Super Fun Surprise Giveaway!!

I am going to let you in on a little secret -- (some of you already know this, but...) from time to time we enjoy picking out some of our very special readers, contacting them via email to ask for shipping info, and then mailing out surprise packages. Just because!

Sometimes I take the girls to the thrift shop and we'll find little vintage treasures, magazines or books, kitchen towels... that sort of thing. If I know it is something a particular reader would truly appreciate, we set it aside. Then we pack it all up and make a special trip to the post office.

It is so much fun, and we never ever expected to get anything back in return. Yet, that is precisely what happened a few days ago when this awesome package arrived from Val in the Rose Garden. What a wonderful surprise!!

Inside was a beautiful card, a felted wool hat Val made (which Clara seemed to claim and refuses to take off), a Real Simple Family magazine (I love that!), a child's apron and cookie cutter set from... China (?) Emily LOVES them.... and wait... there was more!

This pretty potholder Val made from vintage bed sheets! I love how it goes so well in our kitchen! Val also included lots of great vintage fabrics that I have big plans for.... maybe some bread bags? Oh, that would be so much fun!

Thank you, Val!! If you haven't been to Val's little corner of the internet over at Collecting the Moments... One by One, definitely go check it out. I've been calling her site "the best kept secret on the internet". It is an absolute treasure trove!

Now the fun part -- we are just itching to bless another lucky reader with a package, but this one will be a complete surprise! To enter for your chance to win this super-fun giveaway, leave a comment on this post telling us about the best surprise you've ever received in the mail. Winner will be chosen by.... Emily!! And contacted via email for shipping info. This giveaway ends Tuesday, December 1st @ 6:30 PM EST.

Good luck!!!

Handmade Holidays -- Snowflake Notecard Mailers

This beautiful post on A Creative Mint had me thinking about rich shades of purple, lavender, linen, and white. It reminded me of this pad of 50 sheets of cardstock I had picked up on clearance at JoAnn's ($3.17) a long time ago. We put it to good use today!

First, I cut each 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of cardstock in half to measure 4 1/4" x 11". This was the perfect size to make notecard mailers! I used my corner rounder on all the corners for a more finished look, and folded each card into thirds.

Emily came to help stamp the cards with white snowflakes....

....and painted on some glitter glue! I think she was showing great restraint here, as she would have loved to cover the entire card with glitter glue. Instead, she painted one edge plus the corners.

I drew some lines for an address, and added a stamp where the postage would go.

When they were completely dry, we wrapped them up with some lavender raffia.

So pretty! Emily is still working on making more of these to send out to some of her friends. If it helps to encourage letter-writing.... I'm all for it!

Write to Grandma Kit

Emily loves writing letters to Grandma, so we put together a little letter writing kit to encourage this important task! This is a fun way to celebrate Grandparent's Day (Sept. 13th). Somehow I had accumulated a tremendous amount of stationery over the years, and Emily enjoyed going through my collection to pick out cards and pretty paper for her kit. We added some crayons, stickers, and I pre-addressed all of the envelopes for her. Everything fit neatly inside an accordion style file folder.

I used some index cards to make up flash cards just for letter-writing with words like Dear, Grandma, how, love, miss, you, are, going, doing, day. This gives Emily extra spelling and handwriting practice, and she can piece together her letter with very little help from me.

She was so proud to write her letter to Grandma all by herself!

This post is linked to Family Friday.

Super Summer Swap

I am so glad I signed Emily up for the Super Summer Swap hosted by Christy from Superheros and Princesses and Life of a Dairy Queen. I thought it would be a great way to teach Emily a little bit about a state other than Pennsylvania, and it was so much fun! We were paired with a little girl from Georgia, around the same age as Emily. This morning we had fun putting the finishing touches and mailing out our package to send to her, and like magic her package for Emily arrived later this afternoon! Emily was thrilled! We were all blown away by their generosity!

Since she lives in Georgia, she sent some peach rings (Georgia is The Peach State), and peanuts (something Georgia is very well known for, along with brochures about the county she lives in), a lift-the-flap board book of the 50 U.S. states, some awesome stickers, a HUGE balloon, an ADORABLE handmade file folder mail game, some cute window huggers for Emily to put together, magic dough in all sorts of colors and a really neat booklet of photos with ideas of what to make with the dough.

Emily was so happy to see a photo of her new friend from The Peach State! We went to the garden later in the afternoon, and she took the photo with her. She was absolutely delighted with everything, and so grateful to be paired with such a wonderful swap partner!