One of my very favorite parts of running My Very Own Mail, my personalized letters for children business, is shopping for the crafts! I just totally and completely love that part! One of my favorite crafts I picked out for the kids last year was animal jewelry. It was so cute! It was a little pouch necklace and it was in the shape of an animal’s head. I think there were three or four different animals. I wanted to get a picture of Sammie’s for you (she and I always do the crafts I order) but, the little monster hasn’t put that craft together yet! It would even make a cute button graphic for the side of the blog! I will have to get her to hurry up and finish!

Sammie and I have been looking at this really neat book called Junk Drawer Jewelry by Rachel Di Salle and Ellen Warwick. We both love making stuff, and she has been into making jewelry a lot lately. This book not only caters to our craftiness, and our love of jewelry - but, also to my ‘hippie-ness’! You make jewelry from things you find around your house, instead of going out and buying a bunch of fancy-schmancy beads and gems and stuff. I just think that is super-cool! (I think that is my new catch phrase - ’super-cool’ - I’ve been saying it a lot lately. Of course, nothing could replace ‘groovy’! Ha!)

I’m so excited - I just ordered the crafts and goodies for the January mailings for the letters for children!

The theme is going to be ‘animals’. I haven’t picked out what books I am going to be talking about, but, I can show you the crafts and goodies - they are so cute!

And I’m sure I will have no problem finding great, and fun, books to talk that are all about animals!

I really get so excited when I order the goodies, and especially when they arrive, but, I also have such a blast picking out the books to talk about!

Ok, well, let me show you the goodies.

For the craft, we are going to make animal necklace pouches:

Aren’t those so cute? I hope I get to make one with my daughter - I just love it when there is an extra one for her and I to make together!

And to go along with that, the children will receive two animal bookmarks each:

Awfully cute, but, they are that clip kind, so I hope the smaller fingers can manipulate them. They were just too adorable not to get.

I’ll have to ask my moms how the little ones do with those.

Now ya’ll:

GO READ A BOOK!

**Click the bookworm to go to My Very Own Mail.**

I stumbled upon the neatest book this morning while I was browsing on Squidoo.

Have you guys joined Squidoo yet? I love this site - you can check out my first lens here: Kids Love Halloween!
So I was browsing around on Squidoo - different lenses for kids, or for books, or for kids and books, and I stumbled upon what could easily be the My Very Own Mail Mascot Book!

The book is called, “Wow! I’m Reading! Fun Activities to Make Reading Happen” and it provides wonderful - and fun - ideas for teaching little ones to read. It is part of a series and they also have books on science, math, and even arts and crafts! And let me tell you, doing arts and crafts with little ones is one of my very favorite things to do! What a cool series!

And great low price on a used version, too! You’ve gotta love Amazon!

GO READ A BOOK!