I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, crafter, and blogger living in rural New England. As seen in Martha Stewart Living, Food Network Magazine, and more! | Tutorials, DIY, crafts, parenting tips, recipes, money saving tips, product reviews, local product features, New England living, intentional living, and more! |
Wiglesworth’s Mercantile is a brand new shop coming to Portsmouth’s Market Street next month and I am so excited to share that they’ll be carrying some of our ornaments and other small crafts! The owner Anne has a great vision of making it a place catered to carrying locally-made New England products. (You know how much I love local products, and I can’t wait to visit this wonderfully curated store once it’s open!)
Look what came in the mail today! New Hampshire Magazine's December issue along with their 34-page Holiday Gift Guide (available to magazine subscribers only), packed with ideas of local places to shop, products to buy, and fun holiday events to do. And we're so excited to be included - you can find Birch Landing Home right on page 12 in their "Master the Yankee Swap" Gift Guide.
Make sure to check out all their great local selections in the Gift Guide, and if you're not a NH Magazine subscriber the guides can also be found online here.
And did you hear the news of our upcoming sale?
We'll be hosting a sale all this weekend for Black Friday/Plaid Saturday/Cyber Monday (whew). The sale code will be posted online Friday, but subscribers to our Newsletter will get the code Thursday night - if you don't want to miss out on the sale be sure to sign up now!
Correction: There is a misprint in NH Magazine's writeup. While I have in fact been featured in Martha Stewart Living Magazine, I haven't been featured in Yankee Magazine (yet anyways - hopefully someday soon though!) :)
Pssst! We'll be having a sale all next weekend for Black Friday/Plaid Saturday/Cyber Monday! Be sure to check here on Friday for the sale code - and if you want to get it Thursday night make sure to sign up for our Newsletter below ;)
So honored to be included in New Hampshire Magazine's Yankee Swap Gift Guide this year! If you're looking for a locally-made, affordable gift to bring to a party this list has you covered. Be sure to check out all the other great NH makers and products they rounded up too and remember to shop small this season.
Correction: There is a misprint in NH Magazine's writeup. While I have in fact been featured in Martha Stewart Living Magazine, I haven't been featured in Yankee Magazine (yet anyways - hopefully someday soon though!). :)
Last Friday we decided at the last minute to spend the weekend in Ogunquit, Maine - the weather looked great, my husband was itching to take some Milky Way photos, and it had been too long since we did a little family trip. It was also right before "the season" starts, which meant that there would be less crowds and cheaper hotel rooms (yes!). All-in-all as a family of three we spent less than $175 for the whole weekend, including the hotel room, so I would call that a huge success!
For hotel we stayed at The Beachmere Inn which is conveniently located right on the Marginal Way, a 1.25 mile scenic walkway following the edge of the ocean. Even though we were calling for reservations the day before, The Beachmere thankfully still had a few rooms available. We opted for the least expensive one ($100+tax, which was this particular room's preseason rate). It was a nice, modest room with a queen sized bed in the Victorian building of the hotel complex. This room didn't quite have the view that most rooms at the hotel have, but we didn't mind since we knew we'd be out walking most of the day and then to bed early with our little one.
The Beachmere Inn
The view from our private balcony.
To save a little extra money we packed our lunches from home for that first day. We got to the hotel around lunch time and since our room was ready they let us check in early (very nice!). We were able to enjoy our lunch on our own private balcony overlooking the great lawn of the hotel.
That afternoon was spent wandering up and down the Marginal Way and walking into town to explore some of the little shops and buy some delicious pastries at Bread & Roses Bakery. We highly recommend their Cinnamon Butter Puffs and our daughter was a big fan of the massive chocolate chip cookies bigger than her head (no surprise there).
Running along the ocean = perfection.
Mid-afternoon Daddy watched Miss M so I could get a training run in. I ran four miles along the Marginal Way and through the high-end coastal neighborhoods, and even did a short stretch of running in the sand on Ogunquit Beach. This run has to be the most fun and scenic I have done to date - why can't all runs be so pretty?
Dinner options in Ogunquit were a bit limited as it's still the "off season" (many seasonal businesses and seasonal rates start April 14th). So we opted to drive up the road a few minutes to the Moody Beach area and have dinner at Jake's Seafoodwhere we ate our weight in delicious fried seafood. The bill for the three of us came in at $40, which was a little more than we were expecting but splurging on fried food is pretty much a must-do of any seaside trip.
The views along the Marginal Way are breathtaking.
After dinner we went back to the hotel and played outside a bit before turning in early. Adrian was planning to get up at 3AM to capture some Milky Way shots as long as the weather cooperated. Luckily for him, the clouds held off and he was able to just walk off the hotel lawn and get some amazing Milky Way and sunrise shots (you can see more of his photos on his Instagram, @adrianpelletier).
The next morning we enjoyed a nice continental breakfast at the hotel. They had coffee, tea, cereal, bagels, fruit, and yogurt as well as selection of locally made donuts. (I had yogurt with granola and a very delicious Boston creme donut, because you know, balance.)
Bread & Roses Bakery - so much deliciousness!
After breakfast we walked back into town to do some last minute poking around and pick up more pastries from Bread & Roses to bring home, between our two trips here we spent about $20. Then we went to Ogunquit Beach to let our little one run around and play in the sand a bit. It was brisk but sunny and we pretty much had the whole beach to ourselves. After that we decided to check out a little early and head home to catch Miss M's nap, but if we had stayed in Ogunquit for lunch we would have grabbed some sandwiches from The Village Market, which looked yummy and reasonably priced and had a picnic on the beach or along the Marginal Way.
Overall it was a great, affordable weekend in Ogunquit. Lots of beautiful views, good food, exploring downtown, running and photo adventures, and, most importantly, some quality family time.
Today I wanted to share another great New England maker, Mariner Lines. If you're a dog-lover and a New England lover you need to have one of these beautiful hand-made nautical leashes in your life.
Love the bait bag packaging!
When I first stumbled across Mariner Lines, I thought their leashes looked beautiful and rugged and loved that they were made in Maine. But once I learned the story behind the brand I loved it even more as Mariner Lines was started by Stacia and her fisherman husband when their yellow lab Mariner became ill. Sales of these handmade leashes not only help them with medication expenses for their beloved pup (who is thankfully doing better), but a portion of sales is also donated to local rescue groups too. You can feel good about buying and using this leash knowing the good it does.
This weekend we brought our black lab Harley out for a short hike in the woods with our new Mariner Lines leash. Harley LOVES walking in the woods and was super-excited to put her new leash to the test. You see, the second you clip a leash to Harley's collar she pulls like a competition draft horse at the Fryeburg Fair... we've worked with her a bunch and done obedience classes but none of that matters for the first 10 minutes of the walk until she gets the excitement out of her system.
Our Mariner Lines leash held strong and I felt confident walking Harley on it. One of my favorite aspects of the leash was the roundness of the rope in my hands. All of our other leashes are traditional flat nylon that dig into your palms when the dog pulls; I was pleasantly surprised to see that the thick round rope did not dig into my hands at all as Harley got the initial excitement out of her system.
The leashes are hand-spliced together using rigging line and heavy-duty brass clasps so you know they're made to last. They come in many colors and there are even hand-knitted neck warmers for your pup and cowls for you available so you can coordinate. All the leashes are "one fathom" (about six feet) long - I just love how they incorporate the nautical theme into every aspect of their brand!
Happy pup.
Overall, I really love our Mariner Lines leash - it's rugged, durable, beautiful, and stands for helping pups in need. What's not to love?
A big thank you to Mack & Ro for sending this adorable little watercolor painting! Jenny is a fellow New England blogger and her beautiful watercolors are inspired by her New England roots.
Our spare room has a beachy theme and this little starfish painting is a perfect fit!
It's cold and yucky out and nothing puts the end of winter blues at bay quite like a nice cup of hot chocolate. I've recently discovered my new absolute favorite and wanted to share! It's called Black Dinah Chocolatiers' Dark Spiced Sipping Chocolate and it's made right in Isle Au Haut, Maine. I don't know if I can explain just how good it is, but I'll try ;)
It's easy to make, just a tablespoon of the sipping chocolate powder, some sweetener, and some milk heated in a saucepan and you have a delicious, thick, lightly spiced hot chocolate. My favorite detail of this sipping chocolate is the spices - it doesn't have a hot kick like Mexican hot chocolate, instead it just adds the perfect amount of flavor. Oh, and it smells ah-mazing.
I received this product as part of a promotion from Daytrip Society, but all opinions expressed are my own.
