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TalesOfAPeanut

TalesOfAPeanut

CupcakeMAG + Tales of a Peanut

Over the past few months I’ve had the privilege of being involved with CupcakeMAG. I have found a wonderful group of women and entrepreneurs who work hard to help others succeed and I’ve enjoyed getting to know them. Today on the CupcakeMAG blog, they have featured Tales of a Peanut and I thought you might be interested in reading the feature.

WriteYourLove Sunshine Flat - Tales of a Peanut

And as a bonus, I’m giving away a personalized stationery set including one notepad, 15 flat notecards, and 25 enclosure cards. AND I’ve got a free shipping code in the post as well! Head on over to the CupcakeMAG blog to enter the Tales of a Peanut giveaway and while you’re there look around at the other lovely shops that they feature!

TalesOfAPeanut

Bringing Hobbs Home and #TOAPGivesBack

I’m so excited to share with you the cause that Tales of a Peanut will be supporting for the month of March. This month we will be donating 10% of all shop profits to Bringing Hobbs Home as they raise funds to adopt a little girl from China.

Bringing Hobbs Home - TOAPGivesBack

Our Friendship

I met Tessa during the “Meet the Teacher” day before our oldest girls stared kindergarten. As soon as I saw her walk into the class with three beautiful little girls I thought that we could be friends. Thankfully she was open to a new friendship and we quickly began taking some time in our limited kid-free time when everyone was in school to get together for lunch and coffee dates.

I found Tessa to be an extremely compassionate woman who is brave and strong in her own right not to mention the numerous ways that she supports and has supported her husband in his career. This year Tessa branched out and began educating her girls at home and I am so impressed with the way she is managing to incorporate fun and learning together in a way that works spectacularly for their family.

Their Decision to Adopt

Last fall, Tessa and I tried to meet for a girls night but something kept coming up to cause us to reschedule. So one night she called me and excitedly shared the news that she and Brad had been called to adopt another little girl from China! She has shared their journey to adoption on her blog much more eloquently than I ever could so I’ll direct you there if you’d like to read more.

Over the past few months it has been such an amazing thing to watch a family fall in love with a new child before they know about when the child will arrive, before they’ve seen a face or found a name, and before they have held the child in their arms. They are choosing to love this little girl and make her a part of her family before they know anything about her and I am so excited to do a very small part to help them continue in their journey.

Bringing Hobbs Home - TOAPGivesBack

How We’re Going To Help

Tessa and I began brainstorming on how Tales of a Peanut could get involved with their campaign to raise funds. Adoptions range on average between $30,000 to $45,000 so they will be raising a lot of funds! And while we might not personally be able to make a dent in that amount, I knew that my Tales of a Peanut family would be able to help.

Bringing Hobbs Home - TOAPGivesBack

First, their family will be the recipient of March’s #TOAPGivesBack campaign. So this month, I will take all the sales from the Tales of a Peanut shop and the miniPeanuts shop, deduct my costs, and donate 10% of that profit to their adoption fund. That means that the more of anything that you buy in the shop, the more that the Hobbs family will receive!

Bringing Hobbs Home - TOAPGivesBack

I knew that I wanted their family to be a #TOAPGivesBack recipient but I also wanted to design some products with Tessa’s help in which I could give back 100% of the profits. After discussing and going through some trial and error, we settled on a few different items that I am very excited out.

I designed a collection called — appropriately — Hobbs in the Tales of a Peanut shop. This collection consists of two art prints of Philippians 2:3 and two prayer records for you to write your prayer requests as you have them and make a note when God answers that prayer! I love that idea and it was totally Tessa’s concept.

Bringing Hobbs Home - TOAPGivesBack

There is a more masculine version of each (with arrows) and a more feminine version (with flowers) but they are all fairly neutral and should work well with almost any home decor. And they are each available in a variety of sizes to fit into standard picture frames. You can also purchase the prayer records as a 9×12″ laminated record so that you can write your prayers and answers with a dry erase marker and use the record for years to come. These would be beautiful to hang in a nursery as a special keepsake of the prayers you pray for your child, or just as a record of your family’s spiritual journey.

In addition to the printed versions of the collection, you can also purchase printable version of the art prints and prayer records. The really cool thing about the printables is that with one purchase you get a 5×7″ file as well as an 8×10″ file. You can print them as many times as you want (when using only for personal use) and would make great gifts. And since 100% of the profits of these are going to the Hobbs family, that means that the only deduction from the price you paid to what the Hobbs will receive is the amount that Etsy and the credit card companies take out for fees!

Bringing Hobbs Home - TOAPGivesBack

The Bottom Line

In conclusion, if you don’t feel called as a family to adopt a child, but you are passionate about supporting those who are adopting, we have a variety of options for you to help. These are wonderful ways to support a family who simply want to add a little girl to their family who otherwise would be alone in this world. To support the Hobbs family you can:

1 – Purchase any item from the Hobbs collection to have 100% of the profits of the items go to the family

2 – Purchase any item in the Tales of a Peanut and miniPeanut shops during the month of March to have 10% of the profits of the shops go to the family

3 – Make a monetary donation straight to the Hobbs family through Adopt Together. Donations via this method are tax deductible!

4 – View the Hobbs family fundraising opportunities on their website to order t-shirts, donate items for their yard sale, or attend an in-person event to support them.

I urge you to look through the products and giving options and find one that speaks to you. And if a financial purchase or donation is not feasible for you right now, I know that the family would treasure your prayers as well.

Bringing Hobbs Home - TOAPGivesBack

TalesOfAPeanut

Where Did Tales of a Peanut Come From?

I often get asked where I came up with the name Tales of a Peanut for my company. The truth is that it all started with a family blog way back in 2008. My best friend was having a baby, my husband and I were trying to get pregnant but hadn’t, and mom-blogs were everywhere. I got sucked in to story after story of women losing children, struggling to get pregnant, and also those that celebrated the everyday. I was scared to start blogging without being a mom first, but when my best friend’s baby was born I decided that I’d give it a try. What could I lose, right?….

Tales of a Peanut Origin blog

To read more, hop over to the Alabama Women Bloggers blog to read my first Blogger of the Month post for February!

Handwritten Heritage, TalesOfAPeanut

The Story Behind Handwritten Heritage

The Story behind Handwritten Heritage - Tales of a Peanut

Last June I launched a product called Handwritten Heritage. It was born out of my own need in hopes that others would enjoy and appreciate it as much as I did. But I was so excited about it and in such a hurry to release it that I never explained the genesis of the idea. Today I want to take a second and tell you the story of the Handwritten Heritage line.

Tales of a Peanut Handwritten Heritage

A Lifetime Love Affair With Words

The story starts as many do with a young girl with her nose in the pages of a book. Many of my childhood memories involve reading with my parents and exploring new worlds myself through books. But not only did I love books, I also loved letters. I saved the majority of them no matter their content. Notes from my mom when I was at camp, notes passed in middle school, birthday cards — you name it’s likely that I still have it upstairs in my home.

As I got older I learned about the concept of love languages and even before I took the quiz I knew that my love language had to be words. After I took the quiz it reaffirmed that words are how I give and receive love. After I became a parent I wanted to show my love to my children in the way that meant the most to me — through words. I decided that even if words weren’t their primary love language they could still appreciate the letters. And so I began to search for the best way to go about this project of love.

The Goldilocks of Projects

The idea of writing letters to my children was, of course, not a new idea, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to implement it. I had an online mentor who I had seen sharing handwritten notes from her mother in a journal (the hashtag of the pictures is #meesenotes). After seeing the journal entries that she was posting online I decided I’d start a journal for each of my kids.

I wrote one introductory letter in each journal but then I froze.

When was I going to give them this journal?

When they turned 16? When they got married? When they had their first child? I didn’t want to give them a journal at 16 that had marriage and parenting advice. And I had too much to say about the years before their marriage to wait until that day! So the journal didn’t feel right because I couldn’t figure out what to include in it.

I then saw a suggestion to create an email address and send them emails. So I started email accounts for each child. Figuring out what to write turned into the problem with this method. I ended up just sending pictures to the accounts which wasn’t really what I was wanting to do. I also didn’t like how impersonal email can be. Back before emoji’s you couldn’t even convey tone. I wanted these letters to be personal and for them to be able to tell what I was thinking and feeling when I wrote it.

My House Was A Mess

After all that back and forth I decided to just forget about it for a while. The journals sat on the shelf in my office and mocked me every time I noticed them. Then last spring, my in-laws were coming over the keep the kids while I went out. I was running around like crazy trying to pick up the house. And a thought occurred to me.

Did their house look like this when they had two young boys?

I figured it most likely did but I didn’t know for sure. They (and my parents) had always assured me that the state of my house was “fine” and “no problem”. But never had any of them said, “Our house looked just like this when y’all were little!”

So I asked them. This was kind of awkward because I was afraid that they might say, “Of course not!” But when asked they said, “Of course!” Despite all the time that we spent together and the many times that I’d stressed about this, I had never thought to ask this question. And they had never thought to volunteer that information. The load that lifted from my shoulders knowing that they weren’t just saying that it was ok but actually remembered days like this was immense.

[Sidenote: My in-laws are amazing and I in no way am trying to say that I felt judged before. It was all in my own head and my own issues. Just want to clarify for everyone.]

Later that week I was thinking about the whole situation again. I realized that those are the kinds of things that I wanted to write about to my kids. And if I wrote them as individual letters I could give bits and pieces as the need arose. I wouldn’t have to hold back on my advice because I didn’t want them to read it too early.

How nice would it have been to have had a stack of letters and one said on the envelope, “Open When Your House Is A Mess”? It would have taken that pressure off of my shoulders from the first pinprick of doubt rather than letting the guilt grow.

Tales of a Peanut Early Parenthood

That’s How Something New Is Born

In the weeks following my initial idea I spoke with many friends to flesh out the idea and see if this was something that would appeal to others. They responded with a resounding yes. They all said that they would love to write letters but didn’t know what to write about. And so, like me, their confusion and indecision led them to just not do anything.

From that I came up with the idea of prompted sets built around a single theme. The first set of prompts that I wrote was the Early Parenthood set since that is the season of life that I’m in right now. It is full of topics that I would love to have a letter about right now.

Open When You Can’t Watch One More Children’s TV Show

Open When You Find Out You’re Expecting

Open When You’ve Been Up All Night With A Crying Child

And, of course,

Open When Your House Is A Mess

I have had friends say that they love the idea of the letters but they just can’t think about it because it makes them think about their own mortality. But the reality is that my mother lives half a mile away from me and, unless they’re out of town, I see her at least twice a week. She is there and available and only a text or short walk away but yet I would still love to have each of these letters from her.

Maybe it’s because our family is not overly effusive with our feelings that I love the idea of having everything in written form. Or maybe the fact that after three kids my memory isn’t what it used to be so I could get some great advice one day and have forgotten it the next.

But I think, to me, it’s about having that wisdom on my own terms that’s so appealing. I could look at it or not and it’s up to me. If I didn’t like the way the letter was going I could put it down whereas if I was standing face to face having the discussion I couldn’t leave. Even if I didn’t read the letters, it would be comforting to know that they were there if I needed them.

And now I write

I’ve sat down many, many times over the past nine months to write letters to my children. I’m not thinking as I sit down that they’ll read them in the future if something happens to me and I’m not here anymore. I’m thinking about the look on his face when I leave him at college with a stack of letters. Or the tears she will shed when she opens a set at her bridal shower.

I sit down and pick a letter, read the prompt, and then write. I don’t stress over it being perfect. If I make a mistake I cross it out and continue. I write from my heart and I pray that God will filter whatever I write through his heart to their eyes as they read it.

Right now I have seven different packs out and already have prompts written but not printed for at least ten more. There are packs for everything from adoption to business to relationship advice for a son. I pray that these packs make it easier and less stressful for moms to make time to write letters to their children. And also encourages them to think about advice for situations that they might not have previously. Some packs are more reflective, the pregnancy and birth pack for example, while many are for the future. And there are no instructions, so you can handle them whatever way you want.

For me, this setup works. It’s easy, not stressful, and there is nothing telling me that I have to write them all before their next birthday or write them at all. I can pick and choose prompts to write or not write and just create these gifts for my children as organically as possible. I don’t let myself feel guilty if I don’t write a letter one week or make sure that I have an equal number for each child. I just believe that in whatever form these letters take, my children will cherish them. And, my hope is, their children for generations to come will also.

After all, texts come and go but letters are forever.

Business, Christmas, Gift Giving, Holidays, Shopping, TalesOfAPeanut

miniPeanuts Holiday Schedule

In case you missed it, a month or so ago we split the kids line from Tales of a Peanut into its own shop called miniPeanuts. They’re the same great products made by the same people, but they’re a little less overwhelming to look at since we revamped their listings and gave them their own space. Sometimes, like at our Sip and Shop, miniPeanuts and Tales of a Peanut function as the same business — since they actually are. But for the purpose of their holiday schedules, miniPeanuts will have different cutoff dates due to the longer lead time in their product creation.

We love our clients and love making their holiday season easier and better, but we also want to spend time with our family this season and not allow our work to take over. So to that end, we’re setting up some strict holiday deadlines and are determined to stick with them. While we would love to serve everyone who reaches out to us, if it is after one of these deadlines we hope that you’ll understand our desire to savor that time with our family.

2015 mP Holiday Schedule blog

With that being said, the above is our shopping schedule for 2015. We will be hosting a huge After Thanksgiving sale this coming Friday through Monday. You’ll find out more about that sale as well as a lengthy list of other shops who are hosting sales in a blog post on Wednesday.

International Orders

November 30 will be the last day for international orders with our regular shipping prices. We will ship these orders via USPS First Class International Service with an expected delivery date by December 24th. miniPeanuts cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas, but will guarantee that your order will go out before the cutoff date that the USPS sets for First Class International Service. If you are international and would like more assurance of your order delivery, please email us before purchasing so that we can upgrade your shipping.

Orders Within the United States

December 7 will be the last day for orders shipping within the United States. We will ship these orders via USPS First Class Mail as described in our listing information. This date will allow us to work with you on your custom design and get your order created and shipped before the cutoff date that the USPS sets for First Class Service for an expected delivery date by December 24th. miniPeanuts cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas but will guarantee that your order will be shipped before that cutoff date. miniPeanuts will not be held responsible for missing this ship date if you are not available and accessible for proof approval before December 9.

Orders Within the United States with a Rush Fee

December 10 will be the last day for orders shipping within the United States but these orders will incur an additional rush fee. This fee will be $25 per order as well as an increase in the shipping costs. These orders will ship via USPS Priority Mail for an expected delivery date by December 24th. miniPeanuts cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas but will guarantee that your order will be shipped before that cutoff date. miniPeanuts will not be held responsible for missing this ship date if you are not available and accessible for proof approval before December 12.

 

Holiday Closing

Tales of a Peanut and miniPeanuts will be effectively closed from December 18, 2015 – January 3, 2016. Our shop will still be open for orders but no orders will ship before January 4, 2016. If custom orders are placed during this time, the order will not be worked on until January 4. Closing for this time period will allow us to spend time enjoying the holidays with our family as well as allow time to plan for the future of Tales of a Peanut and miniPeanuts in 2016.

Thank You

Thank you so much for all that you have done for us in 2015. We are so blessed to have the best customers and are so thankful that we get to serve you. We hope that you understand these deadlines and are happy to answer any questions that you might have. You may either fill out a contact request or email us with any questions or concerns. You can shop all of our products in our Etsy shop. If you’re interested in our adults line, Tales of a Peanut, then go back to one post previous for their holiday schedule.

Pssst…. As a heads up, there might be an extra special deal in our After Thanksgiving sale for those who subscribe to The Peanut Post, our newsletter. You can sign up for The Peanut Post on our website.

Business, Christmas, Holidays, Shopping, TalesOfAPeanut

Tales of a Peanut Holiday Schedule

Here at Tales of a Peanut the holiday season has been in swing for a couple of weeks ever since we had our Sip and Shop on November 1. We’ve been working on Christmas cards, gifts for children and adults alike, and custom orders. We love our clients and love making their holiday season easier and better, but we also want to spend time with our family this season and not allow our work to take over. So to that end, we’re setting up some strict holiday deadlines and are determined to stick with them. While we would love to serve everyone who reaches out to us, if it is after one of these deadlines we hope that you’ll understand our desire to savor that time with our family.

2015 Tales of a Peanut Holiday Schedule blog

With that being said, the above is our shopping schedule for 2015. We will be hosting a huge After Thanksgiving sale this coming Friday through Monday. You’ll find out more about that sale as well as a lengthy list of other shops who are hosting sales in a blog post on Wednesday.

International Orders

November 30 will be the last day for international orders with our regular shipping prices. We will ship these orders via USPS First Class International Service with an expected delivery date by December 24th. Tales of a Peanut cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas, but will guarantee that your order will go out before the cutoff date that the USPS sets for First Class International Service. If you are international and would like more assurance of your order delivery, please email us before purchasing so that we can upgrade your shipping.

Custom Orders Within the United States

December 11 will be the last day for custom orders shipping within the United States. We will ship these orders via USPS First Class Mail as described in our listing information. This date will allow us to work with you on your custom design and get your order printed and shipped before the cutoff date that the USPS sets for First Class Service for an expected delivery date by December 24th. Tales of a Peanut cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas but will guarantee that your order will be shipped before that cutoff date. Tales of a Peanut will not be held responsible for missing this ship date if you are not available and accessible for proof approval before December 14.

Custom Orders Within the United States with a Rush Fee

December 14 will be the last day for custom orders shipping within the United States but these orders will incur an additional rush fee. This fee will be $25 per order as well as an increase in the shipping costs. These orders will ship via USPS Priority Mail for an expected delivery date by December 24th. Tales of a Peanut cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas but will guarantee that your order will be shipped before that cutoff date. Tales of a Peanut will not be held responsible for missing this ship date if you are not available and accessible for proof approval before December 16.

In Stock Orders Within the United States

December 17 will be the last day for in stock orders shipping within the United States. These items will be the only items available in our shop and will not be customized in any way. These orders will ship via USPS First Class Mail for an expected delivery date by December 24th. Tales of a Peanut cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas but will guarantee that your order will be shipped before that cutoff date.

Holiday Closing

Tales of a Peanut will be effectively closed from December 18, 2015 – January 3, 2016. Our shop will still be open for orders but no orders will ship before January 4, 2016. If custom orders are placed during this time, the order will not be worked on until January 4. Closing for this time period will allow us to spend time enjoying the holidays with our family as well as allow time to plan for the future of Tales of a Peanut in 2016.

Thank You

Thank you so much for all that you have done for us in 2015. We are so blessed to have the best customers and are so thankful that we get to serve you. We hope that you understand these deadlines and are happy to answer any questions that you might have. You may either fill out a contact request or email us with any questions or concerns. You can shop all of our products in our Etsy shop. If you’re interested in our kids line, miniPeanuts, then check back later this afternoon for their holiday schedule.

Pssst…. As a heads up, there might be an extra special deal in our After Thanksgiving sale for those who subscribe to The Peanut Post, our newsletter. You can sign up for The Peanut Post on our website.