care package for our 6 year old son{journey to junyu}

My friend and fellow adoptive mama was leaving to meet her new son about 2 months before we were traveling to adopt Junyu.  Her son was from the same orphanage as Junyu so I asked if she would mind bringing along a care package for him.  She happily agreed and gave it to the nannies that accompanied her son so that they can bring it back to him at the orphanage.  We were so excited to shop for the presents ourselves this time.  We sent Ruby Mei a care package as well but we used a service that time(a wonderful woman in China will shop for adoptive families and send them things you pick out on her website).  We bought Junyu: glow sticks, pop rocks, a picture book about lions, a stuffed lion, a disposable camera, Cars stickers, dino jammies, a Cars shirt, and a Lightening McQueen car.  I also threw in a package of gummy snacks and gum.  I laminated a family picture for him to look at and our Chinese teacher kindly translated a letter for him which I also laminated.  I made tags with his picture and his name in Chinese characters to attach to the camera and also the outside of the gift bag.  My friend said the nannies received the package and happily agreed to pass it along to Junyu when they returned to the orphanage.

I have since found out what happened once he got it so I thought you may be interested to learn about that too. As far what he had on his person when we met him: he had the lion, the pajama pants(not the top), the Cars shirt, and the camera(the letter had told him to take pictures of his friends, ect but the camera had hardly any photos taken already when he pulled it out on gotcha day).  He also came to us with a wonderful baby book full of pictures of him over the years.  This was a wonderful surprise. 

I recently asked Junyu(now that he knows English) what he thought of the package when he got it and what happened to everything else. Just out of curiosity! :)  He said he only received the jammies, the stickers, the camera, the pop rocks, and the little car.  He never saw the picture or the letter. :( He also said that the nannies put the jammie bottoms, the car shirt, the lion and the camera right into his backpack that he couldn't have until he came to meet us.  He never saw the lion book, the glow sticks, or the gum, or the gummy snacks.  Who knows why the nannies took that stuff out and didn't read him the letter or show him our picture.  I wish they had but that's just the way it goes.

good things

I was long overdue bring my sweet friend, Wendy her birthday present.  You see, I had it in my head that I wanted to stamp her birthdate on the tag with my library stamp but I couldn't find it anywhere... for days!!!  I became obsessed and would not give it to her without finding it.  Lucky for her it only took about 2 weeks!  Ugh...  Oh well, maybe the cuteness of the wrapping made up for it??

I used a recycled dessert box from the grocery store and cut up some old book pages for the fluff at the bottom.  Then I wrapped up a vintage tea towel, some of her favorite tea, and a tiny ceramic tea spoon from Crate and Barrel.  I wrapped the outside with a strip of vintage Holly Hobby fabric and some cute tags I bought from the gals at Modern Textiles a long time ago.  I've been waiting to use them.  The top tag I recycled from a used one I had and covered up the writing with scrapbook paper and washi tape.  And of course, we cannot forget the added touch of her birthdate stamped on it!  Ha!
I kind of like this cute packaging thing... my mom is the master at it, as I've mentioned and shown you here before.  I will have to keep thinking of new things to try out in the future!

I wanted to share this too- I stopped at a yard sale yesterday after picking up Mary Beth from Art, lunch and recess... and spotted these beauties!  The chair was only $5 and it just needs some piping added around the edges of the fabric.  And behold!  Vintage sheets!!  I've been collecting these to use for the crafts I'm making to sell at Unglued and the Junk Market coming up next weekend.  You won't believe it but the really nice gal who was having the sale GAVE these to me for free!  We got to talking and I found out she is from The White House Boutique(love their stuff by the way!) and she told me she had wanted to come to our sale but didn't make it so to consider this a donation.  How sweet is she??  I know I can make good money with these items in the future- I'm so excited and blown away by the kindness of others once again.  But that's not all!!  She also offered to sell the vintage jewelry I have left from the sale at her booth at Junk Market!   Yay!!!

And in closing, a shot of the sunflowers Jeffrey planted at the community garden- they let him cut some to bring home last night.  Gorgeous!

gifts for teachers and friends

I got the brilliant idea this morning that we would make candy cane reindeer for everyone in the kids' classes.... that's about 75. So when it came down to actually making them this evening with the kids, it stopped being fun after about the 20th one. And that's about the time I stopped getting help. Oh well, they turned out cute!

Tomorrow morning is also the "favorite things" gift exchange my friends and I are doing. We are each bring 5 of our favorite things to pass out and so everyone will leave with 5 presents- the concept is like Oprah... but not a car.

I am bringing one of my favorite lip balms and a navy blue wool/felt flower pin that I love making. I hope everyone will like them!

Then we also had to make the teacher gifts: snow globes from jelly jars that the kids made and a gift card to Barnes and Noble for the female teachers- Scheels for Mickey's teacher.

They turned out so cute!

Here's how we packaged it:

Busy night but lots of fun crafts too!

Valentine treats

The kids got their special Valentine's Day package from my parents today and I let them open it right away. (I get too excited to wait.) They loved them- thanks Mom and Dad!

They always send the cutest little bundles of surprises for all the holidays-

I LOVE the special care my mom puts into the presentation of her gifts- it's my favorite part.

As you can see the kids wasted no time digging into the chocolates!:)

dino hobo sack

Mary Beth had a birthday party to go to today. Since the little boy's mom said he liked dinosaurs a lot I thought it was a perfect chance to try out making a Hobo Sack I've been eyeing over at MADE. I used some dino material I had on hand and pieces of a t-shirt to make the pull strings.

The dinos on the fabric appeared to be both upside down and right side up so I didn't worry about paying attention to which way I was cutting it. Unfortunately it ended up that only the upside down dinos showed up on the bag- oh well! It was super fun and easy to make! I plan on making more for my kids and extra for gifts.

Of course I filled it with some cute dinosaurs to complete the theme! The birthday boy seemed to like his present- I think all kids love little sacks to put their "stuff" in...