Christmas is only 4 days away! If you’re still looking for gifts or perhaps want to send a bit of extra holiday cheer to loved ones, consider ordering a floral gift. With less than a week until Christmas, many floral gifts won’t make it in time; however, I did the research for you and pulled together some bouquets and plants that will arrive before Christmas. But hurry! Most of these will need to be ordered TODAY to be delivered in time.
For their entrepreneurship class in 2012, two friends decided that they wanted to put hats all 15,000 children who are diagnosed with cancer each year in the USA. Thus, Love Your Melon was born. Over the past five years, what started as just a university project has blossomed into something truly amazing.
Since its inception, Love Your Melon has given more than 120,000 beanies to children with cancer and their families. And these aren’t just any hats. Love Your Melon worked to create beanies and caps that are soft enough for a child’s bald head. Besides being comfortable, the beanies are fashionable, so anybody wearing one will feel cozy and cool.
Love Your Melon gives away more than just hats. They also give money—and lots of it. Fifty percent of profits from the sale of all Love Your Melon products is donated to their nonprofit partners, and so far LYM has donated $3.8 million dollars! Their partners include St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Make-A-Wish, CureSearch for Children’s Cancer, and others who work in the field of pediatric oncology, fund cancer research initiatives, and provide support for families.
On top of all this, Love Your Melon has another fantastic program: Superhero Adventures. To help decrease stress levels and generate positivity during treatment, LYM creates a special outing that the child and their family will never forget. The adventure is tailored around the child’s favourite things, and it could include activities such as a helicopter ride, visit to the trampoline park, trip to the zoo, or professional sporting event.
While Love Your Melon is a for-profit company, everything they have done and continue to do to provide warm hats, therapeutic experiences, and financial support to children battling cancer is truly heartwarming. If you would like to get involved with this company, there are several ways to do so.
Buy a Beanie
As I mentioned above, 50% of LYM’s profits are donated to their nonprofit partners. So if you’re in need a new winter cap or were thinking of buying a hat as a Christmas gift, consider purchasing a beanie, cuffed beanie, or pom beanie. Each style comes in a variety of colours, so there’s something for everyone.
Request a Hat
If you know a child who is currently undergoing cancer treatment, you can request a Love Your Melon hat for them. This will be a nice surprise for the child and hopefully bring a smile to their face.
Join the Campus Crew Program
If you’re a university student, you can join the other 13,500 Crew Members who raise awareness for childhood cancer, as well as coordinate and run beanie donation events. Fill out an application here.
Simply Donate
If you are wanting to get involved in the fight against childhood cancer, but none of the options above suit your fancy, you can always donate directly to Love Your Melon’s nonprofit partners. One of my favourites is St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which I wrote about a few years back.
While it’s cold and snowy here at the North Pole, we recognize that not everyone experiences a Christmas as white as ours. If December brings you warm weather or if you are traveling south for the winter holidays, we’ve got something fun for you! Enjoy some cool yule time at the pool or the beach with one of these festive pool inflatables.
Measuring 4 feet wide, this peppermint inflatable will comfortably seat one person. It’s actually a snow tube, so after you take it to the pool this year, you can to use it next year when you visit a winter destination!
Sized at 27 x 23 inches, this penguin float is a perfect pool pal for kids.
Because it’s Christmas and everyone loves cookies (especially Ol’ Saint Nick!), take this chocolate chip cookie float with you when you plunge into the water.
A whopping 9 feet from head to tail, this reindeer float seats two. Perfect for a couple, this inflatable has 2 drink holders, 2 handles, and a bonus waterproof pouch for a phone. Selfies, anyone?
Hit the water in beast mode with this yeti inflatable. Although intended for tubing down snowy slopes, you and this yeti will be splashing around like a champ.
Which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below!
Yesterday Pantone announced the 2018 Colour of the Year: Ultra Violet. As I mentioned when writing about Greenery last year, I am a total colour nerd, so each year I am excited to see what hue Pantone selects. Ultra Violet—a deep and mystifying shade of purple—is gorgeous. [It’s actually one of the colours in my hair right now!]
Pantone pulled together a list of products in Ultra Violet, but since we elves love makers so much, I scoured Etsy for handmade wares in the Colour of the Year. Take a look at the goodies below and perhaps buy something for your colour-loving friends and family this Christmas.
If you’ve never heard of Spoonflower before, let me tell you about them! Spoonflower is a fabulous place to purchase custom printed fabric you can use for various quilting, sewing, and crafting projects. There is an endless number of designs, all submitted by independent artists and illustrators. We elves enjoy supporting the handmade community, so we love the fact that whenever someone purchases fabric, a portion of the proceeds goes directly to the designer who created it!
One project in particular that I like to make with Spoonflower fabric is tea towels. In addition to the many tea towel designs on Spoonflower.com, you can easily turn any design into a towel in just a few simple steps. First, set the fabric type to Linen Cotton Canvas. (Spoonflower recommends Linen Cotton Canvas as the best fabric choice for heirloom quality tea towels.) Then under Amount, select Fat Quarter.
Once your fabric arrives in the mail, all you need to do is hem it. Simply fold the edges, press with an iron, then sew. If you have a rolled hem presser foot for your sewing machine, now would be an excellent time to use it because it’ll fold and sew the raw edges at the same time!
Now, keep reading to see some of my favorite tea towel designs for this holiday season.
A pair of red cardinals perched on snowy branches and a 2018 calendar are featured on this towel design. This would be a great gift for bird watchers or anyone with cardinals in their holiday or kitchen decor.
