BUNNY GIVEAWAY!

Time for a giveaway! :)

This cute little bunny is the perfect addition to your child/grandchild's Easter basket, or just as a cheerful spring-time gift for a little friend. 100% upcycled cotton. Embroidered face makes it perfectly safe for children of all ages! More pictures and info can be found here.

I am so excited to be using Rafflecopter for the first time! I find it so user-friendly. Please enter using the Rafflecopter below. I will pick a winner on Monday the 19th, email them and announce it here. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or an alternate winner will be picked. My goal is to ship by March 21st so you can enjoy your bunny before Easter, if you are so inclined. :)  Good luck!

P.S. If you are interested in any of my other toys for sale, please visit my Toy Section.

Christmas time is here...

 

I just love that old peanuts song...

It's been busy-busy around here, to which I'm sure most of you can relate. I've been sewing up a storm for work, as well as gift making and shopping...decorating... baking. The list goes on! Tis the season, I suppose! Perhaps I will post pictures of my sewing projects in another post, if I can find the time. ;)

This is my third Christmas at Lil Hipsters and for the past couple of years, I allowed myself to get caught up in work so much, that I had very little time left for fun, Christmasy, family things. This year, I made a point of taking time out for that. My son and I have run several errands together (we like to look at Christmas decorations in the local shops and crafts stores), I have included him in all the decorating, we've gone to the library and checked out a couple Christmas books (The Night Before Christmas and the Gift of the Magi), we plan to make some cookies and deliver them to the neighbors, and we have done a few crafts together. Tonight we painted ornaments for the family. These may not be how my sophisticated adult, buttoned-down, laced-up mind would've ever thought to paint an ornament, but I love to see his creativity, so I give him free reign. Aren't they beautiful?

 

While on the subject of crafts.... have any of you seen the new Holiday version of the paper bags at Trader Joe's?? So clever! I forgot to bring my cloth bag one morning, and when I got home with the paper one, I noticed all kinds of decorations on the sides. Turns out that they have designed almost the whole bag to be re-used for Christmas crafts! There's one whole side that has tags printed on it - you can cut them out and use on your gifts. And two sides have festive strips, which can be cut out and used for paper chains! I liked it so much, I "accidentally" forgot my cloth bag again the next week so I could get more gift tags. ;) I think it is such a neat idea - to be able to re-purpose something and then recycle still afterward!

Trader Joe's gift tag, shown with wrapping paper from JoAnn's and baker's twine from The Twinery

So of course we made a paper chain together. That was fun. My son also wrote his first letter to Santa this morning, and I let him mail it when we were at the Post Office today. Do you know what he asked of Santa? Absolutely nothing. I asked my little boy what he wanted to write and he said "You're welcome. And have a merry merry Christmas." That's it? "Yup." I thought it was so sweet. ♥ For all the thousands of kids who are writing out their wish lists, all my baby wanted to do was wish Santa a merry Christmas. :) Oh the innocence of youth...

Speaking of Santa... I know there are several ways to approach the subject of Santa Claus. I hope this isn't a touchy subject for anyone. It was sort of a self-discovery actually for us, since this is the first year that our son was old enough to recognize Santa and ask about him. So we discussed him a little bit. I grew up in a family where he wasn't talked about at all because my mom felt that he distracted from the true meaning of Christmas. I somewhat agree, but we have decided to take a more balanced approach - allowing some of the fun and imagination that Santa can bring, without having to lie about his existence. I explained to my little boy that Santa is sort of pretend. And that people like to pretend that he comes to their house on Christmas Eve etc etc. and isn't it fun to pretend sometimes? He seemed to think it was a great idea and got a little excited about the Great Masquerade. When he gets older, I plan to get more into St Nicholas and who he was in real life. But for now, I feel that the key was establishing Santa's status in reality, which will help us avoid any crushing disappointments later. And of course, through all of this, we also talked about Jesus - that He is the Reason we celebrate Christmas, to take the time to remember his birth and how thankful we are that God sent Him to us. ♥

Our family wishes you and yours a warm, happy Christmas and a healthy, prosperous New Year!

Easter eggs

I know, I know. Easter is so last month.

I was going through my camera card, cleaning some things out and found these, I took to share with you. We were out of town the week before Easter, so we did our eggs a little late. It was my son's first year dying eggs, which is fun. It was actually my first year dying eggs too!  :) Don't ask. Long story...

Here are some samples. We made about ten, but we ate the rest before I could shoot them. Teehee.

Even the garbage is pretty: 

I hope everyone had a relaxing Easter and that you got to spend it with family...

Where did she go??

Well, I know it's been awhile! It seems to me that somewhere along the way, I promised to blog more often. Why did I promise me that? I knew the minute i made that promise I wasn't going to keep it.

But the holidays were quite a whirlwind - besides being The Usual Busy trying to find gifts and making travel plans, I also finished a last minute quilt for my mom, and decided somewhere in there that I wanted to get in touch with my "roots" by studying Swedish Christmas traditions. That was kind of a joke. Oh yeah, and I filled about 15 orders on my Etsy page! Lots of Sock Monkeys. =)

The Swedish thing was a joke because I didn't really think of it until a week before Christmas. That's really not enough time to create straw ornaments or find a good gingerbread recipe and about three weeks too late to observe Advent (which is kind of a big deal there I guess). It was frustrating trying to find an authentic Swedish recipe for anything, and if I did, it was in Swedish! I think you lose something in the translation, and of course they use things there that we don't really have here. Lucky for me, a friend on Facebook 'fessed up to being Swedish herself. She kind of took me under her wing a bit, emailed me some of her family recipes and told me alot of ingredients that you usually wouldn't find in the states can be purchased at IKEA. Ikea!! Why didn't I think of that?? I love that place. We take special trips to Sacramento sometimes, just to go to Ikea! Brilliant.

With the holidays upon me, I was not driving to Ikea. But my friend was sweet enough to stop by my house on the morning of Christmas Eve, just to give me a box of Pearl Sugar and one of Swedish Vanilla. Mmmmm. My mouth is watering all over the keyboard just thinking of it.

All that to say: in an effort to squeeze tradition into a ridiculously busy holiday, I have a distinct memory of sitting with my son on the floor of our kitchen on Christmas morning, eating Risgrynsgrot (Rice Pudding) which I had made quite at the last minute, even as Joel was packing our car for a 3 hour drive to my mom's house. We certainly didn't have time to sit around the table and make it A Thing, but I'm proud of myself for making it happen at all.

Here is the recipe if anyone is interested:

Risgrynsgrot
3/4c long grain rice
1 1/2c water
1 tsp. salt
3 1/2c milk
1 piece whole cinnamon
Bring rice, water and salt to a boil. Stir, cover, and boil for about 10 minutes over low heat. Add milk and cinnamon and simmer for 30-40 minutes more, until it is nice and thick and the ricec is soft.
I definitely add a little sugar to it. Other toppings options include butter, ground cinnamon, or a little extra milk.
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It's a Christmas Eve tradition all over Sweden. They like to put one whole almond in the pot, and whoever finds the almond in their bowl will have good luck next year... or get married... or win a special prize (whichever you prefer). =>

Well, I'm off for now. I have SO many ideas for the Etsy shop, it really isn't funny. New designs are on the horizon! For some reason (probably the fact that I can't say no), I've also signed myself up for this knit-a-long. It's a sweater with a weird name. I like to call it the Crazy Difficult Cable sweater that Charity will weep over.

One last note, if you haven't already, please visit this Etsy shop: http://www.heartsforhaiti.etsy.com/. 100% of the proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders for Haitian Relief. I donated my Sleek Black ipod Cozy for the cause. <3