This is my story of Citizen Kid, a new Sweetbeets retailer located on the very hip Locke Street in Hamilton, Ontario! Last September I was chatting with a friend whose son went to the same kindergarten as my son. She had moved and mentioned that the couple who had bought her house was planning to open a toy shop.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, the toy store turned out to be Citizen Kid! The owners Rebecca Bamford and Trevor Westerhoff independently found Sweetbeets while searching online for potential vendors. I think we were all surprised to discover that we live a short drive from each other. I happily delivered their order in person and learned a bit about their story, which included relocating from British Columbia to Ontario. Via the Citizen Kid blog, I began following the extensive renovations and learned about the design of their amazing logo.

My family and I went to the grand opening of Citizen Kid in May. Despite the dreary day with lots of rain, the shop was packed. There are a lot of summer and fall birthdays in my extended family and I was quite pleased with myself for being so organized and getting gifts in advance!

Recently my boys and I went back for another visit and I was able to take some photos to share with you. I also have a photo of Sweetbeets cards in the shop, but I’m saving that for a future post about greeting card displays.

Citizen Kid specializes in beautiful, eco-friendly, fair-trade, and safe toys for boys and girls age 0-8. It is now my local go-to shop for kids gifts because I love the philosophy and I can find a lot of eco-friendly and/or handmade gifts in the $10 to $30 range. There is no other toy store like it in Hamilton.

I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about Calafant’s line of toys made from recycled cardboard so it was great to see the product in person. I love how the treehouse is on display so customers can imagine the possibilities. It looks like Rebecca and Trevor’s daughter had fun decorating it!

For his birthday, my youngest son received the TOOLS book (wonderfully illustrated by Taro Miura) and the toolbox shown on the bottom shelf.

You’ll find lots of play food for little chefs! My son couldn’t keep his fingers out of this clever market display.

These rainbow colored stacking blocks are very eye-catching when you first walk into the store. In the background you’ll see Canadian-made Ukoonto wooden blocks that I had blogged about after connecting via twitter. If I recall correctly, there is a play table at the back of Citizen Kid with a set of these blocks for kids to play with while parents shop.

You’ll also find lots of beautiful wooden toys. At the grand opening I bought this squirrel for a gift.

As you can see, Citizen Kid is such a beautiful (both in appearance and philosophy) toy shop and I’m very proud that Sweetbeets cards are available there!

Technorati Tags: Hamilton, Canada, toy shop, toys, Canadian toy store, eco-friendly toys, fair trade toys

School’s out for summer for my boys. They’ll be going to one day camp for a week in July, and later in the summer we have a family gathering to attend and another week we’ll be renting a cottage for the first time. Otherwise, we’ll mostly just be hanging out around home. Luckily there’s a splash pad at the playground down the street. We went there for the first time yesterday bright and early and hung around until the water turned on at 9am!

Today I took the boys to a local pick-your-own strawberry patch. They’ve never gone strawberry picking before! It was hot. And such hard work. We bought two large baskets but that was way too ambitious and we went home with just one filled which as it turns out is more than enough.

Technorati Tags: summer fun, splash pad, picking strawberries

My new alphabet print is hot off the press! It’s letterpress printed 100% recycled cotton paper and coordinates with the numbers print. Both designs fit standard frames such as the RIBBA from Ikea. If you’ve been thinking of buying one of the prints, now is a good time because I’m offering a promotion via the June Sweetbeets newsletter that ends this Friday.

Technorati Tags: letterpress, art for kids rooms, nursery decor, alphabet print, alphabet poster, abc poster, wall art, letterpress prints, eco-friendly

This past weekend we had a family birthday party celebrating my sons turning four and seven. I think this is the first year we haven’t been able to have an outdoor party since it turned out to be a very rainy day.

For a couple of months I had been planning a carnival theme inspired by this article and also this amazing real-life circus birthday party. But as per usual I was scrambling a couple of days prior to the party to pull it all together! Luckily I had ordered some supplies ahead of time including clown noses, circus-themed tattoos, 260Q twisting balloons for making balloon animals, and a balloon pump.

I had also stumbled upon a bunch of carnival and circus fonts that are available for free, and I decided to use De Louisville for the invitation and party banner. For decorations I strung 75 small red, blue and yellow balloons across the dining room ceiling.

We had a BBQ with sausages and hotdogs and we also served popcorn in these fun cones I made. I had planned to make these ice cream cone cakes, but at 10:30 the night before the party I decided I was just too tired to try something new and so I made cupcakes using a variation of this muffin recipe (substituting applesauce for the mashed bananas) with sprinkles to go with the polka dot theme I had started with the invitations.

I had several carnival-inspired games planned but we just ended up doing a ball toss with holes cut in a cardboard box!

I found these instructions and video showing how to make balloon animals. My oldest son was thrilled about teaching his younger cousins how to twist the balloons, and they all had fun making their own animals–or swords which was popular with the boys!

Most of the time the kids just ran around chasing each other in the house so it got a little wild at times. I set up a tattoo chair and the kids really liked picking out their favorite tattoo and it helped calm things down for a little while at least.

For goodie bags for the kids, I bought these popcorn bags which we filled with a clown nose, some balloons, caramels and tattoos.

Technorati Tags: carnival party, circus party, birthday party theme ideas

I’m hoping I’ll be the lucky winner of one of these giveaways! I thought you might like to enter too.

Pair of super cool kids shoes by Eleven via True Cuddles (contest closes June 14)

Buckwheat toddler pillow by HoneyDumplings via True Cuddles (contest closes June 14)

Gift certificate for $25 to shop at PlanetKid.ca via Natural Mommie (contest closes June 19)

(images via truecuddles.ca and planetkid.ca)

Technorati Tags: giveaways, contests, children, kids

Some good food for thought about the importance of play in childhood (and beyond!) over at The Grass Stain Guru blog written by Bethe Almeras.

10 Can’t-Miss Childhood Moments
10 More Can’t-Miss Childhood Moments
Kids’ Choice: Self-Directed Play
Getting Serious About Play
The Flipside of Childhood
Reflections on Childhood Spaces
10 Perspectives On Restoring Childhood

(image via ob2)

Technorati Tags: childhood, play, free play, children, kids, child development

Pretty Dreamer has some wonderful handcrafted wooden toys for kids that inspire creative play. It was a bit hard to pick just one favorite, but I thought I’d show you this carpenter’s woodworking tool set that comes with a toolbox for easy storage. You’ll also find wooden irons, houses and trees, people and more.

More delightful wood toys at Tweet by Willow Baus including this lovely handcrafted wooden sailboat. You can even design your own sailboat by choosing your favorite fabric.

By the way, this is a special Etsy favorites today because I’m featuring fellow members of the Etsy Kids team. Jackie at Tiny Decor blog just posted about adding the “EtsyKids” team tag to your Etsy searches to narrow your search so the results are more manageable for browsing.

Technorati Tags: etsy kids, handcrafted, handmade, gifts for kids, wooden toolbox toys, kids sun hat, wooden sailboat toy

Tracey is another person whose blog I’ve been following since we connected via my Etsy shop. I love all the fun details she shared recently from the duckie party celebrating her son’s third birthday. If you get inspired by real-life parties, be sure to check it out!

I had to laugh when Tracey says at the end of her blog post that she’s challenging herself not to think about next year’s theme until 3 months before the party instead of her usual 6 months. Glad to hear I’m not the only one who does this. Unfortunately all that advanced thinking for me doesn’t actually get much accomplished. I’ve got only a couple of weeks left to pull together a carnival themed birthday for my boys, including designing the invitation - yikes!

Technorati Tags: children’s birthday party ideas, rubber duck party, duckie party, ducky birthday, handmade fabric birthday banner

Where I live it’s just starting to finally feel like summer. A couple of months ago I went shopping at Nayla Natural Care for some TruKid sunscreen. It had caught my eye when I first wrote about this online shop nearly a year ago.

I must admit I’m not the type of mom who slathers on the sunscreen every time my kids go outside. The sunscreen I’ve bought in the past at the drug store always seemed so icky that I never liked using it. But I’ve been really happy with the TruKid sunscreen. It smells delicious–a bit citrus and a bit something else that I cannot quite figure out. When the order arrived (super fast shipping by the way!), my oldest son exclaimed “this smells like candy!” and I figured that was a good sign. It rubs in easily and it is a physical sun block which means no advance planning required and your kids can go out into the sunshine right away and be protected.

It turns out it was good that I shopped when I did because shortly afterwards TruKid sunscreen went on back order in Canada and the USA. The good news is that this sunscreen is expected to be back in stock in June and you can get your name on the waiting list.

I also bought the shampoo and it has the same delightful fragrance. I thought the name “silly shampoo” would entice my kids into having more frequent shampoos. Unfortunately my kids were not easily fooled, but my husband and I have been enjoying it! It lathers up nicely and rinses easily, leaving your hair feeling clean but not over-stripped of its natural oils.

Technorati Tags: sunscreen, kids, summer gear, TruKid, sunblock, paraben-free, shampoo, skin care for children

Here’s where I take all of my product photos. It’s a corner of my bedroom where the window meets the closet door. I pull up my son’s table, tape up a big sheet of paper as background and voila! I tried all sorts of things when I first started taking product photos. I bought a light tent which turned out to be ridiculously big and required so much extra lighting I could never get it to work right. I also tried taking photos outside but the slightest bit of wind sends my cards flying. It’s nice now to have a routine for taking product shots. The only drawback is that I have a short period time when the light is just right in the early afternoon. Too early and there are shadows and too late and the photos turn out a bit dark.

Today I was taking product shots of a new printable baby shower design. Styling is so much harder than it looks and I’m still very much in the early part of the learning curve. As a minimalist at heart I also don’t have a lot of stuff around to use as props! The other day I decluttered some vintage fabric I had bought at the thrift store because I realized I was never going to do the project that I had bought it for. Usually I don’t regret things I declutter, but I could have used it for these product shots! Oh well. Time to to get resourceful with tissue paper, cupcake liners and flowers!

I went on a mission with my son out today to find some jellybeans and gum drops in single colors. I wanted to take a picture showing how the thank you note could be trimmed to double as decoration for a favor bag of goodies. Our visit to a new candy shop in our neighbourhood was disappointing. It is a bit off the beaten track on a one-way street but I had visions of something like this. No such luck, which surprised me for a niche store. Everything was pre-packaged. However, we came home with a couple packs of assorted jellybeans and my son was happy to accept the ones that didn’t match my color scheme!

I’m off now to browse my collection of entertaining books and torn pages from Martha Stewart Weddings for inspiration for taking more photos tomorrow. Stay tuned for an announcement when the new print-at-home baby shower templates will be available in my Etsy shop!

Technorati Tags: Sweetbeets, product shots, styling