gift certificate from her shop.

Hollah to that, Baby.

Happy Monday! Lots of good stuff a’comin!