Playing it Forward

Meadbha O'leary with her Faber-Castell Prizes!

Just in case you haven't seen the announcements on our Facebook page, the winners of the Faber-Castell 250th Anniversary Castle Contest have been announced (and we'd like to give another great big congratulations to Meadbha O'leary, our grand-prize winner)! We submitted all the castle drawings to the national contest (winners yet to be announced) and handed out some great runner-up prizes of art supplies to five other participants!

And now we've got a whole new kind of promotion going on! In an effort to promote charitable giving skills at an early age, Hape Toys is encouraging kids and parents alike to "play it forward" and enter charities of their choice to win a $1,000 donation. As extra incentive, Hape is also giving away 10 of their Gourmet Play Kitchens at 10 nation-wide retailers (1 per store). Customers who purchase any toy under the brand names Hape, Educo and/or Beleduc are eligible to fill out an entry form to win a play kitchen and also $1,000 dollars to their favorite charity! We're really excited about this contest because it gives us and our customers a chance to give back to important organizations in our community. Customers who have already filled out entry forms have submitted the Bellingham Food Bank, Sustainable Connections, Whatcom Humane Society, Nature Conservancy and Blue Skies for Children into the running (and that's just a few of them!).

Boo! Check out this week's felting class: Ghosts!

We're also pretty excited about this year's felting workshops, which have been producing so many awesome felt creations! Yesterday Maria showed the class how to make ghosts. Some were "classic", some had feet or trick-or-treat bags, some carried pumpkins...they were spooky and cute all at the same time! Next week's felted snowman class with Robin is sure to wonderful, and there are still a couple of open spots if anyone is interested! (Be sure to call ahead and reserve your spot).

Last but not least, don't forget that trick-or-treating in Fairhaven this Halloween is the best place to be! Stop by the store for a treat, we can't wait to see all your wild costumes!

For more information about trick-or-treating in Fairhaven, click here.

Woolly Witches!

The past two Saturdays have been super busy at the store, filled with felting and Halloween preparations. Our first felting workshops of the season went fabulously, with witches and notebook covers coming out wonderfully!

Last Saturday Robin taught our kickoff class of the season, guiding felters through the process of making their notebook covers using sheets of wool felt and roving. Some people chose to make spooky fall scenes, while others made colorful pictures from their imaginations! There was even a mermaid!

Yesterday, Maria taught her very first felting class (hooray!) and filled our store full of woolly little witches of all shapes and sizes. Workshops have been incredibly popular this year, with our sign up lists already reaching capacity for some weekends...that means all the more reason to call ahead and reserve a space! Still to come in October are felted pumpkins, ghosts and a felted snowman!

We are also getting pretty excited for the conclusion of Faber-Castell's Dream Castle contest (we can't wait to find out the winners!), and of course for the most imaginative holiday of all: Halloween! More and more costumes and masks have been coming in every day--none of us can decide what we're going to dress up as yet, but we are sure having fun trying on all kinds of different disguises!

To stay up to date with what's going on in the store, or to see more pictures from our workshop series, check out our Facebook page.