Wishing all our readers a wonderful 2010! Keep track of the days with our free calendar download.

This small (about post-it sized) calendar is great for your desk or to hang on your fridge. After cutting out the months use rubber cement glue to bind the tops together to create a tear-off calendar. Punch a hole at the top to hang.

Download our free 2010 calendar!

I’ll admit it, I keep almost every card given to me. For awhile I didn’t know how to store them and just shoved them in a box. Then one day it dawned on me. I could use metal rings and “bind” the cards together by occasion so that whenever I wanted to look at my wedding cards or baby shower cards I could read them like a “book”.

Supplies

• Metal rings – I get the ones in the embroidery section at Michaels. They come in sets of 2.
• 3-hole punch – or any type of whole punch. The 3-hole works great because it will punch both holes at the same time and I don’t have to measure.
• Greeting cards

Instructions

Just punch the holes in the card and slip them onto the rings.

Tips

• align the hole punch at the bottom of the card so that the bottom align.
• use cardstock to divide events if you put multiple events into one “book”

As a knitter I have tons of patterns that hope to make someday printed and organized into 3-ring binders (this was the days before Ravelry!) They were looking a bit uninspired and plain on my bookshelf.

To give them a new look I cut scrapbook paper to size and tucked it in the bind. Rather then trying to remember which color binder was which I stamped the words “PATTERNS – ADULT” and “PATTERNS – BABY” on white paper and glued it on.

Now they’re also a decorative piece on our bookshelf!

A hint for sliding in the bind- open the folder flat to give yourself more room. You can’t see it from the pic but one of them got a little bit bent while I was putting it in!

My daughter recently discovered my stash of beauty products under the bathroom sink. Don’t worry, I’ve moved it now that she’s found it! I keep them  in a small basket and it houses things such as lotion, hair products, nail polish remover, hair clips, brush etc. I would have thought with so many things available for her to get into she would go from one thing to another, but nope, she went straight for the blue nail polish remover.

I watched as she shook it and passed it from hand to hand mesmerized by the blue water moving back and forth. Until now we’ve only given her water bottles to play with (which she loves!) Watching her stare at the colored water inspired me to add a little color to one of her favorite toys.

I filled the bottles to varying degrees and added two to three drops of food coloring in each. Instant new toy! Giving her a new color each day makes the novelty last a little longer.

Cathy and I are very excited to unveil embe, our online shop offering unique, handmade gifts for babies and tots! I remember one day back in May when we took the kids on their first official playdate, the idea came up to start something together. At first, I thought “it’s just an idea” but after giving it some thought, I realized that there was something there. During our first meeting, we both shared our ideas for what we could call our shop, and we both came up with embe on our own. Now, talk about coincidence!

The months leading up to our launch can be described as exciting, filled with late nights, inspiring, a learning experience, fun, and fulfilling. Starting a business is a lot of hard work but so rewarding in the process. We are both passionate about being mothers and being creative. embe allows us to combine both passions, and we hope that you join us on our creative and parenting journeys by reading our blogs and enjoying our creations for the little ones in your life!