Knit-A-Long

We always love to hear about the projects you are engaged in. Stephanie of Snickerdoodle just let us know about an amazing effort she is heading up on her blog.

It's a Knit-A-Long, and it's all about knitting hats for needy babes. (Nothing more appropriate for Love Month, don't you agree?)

If you want to join in, get the whole scoop HERE!

Christmas Service Ideas--Help for the Truman Family

If you were to say: "Name someone who makes you want to be a better person," I would shout out "Lori Truman!" before I even took a breath.

When I was first married and settling into a new home in Utah, Lori became my first real friend. She stopped by to see how I was, brought me meals when I had my first baby, and asked genuine questions about my life. We worked together at BYU, which solidified our friendship. What solidified our friendship even more? When she brought me saltines and 7up because my whole family was barfing and when she left cupcake themed Valentine's kitchen towels outside my door just because and when she took care of Blaine all day when Roger was born. We moved from Utah in May of '08 and were back in June for a family reunion. Taylor planned a birthday dinner for me with all of our old friends there. When I got out of the car and saw Lori, I burst into tears.

I guess you're probably getting the picture.

What I haven't explained yet, is that through all this time, Lori has worked from home, born two amazing children, and grappled with the reality that her darling husband, Wes, has brain cancer. And while that brings pain and stress unimaginable, Lori and Wes continue to be faithful that God will provide. As Lori has written on her blog, they know that "peace and pain can co-exist." Like I said, Lori makes me want to be a better person.

Here's where you and your Christmas cheer come in: Lori and Wes have been given an amazing opportunity to build a house, which is currently in the works. And some friends are working to raise funds to make a warm, furnished, beautiful home possible for them.

Please take some time to look at Lori's blog. You will fall in love.

If you want to do somethingto help the Trumans, you can:
*Donate through paypal by sending your donation to westrumanfund@gmail.com
*Purchase something from this registry to help furnish their new home

You should know that Lori and Wes feel a bit overwhelmed by all of these fundraising efforts. Lori was hesitant when I asked if we could ask Bloomers to help out. That is to say, they are humbled by and tremendously grateful for all of this help. And I know they would want you to know that.

xoxo,
anne

Christmas Service Ideas: Think Globally

Today's service ideas are dedicated to looking outside our own families and even our own communities.

#1--Sponsor an Orphan
My husband and I have had the opportunity the last few years to sponsor a boy who lives in an orphanage in Ukraine. For $75 for the entire year, it is amazing the extra things we're able to provide for him. I love that every year the time to recommit to sponsorship comes in December. As I'm making lists and stressing about decorations, I get a letter about the orphan we sponsor and I'm reminded about what is important and what is real. We participate through an amazing program (started by some of our family members) called the TOUCH Project. Learn how you can help here.

#2--Help for Haiti
It has been almost a year since the devastating earthquake in Haiti, and there is still so much that remains to be done to help. The latest heartbreaking news is that cholera is rampant in Haiti right now, with many deaths and up to 1,000 new cases daily. Go here to learn more and find out what you can do.

#3--Operation Smile and Smile Train
For the last few years my dad and brother have accompanied plastic surgeons to places like Mexico and the Dominican Republic to assist in cleft lip and palate repairs. They do an incredible number of surgeries a day and come back with amazing, humbling stories. This work is done through programs such as Operation Smile and Smile Train. Obviously the doctors donate their time and services, but these programs need a lot of money for all of the set up, supplies, etc. That's where we come in. Again, see here or here to find out what you can do.

Obviously there are countless other needs in our world and great ways to meet them. These are just three that happen to be on my mind. Feel free to link us to any other great programs that we could participate to give a little more this season.

xo
anne

Christmas Service Ideas: Hot Chocolate for Charity

In all the rushing and planning and wrapping and baking at Christmas time, one of the things we consider most important is finding meaningful service opportunities to share with our families.

Obviously there a lot of wonderful, tried and true service ideas this time of year--choosing a family you know is in need and secretly dropping off gits for the twelve days of Christmas, picking a name off a Christmas tree at the mall and purchasing gifts for that person, participating in Toys for Tots, and so on.

We thought it would be fun this year to draw your attention to three unique service opportunities. We'll share one each day for the remainder of this week.

Today's is an idea I saw in my December Better Homes and Gardens and I looooove it.

Hot Chocolate for Charity

Help your children set up a Hot Chocolate Stand in your neighborhood. Deck out the table with holiday decor and make sure to have fun toppings like whipped cream, peppermint sticks, and marshmallows. Help the children choose a charity or cause they'd like to donate the earnings to, and have them make a sign explaining their cause. Then bundle up and brave the cold as you watch your children learn how exhilarating service can feel!

**Obviously some neighborhoods (and some climates!!) aren't ideal for this idea. Think of ways to adapt it. For example, a hot chocolate stand outside a busy store or inside a holiday bazaar.

For Dads

Feeling a little unsure of what to do for the dads in your life this weekend?

Here are some ideas we've collected...

Food
Maybe you already make him breakfast and dinner every day. So go all out this Sunday. Try cinnamon rolls or coffee cake for breakfast. Have your children serve it to him in bed (of course). For dinner, make something special that you know he'll just die about, even if it stretches your culinary abilities. One year, when I was still a total amateur in the kitchen, I did this. Blew Taylor's mind. Working the grill is sure to please. Try these instructions for the perfect steak.

Gifts
It's always tricky to find something he will genuinely love and actually use. When possible, I try to give Taylor something that relates to fatherhood. Last year, for example, I gave him a rad Charm City Cakes t-shirt, because he makes awesome custom cakes for all of the kids' birthdays. And, if you have sons, the BEST gift you could give their father is The Dangerous Book for Boys. It's full of classic activities that are perfect for father and son to do together.

Traditions
Of course, more important than anything, we want Father's Day to be meaningful and memorable.

One darling idea we spotted on babycenter.com came from April Crevani, a mother in New Jersey. She said, "I take a picture of my children holding a 'Happy Father's Day' sign. Their dad keeps the pictures in a small photo album. When he adds his new photo each year, he looks back at the old ones to see how the kids are growing." (Lots more ideas from babycenter here.)

Along those lines, last year Emily interviewed her son, Henry, asking him questions about his father, Nate. (What's your favorite thing about daddy? What does daddy do at work? What's dad's favorite food? What do you like to do with dad?) She videotaped the interview and the family watched it together on Father's Day. Isn't that darling?! Em suggests, "You could really go all out and make a movie party out of the interview-watching." Love it!

And you, what will you be doing for dads this year?

Holding Our Tongues

Fall Coming Like Three Sisters by Brian Kershisnik

I think a lot about how to be a better woman.

Two things I've read recently have my wheels turning.

Joseph Smith said:
“… Search yourselves—the tongue is an unruly member—hold your tongues about things of no moment—a little tale will set the world on fire.”

Cjane wrote:
"But (a woman's) powers are the most potent when used to love other women. To support. To carry. Lift. Encourage. Serve. Fight alongside. And in my experience, this is also the hardest part about being a woman. There are forces at work designed to turn woman against woman in an effort to completely destroy the massive amount of good we can do when united. But I also know that I feel the strongest as a woman, when I am helping another woman, or being helped by another woman--whether she is someone I know, or a someone who lives across the world."

I've been asking myself:
We all know how catty and back-biting and vicious women can be. Why do we ever participate in such conversations or observe in silence?

What kind of things could we be accomplishing when united with other women?



It's so easy to be annoyed by someone or judge another wrongly. Even easier to criticize someone, then justify such talk by finishing up with a 'but bless her heart.'

It's harder to forgive, choose not to be offended, collaborate with someone we don't 'click with,' and be the kind of woman who never speaks ill of another.

But that is exactly the kind of woman I am determined to be.

--Anne

Claire Update (!) and Auction Follow-up

Just wanted to give you all an update on Claire. Look at that sweet face - she sure seems to be doing well!
You can always check in on the Skinner's blog, but we'll give you the highlight reel here :)
The transplant went well. Claire had a few rough days of recovery, but overall things could not have gone more smoothly. And from what her mom says on the blog, she seems to be back to her happy, energetic self.
The best news of all is that she's back home with her family! And no more daily dialysis! Yay!
We hope it's all sunshine and gumdrops from here on out for you, Miss Claire!


Auction Follow-up: can't say it enough - thanks (again!) to everyone who participated. We contacted the donors of all purchased items a few weeks ago - hopefully you've shipped what you donated (sellers) and received what you purchased (buyers).
If you haven't, please contact us so we can re-contact the donor and find out what's going on. There was a lot to coordinate and the holidays came shortly after it all...so there may still be loose ends to tie up. Drop us a line if we can help in any way.

Thanks!

Handmade Thanks {from scraps}

This is a nice time of year for sending serendipitous thank you notes. And if you're a paper lover like myself, you probably have piles of small scraps laying around which make perfect embellishments for handmade notes. This is so simple, it hardly merits posting about, but it's a fun way to make custom cards without fancy photo-shop/graphic design skills. And did I mention that I love the idea of using scraps?

I try to have blank cards, envelopes and stamps on hand at all times - makes note-writing much likelier to get done. You can buy blank stationary sets at craft stores. I bought two 50-piece sets (with envelopes) last year for just over six dollars a piece - that's 100 card/envelope sets for about $13.00; pretty economical considering that last week I spent $8.00 on twenty two not-that-cute, pre-made cards (I had oodles of thank yous to write for all the help we received with our move.)

First, I print a page of text with an assortment of greetings:

T h a n k Y o u, L o v e N o t e, L o v e Y o u,

T h a n k s, T h i n k i n g O f Y o u, H a p p y D a y

Then I go to work creating little collages of prints, solids, and text.
I like to adhere the pieces with double stick photo-mounting squares. A glue stick works, too.

A little stack makes a nice gift - a ready supply of cute cards is such a handy thing to have around.

I've seen similarly collaged cards done with scraps of fabric. Instead of using glue as your adhesive, you'd want to use fusible webbing (an iron-on adhesive) to secure your fabric to the paper.

Love these whimsical ornaments:

And these apples are sweet and simple:

So, there you have it. A few simple ways to personalize a thank you note.
Whether you use fabric or paper, a store-bought stack, a handmade note or a 3x5 card - it really doesn't matter. The most important thing is the expression of thanks.

The thing I'd love most is for this post to inspire us all to take a minute to slow down and pen a few lines of thoughtful gratitude during the busy Holiday season; if you have fun prettying up the paper - well, that's just icing.

xo,
em

**Don't Forget: Tomorrow (Friday) is the deadline to submit items for the online auction for Benson & Claire. Please e.mail us photos of the item(s) you'd like to donate, a description,
and a starting bid. And please help us spread the word so we can have lots of
bidding here on the 10th.**

Handmade Boxes How-to by Bloom Guest Angie

I am so excited to be a guest over here at Bloom! My name is Angie and I love to create things by hand. It makes me smile when I can take a piece of fabric or a piece of paper and mold it into something useful and pleasing to the eye. Visit me at my blog this and that.

Today I am going to show you how to make these awesome paper boxes that really have endless possibilities! They are great to fill with candy or chocolate to take to a friend. That's what I'll be using them for this Christmas season!

Supplies:

* paper

* glue stick

1. Use the diagram below as a guide. Score and fold paper along the dotted lines. Cut paper along solid lines.

Your paper should now look like this:

2. Glue the small fold of paper on the far right side to the inside of the opposite side of paper to make a cylinder.

3. Glue the bottom squares together to form the bottom of the box.

4. Fill the box with candy or any other small gift! There are so many ways to close the top of the box up. Here are just a few:

Fold as you would a lunch bag and punch 2 holes in the top. Thread a ribbon through.

Cut the top the same as you did to make the bottom of the box. Cut a small slit in the top 2 flaps. Tie a loop of ribbon with a knot at the bottom. Thread the ribbon through each hole. The ribbon should now hold the top closed.

Fold it over and staple it. Glue a big bow on front.

For this box, I didn't use the same measurements that are in the diagram below. I changed them to make a fatter box. With this one, don't fold it over, just staple it in the middle and secure a big flower to the front, here is a top view of that.

Close up both ends of the box the same. Tie a ribbon around the box, as you would a gift

Thanks a bunch, Angie! Maybe we can keep our hands busy while our turkey digests making some of these cute boxes.

*****************************************************************

Please scroll down to read about the auction for Benson & Claire. We're hoping for lots of participation from you, dear readers. Please, please think of something you could do. I just keep thinking that if that was my little girl, I'd hope people would be willing to sacrifice time and means to help.
Please e.mail us with questions (aplacetobloom {at} gmail {dot} com) or to let us know what you'll be donating. We're really hoping to be able to make a nice donation to help with medical expenses. We hope you've taken a minute to get to know little Claire on the Skinner's blog. If you've got a minute, go read this crazy story about what happened a few weeks ago that kept Claire from receiving an available transplant. Crazy! (Even if you don't have a minute, you should go read the story). She is such a strong, sweet girl.

Help For Two Little Angels

There is a lot of sadness and suffering in the world. And on some level, we mourn for all of it. But every now and then a story just grabs hold of your heart and won't let go. That's how it's been for me with Benson & Claire Skinner. My heart is especially tender for Claire, as the severity of her condition requires that she be on dialysis for 15 hours a day (3 hours in the hospital and then 12 more through the night at home). Sweet little Claire is waiting for a kidney/liver transplant and her family is raising money to help cover the costs.

I was linked to their blog by a good friend, with a plea for prayers. I clicked over, saw the pictures, read the stories, watched the video clips and my heart's been following this family ever since. I think, at least in part, I feel so deeply for them because Claire reminds me so much of my own little Lily - and the sadness just comes too close, goes too deep.

When I told Anne about them, we both agreed that we wanted to do something. Something a little bigger than ourselves. And so we come to you, dear friends, with a proposal.

Here's what we propose:

Online Silent Auction to be held at Bloom on December 10th - 13th. (Remember the incredible response at Design Mom for Stephanie & Christian Nielson? We're hoping (on a much smaller scale) to duplicate that kind of fund-raising effort).

Here's what we need:

Donations from you. Maybe you sew, or make jewelry, or create paper goods or mod-podged collages. Maybe you're a rockin' graphic designer and could auction a blog-makeover. Or custom Christmas Card Design. Maybe you are a photographer and could donate a shoot. Or a fine-art print. Maybe you don't do/have any of those things, but maybe you have a friend who does - tell them about the auction. Ask them to donate. Maybe you feel like you could auction off a few of your children's books. Maybe you have some other gift that you feel you could donate. If nothing else, maybe you could help us spread the word.

Whatever it is, e.mail us with details and hopefully we'll have a smashing auction here on the 10th. We felt this would be an ideal time of year to do this - everyone has Christmas shopping to do - what could be better than getting a little shopping done while helping a wonderful cause? And isn't this just the kind of thing that this season is/should be all about? Generosity. Compassion. Love.

If you would like to donate, please send us an auction-ready e.mail by Friday, December 4th (or sooner!) about what you'll be auctioning off. By auction-ready, we mean a complete description of the item up for bid, a starting bid, and pictures to go along. We will upload and format the posts and the auction will be held here at Bloom beginning on December 10th. All bidding will be done in the comment thread of the item up for bid. We'll post more details on the day of the auction. In the meantime, please feel free to leave a comment or e.mail with questions.
All payments will be made directly to Benson & Claire's COTA fund. 100% of proceeds will go directly to the Skinner family.

Please visit Benson & Claire at their blog, read about their condition, soak up a bit of their sweetness. And then think of a way you can help. We can't wait to see what you come up with!

-Em & Anne
aplacetobloom {at} gmail {dot} com

* Need a great roll recipe for Thanksiving? Anne's got your back...scroll down.

Letters to Each Other

Friends, we are so excited to have Amanda Stringham blooming with us today. When we heard the premise behind her romantic new blog, we asked if she would share it with all of you. We can't think of a better time of year to rekindle the expression of love and gratitude in a marriage!


When my hubby and I were first married, we lived in perpetual bliss! (As I assume most newlyweds do.) We loved being together and dreaded spending time apart, especially as we headed off to work each morning. I remember very early on, having to leave early one day, and not wanting to wake him, I left a little note on a Post-It on the steering wheel of his truck.

And so it began.

We started a note-writing love affair. You know, notes left on the kitchen counter, in a lunch box, on the white board or on the bathroom mirror. It was always such a pick-me-up to get a little love note written by my sweetie, and I found myself looking forward to coming home and discovering yet another scribble.

Then...

Somewhere between Mike running his business, our other part-time job, our church responsibilities, the (never-ending) housework, and our five children (and everything that comes along with them), we stopped being note writers.

It's so easy to lose yourself to all your responsibilities and have nothing left at the end of the day to give your spouse. It's so easy to forget how you once waited with baited breath for your deary to come walking through the door at the end of the day. It's so easy to give yourself so fully to your precious little children that your emotional reserves are all but depleted.

Just recently, I recognized that I was in one of these slumps, and quite frankly, had been for a while. I started thinking about all those notes that had meant so much to me before.

I loved those notes. I missed those notes.
I wanted those notes again.

That's when what I can only call pure inspiration came and I decided to start yet another blog. Yes, really. This one's entitled, Letters To Each Other, and that's exactly what it is. A blog completely privatized, just for Mike and I to leave notes to each other on. It's not a Post-It on the steering wheel , or an "I *heart* U" drawn on the fogged up bathroom mirror. It's better that that, because one day when Mike and I have passed on, our children will have a record of their mom & dad's love affair. What better legacy to leave to your children than for them to know the depth of love and gratitude their parents had for each other?

I can't think of anything sweeter.

Holiday Service

It’s no secret our world needs more good will. At my house, we make sure to incorporate service with each holiday—yes, even Halloween! Our acts of service don’t really change from holiday to holiday, just the way we keep track of all the good things we do.



Here are 3 of my family's favorites:

1. Paper chains.
Cut strips of Halloween-y paper and keep them handy. I like to put mine in a vase by the phone. Each time you do something nice for someone else, write it down on a strip of paper and add it to your paper chain. Start this now and by Halloween you’ll have enough chains to decorate the whole house (or at least the kitchen).

2. Wall art.
Keep a stack of paper in the kitchen (I like to cut it down to 3” squares). Each time you do a good deed draw a little picture of it and add it to the wall. Pretty soon you will have an entire wall of happy memories.

3. Journals.
Keep a little service journal and add an entry each time you brighten someone’s day. You can make a pamphlet book like the ones I mentioned yesterday or use a journal you already have handy. Make sure the journal is kept in a convenient spot so everyone in the family can add to it when they need to.

To help you get started, I made a pdf of Halloween service ideas. Print it out on some Halloween paper and cut it into strips. Each day, draw out a paper strip and do the service. Then add it to your paper chain or wall art or journal.

Don’t forget step #3 that I mentioned Wednesday: Repeat! Traditions take time and lots of repetitions. So hop to it! Go send grandma a spooky card and decorate some sugar cookies for your neighbor.

Send me an email (sarah [at] sarahnielsen [dot] com) to let me know how your letter writing and good deed doing are going. Or if you need help with any of the projects I’ve mentioned. Or if you just want to say hi.

Happy Halloween-ing!

Thanks a whole million, Sarah! So many great ideas. Please come back and share more of your loveliness with us soon.