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New printable Basketball Treat Cards . . . New printable Soccer Treat Cards in the shop. . .

Printable valentine's fish bowls are available in my etsy shop. These are instant downloads and come with your choice of 2 pdfs. . . one with all four Valentine's sayings and one that just has the popular "glad we're in the same school" saying. In a different listing, you can also ask me to customize them with a name or make custom fish bowl party invitations, end of school cards, and party favor bags that are similar. Check my shop . *Links updated in 2026*

Two more installments in the Seriously Official Back-to-School set of printables I did for TodaysMama.com . . . Bookplates and a customizable Certificate of Awesomeness .

I designed these little lunchbox memos for todaysmama.com . You can download them from there and print them for free!

Summer is full of family get-togethers and family reunions. At each one, Lucy gets excited about playing with cousins. And after each one, we spend a lot of time explaining how those cousins are related to us. I thought it would be fun to put it all together in a visual way, something to point at as we explain and talk about families. It turned into this wonky, wacky family tree with hubby and I at the center and branching out from there. Then it turned into a solar system, it just happened. And THEN it turned into something that would look great hanging on a wall. Shameless etsy plug, I've now made it available in my etsy shop ! I will make a custom chart just for you and your fam. Check it out here .

. . . they'd tell fantastic stories of medieval court life and dragons and castles! I just saw these fantastic shadow puppets at Kate's Paperie but of course they are sold out! Wouldn't it be fun to make some though? Lucy's into pirates these days. . . I could design a set of pirate shadow puppets. . . add that to the list of projects I would love to do but probably never will. Seriously.

Can you spot my little bears? They're the second one from the top right corner! I'm a semi-finalist! Woot woot! This has been a fun challenge to work on. There were 968 final entries and those were narrowed down to 75 semi-finalists. Thanks for all your input, friends. I really love the spacey robot one, too, but I just didn't think it was quite ready. I want to keep playing with it a little. So I went with my gut and entered the bears against the blue/gray background. If you'd like to vote (please, please, pretty please!?!) go to the Spoonflower website contest tab and vote for any and all the ones you like. . . click on them and they turn green. The submit vote button is on the 5th page. You have till April 6 to vote, but why wait? Do it today!

I've been thinking about making a hobby horse for Lu. She's been galloping around on an old wrapping paper tube. Here are a few cute ones with patterns and pictures: Hettie the Horse from a Melly & Me pattern One from RusticHorse Shoe on Etsy And one from Woman's Day I really should make two, since by the time I finish Emmie will be asking for one!

I'm being induced a week from today. This baby's a coming. A lot of people ask if I feel ready. . . the answer is almost. Others ask if we've had to buy anything at all since its another girl and we already had everything. . . the answer is almost nothing. But just for fun, and 'cause I'm excited about my new baby purchases and gifts I thought I'd share my shopping list. BabyBjorn Travel Crib Light - Silver (Thank you Sugar House Friends!) Baby Monitors - Up for suggestions as to best brand and style mela bamboo swaddles by aden + anais (This set was came as a gift from a friend. . . I totally had my eye on them, perfect for a summer baby.) Green to Grow Bottles a new diaper bag from Skip Hop Baby Book by Sara Midda I don't scrapbook, and I'm horrible about photo albums (everything stays digital) but Baby Books I can do. In fact, my mom kept one for each of us kids and I loved looking through it. I think its a really good tradition to keep. . . This one ...

Broiled Tilapia with Avocado Salsa and Steamed Broccoli with Orange Chances are, if you've spent more than 15 minutes alone with me lately, I've told you about relish! the saving grace of my weeknight dinners. . . I'm not a good cook. I like to cook with hubby for big weekend dinners where we might be having guests, but I get really lazy during the week. I tend to make the same handful of dishes over and over and over again. And I DREAD making my shopping list every week. One day, I put Mike in charge of planning the menu for the next week and bada-bing, look what he found. . . relish! It's an online menu and grocery planning service. Each week they have 20 or so different meal options for you, you choose the ones you want, tell it how many servings you'll be making and hit a button and it compiles recipes AND a grocery shopping list for you. The meals all take 30 minutes or less to prepare, often use seasonal ingredients, and are actually very healthy. . . and did...

That would be the headline if I were writing about Marc Johns for a magazine or artsy newspaper. . . or for my silly little blog, I guess. His drawings make me giggle. . . . and more than a little jealous that I didn't think of it first. . . And I swear if I could I would buy everyone on my Christmas List one of his sticky note drawings . But they sell within minutes of being posted. . . This is definitely the one I would buy for Hubby. . . And I think I would absolutely die if I saw this in a restaurant bathroom . . .

Who knew the Library of Congress was so hip? They're everywhere these days: starring in Dan Brown's new The Lost Symbol , uploading amazing, copyright-free images on Flickr for graphic designers and history buffs everywhere, and now hosting this awesome reading adventure. . . Our "Exquisite Corpse Adventure" works this way: Jon Scieszka, the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, has written the first episode. . . He has passed it on to a cast of celebrated writers and illustrators, who must eventually bring the story to an end. Every two weeks, there will be a new episode and a new illustration. The story will conclude a year from now. -- from Read.gov The Library of Congress obviously has dusted off it's old, tattered leather covers and is showing its younger, more colorful content! Read the first episode here. . . Find educational links and ideas to go along with it here. . .

Don't worry, blog. You're not alone. You are not the only thing in my life that I have completely ignored for the last several months. I've neglected house, yard, laundry, inbox messages, and husband. I've avoided friends and abandoned the gym. And for what reason? The SCBWI Conference. (That stands for Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, btw). You know I'm a sucker for packaging and when the bright, colorful slick brochure with a rocket on front arrived in the mail I knew I had to go. The names of the presenters jumped off the page at me for further enticement. David Weisner? Kadir Nelson? Two of the most skilled (and awarded) illustrators in children's books. . . Richard Peck? I loved the Soup books growing up. I HAD to go. But, I decided early on, I wasn't just going to GO, I had to go full steam ahead. If I was going to network, I needed new business cards. If those business cards were going to be useful, I needed a website. If the w...

A fantastic series of greeting cards featuring Monsieur Boudin, a dapper little dachsund from Paris. . . and if they did come larger I'd hang them all over Lu's room! I also wish they were available for purchase in the US, darnit! I guess I'll just have to enjoy them over the world wide web for a while. From the very creative creatives at Lab Partners .

This Denyse Schmidt quilt from the Sundance Catalog is inspiring me. . . and tempting me. It's on sale at the Sundance Outlet store not far from where I live and I practically salivate every time I see it. I really like the idea of using solid fabrics to make your own patterns and designs in quilts. Here are a few excellent examples from Land of Nod that also get my creative juices flowing: There is a whole flickr group called simply solid quilts which is also fun to peruse for ideas.

This one has been stumping me for weeks. . . so instead of stewing about it any longer, I'm just going to post some of my favorite pics (hard, because there are a MILLION!) and let you guess where we went. . . Clue #1: We went to see our good friends the Pratts who are living there Clue #2: We had really some good food (Easter Breakfast) (I can't remember what these are called but its corn on the cob smothered in mayo, cheese and chili powder) (Tostada bar at a neighborhood market. . . mmmm) Clue #3: And some pretty strange food (Yup, those are fried grub worms. . . and what looks like couscous is actually ant eggs) (but Wendy liked it!) The weird thing is, those grubs and ant eggs were served at one of the most beautiful restaurants I've ever seen where macaws and toucans and peacocks entertain the guests (especially the kids) in the amazing open garden and courtyard. . . maybe they fed us the bird food by mistake. . . Clue #4: We did some shopping Clue #5: We saw an amazi...