Big Initial Bag Giveaway

One of our favorite customers is featuring Polka Dot Market on her design blog this week. Jade O'Connor is a designer and mom to twin girls. We made birthday shirts for their Valentine's Day birthday party in coordinating hot pink and red polka dots. They were adorable!

We have partnered with Jade to sponsor her Easter Giveway. It's easy to win, simply post a comment on Jade's blog and wait patiently until March 3rd when she announces the winner.

Your Big Initial Bag will be custom-made for you in time for Easter. Enter today!

Personalized Easter Baskets for Boys

We didn't forget about the boys for Easter! This photo above is from Gymboree.com and features their spring clothing collection of chocolate browns, blues, greens and khakis for boys.
So we designed a personalized initial Easter bag to match - choose your gingham fabric and your trims. We have chocolate gingham too, moms!



For older boys, we can use a solid ribbon trim, or no trim at all. This bag is simple, yet durable and will look great in your Easter photos! Boys won't mind filling our 7" diameter canvas bucket bags with lots of Easter eggs.

After Easter, he can store his favorite cars, action figures, markers, stuffed animals or socks in this personalized bag. Or, safely tuck it away for next year so it looks good-as-new (boys can be rough, right?).

We have personalized painted Easter pails for boys too. Come see us at Polka Dot Market this week.

Easter Girls in Pink and Chocolate

These beautiful Easter dresses from Gymboree inspired me to create a pastel pink and chocolate personalized Easter basket bag to match:

Our pink and chocolate Easter bag features a spring pink floral fabric for her initial applique, light pink grosgrain ribbon and rick-rack trims and two big chocolate polka dot grosgrain ribbon bows at the base of each handle. We have some more styles on the site and more to come too!

Updated 2/6/09 - Here are the Easter 2009 personalized initial Easter basket bags for kids from Polka Dot Market:

A Polka Dot Valentine Craft for You

I wrote an article on how to make these cute (and easy) Valentine's Day lollipops on Polka Dot Mom. This is an idea from Martha!

Click to learn how to make your own Valentine Lollipops for kids.

Around Here...

I had my first sick-day in a long time yesterday. I think I caught the bug my 3-year-old daughter brought home from preschool. Not fun!

My husband, John, was home with our two girls all day. He made Mia's lunch for preschool (she's been well since Saturday), took her and picked her up. He played with little Lauren all day too! I was in our dark bedroom with a pillow on top of my head with the worst headache in the world after my rough morning of fun flu symptoms. What saved the day? A frozen Coke from our convenience store. I think I was having caffeine withdrawals. How embarrassing. After the morning episodes, I didn't want to drink or eat anything, much less my coffee. So John saved the day again with a special delivery of an ice cold slushi Coke Classic. Yea!

I managed to stand upright by about 6pm. Then the tornados and storms started coming through Nashville. I was glued to the weather report on the local news. Around 10pm we woke up the girls and took them to our bathroom (safest room in the house) to wait out the Tornado Warning. Thankfully the girls went right back to bed after all that. Then there were more storms behind that one, so I was on TV duty while everyone in the house slept.

I cleaned my studio, sent a bunch of e-mails, cleaned my inbox, put the girls' toys away, tidied up the kitchen and now I can add that "I Blogged!" to my list of accomplishments. Next up, cutting lots of initials for your custom tees, bibs and bags. I'm really looking forward to it actually!

My 18-month-old, Lauren, is upstairs in her room now saying, "Mommy? Mommy!" in the sweetest voice.

Back to being a mom (my favorite job) and thank goodness it was only a 24-hour flu.

Stay well, friends!

Short-Sleeve Shirts Have Arrived

The weather is warming up in some parts of the country, while the snow is still piling up in others!

We have re-stocked our "warehouse" with long-sleeve and short-sleeve shirt options for your custom Initial Tees.

Little boys love this navy shirt with our Retro Stripes initial fabric. For boys we have added more fabrics too: Vintage Fire Trucks and Classic Seersucker stripes in red, navy and green.

For girls we have short-sleeve shirts in classic pink, rich chocolate brown and white. Remember you pick the initial fabric, your shirt color and size and your trims...and we do the rest. Every order is a custom order at Polka Dot Market.

Even if you are still shoveling snow from your driveway, you can plan ahead and order your spring short-sleeve tees today. Dress them up in their handmade personalized tee for spring photos or the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

I'm ready for warmer weather...though I cannot complain about the weather here in Tennessee. My mom is in Michigan and writes us daily about snow, ice, snow and more snow!

She is coming down for a visit next week to escape the cold and visit her granddaughters. I'll be sewing and designing new spring tees with new spring fabrics for you while my mom plays Play-Doh, trains and tea party with my girls.

Thinking of you...dreaming of spring!

St. Patrick's Day Shirts for Kids

There are a lot of new products coming soon at Polka Dot Market, but this is one of my favorites!

Designed by our friend, Carol, at Little Bow Peep Tails with emerald gingham fabric and emerald dots ribbon and rick-rack trim, your little leprechaun is sure to love wearing this shirt for St. Patrick's Day.

This is a preppy design that she can wear all year too. For boys we have white shirts with gingham or solid emerald for the fabric. We have a few shamrock fabrics for all of our Irish friends too. Short-sleeve or long-sleeve shirts are available for this design.

Pink and green...always a favorite around here!