Holiday Sale!

Now through Tuesday November 30th, take 10-20% off everything in our Etsy Shop, no coupon code needed! At the moment we have a variety of great vintage finds, handmade ornaments, our new New England Lakeside Baseball Cap, and more! Quantities are limited and many of the vintage items are one-of-a-kind, so I recommend shopping early if you’ve had your eye on something.

Handmade Ornaments Pricing Update

If you’ve been following my Etsy Shop for awhile, you may have noticed I increased the pricing for most of my Handmade Ornaments this season compared to 2019 (I kept my Etsy Shop closed for most of 2020 due to the pandemic, and just focused on wholesale orders that year). In order to be transparent, I have increased my prices approximately 30% across the board for my handmade ornaments for 3 main reasons:

1. Getting paid for my time. These ornaments are simple and rustic but they do take a lot of time and effort… sourcing the wood from family and friends, cutting and slow drying the rounds so they don’t crack, creating the design and wood burning it by hand, drilling and stringing them, stamping and packaging them, etc - once I get the long logs in our garage I do the rest of the work solo. Last year I realized I was getting too stressed out about the amount of work and didn’t feel as though I was getting paid for the time I put in.

2. Postage costs. Postage costs have gone up considerably and no one likes to pay for it. In my Etsy shop I generally under-charge for shipping in order to not put off buyers, and orders over $35 always ship for free. Because of this I loose quite a bit of money on shipping costs on most orders and therefore need to charge a bit more for the items to make up for it.

3. Etsy fees. Etsy is wonderful for exposure and traffic which is why I’m still with them, but all their fees and listing charges add up fast and I need to account for those when pricing my items.

I just wanted to thank you all for the support and purchases you’ve made. I know these price increases aren’t easy and I likely won’t sell as many ornaments this year but I know it was needed in the long run in order to keep my Etsy shop profitable. I hope you can catch one of the sales we’re planning over the holiday season - the next one being a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale that will run for several days straight. Keep an eye on Instagram and Facebook for more updates when that sale happens!

DIY Dry Erase Activity Book for Toddlers + Preschoolers (+ Older Kids Too!)

I was just refreshing the little books and toys we keep in our car, when I realized I had never shared about this Dry Erase Activity Book I made for our first kid years ago (and now our youngest uses it). It was incredibly easy to make and tailor to each child with what stage they were at/needed to work on. Here’s the super easy how-to, hopefully it will inspire you to make one yourself! | This post contains affiliate links |

Materials

• Mini 3-Ring Binder (5 1/2" x 8 1/2" Binder)
• Mini Sheet Protectors
• Mini Binder Pouch
• Low Odor Dry Erase Markers
• Computer Paper

How-To:

Really the how-to could not be easier! All you have to do is cut the computer paper in half to make it the correct size to fit in the sheet protectors, and then create your worksheets however you would like. I used dots for the kids to trace as well as made some free-draw pages and pages for them to practice writing out their whole names. In the pocket we keep a dry erase marker and some folded up paper towels to wipe the pages when they’re done.

We love this as a car toy and activity to do while the oldest is doing soccer practice, etc. And as your child grows you can update the pages with anything - math problems, maps to label, spelling practice, etc. Have fun tailoring it your kids and their age groups - we love that this can grow with our kids.

Page Ideas (for both young kids and older kids):

• tracing shapes

• tracing letters (uppercase and lowercase)

• tracing numbers

• writing name (all uppercase as well as with lowercase)

• free draw pages

• matching

• math problems

• spelling practice

• labeling maps

• labeling planets

• draw features (eyes, hair, etc) on a blank face

• draw details on a landscape photo

• come up with your own - the possibilities are endless!

This Car Seat Organizer where our DIY Dry Erase Activity Book lives (along with other various car toys/books).

Sale Through Friday in my Etsy Shop

Happy Fall! It’s such a beautiful day I thought we’d celebrate by running a sale - now through Friday October 22nd take 10% off everything in my Etsy Shop, no coupon code needed! At the moment we have a variety of great vintage finds, some handmade ornaments, our new New England Lakeside Baseball Cap, and more! Quantities are limited and many of the vintage items are one-of-a-kind, so I recommend shopping early if you’ve had your eye on something ;)

10% off everything in our Etsy Shop, now through Friday October 22nd, 2021

Taking a Leap with our New England Lakeside Baseball Cap

For a long time I’ve wanted to expand my shop offerings to items beyond handmade ornaments and occasional vintage finds but I just kept putting it off, instead watching other small entrepreneurs take risks and continue to expand while I stayed behind. Lately I’ve realized that I just need to take the leap and give my ideas a try, rather than just think about them and not take the risk. And so here we are… the New England Lakeside Baseball Cap is my first step into expanding my offerings and trying something new. I have more ideas I’m excited to bring to life too and will work towards them step-by step.

The New England Lakeside Baseball Cap was designed by me and embroidered locally by a small shop here in New Hampshire, in an effort to help support other New England-based businesses.

I was much too excited about these hats to wait and take proper pictures, so I just took some quick listing photos this morning to get it up on Etsy ASAP. Within the next week or so we’ll take proper pictures of this hat at the lake and will update the listing with photos that do this hat justice ;)

New Ornament Designs - Lobster and Anchor!

We have some NEW Ornament designs - introducing the Lobster and the Anchor! Huge thank you to Wiglesworth’s Mercantile in Portsmouth, NH for the push to make these happen. At the moment, Wiglesworth’s is the only place you will find these designs so definitely check them out soon on their website or in person.

Secondhand September

Did you know it’s Secondhand September?

We’re personally huge fans of consigning and shopping secondhand - in fact everything I’m wearing today is secondhand and name brand (blouse and jeans are Ann Taylor and the leather mocs are M.Gemi, which is a fancy Italian luxury brand I could never afford new). Right now I’m putting together a bag of winter consignments to bring to M&C Clothing and Gifts in Amherst, NH, one of our favorite consignment shops.

We love consigning because the money we earn from reselling our items can be spent at the consignment shops we use for new-to-us clothing and other items - it’s like trading up what we don’t want anymore for what we do. Reduce-Reuse-Recycle.

If you’ve been thinking of giving consignment shopping/selling a try, check out my past blog post where I share some tips on the process:

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Etsy Shop Back Open!

And we’re back! It's been a long time coming (I temporarily closed my shop at the beginning of Covid) but our Etsy Shop is back open. You may notice inventory is low at the moment... currently we are concentrating on fulfilling wholesale orders ahead of our busy holiday season. So until we are caught up on wholesale orders the shop will have limited ornaments available - thanks so much for your understanding and patience!

PS - Please feel free to favorite my shop and/or any listings you like! Trying to make a comeback from a long hiatus is tough on the algorithms - the more activity my little shop sees, the more it helps me place in searches. Thank you for the support!

Click the button below to check out what’s currently available: