18 April 2014
For as long as I can remember, Easter in our house did not mean Easter baskets (we didn’t get them, much to our dismay at the time – but we did do a jelly bean hunt in the living room). More than the jelly beans, though, Easter meant pysanky eggs from Bingie, our mom’s mom.
A pysanka is a traditional Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated with folk designs written in beeswax. From my birth until a few years ago, my grandmother painstakingly made all of her grandchildren a new design each year, and we loved to look at our collection when we took them out of their crates in the spring. Each egg was marked with our name or initials, her initials, and the year. She also made them for special friends on occasion, and over time, they became one of her claims to fame in her small town.
At her memorial service last year, her pastor compared her to one of her eggs – beautiful and complicated, full of history and stories, and sometimes volatile. (The eggs, which are not blown out, have been known to explode!) My grandmother was a deeply layered person, and not always easy to understand. But so many of the things that define me were passed down from her – my love of garden bouquets, boat rides, singing in church, and books; a belief in thank you notes, penmanship, and family china; and the importance of standing up for the flag at parades and giving to your alma mater. I am glad I have something tangible and so beautiful to remember her by, especially at Easter.
The worst thing is never the last thing, friends. Wishing you a joyful weekend!
13 February 2014
It’s easy to do something nice for nearby friends on Valentine’s Day — just make them something sweet! I wanted to do something for my faraway friends, too, but treats don’t travel so well. After a bit of brainstorming, I settled on a longer-lasting project that will hopefully help them feel the love long after Valentine’s Day.
I started with several sets of chipboard letters (3/4″ tall) from AC Moore. I spray-painted them gold, then hot glued them to some thin, vintage ribbon I had in my stash. The completed garlands got washi taped to a simple cardstock rectangle penned in gold sharpie. I already had the kraft boxes on hand, but padded mailers would have worked well, too!
I’m imagining them pinned to a bulletin board or taped to a mirror or refrigerator, but obviously the gals are free to hang them wherever they’d like. Hoping they go over as well as something sugary!
5 February 2014
I’ve been meaning to write about John’s 26th birthday present since last July, and now seems as good a time as any: Valentine’s Day is coming up, and I know a lot of y’all are looking for sweet, low-cost, and thoughtful gifts for your significant others! (Me too.) Since his birthday fell on a week day last year, I wrapped up a few small packages — one for every two hours he would be at work — and marked them with the times they were to be opened. I kept the packaging discreet so as not to embarrass him in front of his coworkers :)
I can’t remember all of the gifts, but I know I included a can of his favorite limonata at 12:30 (lunch!), a gift certificate for a bucket of balls at our local driving range, a $10 Chick-fil-a gift card, an issue of a favorite magazine, and a can of tennis balls. The gifts kept rolling after he got home; I even put a late-night one in the freezer — a package of Dove bars! Yep, it was wrapped, too :)
I did get him a larger gift that he opened after work, but I think (hope) the best part of last year’s celebration was the hourly reminder that he was loved and thought of, even if we weren’t together.
P.S. Looking for Valentine’s Day goodies for friends? Here are a few I’ve made in the past: crepe paper chocolate, felt fortune cookies, clever cards, and wrapped chocolate.
23 December 2013
Friends! Thank you so much for your kind input on my first Christmas card post. You guys are just the best. I loved hearing about your plans for your own cards, and about how much you love Minted, too! Here’s how the voting ended up this year:
I could easily have seen us choosing any of the three top vote-getters. However, we ended up going with a late-breaking photo, and then choosing a totally new design to complement it!
It’s the Winter Pines card by Alethea & Ruth. We really liked this design because it communicated well what we wanted to wish our loved ones — peace, love, and joy. The photo is by Bryce Covey, taken at our friends’ wedding. (By the way, that’s one of my best tricks for getting a good photo if you don’t have the budget for an individual session — wedding photographers are usually happy to take quick couple or family portraits during cocktail hour when not much else is going on, and everyone’s already dressed up!)
Here’s a peek at our second annual family newsletter. Many of you asked whether it would be back, and here it is! By the way, I COMPLETELY forgot to follow up after this post, but we are indeed an aunt and uncle!! Tegan was born on December 12, and she’s so cute — we just got back from spending the weekend with her and the rest of my family!
One other thing I wanted to mention — it’s important to us that our Christmas cards are not all about us. We send them out at Christmas to share our joy at the birth of our Savior with the people we love the most, and we want to remind people of that in a personal way. That’s why we include a few thoughts on what Christmas means to us. It’s also good for us to stop and put it into words!
Each card got dressed up with an address and some washi tape. I had the perfect mint, jade, and kelly green rolls already in my stash!
Not one of our cards goes out without a personal note (probably a holdover from my childhood — I can remember sitting around the kitchen table with my siblings and parents, signing what seemed like hundreds of letters from a very young age!). Here’s one for y’all:
Yes, I had some help sending these out :) Hope you love them!