Kids Travel Happy

Having just sent off a fresh order of I Spy Bags to one of my favorite wholesale customers, it occurred to me that I really should share their awesome site with you! Kids Travel Happy is a website dedicated to keeping your child happy and safe during all kinds of travel - by train, plane, or automobile (and everything in between). I especially love the unique search feature - search by mode of transportation, by age, or even by what kind of travel tray you own. (and if you don't have a tray yet, you can buy that there, too!)...

Some of my favorite items are the packable hula hoop (who knew you could pack a hoop?), magnetic paper dolls, crayons that won't roll away, and even a travel toy tote to keep it organized! And, check out this baby holder - you'll realize how ingenious it is if you have ever had to use a public restroom while traveling alone with a baby.

Kids Travel Happy has the best selection of travel toys and travel gear, pulling from both commercial and handmade markets. I am honored to be among the industry's best in this shop! The next trip you take - whether a plane ride across the ocean, or a trip to the grocery, visit this site first. They are a great customer of mine, and I'd love for you to show them some love! Don't forget you can also find my I Spy Bags there :)

Now this is some serious catnip...

I decided that our kittens deserved a treat after surviving a month with my toddlers, so I went on the hunt for some catnip. We have none in our garden, and none of our neighbors seem to even know what it is... I wished my mom lived closer. I know she has some right outside her door! Anyway, I finally found a promising seller on Etsy - Layla of Flowering Tree Botanicals. Described as "highly fragrant and fresh" and "the strongest catnip we have ever stumbled across" - I was sold, and eagerly handed over my paypal money.

HOLY CATNIP! I swear the cats came running the day the postman arrived with the package. I sprinkled a bit over the kitties' heads and they wrestled with eachother for at least a half hour. Later I found my cats cramming themselves into the trash can in an attempt to sleep on the outer packaging that held the catnip. As the catnip lay in its ziplocked bag on my desk, the kitties milled about my feet yowling. I knew it had to be hidden. or up high. or something. A disaster was surely in the works. I put it on top of some fabric on my highest shelf of the studio. Literally wedged between a pile of fabric and the ceiling, it was finally out of reach.

OR SO I THOUGHT. The next thing I know, I've left the room for a glass of water, and I hear a crash. One of the cats climbed my entire wall of fabric and got his claws in the bag enough to bring it down. Within seconds the cats had jumped that bag like they were lions on a zebra (you know, like on the discovery channel).

I think "some of the strongest catnip we have ever stumbled upon" is an understatement. In the market for catnip? Look no farther. And be prepared with a lock box.

A walk in the park

Friday is my non-work day. I don't have a sitter, and I'm left to fend for myself. Taking care of 3 little kids isn't so hard (as long as I'm not trying to get ANY work done). It has taken me a while to realize this - but now I actually enjoy Fridays because I don't have to work and I get a chance to enjoy my kids.

Yesterday we explored a local park and discovered an oak tree completely covered with these:


At the time, I had no idea what they were! At first I told my daughter that it was a caterpillar, but we poked at it and determined that it was very solid (although fuzzy and soft) and was most definitely NOT a caterpillar. So I googled around when we got home and learned that it is an oak tree gall produced by a small cynipid wasp (which is harmless to humans, by the way). It is actually created from the cells of the Oak tree leaf, mutated by an injection from the wasp. Then the wasp babies live inside it. Freaky. But cool. This type of gall is called a hedgehog gall (cute, right?).

The other highlight of the day was seeing two noisy swans on the lake. Most of our lunch conversation centered around what a swan sounded like. I can't say that I remember ever hearing a swan before (aren't they usually quite silent?), but their honk rivals Molly Lou Melon's. Each kid had their own way of making the sound, my 3yr-old's rendition sounded like a gutteral "dump, shump." My 5yr-old's sound involved a mixture of "honk" and "quack," and my baby just squealed like a pig (which was adorable, but sounded nothing like the swan to my ears). Luckily, we met no one on the trail, so our sound pollution likely didn't bother anyone (except perhaps the wildlife).

Freezer Pops

When I was a kid, I used to go swimming with my friends at the city pool. Well, actually it was the country club, but in our small town this meant little. It was just a rectangular concrete pool with two diving boards and a never ending expanse of concrete all around where we could spread our towels and lay on our stomachs in the hot sun (with (gasp!) no sunscreen).

At our house, freezer pops were not allowed. Filled with sugar and a big fat zero for nutrition, my mother kept us as far away from those things as possible. Frozen sugar-water, kool-aid in a tube, "ew" she would say. Of course, this made the acclaimed freezer pop even more desirable. Oh, that clear tube of sugary juiciness seemed to be the epitomy of summertime treats just out of reach from my slippery childhood fingers.

Even though we had a nice in-ground pool at home, it was a special treat to get to go to town and swim at the country club without my parents. The pool was surrounded by a rusty silver chain link fence, and the only entrance was through the mildewy bathrooms. At the other side of the bathrooms the only way to get to the pool was through a 2-inch swirling puddle of water with sloped sides. This mini-pool was (I suspect) to clean our dirty feet before we got to the pool, but it disgusted me beyond belief. Painted an offensive shade of turquoise, the water was always speckled with dead bugs from the night before, and quick dip of my toe in the corner would confirm its sub-zero temperature. I tried with all my strength to straddle the puddle while clutching my towel and "pool money", trying to stay on the dry sloped sides with my dirty feet. I wasn't the only kid who tried this, and unfortunately failed miserably.

The best part of going to the country club pool was, undoubtedly, "adult swim." Every hour, the lifeguard blew her whistle and announced "adult swim." This was a time when the moms could take a dip or the elderly could get in a few laps. I suspect, though, that "adult time" was just a marketing ploy to get the kids to spend their pocket money. During adult time, the lifeguard opened the candy counter. Behind the splintery board of a divider, there was a deep freezer filled with sticky frozen summertime goodness. Orange push-ups, ice cream sandwiches, and an entire rainbow of freezer pops. Grape, please. We would hand over our quarters and gather around the sides of the pool, splashing our feet at the grown-ups until the lifeguard closed up once again and climbed her lifeguard chair.

These days, I allow my kids an occasional freezer pop. I've even been known to have one myself here and there. uh, sorry, mom.

Make a stop on the Handmade Highway

I recently came across a tweet by Lori of Risky Beads, inviting me to make a stop on the Handmade Highway. I checked it out and was instantly charmed! Take this exit off the Handmade Highway and you can see a little snippet of information about my shop. Lori is promoting us like crazy, and we could all use a little promotion on our side, right? Recently, she put together this great slide show of sellers featured on the Handmade Highway (including me!):




Lori explains the Handmade Highway as "a virtual, contextual rolodex for handmade sellers." When you sign up, you complete a little questionnaire that asks things like "do you sell wholesale? Are you willing to participate in blog giveaways? Are you interested in charity opportunities?" and then she compiles it all together for you, resulting in an easily searchable web page of handmade sellers. So, if you write a blog and you're looking for a handmade seller to do a giveaway, you can search here. Or if you are a retail shop looking for new handmade vendors, you can look here. Search results can also be narrowed by specialty or location (like children or jewelry, or Detroit). She even keeps a separate blog devoted to featuring sellers on the site, giving each of us extra attention. Who doesn't want a little extra attention?

Summertime plan - relaxation and time management

I've returned from a relaxing visit to my mother's house (where I grew up), and feel rejuvenated and ready to work. Okay, not really, but it was a fun time (especially relaxing when the kids were sleeping).... I know I'm not the only one who has also taken a vacation from blogging. Summer is just that time of disconnection, when people relax, lose touch with schedules, and get together with family. Even people without kids can feel it in the air. Society just slows down a bit, I think.

Unfortunately, while I've been enjoying the lazy days of summer, my work has... ahem... come to a complete stop. I really need to get back into production mode.

So.

Last weekI came up with a plan. I've never worked in an artful capacity with a weekly schedule, but I vow to give this a try.

The first thing I did was sit down with my mom (and business partner) and discuss the future of Those Greathouse Women. What direction do we want to go in? What are we itching to create, research, discover? What are our financial goals? Creative goals? Time management goals? What are my family commitments and what do I need to change in order to meet them? How does our business need to change in order to keep up with current trends and business practices? It sounds like a daunting task, but it was actually quite fun, and so much easier to work through with my mom rather than attack by myself.

I will elaborate in future posts about specific aspects of the plan, but in short, here is a sketch:

Mondays: work on new items
Tuesdays: computer time (blog, research, social networking, teams, forums, etc)
Wednesdays: sewing/working
Thursdays: photographing/editing, blogging
Fridays: I don't have a babysitter! HA!
Saturdays: sewing/working
Sundays: sewing/working

This accounts for about 5 hours per day, which is when my sitter comes to relieve me of the children (allowing me to ACTUALLY get work done), or when my husband is available to help with the kids (on the weekends). I still have to squeeze in shipping and other things during the evenings, but I'm trying to make time to spend with my husband so he doesn't feel like an Etsy widow every night!

Notice that I plan to blog TWICE a week! Well, we'll see, won't we?