Inspiration Tuesday--Stay at Home Mommy

I'm working on some new invitation designs and children's party supplies, and my little designer is right beside me helping pick which monster to use on the monster invitations. She truly is my inspiration, and I'm so thankful that I get to stay home to raise her. The last 4 1/2 years have gone by so quickly.

While home w/ my daughter, my philosophy has changed a bit from the beginning but is basically the same. I want to raise my daughter to respect others and her environment. I want her to know that she's loved and grow up being happy and healthy. We may have switched from baby wearing and attachment parenting, but we still have the same principles now that she's a little older.

We're currently working on learning to read and using www.starfall.com for most of our learning games and stories to read. Learning is and should be fun, and I've been able to find tons of online games and activities that are appropriate for preschool age. She loves them! Here's our latest fun game, courtesy of The Activity Mom blog:
http://activitymom.blogspot.com/2010/09/sight-word-game.html

We use the words from the starfall books (Zac the Rat, etc.) as well as Disney princess names and words. Hope others can find inspiration here, too!

Monday Meet and Greet--Introducing Me!

I know that some of you have been a follower of this blog for awhile, but I'd like to reintroduce myself. My name is Traci, and I am a former elementary school teacher turned stay-at-home Mommy to an energetic little 4 1/2 year old girl. My life revolves around raising our daughter, working on my online shops at Etsy and Artfire, and keeping our household running smoothly. After staying at home for the last 4 years, I've learned a tremendous amount about myself, including running a part-time business while parenting and how I want to raise our daughter. All of this has evolved over the last few years and continues to grow and change. Welcome to my the inside look at my journey as a wife, mom, creative business owner, part-time homeschooling family, and more.

Here's where I'm at currently--
Personal--trying to keep our house organized, finding daily routines that work for my family (the little one and myself during the day), finishing teaching recertification classes before Sept. 1st
Business--updating my shops, developing new party items and a more cohesive line
Mom--teaching my daughter to read, looking for reading/ math/ and science homeschooling activities for preschoolers. My daughter attends a cooperative preschool during the school year and will attend 3 half days this fall. My homeschooling is in addition to her learning there.

Questions? I'm sure I forgot to mention several things, but I hope you enjoyed getting to know me. More to come in the future...

I Finally Figured It Out!

I finally have my new blog ideas figured out. In my quest to be a crafter, Etsy business, stay-at-home Mom, and learn more about homeschooling ideas, I've decided that this blog can be a mix of those parts of my life. I'm going to keep the same blog here w/ the same name, but the content will be much more varied and focus on whatever I'm working on in my life. Right now, that could be homeschooling some during the summer and working on beginning to read activities with my 4 1/2 year old.

Next week will be my first week back to blogging and my new blogging schedule. I promise to share lots of information, links to other blogs, tutorials, and of course, new Etsy items from time to time. Thanks for sticking with me!

Paper Bag Album Kits

At this point, I've only made a few paper bag album kits for custom orders, but they are coming to my shop soon! This set of 3 custom paper bag album kits was for a Mom that needed crafts for her 3 year old daughter to do as part of homeschooling. They're mainly girly/ floral/ etc., and fairly simple as they were for a toddler. They included all of the papers and ribbons, as well as die cut flowers and prima flowers, for all of the pages, ribbons for the binding, and extra coordinating papers that she could cut out w/ her own scissors. I can't wait until my little one gets a little older to be able to do some of these w/ her!