Leather

Who knew that one of the world's premier motorcycle jacket companies is located in Portland, Oregon?

Langlitz, for handmade leather products.

Holiday activity for the kidlets

At the end of last year's holiday season, I looked guiltily at all of the cards we accumulated: Throwing them into the recycling bin only does so much for the environment...

So, I started ripping the front cover off of the more decorative cards and stashed them in a large envelope. I'm not sure exactly what I had in mind but I found a use for them.

One afternoon while I was killing time in Target (I had an appt nearby and had an hour to while away), I was cruising the scrapbooking aisle and it hit me -- a great project for my four year old who loves glue, stickers and all things artsy.

I had construction paper at home and envelopes. I grabbed a decorative punch set of a snowflake and a tree, glue sticks, some holiday stickers and glitter glue. You can also go to a place like Paper Source and buy plain cards and envelopes if you don't have them on hand and don't want to use construction paper for the cards.

After school, I cleared the kitchen table and laid out all of the goods. My job was cutting the cards to fit into the envelopes. At the top of each card, I wrote "Happy Holidays from the ---- family: Husband, My name, Daughter's name. My daughter's job was to decorate and decorate she did. I had to remind her a few times not to use all of the goodies on just one card but overall, I let her just go with it. I did ask her to sign her name to each card before decorating just because it's nice to have the artist's signature on a piece (=

After I stuffed the cards into envelopes, I wrote, "made with love by Daughter" at the bottom, under the mail to address.

The cards don't work for everyone but they make great holiday cards for teachers, babysitters and friends that see your child often (and don't need/care about a card with a picture or require more formal cards for whatever reason) and it's a great activity to fill an afternoon or 3. We had a great time making the cards and my daughter was immensely proud of her work.

I'm still ordering regular cards for the bulk of my list since it would take 10 years for my daughter to make enough cards for my list and a child-made card isn't appropriate for everyone but in a couple of days, I plan to bring out the supplies again and we'll make more. The first batch is in the mail!