Seasonal Handmade Archives

Celebrate St. Patrick's Day

February 20, 2021 by Jennifer Simoni 1 Comment

St. Patrick’s Day is one of the biggest celebrations of the year. First, celebrated as a holy day in Ireland, it has turned into an all-out celebration of Irish heritage. Irish and non-Irish participants around the world join in the festivities by wearing green, eating green foods and drinking green beer, and proudly showing off their shamrocks and leprechauns. Everyone gets in on the action including pets and kids. The adorable t-shirt below is from Ashlyn Bowtique and the pet collar is from Lucky Fiona.

Parades are a big part of the celebration. They start the first weekend in March, in big and small cities and town around the country. Though large cities like Boston and New York have heavily-attended parades, tiny little Savannah, Georgia, is said to have the highest attendance of all the parades in the U.S. Savannah dyes their historic fountains green to drum up excitement before parade day.

Chicago, of course, is known for dying its entire river green. And even little known New London, Wisconsin, gets in on the celebration, changing its name to New Dublin for the week of St. Paddy’s day. This bag from Momo Ringo can be used all year round.

In Syracuse, NY, the Irish section called Tipperary Hill kicks off festivities on the first Sunday in March with delivery of the green beer to Coleman’s Irish Pub. At midnight, March 17th, they paint a shamrock below the ‘green on top’ light, which is an upside down traffic light at an intersection where green, still means go, but is the first light on top. These vintage-inspired blocks are from Gongy and Squish.

Growing up, we moved to a predominantly Irish neighborhood. I was 12 and it was my first introduction to corned beef and cabbage (Mrs. Kehoe made it for me) and claddagh rings (Stephanie McCabe had one) and many Irish blessings, songs (all learned from Joe Finn), and toasts. Though I’m Italian, 100%, it’s fun to be Irish-for-the-day.

Spring Break

February 19, 2021 by Jennifer Simoni 5 Comments

The spring break season doesn’t really take place in spring at all. For many people, it typically starts in early February and goes through mid March, when many colleges have their breaks. I live in New Jersey, and growing up a lot of families flew or drove to Florida for a week in February. (A few went north to ski, but more went south.) This is such a popular time for family travel, suburban legend has it that the public school district in my hometown changed their spring break vacation from Presidents week to the week before only after being petitioned by many winter-weary parents who wanted to take families south but not incur ‘holiday week’ prices. (Watercolor by Laura Trevey, crab luggage tags from Salmon Barn.)

As I’ve mentioned, I do like winter. Just the other day, I happily walked through New York City bundled in a down coat puddle-jumping the sidewalk-moats. (A sidewalk-moat, for all of you non-NYC natives, is a disgusting phenomenon that occurs as the snow melts and forms ginormous slush puddles around street-corners, making it impossible to cross without fisherman-style waders.) I didn’t look as cute as this model from Charlie and Sarah’s shop. Not even close.

The sun felt good, and I was warm under my three layers of clothing. But that’s not to say I wouldn’t like a little tropical change of scenery. Someplace sunny, green trees, and blue seas sounds wonderful. Shedding the down coat might not be bad, either. (This dress from Ishkabiddle Designs screams for warm weather–and creamsicles.)

The local stores have shed their winter coats. Window displays are full of wonderfully light fabrics, brighter colors, and lightweight totes and beach bags. Perhaps my favorite item of the warm-weather get-away is picking out a new beach bag, like this one from Willywaw.

Although I’m not flying south anytime soon, I do like searching for the perfect warm-weather gear so I’m ready when it does appear.

Handmade Pioneer Day

February 13, 2021 by Kristin Huston 2 Comments

[hKristin]

This week we are going to celebrate Pioneer Day. What is Pioneer Day? Well, Pioneer Day is actually an official Utah state holiday celebrated on July 24th, commemorating the Mormon pioneers. What’s that you say? You don’t live in Utah? You’re not a Mormon? Nope, me neither, but we can still celebrate the spirit of the pioneer. Although we most commonly associate the idea of a pioneer with the westward expansion through the United States, according to the dictionary, a pioneer is “a person or group that originates or helps open up a new line of thought or activity or a new method or technical development.” So, really, that makes all our crafty friends in the world of handmade goods pioneers of the creative community! Here are a few handmade items that recall both the pioneer spirit that helped settle the West and the creative pioneers that are settling the Internet today.

Whenever I think of pioneers, I think of covered wagons! You can bring this iconic image into your home with this great photo from Photographs by Jon Holiday. I love that this image is both rustic and colorful!

[Read more…]

Handmade Organization

February 12, 2021 by Kristin Huston Leave a Comment

[hKristin]

Have you been doing your spring cleaning? If you have, you know that cleaning is about more than chasing away those dust bunnies. It’s also about finding organized solutions to your clutter problem. I am all about helping you find handmade solutions, so let’s get going!

I have a soft spot for canisters. They are handy not just in the kitchen, but in every room in the house. These particularly beautiful canisters from Blue Sky Pottery are inspired by nature and they will inspire you to stay organized.

Today we tend to keep a lot of information, phone numbers, emails, addresses, stored in our cell phones. But if you’ve ever lost your phone, you know how important it is to have a written record of all that important data. [Read more…]