Holy Hectic Holiday!

Wanna know what the VanHorns did over the holidays? Here goes.

First, we had our own dang Christmas:

Then, we took some airplanes, plural, through San Francisco and Chicago (with 2 kids, did I mention that part?)

on Christmas Eve to make it to Columbus, OH in time for Christmas day with my parents.

The next day we drove my mom's car 11 hours south

to Charleston, SC (thanks mom! sorry Sage puked in your car) for a hotel Christmas with Erik's family:

In the morning we all took taxis to the Norwegian Majesty for a week-long cruise. Yep, a cruise. It had been a year in the planning and despite the fact that the economy is crumbling, we went to live like kings (ok, more like pirates) for a week out in the ocean.

First we stopped in Great Stirrup Cay:

The next day we went to Nassua, Bahamas:

Then Freeport, Bahamas:

There were also a few days when we just stayed on the ship out at sea. We didn't get many pictures of ship life because we spent most of that time chasing a baby down rocking halls and corridors, getting lost, trying to get kids to sleep, watching goofy song and dance shows, or eating at one of their many grazing stations. The best parts were dinners with Erik's family and watching Sage hang out with his Grammy and PopPop and cousins and letting his cousins watch McKenna while Erik and I sipped rum (not their expensive ship drinks, but our own that we smuggled on like pirates (thanks dad!).

New Years:
Happy 50th anniversary Grammy and PopPop!

The next morning we docked in Port Canaveral, Florida, where we took a taxi. . . to rent a car. . . to drive to Orlando. . . to go to Disney World! (free, since Erik is still working there until February.) Whee! We only had 6 hours but we explored as much as we could.

then drove the rental back to Port Canaveral, got a taxi back to the ship and made it back in the nick of time. Here we all are on the last night:

We spent one more day at sea and then Saturday we were back in Charleston to lug our luggage through customs and into a taxi to my mom's car and drive 11 hours back to Ohio (thanks mom! sorry McKenna puked in your car).

Next up, airplanes, plural,


and now we're back home. Whew! If you're not completely exhausted you can see more pictures in my Flickr album.

How Disney does Christmas. . .

Last Tuesday was the Disney Family Holiday Party at Disneyland where (in lieu of a bonus) all the employees and their families come for free and get 40% off everything and receive a nice keepsake ornament. We now have 4 of those ornaments on our tree. For your holiday pleasure, here are some pictures from the evening:


Ironically, this is also the day we found out Erik was getting laid off. In fact, his entire department, The Academy at Feature Animation, was being eliminated. Merry Christmas!

50% OFF! WooHoo!

It's that time of year again, when I start wanting to move out the old to make room for the new. That means good news for you - from now until midnight (Pacific time) Thursday night everything at kokoleo.com is 50% off! All orders will be shipped Priority mail on Friday to hopefully get to you by Christmas. Simply type WooHoo! in the voucher area at checkout. I'll be adding new items throughout the week so keep checking back. Happy Holidays!

How to make happiness happen.

Sometimes all it takes is saying "yes" to an email and suddenly you find yourself volunteering to help pull off a major production. And when you're done, you're like, that was amazing.

A few weeks ago a woman from my L.A. Church of Craft forum posted that she was looking for volunteers to host a craft table at holiday party for several hundred kids and moms from various homeless shelters around the city. It was hosted by St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Studio City, a church I had been to once before for a Christmas Eve service and twice for Little Monster Market shows (blogged here and here) last year. Since it's close, I figured, why not? and volunteered to teach the recycled holiday ornament workshop I taught at last year's Felt Club and published as a tutorial in the Felt Club 2006 holiday program.

If you want to learn how to make these, there's a tutorial for it in the current issue #09 of Craft: magazine that my fellow Felt Clubber Cathy Calahan wrote. Why didn't I think of that? Silly me keeps showing people how to do it for free. Oh well, I didn't invent it. Years ago I saw a Christmas tree adorned with these in Savannah and came home and turned all our wedding cards into a mobile of geodesic balls. Ever since then it's been my go-to craft for the holiday season.

So this Saturday I got up bright and early and loaded with supplies I'd purchased that week, headed to the event. I also brought along the fixins for a candy cane reindeer craft, which I taught to another volunteer who later taught it to all the kids. (All those years of being a teacher has left me with projects to spare.)

The recycled holiday ornament craft is, I quickly realized, not for little ones. All the circle cutting, triangle folding, and gluing requires patience and a little skill.

Luckily, it was mostly tween and teenage girls and their moms and grandmas who were drawn to my table. A few of them joked with me that they didn't know what they were getting into when they sat down, but before too long, the pieces would merge into something beautiful and I could tell they were proud of what they had created. One mom remarked, "It's kind of like everything we do in life, isn't it? It's a labor of love." Indeed. Here's what some of them came up with:

Other craft tables had face painting, knitting, Santa letter writing (using up the envelopes left over from all our cards) and gingerbread house making.

There was even a hand massage table for the moms.

There were games outside, carolers inside, food and sweets galore, and the kids each got a gift bag full of brand new clothes. When the crafting wrapped up, I was sent to "Elf Training" and helped distribute these gifts to the kids.

from Santa.

I drove home exhausted, but uplifted in ways I didn't expect I would be. Before I got there, I worried that I wouldn't have much to talk about with the moms, but when I was there our conversations were like any I'd have with a group of crafters or moms at the playground. I thought, somewhat naiively, that I'd feel sorry for the kids. Instead, I was blown away by their enthusiasm and genuine gratitude when they were given something, or created something new and beautiful.

So that's what I realized the other day -- that you can make happiness happen by giving something, or creating something new and beautiful for someone else. Eventually, someone might even do it for you too.

KB at the JCC

Saturday, I set up a kokoleo booth at the Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center (SIJCC) for their holiday boutique.

A local customer of mine invited me to do it. Thanks Tracy! Here's my booth:

Note the tree growing in the middle. That's a first. I liked having my own little tree.

The event was awesome, not just the boutique part, but the whole kid-oriented affair. There were booths for craft-making, picture-taking, games, a bounce-house, a stage with kid-friendly music by The Hollow Trees (check out the downloadable coloring book on their site), Camp Susannah, and Tree Adams. I didn't get to see any of them, but I heard them from afar. The boutique was too busy to leave! I sold seven (seven!) toddler sundresses, my best ladies skirts (a Raggedy Anne wrap and a Cityscape skirt) and a bunch of other stuff. This lady bought my vintage Barbie eyeglass lens earrings that I recently made:

It was a fun group of vendors too. I saw my NoHo girls Susie and Heidi Bauer of Rock Scissor Paper. We keep running into each other at craft shows and yard sales. I wish I had a sister like they each do - twice the craftiness for your business!

I bought this book for Sage from Madallie.

It has lots of imaginative piratey activities and a flashlight:

and is totally his sense of humor.

It'll be perfect for our trip back east this Christmas.

I traded a with Doris Oswald-Burrell of I can fly one of my Raggedy Anne skirts (which she wore over her jeans for the rest of the day) for a Monkey on Bike dress for McKenna (the same Monkey on Bike print that was on a shirt I got Sage years ago).

With Teresa from Kumquat, I traded a Peanuts sundress for all this for McKenna:

She was having a liquidation sale and I scored!

Okay, no one needs to buy any clothes for McKenna for Christmas. She has plenty now.

I wish North Hollywood had a community center like the SIJCC. Seeing all the cool moms and their excited kids hanging out with all their friends made me realize that my kids and I don't have that. I'm making it my New Years resolution to find something like that in 2009. I long to feel a part of a community (like we did in Shepherdstown) and McKenna and I desperately need some playdate pals.

After the show was over I stopped by the Bust Holiday Craftacular at the Echoplex in Silverlake. I didn't even know about it until a week ago. I'm glad I did the JCC show instead because while there was lots of handmade awesomeness to see at the BUST show, I got the sense from my crafty friends and the vendors I talked to that it wasn't well organized. It was $250 for a tiny booth, there was little advertising, the event wasn't well marked (I passed it twice!), and I heard they opened a half-hour late. Maybe we're all just spoiled by Felt Club, but you'd think a big name like BUST would be a little more on the ball (the one in NYC is HUGE and I've only heard great reviews about it.) One highlight though was seeing my crafty pal Stacy McQueen there filming a video for the event. She's so fun. Next year they should have her be the host.

I hope I didn't just ruin my chance to be in a BUST show now. Don't get me wrong, I love the mag. It was just interesting to see a show from a customer's point of view, especially after having done a few.

Ahhh, the craft show circuit, it's a crazy one - you never know what you're going to get. I guess it's that way with any production. . . it all depends on who shows up.