Thanksgiving Pinterest Board

I am actively pinning on my Thanksgiving Pinterest board for the latest ideas on Thanksgiving meal ideas, drinks to serve, Thanksgiving table setting ideas, Thanksgiving meal ideas for dogs, Thanksgiving kid crafts and activities, fall home decor, Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving invitations, party favors and more. If you would like to stay updated on my Thanksgiving pins, please follow my board.

Christmas Pinterest Board

If you have been reading my blog, you probably already know how much I love Christmas! I am actively pinning to my Pinterest Christmas Board for the latest ideas on food, drinks, gift ideas, home decor, kid crafts, DIY Christmas projects, Christmas ornaments, gift ideas, party favors and more. If you would like to stay updated, please follow my board.

Motherhood: Moments of Encouragement

My Daughter's Personal Goals

I just came across something in my daughter’s online classroom docs that melted my heart. As I was checking my daughter’s assignments, I noticed that she created a power point presentation on her personal goals. What I saw gave me a surge of pride and happiness. These moments do not happen as often as I would like, but when they do occur it makes all of that hard work worth it!

One of the writing prompts asked who she would like to be more like and why. I was ecstatic to learn she chose me! This made my day! Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love my daughter, and knows how important it is for me to be the very best mom I can be. I work a full-time job, but somehow I manage to find the time to take my daughter to all of her activities. I take her early to school so that she can participate in her school choir, school leadership team and the school production team. She is learning jiu jitsu and will be taking up basketball again soon. I still manage to juggle her sports and take her to her practices two to three times a week. I help her practice her skills at home and cheer her on in her tournaments and games. 


We both love art, science and cooking so we often spend our free time during the weekends drawing together, making crafts, conducting science experiments or trying out new recipes. It is a lot, and I often feel pretty drained, but reading her answer made all of that time and hard work worth it!


Specifically, she said she would like to be more like me because I'm good at art and training dogs, and that I am always finding out new things. I was a little surprised she chose those traits, but I guess we can never know how someone else perceives us. 

I am encouraged that she has continued to express how much she loves art. I am already looking for Christmas gift ideas. I actually already bought my daughter one of her Christmas gifts, a Brother Sewing Machine, XM2701! She has shown a lot of interest in sewing this year, and is doing really well in the sewing classes I have taken her to so I know she will love having her very own grown-up sewing machine. I have also been contemplating  whether I should get her the same digital software and digital drawing pad that I am using to create my designs. She keeps asking me if she can use it, and she loves collaborating with me on choosing colors for my designs and is always giving me ideas and suggestions on what to create next. She already created an adorable design of one of our dogs on this tablet and I can tell she really enjoyed using this drawing tablet so we will see!

New Snowman and Snowwoman Christmas Design

New Snowwoman Christmas Design

One of my favorite Christmas cartoons is Frosty the Snowman. Yes, I still enjoy watching Christmas cartoons especially now that I get to watch them with my daughter! I still have fond memories of making snowmen with my brother when we were little. I remember how we would hope and wonder if our own snow people would come to life like just like Frosty the Snowman did.

Unfortunately, I live in an area that rarely gets snow, so we don't have many opportunities to create a snowman. That is why I decided to create a snowman and snowwoman design for my Christmas Collection! 

The snowman we created as a child was what I used as an inspiration to draw my snowman and snowwoman. When we were little, we used Oreo cookies for its eyes, so I gave my snowman and snow woman round eyes and added some additional sparkles to give them a friendly appearance. We used small rocks to form its mouth and a carrot for its nose, so I drew those accordingly. Then I drew branches for the arms and gave them both rosy cheeks. 

New Snowman Christmas Design

I chose to dress my snowwoman in pink furry earmuffs and a pink and white striped scarf. For my snowman, I dressed him in a gray and blue toboggan and a gray and blue zigzag patterned scarf.

I chose a soft pale powdery blue as a background for many of the products that I put my snowman and snowwoman design on. The soft, powdery blue really complements the soft pink accessories that I chose for my snowwoman outfit. I also designed some blue snowflakes to add to some of my products to give it the appearance of snowing.

Here are some of my favorite Christmas snowman  and snowwoman products that I designed:

"Just Snow Cute" Snowman Baby Bodysuit
by JuniperBox

Are you looking for new Christmas baby clothes? Consider this snowman onesie! I absolutely adore this snowman onesie! Not only would it make a cute Christmas onesie, but it would be a great winter onesie for the entire season long. The saying "Just Snow Cute" is arched above the snowman, but I gave customers the option to customize the text because there are so many other adorable snowman related sayings like "Let It Snow" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside." I also wanted to give customers the option of just putting their child's name on the onesie. I love how the snowman's arms are thrown up in the air as if he was presenting the words or greeting. This snowman clothing is available in multiple sizes.

Snow Woman Christmas Candy Tin
by JuniperBox

I love this Christmas Candy Tin! This snowman candy tin would make a great Christmas gift for friends, co-workers, a special Christmas stocking stuffer or even a nice Christmas favor. I chose to allow people to customize both the message and the name below to make it even more personal. 

I also like that you can either buy just the custom tin itself or choose to fill it with your choice of jelly beans! They are currently offering 21 Jelly Belly flavors to fill your tin! This allows you to ship it directly to the gift recipient or you can ship it pre-filled to yourself and hand-deliver the gift yourself. 

Personalized Snowwoman Insulated Water Bottle
by JuniperBox

I also love this winter water bottle! This would be a great school water bottle because you can personalize the water bottle with your child's name. The snowperson is also an original design of mine so the water bottle is less likely to be confused with another child's water bottle. The snowman water bottle is insulated so you can use it whether you are celebrating Christmas in Hawaii or Wisconsin. The insulated water bottle can keep hot liquids warm for up to eight hours and cold liquids cold up to eight hours. 

New Gingerbread Boy Cookie Christmas Design

Christmas Gingerbread Boy Design

I was originally inspired to create a super cute gingerbread girl for this Christmas season, and I loved the drawing so much that I knew I had to create a gingerbread man as well.

Like the gingerbread girl, this gingerbread boy also has burnt edges as if it had jumped straight out of the oven. In fact, as I was designing this gingerbread man, I was thinking about The Gingerbread Man story, which was one of my favorite stories to read to my daughter when she was little!

I imagined the gingerbread boy running away from its makers with that mischievous twinkle it its eyes and confident smile. I used fine white lines to mimic icing to design its shirt sand trousers. Then I dressed the gingerbread boy in a red bow tie, and red and white peppermint candy buttons.

I transferred this gingerbread boy image on several products in my store, but these are a few of my favorite items:

Gingerbread Personalized Christmas Ornament
by JuniperBox

I love this adorable gingerbread ornament. The gingerbread boy is on the face of the ceramic ornament and below you can customize it with your child's name. Then on the back of the ornament you have a choice of a few designs. You can choose a beautifully, decorated Christmas tree (which is my favorite), a poinsettia design with gold snowflakes, or a bell design with poinsettias and candles wrapped in red bows. 

Gingerbread Man Christmas Pillow by JuniperBox

Gingerbread Girl Christmas Pillow by JuniperBox

I also love this gingerbread Christmas pillow. I love throw pillows in general because it is a quick and easy way to update your décor. In fact, it is one of the first things I pull out of our Christmas storage because it is the quickest way to liven up our living room and get us in the holiday spirit.

This gingerbread pillow has an image of my cute little gingerbread boy and can be customized with your child's name below or a text of your choosing. The pillow has a red and white striped candy cane edge, and a green border to make the center pop.

Personalized Christmas Baby Pacifier by JuniperBox

Gingerbread Girl Snowflake Christmas Pacifier by JuniperBox

I also love this Christmas pacifier. This Christmas pacifier comes in both pink and blue. I chose to focus only on the head and one arm of the gingerbread man so that it appears to be saying hello. You can customize it with your baby's name or a text of your choosing. 

New Christmas Gingerbread Girl Cookie Design

I know we are a couple months awayfrom Christmas, but I could not stop myself from creating some cute new Christmas characters for my Zazzle Store, JuniperBox!

Christmas Gingerbread Girl Cookie Design

One of my favorite activities during the Christmas season is to bake cookies so naturally the first thing I created was an adorable, rosy-cheeked gingerbread girl cookie.  I gave this gingerbread girl slightly burnt edges to give it that freshly baked appearance. I continued to give her black, sparkling eyes, a sweet smile, and pink rosy cheeks. I decorated her in a red Christmas dress, and matching red bow. Her dress has a green heart with a crosshatch design, and I used white to give her a fine, lace collar. The hem of her dress has a pattern of red, green and white stripes. I completed her look by giving her additional fine icing details on her hands and feet and gave her a red and white striped candy cane to hold.

I placed this design on several products, but my top favorite products I created was a Christmas apron and a Christmas coffee mug (or Christmas hot cocoa mug).

Personalized Christmas Apron
by JuniperBox

Every year my daughter and I bake Christmas cookies together for our family and friends. We have aprons that are designated just for this special holiday season. This gingerbread girl apron would put anyone in the right mood. I love the vivid red and greens in her dress, and her cheery, rosy-cheeked disposition. I also love that you can further customize this apron by adding your own name to it. I know that my daughter is at the age where she loves having her name on everything.

Personalized Gingerbread Girl Mug
by JuniperBox

My daughter also LOVES hot cocoa. She is actually fond of a hotel, not for how nice the accommodations were, but because of the hot chocolate they served! She looked forward to having that hot chocolate every time she visited that hotel and was sad that new owners had taken over that hotel chain and discontinued serving the hot cocoa!

We love cocoa so much at home that we create our own hot cocoa recipe and always top it off with marshmallows. As the weather is getting colder, we are drinking more and more hot cocoa at home. I think this gingerbread girl Christmas mug would make a wonderful personalized gift for this upcoming season for those who enjoy hot coffee or hot cocoa. Simply customize it with the recipient’s name, and add a package of hot cocoa and marshmallows inside to complete the gift.

Story Behind Pet Portrait Series

I painted these pet portraits as a surprise for my daughter. My daughter is an avid animal lover. Like most young children, she says she wants to become a vet. However, unlike most children she is taking the initiative to independently seek knowledge about her dream profession. She has put a lot of time and effort in absorbing knowledge about animals. She has read every book available in her school library on dogs and has expanded to other animals. I am amazed by her knowledge of dog breeds and their characteristics. Whenever we take our walks, she will point to a dog and tell me what breed or breeds she thinks the dogs are and their personality traits.

Since she has a natural love for animals and science and has consistently showed interest in becoming a vet, I decided to take this vet thing seriously and dig a little deeper on what it actually takes to become a vet. What I found was astonishing. Did you know it takes eight years of schooling to become a vet?! I didn’t. I’m not sure why I thought it would take less time to become a vet than it does a doctor, but for some reason I did. The road to becoming a veterinarian isn’t cheap either. I had no idea how challenging it was to become a vet, and it brings an even deeper level of appreciation and respect I have for vets.

 When I told my daughter that it takes eight years of additional schooling after she graduates from high school to become a veterinarian, instead of shying away from this profession she has doubled down her efforts. This has helped motivate her to take her studies even more seriously, and I am happy that she is currently getting straight A’s in all of her subjects! For story time, Leila and I have decided to tackle books on pet health together.

We are currently reading The Whole Pet Diet: Eight Weeks to Great Health for Dogs and Cats by Andi Brown. It is a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves their cats or dogs. This book breaks down the ingredients that are listed on commercial cat and dog foods and gives a great overview on how the pet food industry works. This book is filled with anecdotes of sick pets that were brought back to good health on this pet diet. It also gives healthy recipes for dogs and cats, a health plan, and worksheets to help track your pet’s progress.

One of my favorite parts of this book is the story about Fencer, a tan and black shepherd mix who had terrible arthritis and was suffering from partial blindness due to a large tumor growing on the bridge of his nose. Many of the local veterinarians claimed that there was nothing they could do to make him better, but instead of putting his dog to sleep, the dog owner continued to seek out help, and decided to try the whole pet food diet. The results were incredible. The tumor shrunk from a whopping four and a half inches in diameter to just half an inch in diameter, and Fencer was able to continue to live a good quality of life for the next four years.

 After we read that story, my daughter and I both fell silent for a moment.

 “Wow, do you know how powerful this is?” I asked. “Do you realize how many more animals you are going to be able to help because you decided to start the learning process now? The vets available to Fencer could not help him with the knowledge that they had, but if you ever come across another Fencer when you are a practicing vet, you will know what to do,” I continued. It reminded me of Mark Twain’s famous saying, “don’t let schooling interfere with your education.” I think my daughter has taken this lesson to heart.