This Personalized Family Tree Pillow from Amazon Handmade Was the Perfect Grandparent's Gift

The Mother's Day and Grandparent's Day gift idea we are sharing about today was purchased with our own funds.

A couple of weeks ago, my mother turned 70 years old.  (I'm still having a little trouble accepting that.)  For this milestone birthday, I wanted to find something she would love for our children to present to her as a gift.  She is a tough person to buy for.  The gift couldn't take up a lot of room due to the size limitations of my parent's apartment.  It also couldn't cost too much money because she would just yell at me for spending so much money on her.

I started searching on Etsy because it's a great source for one-of-a-kind gifts, but I couldn't find anything that I loved that would get to me within a few weeks.  My next stop was Amazon Handmade.  It's still fairly new and I had never taken the time to see what items were available.  I lucked out and found this 20" Family Tree Pillow Cover sold by Crafting Rehab.  I could request the quantity of names, choose from a small assortment of pillow colors, specify the colors in the printing, and change the message located at the base of the tree.  The pillow cover and the cost of shipping were both priced very reasonably.  SOLD!

To complete the gift, I also ordered a 20" square pillow insert on Amazon for $8.50 with free shipping.  The pillow cover was shipped by Crafting Rehab in less than a week and arrived about a week later, earlier than the estimated delivery date.  I must also say that the communication from Crafting Rehab was very timely, friendly, and helpful.

I included the names of my 3 children and my nephew on the family tree to represent all my mother's grandchildren.  The gift was presented to her from all 4 children at the end of her birthday dinner.  My mother just LOVED it!  She told me that night and actually called me the next day to tell me again how much she loved it.

If you have a parent or grandparent who is tough to buy for, I highly recommend checking out Amazon Handmade.  I didn't think I could love shopping on Amazon more than I already did, but this shopping experience made that happen!

A Custom Hand Stamped Personalized Sterling Silver Toggle Necklace for My Birthday!

Thank you to Like Mother, Like Daughter for providing a sample custom hand stamped silver necklace for us to base this review upon and for providing a gift certificate for our giveaway prize.  All opinions expressed are my own.

It's September!  That means the two sapphires of 3 Garnets & 2 Sapphires had birthdays this month . . . one of which was me.  Yes, I turned forty *cough* one this month.  Somehow turning 41 seemed to impact me more than 40.  I wouldn't say I'm feeling old . . . just older.  Regardless, nothing cures the birthday blues better than jewelry.  Well, not just any jewelry.  It needs to be something special . . .

No piece of jewelry could be more special than one that was crafted just for me.  While browsing this charming hand stamped jewelry boutique on Etsy, called Like Mother, Like Daughter, I saw this sterling silver washer toggle necklace and I kept coming back to it.  I admit I have an affinity towards larger circular pendants, but I just wasn't sure this was the one for me.  Then I realized that I could make this the perfect necklace for me because it can be customized!

What did I come up with?  Why, it's this mommy necklace that has the names of all five members of my beloved family stamped into the sterling silver washer plus a silver family tree charm dangling in the center.  I just love the way this necklace turned out!  If you do too, you can order this custom necklace here.  It would truly make a cherished gift for a special mom in your life.

Now, I'm one to leave my jewelry on 24/7.  Just as stated in the shop information, this type of silver will develop a patina when exposed to air.  If you aren't a fan of an antiqued look, then I recommend that you keep these pieces stored away safely protected from the air while they're not being worn.  It's also helpful that each piece comes with a polishing cloth to help keep your jewelry looking like new.

To view all the wonderful offerings in hand stamped necklaces, bracelets, and earrings (in sterling silver, bronze, copper, and aluminum) visit Like Mother, Like Daughter on Etsy!  Now it does take some time for your custom pieces to be created, so plan accordingly if you're purchasing a gift.  For me, it was totally worth the wait!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck in the drawing!

This giveaway is open to U.S. entries only. You do not need to be a blogger to enter, but you must have a valid email address and be age 18 years or older. A random drawing will be held shortly after the contest closing. The winner will be announced here and will be contacted via email. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be drawn.

My Photos: The Birthday Boy and Girl

Last week, our twins Luke and Makenzie turned 6 years old.  It was a school day (and a school night), so we just had a quiet dinner at home.  The twins had their favorite food . . . mac and cheese.  After dinner, they opened their gifts from some relatives, their big brother, me and my husband, and from each other.  It is so sweet to watch the children exchange gifts.  The are always so proud to present their handmade cards and so very excited for the gift they picked out to be opened.  They actually know each other better than anyone and they always put so much thought into what the perfect gift would be for each other.


Here are some photos from their gift exchange this year . . . 

Click here to view all my past favorite photos.

Silly Monkey Stories: Look Out! He's Going to Burst!!

Recently, I shared photos of our oldest son's birthday dinner, including the first photo below.  I had to save the rest for today's Silly Monkey Story because they were just too priceless.  Our nearly 6 year old twins had asked me the morning of their big brother's birthday about when he would be opening his birthday presents.  When I told them it would be after dinner, they were so disappointed.  You see, they each got Jake a gift for his 9th birthday and were extremely excited to give it to him, especially Luke.  However, I did not realize how excited Luke was until we were at dinner that evening.

We had just finished dessert and Jake was getting ready to open his first present.  Luke insisted that his gift be the first to be opened.  I think the photos will show you just exactly how excited he was better than I could ever describe with words.  (Please ignore the chocolate pudding all over his face.)

What made it even more excruciating for Luke was that my husband had told Jake not to make a mess with the wrapping paper in the restaurant, so Jake was being particularly careful (and slow) while opening his gifts.  I seriously thought Luke was going to explode if Jake took one second longer to open his gift.

Click here to read all our Silly Monkey Stories!

My Photos: Our Baby Turned 9!

This weekend, our first-born turned 9 years old!  I really thought it would be like any other birthday, but it was more bittersweet than I had expected.  I realized that our son is no longer a little boy, but is now a young man.  He is officially a 'tween.  Although I am slightly sad, I am also very proud of how Jake has turned out.  Because he is the oldest, he was the one we tested out parenting strategies on and he still turned out to be extremely intelligent, handsome, outgoing, and has such a good heart.

We will be celebrating all 3 of our January babies' birthdays by going to Coco Key Water Park this month, but we did go out to TGI Friday's (our son's choice) for dinner after a trip to the LEGO Store to spend some gift cards our children had received for Christmas.  After dinner, we sneaked in a trip to Toys"R"Us to spend a couple of gift cards he had received for his birthday.  According to Jake, it was a great birthday!

Instead of birthday cake, the children each had "Cups of Dirt", complete with chocolate pudding, crumbled Oreos, and gummy worms.  Jake also received a birthday serenade from the TGI Friday's crew.

Time for gifts!  I'm surprised Luke could keep what his gift was a secret from Jake for so long.

Jake has been wanting the board game Sorry since he had so much fun playing it at the Boston Social Media Holiday Party.

This was the perfect birthday card for our Fruit Ninja fan!

I just couldn't wait for Jake to see the memory box I had designed for him from the Paper Coterie.  I think he thought it was pretty darn cool!  (I think the Toys"R"Us gift card we tucked inside made it even cooler.)

If I'm feeling this way now, I am probably going to be a wreck when he turns 10 next year . . .

Click here to view all my past favorite photos.

How To Dress-Up Your FP Girl (FPGirl.com) Printable e-Gift Certificate

A couple of months ago, our daughter was invited to a birthday party for one of her friends who has almost everything.  Usually in that situation, I would buy the birthday girl or boy a gift certificate or gift card, but that is not always the case when the child is younger.  This girl was only turning 6 years old, but I made an exception.  I ended up purchasing an electronic gift certificate to FPGirl.com (formerly Fashion Playtes).  Normally, I would opt for a physical gift certificate or a gift card to be mailed to me, but I was uncertain I would receive this one on time, so I ended up printing one out at home instead.

Since it is not very fun for a little girl to receive a piece of paper for her birthday, I thought I would help my daughter dress the gift certificate.  You can do this easy craft with most gift certificates that you can print online.

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

Printed 8-1/2" x 11" gift certificate

Sheet of 9" x 12" coordinating construction paper

Printed (or solid) satin or grosgrain ribbon (Approx. 40")

Glue stick

All-purpose white glue

(Click any photo to enlarge)

Step 1.  Fold your construction paper in half.  Then do the same to your printed gift certificate, so that the printed sides are face-to-face.

Step 2.  Using the glue stick, apply glue to the blank side of the gift certificate.  Then carefully secure it to the construction paper, matching up the fold lines and making sure the amount of construction paper showing on the left, right, top, and bottom edges are even.

Step 3.  Cut a piece of ribbon about 22" long.

Step 4.  Fold the ribbon in half, then using all-purpose white glue, adhere the ribbon (printed side up) to the front and back of the outside of the construction paper, matching up the fold in the ribbon to the crease on the paper and bisecting the construction paper lengthwise.  (See photo above.)

Step 5.  To create something decorative for the front, I created a simple printable coloring page (about 5" x 7") by using images from the FP Girl site and a basic graphics program.  You can also just give your child a blank piece of paper to draw something from scratch and then help him or her write a birthday message.

Step 6.  Using the glue stick, adhere the 5" x 7" paper to the front of the card you created right over the ribbon, making sure that it is centered.

Step 7.  Cut 2 pieces of ribbon approximately 7-1/2" in length each.

Step 8.  Using the all-purpose white glue, adhere the ribbon to the front of the card, covering the top and bottom edges of the 5" x 7" piece of paper.  (NOTE:  If you choose to, you can also glue ribbon over the left and right edges also.)

Step 9.  Loosely tie the ribbon that hangs down the front and back of the card together.  (You do not want to tie it too tightly, otherwise the child might have difficulty opening it and may tear the paper.)

Step 10.  Trim the ends of the tied ribbon to the desired length either at a slant or dovetailed.


My daughter was so excited to give this special gift to her friend.  Since she loves designing clothes on the FP Girl website, she knew her friend would love it too, especially since FP Girl has a special My Little Pony section.  The gift was a huge hit and I will definitely be doing this again for her friends in the future.

Silly Monkey Stories: A Birthday Gift

Not too long ago, I shared about how each of our 3 children always chose something small for each other as birthday gifts every year and how impressed I was about how much care each child took in choosing the gifts for his or her siblings.  This year, Luke received a blue and white Iron Man figure from his big brother, who just knew he had to buy that for Luke when he saw it in the store.  I have to say that big brother was right on about his choice.  The series of photos I took capturing Luke's reaction while opening the gift is more than enough proof . . .

(Click any photo to enlarge)

Click here to learn how to participate in Silly Monkey Stories.

Click here to read all my Silly Monkey Stories!

If you have a Silly Monkey Story to share, sign Mr. Linky below with the link to your blog post (not the link to your main blog page). Please do not forget to visit the other participants and leave them comments to let them know you stopped by!

My Photos: January Birthday Celebration (plus Random Cat Photo)

You may have figured it out that our "3 Garnets" are our children who all happen to have January birthdays.  Earlier this month, we celebrated our 8 year old son's birthday with a dinner out.  Then last weekend, we had a family dinner at my sister and brother-in-law's house for all 3 children, followed by an at-home birthday breakfast for the twins the next morning.  As always, I took a million photos.  Here are some of my favorites and you can see the rest if we're friends on Facebook.  (Oh, and there is a random cat photo at the end.)

(Click any photo to enlarge)

"Our 5 Year Old Princess"

"Our 8 Year Old 'Tween Son"

"Our 5 Year Old Charmer"

"SpongeBob Birthday Cake"

"Only a Big Boy Can Break the Ribbon Like That!"

"Two of Her Favorite Gifts"

"3 Garnets & a Duck"

"I Am NOT Stuck!"

Click here to view all my past favorite photos.

3 Children's Birthdays in January . . . My System for Gift Shopping

In case you could not gather from my site name, we have three children who all have birthdays in the month of January.  Right after the Christmas rush, we have a second wave of gifts come through the house at the beginning of each year.  Shopping for gifts to the children from my husband and I is pretty easy because I do that simultaneously with my Christmas shopping.

Just as with Christmas, we want to teach our children the joy of giving.  Since they were old enough, we have had them pick out small gifts to give to each other.  The hard part is taking each child gift shopping without the other two siblings.  This year, I think I finally developed a system that works.

In order to help each child choose a gift for the other two and still keep the gift confidential, I do the following . . . 

1.  Three weeks or more in advance, I look around online for gift ideas for each child and add them to my Universal Wishlist on Amazon.com to keep them all in one place.  This way, I am able to suggest gifts that are not too costly, are not duplicates, and are things that I approve of.

2.  Then I call each child over to my computer, while the other two wait upstairs, to take a look at my ideas for gifts for the two siblings.  I also ask if the child has ideas of his or her own.

3.  After a decision has been made on a gift for his or her two siblings, I repeat Step 2 with each of our other two children.

4.  When all six gifts have been settled upon, I then do a quick online search for the best prices for each item.  This includes checking for coupon codes for the various sites I am considering purchasing from.

5.  Then I place my online orders and have the gifts delivered right to my door.

All this actually takes about two hours to do total, which is much less time than  it would require to make three separate shopping trips.  I know it will get easier as our children grow older, but for now, this works well for us.  I also want to say that I am extremely impressed by how much thought and care each child puts into choosing gifts.  They are so excited when they choose something they know will delight their brother or sister.  The best part is that they are often more excited to give their gifts than they are about receiving their own birthday gifts.

Ruby Tuesday: Gifted

A couple of weekends ago, our oldest son attended a birthday party for two of his friends from school who were turning 7.  They were actually boy-girl twins, just like we have.  With my being so short on time lately, I've learned that gift bags and colorful tissues are the way to go.  It literally takes me a small fraction of the time to wrap a gift this way as opposed to using wrapping paper.  Gift bags are much easier for children to carry, as well.

(Click photo to enlarge)

If you'd like to see more Ruby Tuesday photos, go visit Mary at Work of the Poet!