Busy Bee

I have been a  busy bee.  We put in a new garden.  Yesterday grass today this.  The plants are mainly those from my April 22 post. Obviously there are more plants to add and mulch to lay down but after moving more than 2,000 pounds of sod, topsoil, compost and hay we decided to call it a day.  It is a three day weekend after all.

I've also bought out half of JoAnn's kids crafts section.  They are having a great sale and I have a 3 year old constantly home until preschool starts again next fall.  She loves little craft kits, stickers, etc. All told, including the bins, this was under $100.  Not a bad price for a few months of sanity.

I've also been working on items for my Etsy shop and,

 potentially, a local shop that sells handcrafted items.  I'll reveal the name if they like my stuff.  My latest creation is a lovely light purple summer shawl.  I like it so much that I don't want to list it but I will tomorrow.  There is more yarn out there and goodness knows I have plenty of needles.

Good night my lovelies.  That's all I have for now.

What Is A Gratitude Envelope Anyway?

If you have checked out my Etsy store lately you have likely seen sets of gratitude envelopes for sale.  The idea came to me while thinking of gifts to give to my family last Christmas/birthday season.  Ours is not a huge family, currently 8 adults and 1 munchkin but of those 9 people, 6 of us have birthdays in the first three months of the year.  Birthday presents are distributed at Christmas as well since we live hundreds of miles apart.  Being a stay-at-home mom, I wanted gifts that would be fairly inexpensive to make but would mean something.   The answer was gratitude envelopes.

I knit a different envelope for each person using different colors of yarn.  Everyone wrote something special to the other family members and we all walked away with a collection of thoughts from our dearest, if not so nearest (geographically that is).  My envelope and the lovely thoughts it holds now rests on a shelf above my desk.  Whenever I miss my family, I read through the cards and know that I am loved.

Currently, I have sets of 4 envelopes on my website with sets of 8 coming soon.  I welcome custom orders, after all the original set was custom made.