Growing Up

Since my husband and I recently both had a few days off in a row, I decided to take some time to finally finish editing home videos and creating photo slide shows to make a dvd of my daughter's entire first year. It has been a lot of fun to look back on her early days, and makes me realize how grown up she is already. It seems that nearly everyday now she is reaching new milestones. It's hard to believe that only a year ago she was just learning to talk and communicate. Now she's telling us stories, talking about her day, and even attempting to boss us around!

While all these changes are very exciting, they can be overwhelming at times too. I think we've reached an age where she really finds in more enjoyable to go to daycare than to stay home with me. She definitely benefits not just from the activities at daycare, but also the social time with her friends too. It can be challenging to balance her needs with mine, and to squeeze everything into a day. Especially on a day like today, when I have a lot on my to do list, and she decides she does not need to nap. And it's often too cold these days to play outside for very long, so it's difficult for her to burn off all that extra energy she has. (I can only imagine how much I could do if I had half of the energy of a 2 year old!) Ah, the struggles of motherhood. Here's to hoping for a short winter!

Florist Friday: recovering from the holidays

Working at a florist can get a little crazy at certain times of the year. December is always a busy time for us, making holiday centerpieces, decorating for parties, and delivering poinsettias. Then January is usually pretty quiet and calm, which can be kind of a downer after the holidays, but it does at least give us a chance to rest up before the Valentine's Day rush hits. And it gives my dry, cracked, pitch-covered, holly-scraped hands a chance to heal just in time to be scraped up by all those rose thorns. Maybe this year we'll get lucky and get roses with very few thorns. We shall see.

In any case, this year we have 3 wedding shows to do in January/early February, so that should keep us busy. I love doing wedding shows, as they give me a chance to really be creative. Our first one is this weekend, so I should have some pics to share soon!

Theme Thursday: Carnations

January is here, and it's time to showcase the birth flower for this month, the Carnation. Carnations have been cultivated for over 2,000 years, and have a history rich in symbolism and mythology. Each color has a different meaning, red being admiration, white being innocence, and yellow being rejection, to name a few. Pink carnations are perhaps the most significant in that it is believed that they first sprouted up where the Virgin Mary had shed tears as Jesus carried his cross, and they are hold the meaning "I will never forget you" as well as a mother's unending love.

Carnation Organic Flower Ring by Royal Princess

Red and Pink Carnation Toddler Dress by De-De and Delores


Pink Carnation Baby Headband by Pois Doux


Hot Pink Carnations by Dumaop Shop

Flowers are Blooming Headband by Clementine's


Sweetness and Light Fine Art Print by Alice B. Gardens


PS: I know it's not quite Thursday yet, but I just snagged a treasury to featuring these carnations and more! Click here to view it. Expires Friday at 11:00am!

365 Declutter Challenge

As part of my New Year's resolution to simplify, I'm going to buckle down and focus on decluttering my home. Anyone who has seen my house knows that we have a lot of stuff. And now that we have a child, the stuff seems to be rapidly multiplying! The thought of trying to sort through all of the stuff in our house is pretty overwhelming. So I've decided to tackle it one day at a time, one piece of clutter at a time.

I had been thinking about starting a 365 Declutter Challenge for awhile, the idea being that each day you get rid of at least one piece of clutter. So that's at least 365 things that would be leaving my home over the course of a year. Yay! A couple weeks ago, I thought 'why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?', and started a 365 Declutter group on facebook, where each week I've been posting a different area of the home to work on decluttering. So if you want to declutter your home, feel free to come join us. If we stick with this for an entire year, doing a little bit each day, just think how nice our homes will be for the holidays next year!

Eager for the new year

As this year draws to a close, I'm looking back and reflecting on all that I've done, but also looking ahead at all that I want to do. I've always been an idea person. I've never had difficulty coming up with ideas. In fact, I have a whole "vault" of ideas that are waiting for their moment to shine. Now that the holiday craziness is over, I'm really looking forward to peering into the vault, and deciding which ideas to focus on in the new year.

I've been living a very full life (perhaps at times a bit too full), and in the coming year I hope to really set some solid priorities, and focus on only the things that are most important to me. Which is difficult for me, as I am usually the type to want to do it all. But I realize that if I keep adding more and more to my plate, at some point the plate will shatter, no longer being able to hold the weight of everything I've put on it, and cause everything to come crashing down. What a mess that would be!

So my resolution for the new year is to simplify my life. Declutter. Focus. Live simply. I'm feeling very upbeat and positive about the year to come, and am very much looking forward to it.

Happy New Year!

Theme Thursday: Midnight Carnival

Etsy has this really fun thing called Treasury, where you can curate a shopping gallery of items from Etsy sellers. It can be tricky to snag an opening to create a Treasury, as there is a very short time frame when they open up, so you have to be at the right place at the right time. I love making Treasuries, and often will drop whatever I'm working on if there's a chance that I can grab one. Fortunately I was in the right place at the right time this week! I had a lot of fun creating this Midnight Carnival collection, and thought I'd share it here for my Theme Thursday post. Here's a screen shot of it:

You can also view it on Etsy here. Enjoy!

Has it really been...

a month since I last blogged? My, oh my, where did November go? Oh wait...now I remember: I published the winter issue of Modern Handmade Child, worked extra at the florist shop in preparation for our holiday open house and Thanksgiving, made new items for my Etsy shop (including 4 new hand sewn flower designs), finished up and launched the new EtsyKids website, and traveled for Thanksgiving, not to mention the every day craziness of being a mom to a 2 1/2 year old. No wonder November flew by! But I think I'm finally caught up with everything that got set to the side while I was in the midst of November chaos, and hope to get back on track with blogging too.