Supporting Childhood Cancer through Henry's Hustle

I am happy to announce that Cutie Pies Custom Creations will be supporting a very special cause this month. My oldest son, Hayden, is in the first grade. Recently, the younger brother of one of his classmates lost his battle with cancer. Henry was just 4 years old; only a few months older than my middle son, who would have attended school with Henry.

Our wonderful school has worked with Henry's family to organize an event to raise money for Alex's Lemonade Stand, the Foundation for Childhood Cancer, in honor of Henry. This event will be held on May 16th, and there will be a 1 mile race, a carnival, and a blood drive set up at the school.

My son will be participating in the race, and is trying to raise money through sponsors to support this cause. 100% of the proceeds of the event will go to Alex's Lemonade Stand. The goal is to raise at least $5000 to help find cures for childhood cancers such as Henry's. I hope the event exceeds their goal! My heart goes out to Henry's family and other families like them who have had to endure the pain that cancer brings to a family, especially those who must watch their children fight this awful disease.

In an effort to help Hayden raise funds, I will be donating a percentage of my remaining April sales. A portion of the proceeds of all orders placed between April 17th and April 30th will be donated to the cause.

You can read more about the event here. To learn more about Alex's Lemonade Stand, or if you would be interested in making a tax-deductible online donation, go here. To read more about brave little Henry & his journey, go here.

Graduation Announcements / Invitations

It has been an insanely busy week here, which is why the blog has been hugely neglected! I hope to get back on track, but with spring activities in full swing it is a challenge.

The school year sure has flown by here! Its hard to believe it is time to think about the end of the the year & graduation already. I am working on some new graduation announcements/invitations, and will continue to add designs over the next few weeks. Here is a recent custom design I made for Mallary, who liked one of the birthday invitation layouts but wanted to use her party colors, hot pink & lime green. I love the graduation cards that include the photos showing how they have grown!

Former Bachelorette Trista Sutter loves our notepads!

I have not watched the Bachelor/ette series in a few years, but I will admit I never missed a week of the first Bachelorette featuring Trista & her future husband Ryan. I was pregnant with my oldest son at the time, and was rooting wholeheartedly for Ryan---and my mother in law, and a few of my close friends were as well, but we were all convinced she was going to pick the other guy. Anyway, having been a "fan" of the show, I was very excited when I was contacted by one of Trista's friends about favors for her pink-themed baby shower! Trista's guests each received a great bag of goodies, and OK! magazine even raffled off bags to 2 lucky readers who received duplicate bags.



Here is what Trista had to say about her monogram notepads "...{My guests} loved their gift bags! The notepads from Cutie Pies were adorable, thank you! Obviously, I love mine!"

Thank you, Trista, for sharing this photo with us, and Congratulations to you, Ryan, and Max on the new addition to your family!

Personalized Monogram Letter Notepad

How would you like to win one of these?




You can! I am giving away two of these new pads (also available in a teal/brown combo) this week on a really talented friends blog! Enter to win at www.sevidesigns.com Be sure to check it out for your chance to get one of these adorable pads for free.

Time to order your Easter cards!

As he was loading up to go to school this morning, my oldest son said, "I wonder what you are going to get me for Easter?" This set off a bit of panic as I scrambled to think how long I had until Easter...it always seems to sneak up on me anymore! I know the stores have had Easter goodies lining the aisles, & I have been working on Easter samples, but have not given any thought to the Easter bunny yet!

Here is one of the newer designs I have added for Easter:



Just over a week left in the Start Up Moms Top 200 Business Contest. If you have a free minute (or less!) please take the time to vote here. You can vote once a day from now til March 31st (which eeek is next week, which brings me back to those Bunny preparations!)

And, don't forget to get your Easter orders in!

DVD Swap--Check it out!

My blog in mainly devoted to my business, but ccasionally I will share tidbits from our life, or post about things of interest to me. Today I wanted to take a minute to share a really cool site I recently used!

I love to read! Last year I joined Paperback Swap, which I LOVE, and I now have a whole stack of TO BE READ books on my nightstand that I did not have to pay for. No money for mama to buy books around here :) well, PBS has several sister sites, but I had not joined them. There are a few TV shows I have gotten interested in watching lately that I have not followed or are no longer on the air. Usually I rent these from my Blockbuster Online acct, but the problem is they only send one disc from the set at a time, and I get impatient waiting for the next episode! So, on a whim, yesterday I decided to sign up for DVD Swap. (Which, by the way is super easy to use) I listed 10 DVDs that were just taking up space to earn my free credit...a combination of some kids dvds and regular movies. None were anything popular or new. By yesterday evening I had 5 requests! You earn a credit for each DVD you send out to another member, so I got 5 more credits on my first day of membership. Today, I found another kids DVD to list, and as soon as I listed, it was requested! We have so many DVDs the kids have either outgrown or just were not interested in, so this is a great way to free up some clutter and get some new DVDs in exchange!

*If my username does show up in the box where it asks who referred you automatically, please enter me as my3littleguys.

Here is my link. Take a look around! If you decide to join, please use my link--anytime someone joins thru your link & lists their first 10 DVDs, you get a free DVD credit.



If you havent checked out Paperback Swap, my link is on the right hand side of my blog near the bottom. They also run CD Swap, although I do not belong to that one yet.

I highly recommend any of these sites, especially in a time when many of us are trying to spend less...and, they are great for reducing the clutter in your house b/c you are recycling your books and DVDs rather than just adding new ones to the piles!

I hope this helps someone!

Custom Photo Easter Bunny Card Invitation

Wow, has it been a busy week! Aside from orders, celebrating my 6 y/o's birthday & party this weekend, plus appointments, meetings, etc.

Here is a recent custom design...the customer was looking for a spring/Easter themed bunny invitation to celebrate her daughter's first birthday. This can easily be adapted as a simple easter card, or the bunny can be omitted for a fun, pastel invitation without the theme.