Pick your Favorite Kitchen Giveaway!!!

Have you been eyeing a particular Elves and Angels Kitchen?

 Well, here's your chance to own one for FREE!

We will be giving away 1 of our 8 Elves and Angels Natural Wooden Play Kitchens (in pine)--Winner picks their favorite!

Sylvie's Kitchen

Our Natural Wooden Sylvie's Play Kitchen features an area to the left of the sink with enough room to dry dishes, cut wooden veggies, or load up a cookie sheet with cookies! Open the cabinet or oven door to find a divided cupboard with one shelf. The integrated hutch ensures plenty of handy storage space.

Jenny's Kitchen

A fresh NEW design, the Natural Wooden Jenny’s Kitchen has all the features of our timeless Elves and Angels classic Toy Kitchens.

A fine wide shelf along the top is a handy place to display the dishes, or keep the salt and pepper.

With a 4 Burner cook top, metal sink, peek through window oven, and side storage cupboard, Jenny’s Kitchen will give your child hours of imaginative playtime.

Susan's Kitchen

Our Natural Wooden Susan’s Toy Kitchen is a classic Elves and Angels design, that offers your child hours of imaginative play.
It comes with a lovely two shelf hutch-top, that gives lots of space to store all those pretty dishes.

Julianna's Kitchen

It’s beauty and simplicity speaks for itself. An all time customer favorite, Julianna’s Toy Play Kitchen offers a 4 Burner cook top, metal sink, peek through window oven, and side storage cupboard. The shelf above the cook top adds a nice place to store spices or dishes. 

Jeremy's Kitchen

With all the classic good looks and quality you've come to expect from Elves and Angels, it will delight your child with years of imaginative play. 

Taller than our other kitchens, with lost of shelf and storage space, we named it for our tallest son, Jeremy.

The upper shelves and the flat top surface create a wonderful place to display dishes, food or spices. 

Christina's Kitchen

Our Natural Wooden Christina's Kitchen has a stainless sink for washing dishes, plenty of space for cutting wooden veggies and a four-burner cook top. Open the cabinet or oven door to find a divided cupboard with one shelf for baking in the oven or storing pots and pans. This lovely little toy play Kitchen is sure to bring hours of fun.

Julianna's Kitchen with Brolier Oven

It’s beauty and simplicity speaks for itself. An all time customer favorite, Julianna’s Toy Play Kitchen offers a 4 Burner cook top, metal sink, peek through window oven, and side storage cupboard,with the added fun of a Broiler oven below to cook those steaks and swordfish. The shelf above the cook top adds a nice place to store spices or dishes.

Sera's Kitchen

Named for our smallest Elf, Sera’s Kitchen has the same classic Elves and Angels design, and our ongoing commitment to quality and customer satisfaction. Sera’s Natural Toy Kitchen features a 4 burner cook top, metal sink, peek through window oven, and storage cupboard. Highly durable, heirloom-quality, native pine kitchen, Sera’s Wood Play Kitchen will give your child hours of imaginative playtime.

www.elvesandangels.com

Thank you to all of our customers for your support of quality Made in America toys! Your support has helped make Elves and Angels, America's Toy Company for over 25 years!

The Elves and Angels farm in Northern Maine where your toys are lovingly handcrafted by David Smalley along with the help of his wife, Susan and their children.

Leave us a comment below and tell us what kitchen you will choose and why. Thank you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

                 

          Making It Special...or Family Traditions

      In a world that seems insistent on shrinking the gap between the wonder and freedom of childhood, and the ever pressing indoctrination toward the
 “teenage baby”,  parents of today, must work even harder to preserve for their children, a world where innocence is revered, and wholesome, joyful activities abound.

     Over the years I have found, that Family Traditions are a very important part of creating for your children delightful experiences that a child will come to expect each year, and that will remain with them as they become parents themselves.  There is a sense of security that a child feels, knowing that each season has it’s special feasts, and each holiday, a continuity that tells them life is good, and love surrounds them.

One of our Family traditions was the gift of a painted wooden egg that each child received each Easter.  Not everyone celebrates the Resurrection of Christ, as Christians do,  but most people celebrate Easter in some way, if only as a Rite of Spring.

    Every spring, I would buy wooden eggs, enough for each one of my children.  At night after all the children were in bed, I would get out my paints, and create for each one a special “personalized” egg just for them.  It might have a picture of their favorite doll or teddy bear, a pony or a girl flying a kite, lambs or ducklings, depending on who was to be the recipient of the special egg.
The possibilities are endless, and even if you don’t have artistic talent, you can create a lovely egg using paint and stickers.

Seri's egg with her pony and sheltie.

Wooden Easter eggs painted for our children.

    On Easter Sunday morning, after church, we would have our Egg hunt for the Special Wooden Eggs.   I would make a small picture of what the egg looked like on paper, and each child was given the image of their egg.  Then they would rush out joyfully seeking their own Special Egg.  Of course, the baby child would find their egg in the grass, or near the base of a tree, while the older child had to actually search high and low to find their prize.

For those who don’t feed their children on candy, and sugar, this is a great way to have an Easter Egg Hunt, without all the mess, and hyperactivity.  We did both.  Later in the week we had a candy egg hunt using Herseys chocolate eggs.  Each child had a certain color foil that was their color, and it was always exciting, even for those in their early teens.

                       
For those of you who would like to begin this Family Tradition, Elves and Angels is now selling beautiful hardwood eggs.  We have both oval eggs, and eggs with a flat bottom, which are perfect for creating painted eggs, as a keepsake.

Some of Suzanne's Eggs from her childhood

     Some of our children still have their childhood Wooden Eggs, and get them out every year at Easter to display in their homes.  Some of our daughters, carry on the “Painted Egg Tradition” with their own children, and now a real Family Tradition has been created.
Maybe generations from now, there will be Great Grandchildren receiving
Painted Wooden eggs to celebrate Easter, and the coming of Spring!

Some of Priscilla's eggs made for her children, and the pink one on the right from her Mama.


Remember, don’t put it off.  A child is a child for only a few years, and the seeds a Mother plants in her child’s heart, can grow and become an oasis, that will nurture them all through their life.  It may give them strength in times of sadness of suffering, or even lead a child home who get lost along the path of life.   It’s just a little thing,... but it’s the Little things, that make life special.

Some Easter Eggs that Suzanne made for her daughters Hannah and Kaylah.

 

by Susan Smalley 

for Elves and Angels.

Our Maine Dollhouse Giveaway

We are excited to announce the free Giveaway of our very popular Maine Dollhouse this week.

The Free Giveaway is open to all of our Facebook fans living in the lower 48. (AK and HI may enter but will pay the $80.00 shipping charge.) 

In the words of our customers; 

"We have this dollhouse and it is absolutely fantastic!"

"Ok Dave and Jake the elves of Elves and Angels, they played for hours with their new "twin / two sided" doll house!! Thank you so much for a great product that will be passed down in the family for generation to come!

My girls love their new doll house. They spent the whole day playing dollhouse while holding their baby dolls. The TV did not go on once. I am not sure what the best part of the purchase was; that it's solid wood with nontoxic finish, that it's made in in the USA (which is always my first choice), that it was easy to assemble, or that both children can play with it at once without fighting due to the open layout of the "Elves and Angels Maine" dollhouse so I don't have to have two doll houses in my house.

" Makes me want to go back in time and be a kid again. Love this doll house."

"Beautiful! Love this dollhouse."

"Oh my stars...the beloved house!"

We wish you all the best in the Giveaway. Thank you for your continued support!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Beauty All Around Us…or Learning From Life

Sometime things that seem obvious, just pass us by in life, and we take them for granted, and miss the  opportunities that are all around us everyday.  As a parent, of many children, and a

home-schooler for almost 30 years,  I have had many wonderful experiences with my children, that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.  I have also had my share of missed opportunities, that were lost, just because I wasn't paying attention.

 As my youngest child turns 17 this June, I am very aware of the fleeting window called Childhood, and how quickly our babies become teenagers, and then move on to become who they are as adults, and to contribute to society, the gifts and convictions that we as parents, have sown in their formative years.

As a child myself, I discovered the beauty of the winged creatures of the sky.  I loved to wake up at dawn in the summer, and hear the symphony of singers, that were all around me, heralding the new day.  

I would go to the library and get out all the books I could find, to study and learn all their names, songs, and habitats.  My favorite Christmas was when I was 10 years old, and I got a Golden Guide to Birds, a bird feeder and seed, and a birdhouse to hang in the dogwood tree.  I can still see it today, the white birdhouse, hanging by a brown shoelace.

Many years later, as a Homeschool Mother, I was able to share my love of birds with my children. 

I began my home-schooling career way back in 1985.  Some of you probably weren't even born then!  I had six children at the time, ranging in age from two to fourteen, and knew nothing about teaching.   My son, Nathan was in the 4^th grade, a perfect age to develop an interest in birds.  He and I did a Unit study on birds, and his interest was kindled for life.  One day I put some sliced ham in the maple tree near our kitchen window, and a red-tailed hawk swooped down and grabbed the meat.  

Nate was beside himself with excitement.  He began to keep a Lifelist of birds he had seen. We began bird watching regularly, and his natural “spotting “ ability was uncanny.

For many years, I would wake him up on his birthday at about 4AM, and he and I would go out bird watching to celebrate his birthday.  This was a very special time for both of us, as you can imagine in a family with 11 children, one on one time with Mom, was a rarity.

Over the years the study of birds was always part of our home schooling curriculum, and many of our children have enjoyed their time in the woods and fields, discovering the beauty that is all around us. 

Our daughter Seri also developed a real love for birds, and as a child of about six years old, she would stand out back near the feeders, holding seed in her mittens, and wait for the birds to land on her.  Somehow, they would always come to her, amazingly, without any fear.

Bird Girl----Seri Smalley 6 years old

Every spring on the farm, we have our “Birdhouse Tradition”. We always make birdhouses for the new season, to celebrate Easter and the coming summer.  David mills them up from scrap lumber, and all of us get together and make the birdhouses, and then paint the fronts to decorate them, each in a special way so each child (or adult), can express their own creative flair.

                                                                   

It helps keep down the blackfly population, but more than that, it is a Family Tradition, that feeds and nurtures the life and memories of our children.  It also encourages the beautiful tree swallows and blue birds, to come and delight us with their graceful flight and  lovely songs.

You never know what far reaching effects the time spent with your children will have.  My bird boy Nathan, is today a world class Nature photographer, (www.nathanielsmalley.com) whose photos defy the lens to ever capture such a shot, and delight the viewer with images of birds and wildlife that you would never see in a lifetime, on your own.

Immortal Beauty By Nathaniel Smalley

It was those early years of bird watching that led him to his life’s work, sharing his love of birds with the world.

Some of our favorite books to read from, were “The Burgess Bird Book” and “The Burgess Animal Book,” by Thornton Burgess, the “Roger Tory Peterson Bird Guides,” and the ever special “Golden Guide to Birds of North America.”

There are literally thousands of poems about birds that you could have your children read and memorize, also, many publishers have wonderful coloring books available for coloring birds. 

The possibilities are limitless, and your birding adventure will fill childhood with the sights and sounds that will thrill them for a lifetime, and deepen their appreciation of nature.

Seri Smalley and her 2 wild Morning Doves

I suggest you take some time with your children to discover “The Beauty All Around Us,” and develop a love for the Natural world and all of it’s diversified creatures.  

You, and they, will learn much from life, and will, as you learn, develop ties and memories that will always live in your hearts.

Happy birding……Happy spring!

By Susan Smalley

    For Elves and Angels