BUNNY BONNETS AND SPRING DECORATING TIPS

Many know that my bunny love fest is attributable to my grandfather whose nickname was Bunny. Our Silly Dilly store is bursting with bunny love now that our Bow Queen has loaded us up with custom bows for baskets and bonnets.

Here are some fun decorating tips to ring in Spring.

Doors and Entryways

Here is the wreath that we made for my front door!  Natural materials form the wreath and the straw bunny face. Kristin's beautiful custom bow uses burlap, high grade ribbon and bling. The added detail of the blinged feather on bunny's hat is perfect!  I have a beautiful frame around my front door and I always drape a seasonal garland to accentuate my holiday wreath.

You can opt for a smaller centerpiece on your front door like a vintage sign or our newly crafted Bunny Bonnets. We have taken straw bunny faces and adorned them with Kristin's bows.

Here is a rack of our Bunny Bonnets we placed in our store yesterday.

Here are some of the Bunny Bonnets up close:

Kristin's Ribbons are versatile. They have ribbon ties for tying onto baskets and a pin back so they can pin onto anything.

Inside Room Vignettes

Mantels and fireplaces are the focal point for your seasonal decorating. Here is my fireplace which I like to adorn with vintage seasonal images.

I also scatter seasonal pillows and create vignettes around the room.
Here is my mushroom vignette:

As I am a maniacal fan of Maileg danish design rabbits, xlarge bunnies hold court in my living room during the Spring. Here is Kristin our Ribbon Queen holding the new Spring '11 Cornelia Rabbit in our store. Cornelia is 3' tall and she sports a fabulous flower print romper and espadrilles!

Easter Baskets

The Easter Bunny's imagination is limitless when it comes to making and filling baskets. Each year, EB brings my daughter and me a themed basket. I usually get a basket of jewelry and hair accessories. 

Here is a Teacup Basket the EB likes to deliver. We have small teacup planters which can be filled with goodies or Alice in Wonderland treasures or a beautiful plant.

The EB also likes to use unusual containers for baskets. Pails for a Beach Basket; Felt Dinosaur and Pirate Baskets for Easter Day joy and year-round practicality; and fun canvas caddies like this one filled with Art Supplies.




Lately, I have been in love with all things Red Riding Hood. We have the cutest musical toy in the store with RED spinning around the belly of the cute hairy wolf. The song is appropriately Age of Aquarius from HAIR. 

I am in love with Piggy Story's new design Little Rosy Red which graces many new art products in our store, perfect for a Little Red Easter Basket.

And when you want to attend the Traditional Egg Hunt, go nostalgic and heirloom. Our Danish design, felt baskets, Fair Trade made in Nepal, are stunning for the Hunt.

Here is a basket with a custom ribbon:

At our house EB always hides our baskets. We receive a directional rhyme that leads us to our treasures.  This fun hunt was a tradition that a Mama Country EB started when I was a little girl.  

Have a wonderful Spring and do not forget to read my all-time favorite story:



The Moon Over Wonderland

Last night the moon was full and captivating. It was a Bella Luna; a Moonstruck moon. Every night Casey and I let Fiona outside for her evening frolick and we look for our moon. Casey, like plenty of us, is fascinated with the moon. Last summer when we were driving  through the rolling hills of CT at dusk, she whispered, "Mommy I am watching the moon. It is riding with us."

When looking at the moon, you can't help but be drawn into its glory and wonder who else is gazing at it at the same time. Are those other gazing eyes happy? Are they struggling? Are they diabolical? Are they pensive? Are they hopeful?

Moon gazing is grounding. It allows us to have a deeper connection to the rest of the world as it highlights our overall insignificance and significance.

With all of the current global happenings, it is difficult to not start your day each morning like Holly Hunter did in throwback movie "Broadcast News."  Her ritual each morning was to go into her office, sit down, engage in heavy sobbing, wipe the snot from her nose, and exclaim, "There, that felt good. I'm ready for my day."     

I do not begin my day sobbing at a desk, but I do typically begin my day in an intensely thoughtful, emotional way by giving mental affirmation and gratitude for every blessing that visits my life and the lives of others close to me, and wishing strength and compassion to all those in need.

It is imperative to channel hope and compassion in your life everyday. When I litigated discrimination cases, a job that required me to investigate, expose, and try to understand and remedy the behavioral flaws of men and women who harbored and acted upon ill will, ignorance and prejudice, I was given the privilege of meeting many, many people. Some I liked, some I loved, and some I disliked.

After years and years and thousands and thousands of hours of questioning people in such cases, one line of testimony from a company officer impacted me the most. He said that our species is "inherently flawed."  That premise has resonated with me for years and it will continue to do so.  I believe that that "flaw" is actually a purposeful design to make us a great species. We all have within us the ability to do good and to be kind and the capability to be mean and act selfishly.  We all act on these abilities every day; the only difference is the degree and extent of our acts.  It is our exercise of our gift of free will that defines how we live our lives. 

Acting upon hope and compassion for our "flawed species" gains the utmost importance  in view of our children and grandchildren. It is the children who are not corrupted by the challenges of life. When my daughter was drawing on the driveway with chalk, she found a dandelion. She squealed that we should blow the spores and make a wish. We blew and she yelled, "I wish that everyone has happiness in their heart."

My daughter is not growing up in a war ravaged nation. She is not living the tragedy that the Japanese children find themselves in.  She does not go hungry at night. She is not sleeping in a make-shift shelter. She knows not of physical or mental abuse. However, she sees kindness and unkindness at her young age, even if it pales in comparison to the horrors experienced today by other children.

It is that kindness and unkindness that I, as her parent, guardian and trustee, must diligently show her. Because she is 5, I use words like "grumpy bumpy" and "crabapple" to describe unkind behaviors, but I also stress that just because a person's behavior is bad, does not mean that that person is a bad person unworthy of compassion and forgiveness. The "grumpy bumpies" and "crabapples" are sad and misdirected and often need kindness and compassion. 

The lesson for my daughter is that "Class Equals Kindness." I do not care what your educational level or socioeconomic status is. People with class are kind. My goal is to raise a compassionate child and it is my obligation as a "flawed" adult to practice what I preach every day. It is us: the mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and grandparents who are tasked with the privilege of illuminating the meaning of the Moon for all of our children living in each of our wonderlands.  

Only Dogs Need Apply

My daughter has been carrying around this section of the newspaper for days now. She puts it in her Pre-K4 bag in the morning and takes it out at night. No day passes by without several pleas for this hamster.

We are a one dog household. We have Fiona, our Bull Terrier.

When Casey came home from the hospital, Fiona was ready to assume her duty as charge nurse.  The two were inseparable. Both of them came to my law office every day for one full year. Casey was a baby and Fiona was 2.

Fiona is the largest bull terrier I have ever owned. She is 75 lbs. of loving. She has the sweetest temperament, barks only when needed, and is grateful for simple pleasures and companionship. Too bad my marriage didn't have the same relationship qualities.

When Casey turned one, I started planning, researching and developing Silly Dilly Tot Spot. When Casey turned two, the website was launched. When Casey turned three, the retail store was opened. 

As I celebrated opening the retail store, Fiona was stricken with spontaneous glaucoma and within days, she went completely blind in one eye.  Her other eye had compromised vision. For one year, medicine helped ward off total blindness.

To help Casey understand Fiona's condition, I wrote this story Fiona and the Magical Skating Pond 

 Today you would never know that Fiona is blind. She walks around toys, and navigates new pathways around objects I have moved. My story is right. Fiona sees life with her heart.  Sure it is back-breaking to lift her into the car to go for a ride, but she loves the wind up her nose.  Sure it is a circus act to walk her with Casey while Casey insists upon holding the leash and collecting rocks and bugs.

One frosty morning, I almost lost it.  I finished my shower. It was still dark out. Fiona barked to go out. Okay, I thought...she has no problem walking into the front yard to do her business and returning inside.  I opened the door and stepped onto the porch.

Superdog leaped off of the porch, bolted through the yard and ran down the dark street. Clutching my towel, I ran after her, screaming for her to stop.   I saw in the distance that she had stopped to visit with a little teacup dog being walked by a very elderly gentleman.

When I reached them, the man nervously asked, "she's friendly right?"  I replied, "too friendly, so sorry." The man and teacup pooch left. Without a leash, I straddled my bruiser dog and marched her up the road. We gave a nod to a city worker and waved hello to our neighbor. Nothing new at our house. . . Me running in a towel after our blind dog on a winter morning...late for school again.

Fiona is turning eight and she still spins in the air when we come home.  I love hearing Casey imitate my voice, "hi Fiona, hi baaaaaaaby."  

Sure a hamster is a cool pet, but our dog is the greatest! 

Note to readers: This blog entry was written for the purpose of being read to my daughter in furtherance of my position that no additional pet: hamster, rabbit, cat, fish, etc...will live with my knowledge at our residence.

Sweat the Sweet Details: Spring is Springing

News just in from family in Connecticut . . .  the spring thaw is happening. Kids from all over New England will have eaten their last snowball.

My mom, donning her sidekick camera, will have to shelve her woolens. Thank God the hunters didn't mistake her for a bear on one of her daily winter photojournalist walks!

The first spring flowers to bloom up North are the daffodils and crocuses.
Sweet memories of these flowers randomly blooming in patches of lawns and woods propels me to run and check my Home Depot credit account to see if it will permit Casey and I to grab an enormous ride-on cart and fill it to the brim with delicious Zone 7 spring blooms.

My nails looked too good anyway. I swear that I have manually rottotilled my garden with my bare hands. I think my mother, sisters and I were purposely born with square feet so that we could get a strong foothold in the garden, allowing us to squat, bend, weed, plant, and water for hours. Despite my years of nicknaming our feet, grape-stompers, we all garden faithfully and competitively.  Damn my mother for sending me photos of her hillside of hostas and my sisters for their perfect rows of tulips. They can't match my dew drop tree canopy around my pool!  All of us love wine, but we never owned a vineyard and the closest we came to stomping grapes was watching the I Love Lucy episode where she and Ethel stomp grapes in a barrel.  So garden-stomping square feet is a more accurate label for our tootsies.

My love for Spring flowers has inspired us to create beautiful Spring Ribbons for our store customers to beautify and personalize Easter Baskets. When I say "us," I really mean our ribbon creator, "Ribbon Queen" Kristin. I merely ordered some of the ribbon from Denmark.

Kristin's tireless manicured hands lovingly and painstakingly create our beautiful Spring Ribbons. They are available in a variety of colorways and they can bear your childrens' names. The Spring Ribbons will tie onto baskets and they will also have a pin back so you can pin them on a frame or hat. Each Ribbon is unique. Have a look:

When you love doing something, you don't mind sweating the sweet details. Just ask our Ribbon Queen.