Happy Mother's Day!

Dandelions...bet you didn't think they would show up in a Happy Mother's Day blog post.

Previously these WEEDS have sent shudders up my spine when they showed up in our grass. As you all know from this post I function best when things are in their place and look nice. :)

These suckers...

completely sent me into a state of anxiety. Until recently...

Jamesy has been picking hand fulls of them and giving them to me as 'little sunflowers'. He is becoming so charming and we've been having the 'you'll live with me forever and never leave your Mommy ever' talks...frequently! My heart feels like it's going to burst out of my chest every single time he presents me with his bouquets.

I love that he is able to find the beauty and innocence that I am often shooting the evil eye to out the side of my glance.

My boys are always reminding me to take a step back and enjoy all of the 'beautiful' things in life and because of this I am constantly reminded how lucky I am to be a Mom.

I am sending all of you Moms hand fulls of dandelions and wishing you a day to be reminded of all the beautiful things in life.

 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

 

 

From Picture to Pendant

We thought we'd take some time and show everyone an insider's look at the process of designing a Silver Artwork Pendant.

The artwork pieces have always been some of my favorites:

It always concerns me that my almost 5 year old (YIKES!!) can out draw me...any animal, object, person, you name it, he can draw it better! Kids have the most incredible imaginations and there's nothing more fascinating than putting a blank piece of white paper and crayons in front of them and watching them work their lil' Picasso magic!

Recently Sarah worked her magic with an absolutely stunning piece. This picture:

turned into this:

 



To get from picture to pendant includes a few (sometimes many!) emails back and forth. We always encourage a large amount of feedback from our customers. We work one on one to ensure that you're happy with the layout, placements and final design. Patti was wonderful enough to allow us to use her pictures and below you can see the 'evolution' of the design. Thank you Patti!!

Here is the play by play from Sarah (some men needs sports as excitment, we get our thrills with artwork designs!!):

This is the original picture Liam drew. From that we realised we had to make the legs 'hollow' to give them more definition.

We got the first layout however the 'arms' were too small and his eyes, nose and mouth very close together so in the next drawing along we made the 'arms' longer and the head bigger while still trying to keep it's shape.

We thought the head was still too small so we did the below design but we didn't like that as the shape of the head changed to get more room for his features and we felt the integrity of the drawing was lost.

Next we thought getting rid of his mouth would give more room for his nose and eyes but it completely altered the look of the drawing and was axed straight away.

 

Finally we got it right!  The head of the drawing was removed from the body and enlarged slightly on it's own and then put back onto the body, it was enough to give more room to the features but not alter the ratio of body to head from the drawing. Also to make more room the thickness of the lines of the head were pared down, this didn't alter the shape of the head but just made the picture clearer and again gave us more room for his features. We were still able to fit in Liam's name which he wrote.

 I can't tell you how satisfying it is to work with you on a design and get that email saying...

It's perfect!

I love it!

That's it!

Sarah and I are truly thankful and blessed to be able to take your little one's beloved artwork and create something you will treasure forever. This quote says it all...

We look forward to making many more artwork pieces and working with you and your 'lil' Picasso!

It's not too late to order for Mother's Day (Sunday, May 13th!). We are still happily taking orders and can be reached at

sarah@handsonkeepsakes.com

or

rachelle@handsonkeepsakes.com

with any questions or inquiries. We look forward to hearing from you!

I Have A Problem

100% honesty...I don't find this funny I just feel like someone finally understands me :) Some other signs my obsessive behaviours may have rubbed off on the boys:

1 - Jacob lines shoes up at the front door...daily

2 - James commented how nicely the Qtips were lined up when we opened a new box



It could be worse right?! I constantly remind my husband that he could be enjoying the opposite...and be appearing on an episode of Hoarders. Point made :)

I am finding my anxiety and stress levels peak when things aren't in their place, organized or frazzled and DINNER was a major source of this. Considering dinner is a daily occurrence action had to be taken and I am quite happy to publicly report my LURVE for Pinterest!!

Just the excitement of typing in www.pinterest.com in my laptop makes me giddy with excitement to be unlocking a secret door with oodles of organizing ideas, tips, style, decor and my latest obsession MEAL PLANNING!!

It has been a *blissful* week of dinner time over here. The sense of contentment to sit down with my boys and know that their meal did not come from...

a - the freezer

b - a drive through

c - our neighborhood Domino's that was borderline getting close to being on a first name basis

...sends shivers of happiness through me :)

And not to mention the super pretty weekly Meal Plan that gets put on the fridge and shopping list that accompanies me, my pen and calculator at the grocery store...yep I'm *that* shopper :)

So if you live under a rock and haven't checked out Pinterest and searched 'Meal Plans'...prepare to have your mind blown and life simplified. Trust me, I know...some people go out on a Saturday night...I meal plan AND look forward to it ;)

PS - We'll be better bloggers...we promise :) Sorry we've been MIA for a while...we're back now!



Hands on Keepsakes Holiday Gift Guide

We're very excited for the first year to bring you our Holiday Gift Guide. Sit back, relax and let us make your Christmas shopping easy...

Silver Name Pendant with Mini Heart

Personalized Hand/Foot Print Pendant

Circle of Love Pendant

Mom Heart, Hugs & Kisses Keyring

Personalized Silver Dog Tag

Bronze Artwork Keyring

Custom Golf Ball Markers

Dad Hearts, Hugs & Kisses Keyring

Bronze Artwork Keyring

Silver Heart Dangle Earrings

Silver Pawprint Pendant

Bronze Pawprint Keyring

All of our Bronze Holiday Decorations are mailed ready to hang on the Christmas Tree. We include a keyring to replace the red and green ribbon so that once the Holiday Season is over they are easily converted to keyrings.

Baby's First Christmas

Custom Handmade Christmas Decoration

 

Custom Holiday Tags (available in any number)

We Love Grandma Holiday Decoration/Keyring

Personalized Name Holiday Decoration/Keyring

Each finished piece is mailed to you in a gift box ready for gift giving.

We are happy to work with you to create a custom piece perfect for anyone on your Christmas list this year. Each print (hand, foot and paw print) order includes an easy to use and mess free kit. You are 100% in control of the design process. Before we begin your piece we will email you with designs which you are able to make unlimited changes to until you see the design you're happy with.

If you have any further questions/inquiries or to place your order:

SARAH ~ sarah@handsonkeepsakes.com

or

RACHELLE ~ rachelle@handsonkeepsakes.com

We wish you a stress free upcoming Holiday Season and look forward to making personalized pieces for you this season!

&

Happy Summer

Uh oh! We haven't blogged in a LONG time! We won't put an exact number on it but we're happy to say it has been a very busy last couple of months!

And now summer is here! We thought we'd make it official and say we'll be taking a break from blogging for the summer. Please note this is blogging only and we will still be happily taking orders :)

We have so much on the horizon and are looking forward to some upcoming exciting changes! Wishing you all a wonderful summer!

&

Evolution of an idea

Last September Rachelle and I met for coffee to discuss our Christmas plans - for the business, not the turkey and stuffing kind!

I was excited, I had an idea.  We ordered coffee and I handed Rachelle my prototype, a hastily made bunch of cardboard strips held together with string!!!!  Luckily for me Rachelle saw past the kindergarten level construction and agreed they could be a great addition to our products.  Later that night they got their name - Tree Tags!

The idea was a customer could order personalized Christmas decorations.  These could feature whatever they liked:  Family members, dates, pets.........

These were some of our initial ideas and orders. Then we realized these could be the gift that kept on giving, as after Christmas they could be transformed into key chains, with a split ring that we included:

People loved them and we made over 70 of them between October and Christmas.  We loved the way people used their imagination, we made a Tree Tag for Makka Pakka (a character from the polpular children's program 'The Night Garden')  we did 10 'friendship' tags for 10 alumni attending a 10 year college reunion, a lady ordered 17 so all the children in her family could have one on their tree.

Then came January. 

No more tree tags :(  Or so we thought........

How wrong we were:)

No longer called Tree Tags, on Jan 10th we got an order for 3 date key rings.  Our customer wanted them like tags but with horizontal writing rather than vertical:

We loved the idea and the end result and our customer graciously allowed us to use her idea and photos of her pieces.  In fact it was when my husband was photographing those pieces that he came up with the idea of security tags:

These could have either a telephone number or email address on one side and, 'if found, contact' on the reverse.  I did agree to make him a freebie for his trouble!

The next phase of the evolution I can take credit for though....wedding and engagement tags.  The couples names or initials on one side and then their anniversary date on the other:

What's next in the development of this product?  I have no idea but I hope we shall see the Tree Tag in many more forms for a very long time to come.  What would you like to see on them?