We are ready to roll with Valentine ideas!  Cookie cutters aren’t just for cookies! I loved cutting bread into a heart shape using a large cookie cutter.  Then I’d cut heart shaped cheese to fit the bread or bologna.  Depending on the person I was making lunch for, tuna, egg salad, ham or turkey all found their way onto a heart-shaped piece of bread.  Husbands and kids alike enjoyed the surprise when they opened their lunch — including my high school kids!

p.s. Use the bread crusts for bread crumbs!

Young and old love to receive a genuine note in the mail.  It stands out past the advertisements and bills.  It’s the envelope that you sit down for and carefully open in hopes of something wonderful.  So . . . find your favorite pen and buy some stamps – some cute ones and yes, they are now 45 cents now, but the happiness a stamp will bring is priceless!

With Valentine’s Day drawing near we wanted to come up with some fun and hopefully unique ideas for sharing the holiday with family and friends close by or far away. So from now until the big holiday we’re going to share at least one idea a day for you to try.

For Chinese New Year we sent a package to the Celiac kid and his brother. It had a little present and they each got a little Chinese envelope with money in it. I’d like to say we did something spectacular here at home, but didn’t. Maybe next year we’ll have Chinese food for dinner and make a paper dragon or something.

It’s funny. I use Goodreads all of the time. I’m always updating what books I’m reading and rating them. I love seeing what other people are reading and reviewing. So, I find it funny that it’s taken me three years to realize that I could be registered as a Goodreads author.

It actually started because I was looking up our books and couldn’t find The Celiac Kid on the Goodreads site. I then found out how to manually add the book and filled out all of the information. When I went to the new page it showed my names as illustrator. I clicked that link and low and behold it asked if it was me. Which, to be honest, I rather chuckled at. Anyway, to make a long story shorter, I registered and Stephanie registered as well. So as of this week we are official Goodreads authors.

If you haven’t rated or reviewed our books here are the links to get there: A Paper Hug, Operation: Celebration and The Celiac Kid. And, if you’re curious you can check out our author pages: Anneliese and Stephanie.

Some things are too good not to share. Here is a card we received from the kids at Camp Manitou-Lin.

One of our designs from our other business was on the news last month. Click here to see the video on the Studio 5 website.