Hullabaloo Stories Design Blog

With several special holidays coming up, now is the chance to order your gift before it is too late. Easter is a great opportunity to capture photos with the kids, all dressed up in their “Sunday Best”. Why not take that opportunity and turn it into something imaginatively creative with a custom made board book to share with your little ones for years to come?

Believe it or not, Father’s Day is our busiest holiday here at Hullabaloo Stories. Women seem to plan out their gift giving much more than men do. If they are anything like me, they wait until the last minute and it’s is either breakfast in bed or hand delivered flowers for the Mrs. on Mother’s Day.

Perhaps, now is the perfect opportunity to begin dropping hints or sharing ideas about a custom made story to share with your children, made with the loving hands of a professional educator at Hullabaloo Stories. This way there won’t be a chance of waiting until the last minute to make your day and an extra special memory to cherish beyond Mother’s Day.

Check out some of our previous Father’s Day themed books, here.

We hope the upcoming holidays are filled with laughter, fun, love and memories. Happy “Spring” holidays.

Download your free printable Thanksgiving notes for your kids’ lunch boxes from Windy Pinwheel.

2012 Copyright Christine Hull, Windy Pinwheel

Last month, we posted a downloadable set of free Halloween printables. We’ve decided to share the printables from Windy Pinwheel each month as a cross post to spread the word about each of these printables. This month, we are sticking to the Thanksgiving theme. Thanksgiving is a very special time for us all to reflect about what we’re thankful for in this world. We are thankful for our family, our children, being free from want and you, the reader of this blog. Without you we wouldn’t be who we are today, creating and sharing custom stories for you to share with your children.

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday? Please feel free to share. We would love to hear your thoughts.

P.S. Every month we will post a new set of lunch box notes. So check back at Windy Pinwheel often.

Download your free Thanksgiving themed printables at Windy Pinwheel

Surprise your kids and make their day with free printable Halloween notes for their lunch boxes from Windy Pinwheel.

2012 Copyright Christine Hull, Windy Pinwheel

My husband, a couple of friends and I recently stared a new venture for parents in the local area of Reno, Nevada at Windy Pinwheel. Most of what we post is pertinent to the local audience, but occasionally, we post things that might also be relevant to my audience here at Hullabaloo Stories. We couldn’t be more thankful for both our patrons and our fans of this site. Without you, we wouldn’t be who we are today. That being said, we have a special offering for you via our Windy Pinwheel site – Free Halloween themed love note printables for you to share with your kids.

Being a full time working parent sending my children off to school can be tough some days. There are days when I miss them so much, sending a little “love note” in their lunch boxes is a small way I can remind them half way through their day how much I love them. I like to picture them sitting at their cute preschool tables unpacking their lunches and finding a fun new “love note”.

This month, in honor of Halloween on the other blog that I write for, I wanted to share some SPOOK-tacular love notes for you to print and share with your children.

The Valentine’s Day notes were such a huge success, here at Hullabaoo Stories this year, that we thought we could make some in the spirit of Halloween. My husband is certainly a sucker for all things surrounding the Halloween holiday and enjoys it, I think, as much as our kids do. We hope you like these free printable Halloween lunch box love notes as much as we do. It brings the biggest smile to our faces as parents knowing that we made our kids’ day.

If you download the set, be sure to report back and let us know if they are a hit with your kids in your household.

P.S. Every month we will post a new set of lunch box notes. So check back at Windy Pinwheel often.

It’s time for a Dr. Seuss themed giveaway! Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is a classic book by Dr. Seuss and recently I saw a “pin” on Pinterest about this book and it made me think. We had to do something with this for Read Across America week.

So here is the idea. Get a copy of the book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” and each year, at the end of the school year, have your child’s teacher write them a little note inside the book (think of how someone signs a high school yearbook). This activity would take place every year, K-12. On the day of your child’s high school graduation, give it to them as one of their gifts. It will also add some nostalgia to the occasion reading through some of the comments made by past teachers.

Sounds pretty simple right…well we want to make it even simpler by having your very own copy shipped directly to your house!

Hullabaloo Stories is giving away TWO copies of Dr. Seuss’ book Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

How to qualify for the giveaway is really easy.

1. Go to our Facebook page and “Like” our page.
2. Tell us how you have shared this post in the comments below, here, on the Hullabloo Stories blog.
   • Some examples include a post on your own Facebook account as a status update, a blog post on a blog that you own/contribute to or comment on another blog, providing a link back to this post, a "pin" on Pinterest, or even a post on a forum; and
   • If possible, please provide the link of the location where you shared this blog post with others in your comment below.
3. A winner will be chosen at random on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 12:00 PM PST and we will post the winners name/user name on both Facebook on the Hullabaloo Stories Fan Page wall and here on the Hullabaloo Stories blog as a comment on this blog post by 6:00 PM on that same day, Sunday, March 4, 2012.

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Good luck and thanks for helping to spread the word about this giveaway.

Welcome to our the new home of our design blog, we want to celebrate with a giveaway…

Are you a member of the military, or know a military dad who is away from his children for Father’s Day? If so, in the spirit of charity and an effort to give back to those who serve and sacrifice so much for our country, we want to create a book just for you. This giveaway includes two matching 5×5 books (a $64 value); one for the family at home and one for the dad/mom who is deployed.

To enter, send us the story of the deployed person and their child/children (Who knows? Could be twins or triplets or even more out there) and their special bond to hullabaloo@dc-hulls.com including a picture of the child/children and the deployed parent, by May 14, 2011. The state-side family that is selected, will then work with Hullabaloo Stories to create their own unique and personal custom story, together. We will choose a winner, at random, by May 17^th. Hullabaloo Stories will then notify the winner by e-mail and let those who follow Hullabaloo Stories know via Facebook and the Hullabaloo Stories Design blog.

To enter this giveaway opportunity, you must be a military family that will be separated on Father’s Day: Click to Enlarge. We will select from stories e-mailed to us by May 14th, 2011 and announce the winner by May 17th on our design blog. By submitting your story you are authorizing Hullabaloo Stories to publish your story in a blog post, Facebook status update, and other marketing materials exclusively for use by Hullabaloo Stories and to edit your submission for grammar and content for the purpose of each intended audience. Further, by submitting your story you are providing implicit consent for Hullabaloo Stories to share your photo submissions with the Hullabaloo Stories audience and that all subjects in each photo have provided their consent for distribution of those images by Hullabaloo Stories. For all those under legal age of consent, a parent or guardian must keep record of consent of that person within each photo and provide such record of consent if it is requested by Hullabaloo Stories. Any published image supplied with your submission will be credited with the caption “Source: [Your Name]” in the image metadata. As a regular practice, Hullabaloo Stories will not publish any last names unless you indicate that you prefer your last name accompany your story submission upon publishing any materials.

Update: As a point of clarification, this giveaway is not limited to only men who are deployed. Deployed women and/or their families are encouraged to submit entries for the giveaway as well.

Good luck.

Just before I mailed out some of our holiday orders, I snapped a couple of pictures. We had a great holiday season and enjoyed making so many books for little hands to open up on Christmas morning… including my own nephew who got a custom set of family flash cards. Each card had a photo of him with a family member and their name on the card, each was laminated. We also made him a magnet of him with our daughter last summer reading together. They both love the magnet and the flash cards. The holiday ordering season was hectic but fun, we look forward to making a lot more books this year for more little readers.

I am a very biased mommy but I loved this book. I now realize what my customers go through when trying to narrow down their photos. I finally took the stance that each month I wanted to capture what the most important thing in her life was, not just my favorite photos. It was tough but I love this book and we read it all the time. Now that she’s two I guess I better get a new book started.

Avery’s mama is a good friend of mine and when she was headed home to visit family and wanted to come up with a really creative way to announce some big news…we devised this great book for her.

We left the last page blank so that they could add an ultrasound photo in a little pocket but then eventually replace that with a photo of her and her sibling.

Perhaps its because my best friend and I had a personalized book when we were kids or because these two little boys are just about the cutest little friends every, but these books were so fun to make. I made two books but switched around the wording for each boy so his book had his name first.

I love creating books about families, maybe because that was my original intent when starting Hullabaloo Stories. This was a fun book to make, how could it not be, how cute is this little guy?