random friday photos

here's a cutie photo of the little dude sleeping in the car on a recent trip. he insisted on holding onto his new balloon as well as his teddy bear, cup, and blankie....all at once. even after he fell alseep, he NEVER let go of that balloon. i couldn't resist taking a photo.


another recent photo of the little dude right after he spilled almost an entire bag of chocolate chips on the kitchen floor. luckily the camera was right there on the island, so i snapped a quick one.


and lastly, a photo of some very determined daisies that decided to pop up right in the middle of our brick patio! i didn't have the heart to pull them up, so i waited for them to bloom and then took this picture. they're still going strong out there. i feel like it should have one of those cheesy captions underneath about determination or perseverance.

have a great holiday weekend!

stationery of the month club

fun new developments at the retail site!




shades of violet is now offering a stationery of the month club! by joining the club's 3, 6, or 12 month membership, you enjoy HUGE SAVINGS! each of the memberships will save you an average of 20% on the great stationery you've already come to love!

with each membership, you will receive your first month's shipment immediately after ordering. after that, each month's shipment will be sent on the 1st of each month.

if you're just dying to get your hands on everything and can't wait to get it each month, you can just select "i can't wait" and we'll ship you the entire membership all at once!!

you can sign up to be a member of the club here!
here

castles in the sand

today was a beautiful day. warm, but not too hot. we spent the afternoon taking a walk down to the beach and playing in the sand. although the little dude had been to the beach before, it was the first time we really "played" in the sand. we made big mountains, and deep valleys, and got very, very full of sand. it was nice and relaxing.

while we were there a man and his son (who was probably about 2 and a half, maybe 3) arrived. even from a distance, you could tell that the man was one of those people that possessed absolutely no people skills whatsoever. i don't even know how to explain it, but i knew the second i saw him that he was.....for a lack of a better word.....weird, very weird. shortly after their arrival, the little boy made his way over toward us and our sand castles. we're still not sure, but he seemed to be a little delayed. i mean, he spoke well and everything, but something just didn't seem right. he immediately started asking us if he could play with us and our sand, while his dad stood ever so awkwardly in the background not saying a thing. no problem. he starts shoveling sand onto our castles, and then proceeds to literally lean on the hubby's shoulder in order to get the sand exactly where he wanted it. at this point hubby and i are giving each other looks like....why is this kid touching a stranger and more importantly, why is the dad not doing anything about it. if my kid went up to a perfect stranger, started playing with their things, and TOUCHING them....well, never mind....my kid would have never gotten so far as to touch a stranger because i would have spoken up WAY before then. it was so awkward and weird. i mean, kids play together all the time and that's cool. but this kid was kind of acting like the hubby was his dad or something. finally when the weird dad decided that he son was "bothering" us, he tried to haul him away and the little kid looked at us and said "help me!, help me!". it freaked us out a little. was the kid in some kind of danger, was he from a horrible home, or was it just part of what seemed to be a delay? i hate situations like that. if you don't do anything about it, you wonder if you should have. at the same time, you don't want to cause a problem where there really isn't one. tough call.

bath time

since the little dude has been old enough to take a "big boy bath" it has been the hubby's primary responsibility. before that, for some reason, i had always done it.

recently (twice) i've overheard bath time singing without the hubby knowing. i have to say, it's one of the cutest things i've ever heard. last week the bath time fun included a song that went something like this:

"scrub, scrub, scrub little dude's armpit,
scrub, scrub, scrub little dude's belly,
scrub, scrub, scrub little dude's toes,"

and on and on it went. pretty darn cute. it's an unexplainable feeling of pride when you hear and/or see your hubby being a great daddy. next time i think i'm going to have to get the video camera and do some secret taping.

and the winner is . . .

i have picked the winner from the 100th post contest! here are all the entrants:


after cutting the names up and placing them in a bowl, my assistant chose the winner — to ensure there was no cheating involved! :)

and the winner is . .










i will be in touch with the winner and the prize will be shipped out asap! i'll try and take a photo of the prize so everyone can see.

thanks to all who participated!

new design update!

since the little dude took an extra long super-duper nap today, i was able to upload the new designs already!


here's a sneak peak, but go check out the site for the real deal! as always, my blogger friends get 20% off their orders just for reading! just use code: BLOG20

enjoy!

in the zone

typically we hear about creative block and days where things just aren't going as you'd like. i have those days way too often to count. so i thought it would be nice to celebrate the great, in the zone, day i had yesterday. i'm not quite sure how, but i managed to get out 4 new designs that i'm absolutely in love with!! plus, i finished up one that was in the works already. (there are 11 total designs that will be included in my june release.) like i said, i'm not quite sure how i managed this, all i do know is that i'm really, really happy about it and excited to get them out to the reps to see the kind of response i get from them. i'm also going to upload them to shades of violet very soon so they'll be available there. i'll post here when they're available.

here's a little preview list of what the june release will include: pet sympathy, pet birthday, thank you, good luck, thinking of you, baby, baby, baby, and more baby.

p.s. don't forget to sign up for the 100th post contest! a winner will be drawn on thursday!

100th post contest!

i can't even believe that this is my 100th post! i still feel so new to the whole blogging thing. i started just under a year ago on july 20th, so i'm by no means an expert. i would really love to post more than i do, but at times i feel like i have nothing important to say, and other times i feel like i don't have the energy or time. hopefully i haven't bored too many people.

for those of you who have stuck with me, i'm planning a little contest! just leave a comment on this post and i will pick a winner from the entrants! what do you win, you ask? why, how about $100 worth of marzipan inc. products!! yup, you heard right....$100. leave your comment by thursday june 15th and you'll be automatically entered to win!

comment away!

gift tag tin feature

my tins of gift tags have been written up by greetings etc. i received my e-mail newsletter yesterday that contained the link to the full story. it's the first time that i've been "interviewed" for a feature. i'm not so sure that she used my quotes in context, but either way, it's still pretty cool.

this full article will also be featured in their july/august print issue! i hope it brings some sales in for the gift tags. if you'd like to see all 9 gift tag sets available, you can see them at shades of violet.

all about the little dude

last week:
i figured it was about time that we officially introduce the little dude to the concept of utensils. up until now, he just ate his food off his tray and didn't have a real use for anything more complex. with his 18 month check-up coming up, i figured we'd be asked if he could use a spoon, so i thought i should at least give it a try. lucky for us, he took to it like crazy! he loved it so much that we actually had to stop him from eating! if you know the little dude, you know that NEVER happens. this kid eats like a bird. so, anyway, he loves it and now happily feeds himself with his spoon at every meal. here's some proof!


over the weekend:
we experienced our first scraped knee. we were all outside—mommy and daddy working on weeding the garden while the little dude played. it was way past naptime so we decided i would go in and clean up and put the little dude to bed. since it was way past naptime someone was a little cranky when we said we were going inside. he was so tired he was having a hard time walking....for those of you with kids, you know how that is. we made it just shy of the door and he biffed it right on he sweet bare little knees. i knew from the sound of his skin scraping the cement that there was going to be blood. he was very brave. he cried a little, but quickly became more interested in looking at the wound. we brought him inside and i cleaned up the boo-boo as gently and swiftly as possible. i took the first picture right after we got it cleaned up, but before the nap. the second one is from today now that it's starting to heal.


monday:
the little dude had his 18 month check-up. he's healthy as an ox. she was pretty impressed that we made it to 17 months without so much as a cold. hopefully this trend continues. we got out of there without shots which is also a plus. he's never sure about all the poking, prodding, and stethoscope usage, but he doesn't usually cry.....just looks at her like "what the $#*%$?!?". he's still over 95% in his height, and 80% in his head circumference. (he's got daddy's basketball head) his weight is getting much better. instead of being at only 15% for his weight, he was up to 50%! quite a jump for 3 months.

mention in podcast!

more great press for my companies! both marzipan inc. and shades of violet were featured in the latest podcast from i *heart* paper . you can check it out here. it's PaperPod, Volume 1, No. 2: (the second one down) we're mentioned at the very end in the hot & trendy stationery report!

special shout out to dawn for the great review!