This video won the Storytelling with Children Award for 2009. Show it to the child in your life — be spellbound by this silly, energetic, wonderfully told story that involves the audience.
Archive for the ‘Grandparenting’ Category
Storytelling with Children and Chickens
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010SNOWMAN!
Sunday, February 7th, 2010Snow is a big deal here, in southeastern PA — or at least two feet of it is. Today, with just a bit of sun and near-freezing temperatures, it’s THE day to build a snowman! Growing up on the Tug Hill plateau, I’ve built more than I can count — of all sizes and shapes.
This had to be the largest snowman in my life. I helped a bit with the first ball, but after that was relegated to documenting his growth. He looked a bit like Charles DeGaulle when he was done!
What a great way to spend an afternoon! His eyes were margarine containers and his mouth was two bricks. We never did find a hat big enough! Rumor was that this snowman didn’t fully melt away until May.
I have to admit that my favorite snowman of all time is one that will never break my heart by melting away! Dapper Dan the Snowman offers a wonderful way to spend time with a snowman who always will keep you and at least one of your favorite children, or grandchildren, warm and entertained.
Dapper Dan Storybook Quilt Package
In the story that matches the quilt, Matt creates Dapper Dan with his Dad, but has a difficult time deciding on his face. The story, which is woven around the fabric in the quilt, tells the tale of Matt’s search for a face for Dapper Dan, including what he remembers as an exciting trip into a magical forest — or was that just a dream?!
In the storybook, we have included images that you and your child can use to decide what face Dan should have.
Learn more about Dan and our other heart-warming Storybook Quilts on our website.
Grandparents: A Gift Idea to Bridge the Miles!
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009With people spread out all over the country (and farther!) and with the hassle and cost of holiday travel, grandparents often find it difficult to be with grandchildren to celebrate the holidays. That can be rough on both grandparent and grandchild. This week, Grandparents.com published one real gem of an idea in its suggestions for bridging the distance: work on something together that can be shared when you next meet in person.
Let’s take one of our customized Storybook Quilts as an example. Many grandparents choose one to give as a wonderful surprise — but consider instead collaborating with your grandchild to create a handmade, original, customized Storybook Quilt. This is a wonderful way to enhance closeness and create memories that will be treasured for a lifetime (or two!). And NO special skills are required!
Here’s how it works. For the sake of this story, we’ll assume that “Grandma” is the giver and “Olivia” is the recipient. But, of course, it could include Grandpa, be for a boy, or be two Storybook Quilts for twins!
Step 1. Grandma gives Olivia a Storybook Quilts gift certificate for Christmas (or for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or a birthday). Olivia receives a special, handmade card with a special message from Grandma.
Step 2. The holidays pass. January arrives with its sudden quiet and, often, dark and dreary days. The blahs are waiting in ambush.
Step 3. Grandma and Olivia begin to customize their Storybook Quilt, corresponding with us back here in the workshop. (We’ll help with ideas, when you need us, and guide the process along.)
First, Grandma and Olivia think and talk and think and talk — and finally choose one of the eight (soon to be nine) Storybook Quilt themes: Maurice the Cat, Maggie the Dog, Dapper Dan the Snowman, DanZy the Rabbit, Vroom Vroom the Car, Amos the Bear, Luna the Turtle, Winnie the Frog or Per — oops! That’s our January surprise!
Then, they decide what words will be embroidered on the special square in the quilt.
Together, they write a message to be printed in the storybook and a pick a photograph to include there, too.
Dapper Dan Storybook Quilt Package
And, last but not least, Grandma and Olivia decide how they want to tailor the story, adding in their own names and details about their family’s life. This then is woven into the story by our expert writer.
Storybook Quilts e-mails photographs as the quilt is made so that Grandma and Olivia both can watch it come to life.
Step 4. The completed Storybook Quilt is delivered in time for the next get-together. Grandma and Olivia open the package together, snuggle up under the quilt and Grandma reads Olivia their story.
What a gift! What a memory! What a way to overcome the miles! What a great way to fight the Winter blahs! And, of course, your grandchild doesn’t have to live far away for you both to enjoy this creative project.
Storybook Quilts are available in eight themes and with various types of personalization and customization. To see them all, visit us at www.StorybookQuilts.biz Or give us a call to find out more. You can call us free using the Google Voice service on our order page.
We look forward to making your gift the most memorable ever.
Grandpa’s Plan for Grandchildren’s Gifts
Friday, November 20th, 2009Whoever said men aren’t good at planning ahead for giving was wrong, it seems. I just filled orders for quilts for the two of the five grandchild of a British man who lives in Switzerland. His grandchildren are spread out across Europe, so keeping them close emotionally is a challenge.
His plan is to use the Storybook Quilts to help strengthen the bond not only with his grandchildren, but also with their parents. He now has two “on hand” for use when he’s ready — perhaps for Christmas, perhaps for a birthday, perhaps on a visit. Smart man!
Here’s what he now has ready to go: Amos the Bear and DanZy the Rabbit.
The quilts
The stories
Amos is a very special teddy bear, as you can tell by his big red heart. In the story, Josh goes to the zoo with his grandfather and his teddy bear, Amos. When no one is watching, Amos disappears! The zoo keeper is so unhelpful that Josh goes off on his own to find Amos. Grandpa is worried; while the zoo staff look for Josh, he waits at the office in case Josh comes back. Josh does return to his grandfather and the two of them solve the mystery. They find Amos in a most surprising place!
DanZy is a hip-hopping rabbit who seeks his life’s dream. In the story, Olivia meets DanZy when he is a little bunny living in the park next to her house. DanZy is not an ordinary bunny and does not want an ordinary bunny’s life. He wants to be somebunny! DanZy tries several different jobs, but what he really wants to be is the bunny that jumps out of a magician’s hat! He’s a brown rabbit, though, and magician’s rabbits usually are white. Does he make it? And how? And what does Olivia learn?
Order your DanZy or Amos, or any of our other themes, and be ready yourself! www.storybookquilts.biz
The Best Gifts Come from the Heart
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009This the time of year that we strive to find just the perfect gift for those we love. I think it’s particularly challenging for grandparents who live at a distance from their grandchildren. Knowing their likes and dislikes and their latest obsession is difficult when time together is sparse.
The best gifts are those that come from your heart and that have a bit of your heart in them. If you’re like me, you want the gifts to those most special to you to last, and be loved for longer than a day or a month or two.
That is exactly what’s so perfect about giving a Storybook Quilt as a gift. It’s not “just” another children’s quilt or “just” another storybook — or even “just” another storybook quilt. The quilts and stories are entirely original. They are so woven around each other that they are inseparable — one doesn’t mean much without the other.
Children become very attached to such visual and aural combinations. With a message from you on the quilt square and in the book, you will be in their thoughts daily.
Storybook Quilts will endure for years. It’s the kind of thing one still has decades later, one that evokes warm, positive memories of childhood and the grandparent who gave the gift.
See our themes on our website or on our Facebook Fan page. Contact us through those sites or on Twitter @StorybookQuilts.
Orders are being taking for Hanukkah until mid-November and for Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year’s until early December. Order now to be sure your very special gift is in the production queue.
We look forward to making your Storybook Quilt!
What Grandparents Want
Sunday, October 11th, 2009What is it that grandparents look for in a gift for their grandchildren? Each person has his or her own list, of course. What would you add to the list below?
1. A gift of experience and memories, preferably one that will last a lifetime
2. Allows Grandma or Grandpa to enjoy it with the grandchild, forming even closer bonds
3. Can be fully personalized for your grandchild and even include the entire family in the personalization
4. Does not beep beep beep, toot toot toot, or thump thump thump (or at least not loudly)
5. Unique — no one else will give the same gift and no other child will have it
6. Matches the grandchild’s interests — his or her love of cars, or dogs and cats, or teddy bears, for example
7. Packs easily for a visit to Grandma and Grandpa, or to take home from a visit there
8. Does not need an Internet connection, a computer, a cell phone or other gizmo
9. Grandma and Grandpa already know how to use it
10. Can help develop your grandchild’s imagination and advance other life skills
11. Does not need to be walked morning and night or use a litter box
12. Pleases the family as well as the child
13. Teaches positive values; no violent messages or images
14. Will still be a favorite of your grandchild after other toys have been outgrown, broken or lost
How well do you think a Storybook Quilt would meet the requirements on this list?
Children’s Gifts: The Grandparent’s Challenge
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009The tales I hear of the difficulties grandparents sometimes have in choosing children’s gifts are both amusing and concerning. It isn’t easy picking something that is not just another toy or that fits into the family lifestyle. We want the gifts to please, both the grandchild and the parents, and last a lot longer than the birthday day or the holiday week. Since many grandparents live at a distance from their grandchildren, we also want the gift to remind them of us. Often!
Reading Dapper Dan the Snowman
Storybook Quilts was founded in part to provide the perfect children’s gift from grandma or grandpa. The idea is that the child will associate the everyday Storybook Quilt experience with the grandparent. By personalizing to include family names and other details in the story, it becomes an adventure that is both shared and personal. Including the name of the grandchild and the grandparent on one personalized square (see example below) in the quilt adds another memory cue. We even offer the option of recording your reading of the story so that your grandchild can listen to your voice via an iPod or other device.
A Storybook Quilt, then, is a gift that both builds and evokes memories of close times between grandparent and grandchild. It truly is a gift that keeps on giving — even for a lifetime. Personalized square on Dapper Dan the Snowman quilt
For all our themes and more information, visit our website at www.storybookquilts.biz
Childhood Gifts: Treasures for a Lifetime
Monday, September 28th, 2009Unless some disaster has befallen them, I suspect all of us have one or two gift treasures from childhood – an old toy train, maybe, or part of one; a doll, which may have “features” that were added purposely or by mistake; a teddy bear or other stuffed animal that is hug-worn; maybe even a surviving blanky.
What’s your childhood gift treasure?
My favorite gift treasure is a doll I received for my second birthday from my Great-Aunt Brownie and which I named, appropriately enough, “Happy Birthday.” She has been with me through thick and thin, for more decades than I care to admit, and never has lost her ability to comfort.
Happy got a little tattered after three or four years. My grandmother, a seamstress, took her away to make her a new body. I was bereft! When she came back, though, she was even more precious because she had been “remade” by Grandma. She also returned in a fancy new dress, which she wears now.
This lifelong connection is the idea behind Storybook Quilts. These are special gifts, each one as individual and customized as the buyer cares to make it. Most customers order an
embroidered square with a message from them to the child for whom it is intended. And most also opt for a special message and a photograph, printed in the book.
Combining the quilt with a matching adventure story ensures that the child who loves this quilt will have strong ties to those with whom it was shared. Imagine looking at that quilt when times are tough – at any age! – and remembering sitting on the lap of a parent or grandparent covered with the quilt and listening to the story being read. What a wonderful lifelong comfort that can be!
Amos the Bear quilt with storybook
The Storybook Quilts are available in eight themes, with more in development. For details, visit us at www.storybookquilts.biz
How would you customize your Storybook Quilt?
September’s Poem: Do You Know It?
Thursday, September 17th, 2009Eons ago, a monthly ritual in grade school was to memorize a new poem — imagine! The one for September has stuck with me and on sunny autumn days often springs to mind unexpectedly.
SEPTEMBER
by: Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook.
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes’ sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather,
And autumn’s best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
‘T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.
I doubt we learned the last two verses; I certainly did not remember them. And now I am left wondering what it was that she couldn’t forget!
In Honor of Grandparent’s Day: Their Special Role
Friday, September 11th, 2009
Maggie the Dog Storybook Quilt
Grandparents, I believe, have a special role in being living proof that one doesn’t have to always be involved in the latest latest to be valued or find satisfaction in life. Grandparents also provide a link to timeless traditions and activities that are both exciting and comforting.
It’s grandparents, often, who have the time that busy parents do not to dabble in such things with their granchildren — a little fingerpainting and papier mache creation, making (and “testing!”) a few cookies, helping fit together a puzzle, exploring the wondrous animals at the zoo, feeding the squirrels in the park, going fishing in the beaver pond, planting a garden and watching it grow, or reading stories together.
These are timeless pleasures that do much to restore one’s soul, at any age, and are the building blocks for a good set of coping skills that are invaluable throughout life.
At Storybook Quilts, the special bond between grandparents and grandchildren is one thing the spurs us on to create the quilts and write the matching stories. We imagine a grandparent cuddled with a grandchild under a quilt, reading a story that plays out in the fabrics in the quilt. The stories are adventures that keep one’s attention to the end; the quilts become companions that can help recollect that cozy, comforting feeling of being held and read to by grandma or grandpa. These are memories that always are precious; our unique quilts with matching stories help ensure that they remain strong for years to come.
We are continuously adding to our themes and now have eight available: DanZy the Rabbit, Amos the Bear, Maggie the Dog, Maurice the Cat, Dapper Dan the Snowman, Vroom Vroom the Red Sportscar, Winnie the Frog and the yet-to-be-named sea turtle. (The contest to name the turtle has just ended; the winners will be announced shortly.)
Happy Grandparent’s Day!
