pennants, posies and pom poms

I’ve slowly been working on some fun DIY nursery projects over the past few months to make Lolo’s nursery a wonderland of whimsy.  There is no particular theme for her room but I will say pennants, posies and pom poms are well represented.

The first project was dressing up our curtains.  I liked the look of our office curtains so I snatched up some butter colored ones and added pink pom poms to girly them up a bit.  The curtain rods are just wood dowels striped in washi tape.

I do love the colors and textures of yarn but don’t have the patience to be a knitter so I resort to wrapping.  I got this large letter M at a crafts supply store and popped over to pinterest to learn how to make felt flowers.

Big surprise ~ another yarn project.  This mobile doesn’t have sound or light, but Lolo does love watching it.  I chose the yarn based on color but the textures are all a little different which I think makes the mobile a bit more playful.  I had a general plan for this project, but decided on lengths and sizes of pom poms as I went along.  The base is a 14 inch embroidery hoop.

And now for the pennants… because they make everything more festive!  This fabric pack actually inspired the colors of the nursery.  I love how these fat quarter assortments have a color theme with complimentary patterns.  A perfect place to build a color story for a room.

I’m not a huge fan of sewing, which is why I love stitch witchery!  I grabbed this pattern, a sharp scissors, iron and was off!

Now that you’ve got the behind the scenes craft pass… stay tuned for the nursery tour tomorrow!

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loops of love

Many of us know someone who has fought, won or lost the battle of breast cancer.  Our relationships with these women and men connect all of us in a unique way and we want to celebrate that with our Loops of Love campaign this October.

To honor these amazing people in our lives we are linking together pink paper loops with the names of women and men you know that are fighting or have battled breast cancer. These loops of love will be displayed in all our shops during Breast Cancer Awareness month and we’ll be donating a dollar for every loop to The Pink Fund who provides short-term financial aid to breast cancer patients in active treatment, so they can focus on healing.

In addition to donating dollars for loops, we’ll also be selling these handmade silk heart bracelets at all our locations and online now through the month of October for $5.95 with all proceeds going to The Pink Fund.  They’re the perfect accessory to wear during this month of awareness in celebration of the women and men in our lives who have fought breast cancer.

And for some extra fun, we’ll be selecting a number of our nominated names to send surprise snail mail in hopes of making their days brighter this October.

Thank you for partnering with us to make days brighter this fall! 

our latest firefly family member

With much anticipation and excitement we are happy to introduce you to our adorable addition, Miss Marlo.  This small bundle of love arrived in our lives this spring and stole our hearts.

After 15 years of marriage our parents were beginning to wonder if fireflies and four-legged furry friends were going to be their only grandchildren from us. We surprised them with the news of our adoption plans last Thanksgiving and six short months later this lovely lady arrived!

Every adoption story is special including ours and that’s why I want to share it with you.  Steve & I love our life and we were both fully aware that adding a baby to the mix was going to completely change it (just ask any parent… they tell this to all couples without kids repeatedly)  So we really were fine with it being just the two of us.

In the meantime to mix things up we took a small jump of faith and started hosting high school exchange students. We ended up really enjoying mentoring and helping these girls navigate through their year in the US.  Believe it or not, choosing to open our homes to TEENS grew our hearts and planted the seed for something more permanent.  Just a bit of proof that God does work in mysterious ways.

Neither of us wanted to entertain going down the road that science has paved knowing we could be the yes to someone saying no to abortion. However, the decision to adopt was a journey for us as we heard many wonderful, scary, amazing, hard, beautiful and heartbreaking stories from families who have gone down that road.

Over the years, I feel we got used to taking small, more calculated jumps but this was a whole new game of hopscotch we were being invited to.  Ultimately we both knew we were ready for the next adventure so we just had to close our eyes and take that far larger leap into the pool of faith.

We chose an open domestic adoption plan which means Lolo will see her birth mom a few times year and we also share photos and updates via text and phone.  Choosing adoption is one of the hardest choices a birth mother has to make and selecting us to raise her child is a privilege that cannot be measured.  Inviting her into our extended family only makes sense, plus it also allows even more people to love Lolo and the last time I checked… that is a good thing.

We are only at the very beginning of this new chapter and we know it’s going to be a beautiful, messy, wild and unforgettable story… but aren’t those the best kind?  So far the swimming has been fine.  It’s the learning to float on God’s faithfulness in times of uncertainty that continues to fine tune how we handle what life presents us.

I’m sharing our story because I believe in small steps.  It’s how we grew our business and now our family too.  Looking back at the last half of our lives ~ it’s all the little intentional risks we took that have painted the pretty picture of our current whimsical world.  While we’re humbled by our success and are proud of that story, the colors of this next layer are already jumping off the page.  We are looking forward to living out (and blogging about) the many striking and subtle strokes in the years to come.

2014 REA Award Winner!

Our Cupid Call campaign we launched last January started out as a little idea, but turned into a BIG blessing for all parties involved.  Word spread about it like wildfire so we thought it was a perfect marketing acheivemnet project to enter for the Gifts and Dec annual Retail Excellence Awards.  We were thrilled to be selected as a finalist which means we get a lovely write up in their magazine.

In addition to the write up, we also get invited to a 4 star dinner and awards ceremony in New York City at the Chelsea Piers!

I brought my lovely date Danielle, our Berkley manager and we basked in the sun reflecting off the Hudson River during cocktail hour.

There are a variety of different categories stores are selected for including… visual merchandising, store events and store design/redesign.  Each category had 3 finalists that were featured.

Cupid must have shot his arrow into the heart of the judges because they selected catching fireflies as the winner!  Ahhhh… my mini oscar moment.  I shared a short little speech and received this lovely Waterford vase recognizing my achievement.

Our mitten state was very well represented that night because Mary Liz from Leon and Lulu also won for visual merchandising!

What a wonderful night we had.  We’re so lucky to be in the business of making days brighter and this evening really shined!  A BIG THANKS to all who helped make our Cupid Call campaign one to remember.

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delightful diy wedding shower

I enjoy hosting parties… especially girly ones so when my friend, Suzanne got engaged recently I volunteered my nest for some wedding shower fun.

First, the garland.  I believe this sets the tone for a festive environment.  Whether it’s party pennants, paper streamers, or puffy posies… stringing this happiness through the house says ‘party time’.

I chose to make my pretty puffs with tulle.  I’ve made poms with tissue paper before, but honestly using tulle was quicker and it’s less fragile so I’ll be able to use this garland again at future functions.  For 7 inch puffs I wrapped the 6″ wide tulle ribbon around a 7 inch book 16-17 times and tied it in the center with yarn.  20 yard spools of tulle will give you 3 puffs.

After tying in the middle leave the strings long so you can tie it on your garland.  Cut each side of the tied tulle and fluff.  Repeat accordingly.  Then tie your puffs to the yarn or ribbon you plan hanging them on.  String wherever you want a bit of happiness.

Flowers also always fancy things up a bit and I was so happy it was zinnia season because I scored 4 giant bouquets at our local farmers market for less than $20!  These pretties looked perfect in aqua tinted mason jars and I gave a few of our guests these arrangements if they scored a lucky plate with surprise markings on the bottom.

Now on to more crafting… Suzanne’s wedding colors are coral & aqua.  So the original plan was to have all the shower guests apply washi tape to clothespins to create this memory wreath.  I played around with it at first to make sure my vision would work and quickly realized that I better do it ahead of time instead.

It’s easy enough to apply the washi tape to the clothespins, however positioning and gluing them to the embroidery hoop was where technical difficulty occurred.  Even after drawing out the 10.5 inch circle size on a pizza box and testing out the spacing… it was still tricky hot gluing the 56 clothespins on.  I tried to stay consistent in where I glued each pin and also staggered every other one so the clip part was facing in and then out.

It did end up turning out okay but some pins were definitley more slanted than others.  I hung it with a ribbon tied through the top of the embroidery hoop and had each guest write down a few words or a sentence about a special memory they had with the bride.   We clipped them to wreath for a lovely keepsake gift.  There are plenty more spots on the wreath to clip future memories or blessings the bride will want to remember or celebrate.

Since Suzanne was a guest at a baby shower I hosted last fall, she did have a couple requests for her special gathering — one of them involving crafting.  This gathering was considerably larger than the previous baby shower so I did some serious pinterest perusing and found something hopefully everyone would feel comfortable doing.  I came up with these diy favors.  Everyone got a pack of 4 colorful blank notecards (one card already washi taped up), 3 clothespins with magnets adhered to the back (one already covered in washi tape) and a party pennant pen.

I did up a variety of card designs so the guests would have some ideas with what to do on their other 3 cards.

Each table had a bowl of assorted tapes and scissors and I was totally impressed with the creativity of our guests!  The clothesline design won my blue ribbon… how cute would that be for baby card!? I also love that Suzanne’s mom’s flower card totally matches her blouse ;-)

Since all my crafting got a little out of control, I delegated the dessert to a few of our friends who graciously offered to help out.  I remember seeing this ‘cookie bar’ idea for graduation open houses and thought it was so clever.  So I we had six different delicious cookies the guests could indulge in.  Knowing we would have many left over, I purchased cello treat bags they could fill up and take home with them along with the recipes of all the cookies offered.  Steve was hoping to come home to feast on these leftover sweets, but I have to say the gals only left him a few crumbs.  This worked great as an additional favor for our guests.

Other eats included fruit kabobs, chicken pasta salad, artisan greens with feta, strawberries, grapes, candied walnuts and dried cranberries with poppyseed dressing, berry cups and lemon blueberry muffins.

After dining & crafting we returned inside for a silly game of mustaches and tiaras.  Another friend worked out all the game details and I transformed kabob sticks and fun foam into amusing props our guests needed to participate.

All in all it was a fun and memorable afternoon celebrating Suzanne and the exciting next chapter of her life with best beau Nathan.

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I like exchange students

Three years ago about this time Steve & I made the decision to host our very first exchange student.  It was a little scary and exciting all at the same time considering it had been just us two since we tied the knot over 10 years ago.   Now we are happy to say our little international family consists of three lovely European daughters… Tessa, Jule and Iitu.

It’s been over a month since Iitu returned home to Finland and her exit was definitely not without tears… but it didn’t start out that way.  Iitu was the first girl we hosted that let us know being an exchange student wasn’t necessarily her idea.    This made me a little nervous about our upcoming year together but it wasn’t long until she stole our hearts with her silliness, seriousness and her full rainbow of other characteristics in-between.

So when it came to creating a going-away gift, this quote leaped off my pinterest page.  I’m all for carefully plotting out safe and secure plans but sometimes when a wise person suggests you make a right turn down a road you’ve never been on before… that’s often when your trip gets more interesting… more rewarding … more rich… more memorable.

That’s why I like exchange students.  What do you like?

You don’t need to have teenagers live with you for 10 months to make that right turn (but if that does interest you… check out YFU)  This inspiring book and website is jam packed with loads of simple stories that change the direction of your normal routine.  A quote from the book reads, “When we choose to give, we change, and the people around us change.  When we move from awareness to action, miracles happen.  When we allow giving to be our idea, a world of possibilities opens up before us, and we discover new levels of joy.”

And I definitely can attest to that.  This summer, both of our German daughters came to visit and I enjoyed some fantastic times I would have never experienced if they were not here.

I know I’m in the business of selling gifts, but I’ve found that often giving is one of the the best gifts you can receive.

bring on the butterflies

Inspired by our little trip to see tropical butterflies this spring, we decided to plan a summer window around these pretties.

After some google image searches and a few cartridges of color ink… we created our own colorful flock.

Our Finnish daughter, Iitu is returning home soon, so I couldn’t pass up utilizing her mad skills for creating clever dresses out of plastic table cloths.

We added these great play wings available at our stores on the back of each mannequin.

And ta-da… our fantastic shop window filled with flying fancies!

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celebrating best of detroit

We are honored to have been voted Best Gift Shop for 8 years in a row by the hip & happening HOUR Detroit Magazine.

A BIG THANK YOU to our firefly fans for supporting our shops over the years and allowing us to make your days brighter.  Without faithful fans like you, we wouldn’t exist so the real award really goes to you!

One tradition we’ve started to celebrate our win is creating a dress from the ‘Best of Detroit’ cover for one of our crazy mannequins at our Berkley location.  This year’s theme was smash hits and all photography was inspired by ‘behind the scenes’ of iconic album covers… like David Bowie’s Aladdin  Sane.  

We also like to take this time to thank our team members who create our happy and inspiring environments every day of the week. So we invite the gals to join us at the very festive and fun Best of Detroit Party.  This is where our second tradition comes into play ~ clever invites.  In past years we have sent actual large bouncy balls, spray painted heels and even plastic wine glasses.  I always fear I will run out of ideas for happy mail, but a walk around the dollar store always spurs on new ideas…

This year I went with something a little safer (since not all our plastic wine glasses made it to their destination last year)  These pretties were easy to put together and were good to go ‘as is’ with some help from some packaging tape.  I think this invitation concept could be fun for a variety of parties… and your guests will know it’s gonna be a good time if they get a creative invite like this :-)

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my office makeover

Steve and I will have lived in our 1950’s cape cod for a total of 10 years this summer.  We have done some remodeling and moving things around a bit over that span of time but one room was always ignored… our office.  It had an old love seat (aka our basset hound’s bed), extra coffee table, Ikea saw horse desk and a small file cabinet.  It worked but it was over crowed and not so pretty.

I think it was a combination of our office organization blog post, a way too long winter and our Rochester store facelift that inspired me to change it up finally.

First… the inspiration.  When I remodeled the shops recently I always began with a blank sheet of graph paper so I can see the space with fresh eyes.  Even though this is a much smaller project, this helped me figure out what my options were for desk & furniture placement.

I’ve had this funny Kathleen Taylor canvas in our office for a while and have always loved the color story.  It’s what made me paint the walls aqua and the desk top orange.

I like to collect other complimentary paint sample cards for accent color ideas.

And then there is my chair fabric.  I know traditional office chairs are probably far better for body posture but I opted for the cuteness factor instead with this sweet slipper chair from target online.  My friend chose something similar for her home office and after seeing it I knew I needed to say goodbye to my old office depot roller.

The colors I went with were from Miss Martha and were called Feldspar and Butterscotch.  We wanted a double desk so we ended up buying two hollow doors and three filing cabinets to lay them on top of.  I also rolled  thin coat of poly acrylic over on the desk so it will wear a little better over time.

I originally planned on spray painting the used file cabinets an olive green, however the place I found on craiglists actually had three matching Steelcase ones that were already a muted teal green so they worked.  (Please ignore the dirty window.  Storms are coming off  as soon as it stops snowing in April!  arghhhh)

Speaking of windows… since the desk was flush against the one window I improvised by creating a my own ‘tie-up’ curtain.  I’ve found Cost Plus World Market to have the cutest curtain collection.  These were light weight so I  folded them in half & safety pinned the bottom to the top.

I cut two 5 foot ribbons and looped them over the top.

I accordion folded the curtain from the bottom a few times, clipped it in place then tied the ribbons to the desired length.  I slipped a 1/2 inch dowel through to give it a little weight and voila ~ a cheap and easy tie shade with no sewing involved.

It was fun mixing up the patterns with complimenting colors.  It just makes the office feel happy.  The turquoise dresser was a flea market find and came naturally distressed painted that fabulous color.  The rug and dog pad came from Home Goods.  Steve’s office chair came from my mom’s basement (which could double for a flea market/antique shop)

I couldn’t say goodbye to my old (Martha inspired) ribbon bulletin board I made in college so I snuck it in behind the door that is usually open all the time.  I did add three colorful clipboards I got at our shop to display some quotes that currently speak to me.  I like how easy they are to change out and update from time to time.

Gus has finally adjusted to being downgraded to a dog bed since he lost his couch.  (He’s quite comfortable with his masculinity so he’s ok that with his pad being a little girly)

Since we removed all the old windows from our Rochester store during the facelift, I took some of them home to create large frames.  This one was perfect for showcasing our four shops.  The sculpted ceramic heart in the middle reads, catching fireflies and was made by my talented friend, Karen Fincannon.

All I did was put a couple picture hanging hooks on the back of the window.  I sized & printed photos to fit the panes and taped them to the backside of the window with scotch tape.  For aesthetics I covered the scotch tape by adhering washi tape on the front of the window so it appears that it’s holding the photo in place… even though the image is really behind the glass.

I’m sorta on a Ikea photo ledge kick lately.  I like stacking a variety of frames, art and objects together in an organized, yet artful way.  Steve commissioned this lovely painting of our two shops in Berkley by Kandy Myny of Bit O Whimsey for me a few years ago.  It fits perfectly in our new office paired with with some vintage and new a.i. paper design wares.

This low cost makeover did take some energy and effort, but it has completely changed the feeling of the room.  I spend quite a bit of time in this space and don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.  You should love where you spend your time.  Sometimes all it takes is a gallon of paint, a few thrift store finds and a trip to Ikea to give your nest a new look…. well that and maybe a few fun treasures at catching fireflies too. ;-)

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fluffy frosting & festive flags

Since we were hosting a birthday sale this past weekend, I couldn’t resist whipping up some cute mini cupcakes to offer our firefly fans.  I’ve always been a box cake girl, but when it comes to frosting I usually turn to my grandma’s recipe.

If you’re not a fan of super sweet or thick frosting this recipe is for you!  In my opinion the texture of this tasty topping is quite divine and it’s just sweet enough to compliment the cake flavor.  (as many of our firefly fans can attest to!)

Here’s what you need:

1 cup milk

4 tablespoons of flour

1/2 cup Crisco

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

First, heat the milk and flour on the stove and stir constantly until it thickens.  Let cool completely.  (I often put the pan in the freezer or fridge to speed up the cooling process)

Next, mix the Crisco, butter, sugar and vanilla.  Once creamed, add the cooled flour and milk mixture and beat on high until fluffy.  Spread on your favorite cake and enjoy!
Inspired by our recent diy birthday decoration post, I decided to add some cuteness to our platter of pretty cupcakes.  I often do things on a whim so I managed to scrounge up some kabob sticks in the back of one of my kitchen drawers, pulled out some washi tape and stole some dental floss from our bathroom to make these party pennants.

It really was an easy project to pull off and definitely turns up the festivity dial a bit…. which got me thinking to do something similar with toothpicks.

By the time I was playing with these it was far too late to embark on making over a hundred to send off to the stores, but I’ll store this idea away for another day.

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