Masks by New England Makers

We’re definitely living in different times right now… and it’s becoming clearer that it looks as though we will have to co-exist with this virus for the foreseeable future. Because of that anything we can do that might mitigate the risk of virus transmission, like always wearing face masks or face coverings when outside our homes, are becoming a part of our “new normal.” Today a lot of small businesses are hurting, including small local makers, many of whom have pivoted to also offer masks for sale. As we move forward into our new normal, consider supporting a local maker and purchase masks from them.
| This post is not sponsored or an endorsement. Makers are listed in no particular order and I plan to continue to add to this list as I come across more makers who request to be added. |

Masks by New England Makers

Disclaimer: I am not giving medical advice. Make sure to always consult the CDC and local health officials for up-to-date recommendations. These masks are not considered medical grade and should be washed in between each use… please see each individual mask maker regarding details, care instructions, pricing, and current availability.

Scrub Caps for Scholars

| Shop Masks and Scrub Caps by Scrub Caps for Scholars |

Scrub Caps for Scholars is an Etsy shop recently started by Marissa of One CrafDIY Girl (who’s also an ICU nurse in Massachusetts) looking to give back to frontline nurses who are struggling to pay their student loans. Proceeds from sales of masks and scrub caps will go towards that fund. Masks are available in different styles in child through adult sizes with different fabrics to choose from; there are also some matching scrub caps available too.

Masked in Style

| Shop Masks by Masked in Style (Order requests via Facebook Page) |

Nicole has created 615+ masks so far - including donations to local businesses and healthcare workers across the country. She has many fabrics to choose from, with masks in tie and elastic styles. (*If there's an essential worker you want to surprise with a free cloth mask, send her a message and she will send it out with a thank you note!)

Think Greene

| Shop Masks by Think Greene |

Think Greene is a Maine-based company best known for their eco-friendly items and apparel. They are offering boldly designed masks in adult and kid sizes made with organic cotton. Masks are tie-style.

Singer Vintage

| Shop Masks by Singer Vintage |

Singer Vintage is a Maine-based Etsy stop, which normally sells vintage sewing machine parts, but now offers a wide variety of summer-inspired masks (gingham, chambray, lobsters, etc) in different styles and sizes.

Little Green Pear

| Shop Masks by Little Green Pear (Etsy shop temporarily closed, please order through direct message on Facebook or Instagram) |

Little Green Pear is run by a Vermont-based mom and best known for hair bows and baby accessories, but is now offering a variety of masks in different styles, fabric patterns, and sizes from toddler through adult.

Maine Mom Boutique

| Shop Masks by Maine Mom Boutique |

Maine Mom Boutique is a highly-rated shop on Etsy, best known for baby-related items, now offering elastic loop style masks for adults in a variety of fabric patterns.

Sea Crow Company

| Shop Masks by Sea Crow Company |

Maine-based Sea Crow Co. is best known for their popular colorful bags and accessories and is now offering masks too. Masks are pleated-style and available in a variety of fabric patterns and in both ear loop and tie options (child sizes are available upon request).

Miss Harlow VT

| Shop Masks by Miss Harlow VT (Order via Google Form) |

Miss Harlow VT is a Vermont-based crafter best known for her sewn baby items and gifts and is now offering masks as well in many different fabrics, in both child and adult sizes. To date she has made over 500!

Jackie’s Boutique

| Shop Masks from Jackie's Boutique (Website currently under construction but can order on Facebook) |

Jackie’s Boutique are two “brick and mortar” shops located in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire known for resort wear and accessories. Right now they are also offering masks with vintage Lake Winnipesaukee map patterns on them. The fabric is made and printed in New England.

The Artsy Fox

| Shop Masks by The Artsy Fox (Request order via Facebook Group) |

The Artsy Fox is New Hampshire-based and known for crocheted and knit items as well as quilted items, and is now also offering masks in different patterns too.

Two Little Beans & Co.

| Shop Masks by Two Little Beans & Co. |

Two Little Beans & Co. is a Maine-based company best known for their baby booties, bibs, and other baby items but is now also offering ear loop style pleated masks in many fabric options, in both kid and adult sizes. She has also been making mask donations for healthcare and frontline workers. (*There is a tutorial on her website if you’re looking for instructions to make your own mask.)

We Fill Good.

| Shop Masks from We Fill Good |

We Fill Good is an eco-friendly shop in Kittery, Maine known for selling reusable products that can help you achieve a low-waste household. Right now they are also offering masks in a variety of fabric pattern options in both adult and kid sizes.

Red House VT

| Waitlist for Red House VT Masks |

Red House VT is best known for their waxed canvas and leather bags and are now offering simple modern style masks, currently as a wait-list item.

- All photos used with permission -

If you are a New England Maker who is also making masks and would like to be added to this list, please send me a message and I would love to add you. Thank you all for your hard work to help keep our communities a little safer.

Disclaimer: I am not giving medical advice or endorsing any particular seller - purchase at your own risk. Make sure to always consult the CDC and local health officials for up-to-date recommendations. These masks are not considered medical grade and should be washed in between each use… please see each individual mask maker regarding details, care instructions, pricing, and current availability.

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Related Posts:

• Cloth Face Mask Organization and Storage

• General Emergency Preparedness Tips and Ideas

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Interviews from New England Makers:

Remote Learning + Homeschooling: Tips and Supplies

With the Covid-19 Pandemic still persisting and school in our state cancelled for the rest of the school year (and maybe longer), average parents have been thrown into the role of becoming teachers too and most of us weren’t prepared at all. While I have a degree in Art Education, I went a different career route after graduation and my teaching/classroom management skills are now quite rusty. So I pulled from my own classroom and remote teaching experiences - as well as polling many teacher friends, homeschooling parents, and regular now-remote-teaching-parents for ideas on what’s working for them and what supplies have been lifesavers as they navigate this new remote learning world. | This post contains affiliate links |

Give Yourself Grace

This is probably the biggest takeaway from everyone I’ve talked to…. remote learning during a Pandemic is definitely uncharted territory and everyone is trying to figure things out - readjusting roles, schedules, expectations, everything. Most of us weren’t cut out to be teachers, and it can be incredibly hard to motivate and focus your own kids as well as their teachers are able to. Ultimately, it’s a matter of doing the best that you can in the circumstance you’re currently in… and don’t beat yourself up if everything isn’t perfect.

Communicate with Teachers and Administrators

If you have a lot going on at home (working from home yourself, several kids schedules to juggle, other personal hurdles to deal with, etc) or if the teacher’s expectations for remote learning are just unrealistic, definitely reach out to them to voice your concerns and come up with a plan. Maybe deadlines can be extended, or the workload can be reduced to the essential assignments. Maybe the big group Zoom meetings are too overwhelming and frustrating for your young child and they need a one-on-one meeting instead. Maybe the schedule the teacher came up with won’t work for your family with your own work and other school schedules.
The point is - if you or your kids are feeling overwhelmed and stressed about about the whole remote learning process, it’s worth discussing with their teachers and administrators so that you can come up with something that works for everyone and still meets all the learning requirements.

Come up With a Schedule that Works for Your Family

This will take some trial-and-error. And if you have older students with a heavier workload, their home school day might just look very similar to a regular school day schedule-wise and time-wise - especially if they can work pretty independently. But for us with younger kids, mom or dad needs to be there to walk them through each assignment, activity, and online meeting.

If you’re also working from home or juggling other kids schedules too this can be particularly challenging and exhausting... if you need something to buy periods of occupation from your kids (maybe so you can do an uninterupted confrence call, or you can concentrate helping one child with an assignment while keeping the other kids busy), consider giving them something they will enjoy doing and keep them safely occupied (but always under some parent supervision of course). Maybe it's educational games on the Kindle, or perhaps low-mess craft projects, or an hour of TV time, or reading a book series on their own that they enjoy, etc. Or maybe you find school work or office work done in fragments at unusual times is what works best for your family.

For us personally with younger kids, we’ve fallen into a good rhythm and schedule over the last two months of remote learning. For our family we’ve found it best to buckle down in the mornings and get the work done first thing when attention spans are at their best and everyone is well rested. So our daughter works through her assignments one-by-one every morning with breaks for snack and classroom meetings. Our goal is to have all her work completed for the day by lunchtime, and while some days that doesn’t happen and things need to be finished after lunch, most of the time she’s done by noon which leaves the afternoons for “free choice fun.” Typically, spending the whole afternoon outside if the weather is nice or inside playing legos or watching a movie if it’s raining (and while the kids are playing I can chip away at whatever work I need to get done too). Our days have consistent expectations and a nice rhythm to them now which helps a lot.

Set Snack and Meal Times

As anyone with kids home 24/7 can tell you, they can and WILL eat you out of house and home if you let them. By having set snack and mealtimes it will help your pantry and wallet by not blowing through all your quarantine snacks in 2 days flat. I’ve seen some parents even pack their kids lunch box every morning, just like they would for school, so the kids have a finite amount of snacks and lunch food for the day.

Designate a School Space and Stay Organized

Having a designated “school space” that has all the supplies your kids will need to complete their assignments at their fingertips can be crucial to success. Ideally having a desk or separate workspace would be ideal, but any designated space can work. For us, we set up one end of our kitchen island - it has a laptop where our daughter completes most of her assignments online and a small basket where we store paper, workbooks, flashcards, and a few ziplock bags containing different supplies that she uses often (markers, counting chips, etc). By having everything ready to go each day, there's no excuse when it's time to get to work.

I polled many friends, both teachers and regular parents who are now remote teaching, and compiled a list of things they have needed or found to be extremely helpful during this time. Younger kids definitely tend to need more learning aides so the list has many items geared to younger students but there are also some items that can be useful for older grade levels listed too. Click the button below to browse our picks, which I will be periodically adding to as I get more suggestions:

Is there anything you’ve found to be helpful during this time? Please comment below or send me a message.

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Related Posts

• Cloth Face Mask Organization and Storage

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Hearts for Heroes

Yesterday the kids finger-painted some big sheets of paper and today we cut hearts out to hang in all our windows as a way to say THANK YOU to all the heroes out there - especially medical personnel, but also mail/package carriers, truck drivers, and our neighbors and community that are staying home.

I hope everyone can find some small way to help spread some hope and gratitude in your neighborhoods too. Thank you all!

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• A Message of Hope Facing the Unknowns of Coronavirus

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A Message of Hope Facing the Unknowns of Coronavirus

Definitely a very weird and uncertain time right now, but the sacrifices we make to stay home and away from others will hopefully make a huge (positive) impact in the trajectory of what's going on in the world right now.  I hope this time of home-quarantine for much of our society will have some very positive side effects - like quality time with our kids, the wonderful challenge of learning to homeschool, a renewed sense of frugality and being less-wasteful, and using social media as a beneficial tool to stay connected with family and friends.  And with the world learning to "work remote," hopefully there will be more work-from-home job opportunities going forward which will lessen society's need for commuting, large office buildings, and pollution.  

It definitely will be a very challenging time these next few weeks and months.  But I hope we remember what’s truly important, can support and learn from each other (from a safe distance), and realize that the sacrifices we make are for the greater good.  We will come out on the other side of this more resilient, self-reliant, and stronger than ever.  Stay healthy everyone!  <3

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• Hearts for Heroes

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• My Recipe for “Quarantine Chili”

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Dealing with Extreme Food Intolerances in our Baby

Sometimes babies have a hard time processing breastmilk because of food mom eats - this isn't that uncommon.  In fact our first baby had MSPI (Milk-Soy Protein Intolerance), and I had to avoid dairy and soy while breastfeeding until she outgrew it around 15 months.  What is uncommon is a baby that is so sensitive that she can react to EVERYTHING mom eats.  Unfortunately, that seems to be where we're at now with our second baby and why I've been so MIA from the blog and Etsy shop these last two months.  | DISCLAIMER:  I am not a medical professional and am not suggesting medical advice - I am just sharing our experiences.  Please always consult your own doctors and specialists before trying anything. |
This post contains affiliate links.  

Going on a TED

Our baby's poops were "off" from birth... at first they were blamed on the medications I got during my c-section (she was breech), then on dairy/soy which I quickly cut out of my diet, but then she started having blood in her stool. After a particularly scary (bloody) diaper I immediately went on a Total Elimination Diet (TED). A TED is when you cut your diet down to just a handful of low allergenic foods in order to get your baby to "baseline" (baseline being no more bad symptoms, whatever that may be for your situation), then adding one pure food in a time to make sure your baby still does well with it in your diet. With the okay from our baby's GI specialist I started my TED of turkey, sweet potatoes, quinoa, and clean olive oil (a lot of olive oils are cut with soy or corn oil, and there are only a few brands that are truly "clean"). I also cut out all my vitamins and supplements in case those were affecting her.

Over the next few weeks things slowly improved (less blood and mucus, better color), but we couldn't quite get to baseline. I then started infant probiotics and epsom salt baths for her and a digestive enzyme-probiotic combo for me, with every new thing or change in dosage acting as a new trial... giving every little change a week to see if and how it affected her. Vaccines at her well-child checkup were treated the same as well.. each one done separately at least a week apart (and vaccines did cause her lower GI issues to flare up unfortunately.. so after each vaccine we'd have to give her a bit more time to settle back down). Everything I ate was recorded in a log with times and every poop she did was also recorded with times, descriptions, and even photos. It was a very, very tedious process and the results constantly felt like two steps forward, one step back.

After about 1.5 months we were finally flirting with baseline but couldn't quite keep there.  Nevertheless, I was desperate for more food varieties... my back was starting to hurt every time I ate - my body was getting tired of digesting only the same three foods each day and even though my blood work had been coming back normal this diet was still taking it's toll.  Unfortunately, every time I tried to add a new food in our little one would seemingly fail it (more mucus in stools, blood, and/or acidic poops).. it was incredibly disheartening and depressing.  It got to the point where I felt extreme guilt and dread after sealing Christmas cards because I didn't know what the glue was made out of and if it would affect our baby.  

FPIAP, FPIES, or Histamine Issues?

We won't know exactly what's going on with our baby until she starts solids since breastfeeding essentially "filters" everything to an extent.  In general most kids with these kinds of sensitivities seem to fall into at least one of three diagnoses: 

Food Protein Induced Allergic Proctocolitis (FPIAP) - This is generally considered the "milder" version that only affects the lower GI tract (blood, mucus-y stool, etc) and most will outgrow it by around 1-year old (we pray to God she has this version).  Some also refer to this as “Chronic FPIES” or just “Allergic Colitis.”

Food Protein Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (FPIES) - This is typically a more severe version of FPIAP that also affects the upper GI.  The most common adverse reaction to a trigger involves severe vomiting-to-shock, that often requires a trip to the ER to get under control.  There are foods that are considered to be more "common" triggers for FPIES but literally any food could be a trigger.  Most will outgrow it by 3-4 years old.  

Histamine Issues - This includes Mast Cell issues.. these poor kids have trouble regulating histamine levels in their bodies and anything and everything can effect them.  It can be a very difficult and overwhelming life-long road to navigate.  

The Decision to Go to Formula

I wanted to continue breastfeeding SOO badly - I love breastfeeding and the peaceful bond that it brings.  However, as hard as I tried I just could not keep our baby at baseline and it was not beneficial for her gut or for me mentally or physically to continue such a restrictive diet that seemingly got us nowhere.  

If our TED had been more successful and I was able to add back foods into my diet and keep our little one's diapers clear I would have been more than happy to continue with what I was doing, but unfortunately that wasn't the case for us.  Once we hit two months on this diet I decided it was finally time to try formula.  Her GI doctor made a recommendation to try first and while those first two days of bottle and formula feeding were SO hard (I cried more than our baby did), we finally had success.  Knock on wood, she's been doing awesome since and it's such a weight off my shoulders to not have to monitor everything as strictly as before.  

Going forward we're taking vaccines very slowly and will likely delay the introduction of solids until at least 7 months.  We're closely monitoring everything with the GI and will likely get another opinion at an allergist too to get more guidance on everything going forward.  I pray to God she has the more mild version of things and outgrows it quickly, but only time will tell.  Best of luck to other mamas out there going through similar things, it can be so hard.  

UPDATE:  The doctors believe she has FPIAP (which would be the best-case scenario), and I'm really hopeful that that is the case and she will hopefully outgrow all this in the coming months.  We've very cautiously and slowly started solids at 8 months and hopefully will keep progressing.
SECOND UPDATE: Now at almost 15 months we’ve made some great progress but she’s still very sensitive to new things and even vaccinations. We take everything slowly and allow for an adjustment period with new foods and most have been passes as long as she has time to adjust and get used to them. It’s still a very slow and tedious process...  Hang in there!

DISCLAIMER:  I am NOT a medical professional and am NOT suggesting medical advice.  I am simply sharing our experiences.  Do not take any information I provided as fact or advice.  Always consult your own doctors and specialists before changing your diet, adding supplements, or going on a TED.  Always get medical approval for yourself and your baby.