Hey everyone!

I wanted to write about a great event coming up that Tan-je-reen will have a table at. The event is called "Ladies Night Out", and is being held at the very cool, Swanky Bubbles in Cherry Hill! It is sure to be a great night! Along with Tan-je-reen there are going to be some really, creative and unique vendors.

5% of our profits from this event will be donated to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Here are the details;

Ladies Night Out, hosted by Otherhood, LLC
Thursday, March 26th
6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Click Here to read more and register

We will also be unveiling some more of our "Sweet Tanjereen" products. Bags, burp cloths, bibs and more. Along with our new handmade line we will also have our unique note cards and printable invitations for sale.

Our note cards are our number 1 seller, we are trying to save the Handwritten Note from becoming extinct. Email and text has become the fastest & easiest way of communication, but there is nothing like getting a touching, handwritten note in the mail from a close friend or family member. Help us save this fading tradition, purchase a pack of note cards and write your loved ones a little something, you will brighten their day!


Ladies Night Out is being hosted by an Social Event company that is very close to my heart. Otherhood, LLC is a company that is helping to fill a void in mom's and women in the South Jersey area by giving us great events to attend while meeting other inspiring women. Their events range from Infant massage classes, play time at My Gym to How to keep a clean "green" home & everything in between. I really recommend this group to not only new moms but to mothers of toddlers and up as well.

I know this is a little late, but updating and changing our website is taking longer then I suspected. But well worth the time, I am really happy with how its coming along.

I have been incredibly inspired and filled with feelings of hope and optimism. I watched Tuesday from the moment we woke up, it was incredible to see History being made before my very eyes. I know that every inauguration is history, but this day was obviously a more historic and groundbreaking day.

I was taking photos of the TV, clapping and woo-hooing out loud. As if I was there on the lawn with the millions of other American Citizens welcoming change. My son was standing next to the TV while I took pictures, and while he was being sworn in, mix-up and all, he was High Fiving his right hand as Barack held it up.

Now, I know that he was not handed a magic wand during the swearing in or that things will change over night. But they will change, I am sure of it. His ideas are fresh, he expects and demands responsability from the citizens of this great country and most of all he is willing to go agaisnt the grain and do things differently then how they may have been done for the last couple of hundred years.

I was filled with emotion thinking about how it wasnt that long ago that this country was segregated, my mother has told me of stories when she went on trips to Virginia and the bathrooms were labeled "Blacks" and "Whites". It is very hard for me to understand that fully, or understand the pain that may have caused those African-Amercians today that lived through that. It is sad to think that it wasnt all that long ago a black man couldnt even use the same bathroom as a white man, but AMAZING to think that the walls have been broken down so much that he can become president.

How inspring and wonderful, that the first President that my 2 1/2yr old son saw inagurated was the Frist African-Amercian President. I am excited and anxous to see what the future holds. I am ready and need change! Good Luck Obama!

It's Sunday and I am working on our new updated look for the website which I hope to unveil soon, watching the Golden Globes and reflecting on this past week.

This week is one that now looking back I can really see the many hats that a WAHM (work at home mom) wears. Before sending out our monthly email for Tan-je-reen Design, I was doing my daily mundane household "jobs", throwing in the load of laundry, serving and cleaning up breakfast, getting Mason set-up with some crayons and settling in to prepare and send the email. Well as usual nothing goes as easy or as nice as it is planned in the world of young children, so I found myself working sitting at my sons small round childrens table, on a childs size chair with my laptop, thinking my presence in his playroom would help him let me get a little work done. That didn't happen so in between mouse clicks and typing I had to play the timeless game of Cootie, for those don't remember this game, you build a large bug or "cootie". So here I am trying to wear my Business Owner "hat" while simultaneously wearing my Mom "hat", playing with my son. Once he was satisfied with the bugs, I started to work again when I noticed a large bug peering at me over my laptop screen....Mason was walking all of the bugs up and down the back of my screen....I laughed so loud and hard that I fell into tears.

It was at this moment that I realized I have the BEST job(s) in the world. Although I can honestly say that being a Stay or Work at Home Mom is harder than any job I had in Corporate America...it is by far the most rewarding. Nothing worth doing is easy, and making the hard decision to stay home with my son and start my own business is the best that My Husband and I ever made!

I want to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year! Among my New Year Resolutions, making sure that my Blog is up to date is one of them! I have missed writing and hope to have some new and interesting things to vent about...I mean write about, haha.

We had a great holiday season here at Tan-je-reen, below are a few of my favorite holiday cards that were ordered.



This is one in particular is my absolute favorite, being that it is my family's card. I really like this design, I wanted something that looked more like a piece of photography then a card. Our holiday message was on the back side, I felt that the back of the card was a blank slate and should also be utilized. I am thinking of having similar designs to include in next years holiday collection, please leave some feedback if you like it and would like to see some in our collections.



Also be on the lookout for a new look on the Tan-je-reen Website, with this New Year we are giving Tan-je-reen a New Look. Look for a Fresh & Clean...but Sweet & Sassy feeling....

Please keep visiting our site for you everyday stationery needs....our personalized stationery is our hottest item right now!

Hi Everyone, as some of you know, I am a Childhood Cancer Survivor. In a previous post I mentioned the The Parkway Run to benefit The Cancer Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia that is being held this Sunday, September 28th. (Also my husbands birthday, Happy Birthday Babe).

In CHOP's effort to bring awareness to this disease and the effects it has on patients, they called and asked if they could interview me, and speak about the Late-Term Effects of Adults that overcame their Childhood Cancer. At first I was hesitant, wondering why me, there has to be a better story then mine. But of course accepted the offer in hopes that sharing my story will help raise awareness as well as money for the walk this Sunday.

Most people dont know that the Drugs that help patients conquer Cancer are so strong that they take an incredible toll and at such a young age they can effect many other parts of your growing body. Some of the late effects are Heart/Cardiovascular Disease, Respiratory Disease, Growth & Development problems, Second Cancers and Infertility.

As a direct result of my Cancer Treatments, I have Cardiomyopathy (Heart Disease) and Restrictive Lung Disease. My Doctors also thought that I would be dealing with Infertility too, since my ovaries were in fact radiated and the type of Chemotherapy I received can have a negative effect on reproduction. But, as most of you know, I was blessed with my wonderful son, Mason! Not only is conceiving a concern for Childhood Cancer survivors but carrying a child is also a major concern, especially when Heart Disease and Lung Disease are present. But we proved them wrong and Mason is here and we couldnt be happier.

I was so nervous about the Interview, I felt incredibly vain talking about myself, but Denise and her camera man Brian were great and made our whole family feel at ease. She asked me about what my thoughts were on these late effects that cancer survivors are dealing with, my hopes for the children fighting today and my feelings about how they may have to fight again later in life as an Adult. We also spoke about infertility and how it is now becoming a such a concern that young adults (teenagers) are presented with the options of freezing their eggs or sperm just in case they cant conceive later. What a "grown-up" decision to make at such a young age. Another side effect of Childhood Cancer, the fact that you have to grow up so fast, deal and see things that some people will never deal with their whole lives, face death in the face and beat it!

The clip is supposed to air Tonight, Friday September 26th, on the 5 o'clock news on NBC 10. I hope I dont end up on the cutting room floor! haha.

Thanks Denise and Brian, for making it so easy and comfortable to share my story!

Well I am happy to announce that we were accepted to showcase in the Haddonfield Fall Festival on October 18th. This will be our first fine arts festival and I am more then excited. It is sure to be a great day, besides all of beautiful Handcrafted pieces for sale, there will be events for the whole family. Carriage rides, pumpkin painting and scarecrow making for the kids, for the grown-ups; some of Haddonfields best restaurants will be showcasing their food curbside.

Saturday, October 18th (Rain date - Sunday, October 19th)
10 am - 5 pm
Tanner Street & Kings Court
Haddonfield, NJ

For information on Parking click here
For Directions click here

I hope that everyone can come out and see us, our booth number is 46, all of the Arts & Craft tables will be located on Tanner Street and Kings Court.

Today was one of those days where you just start to realize summer is coming to an end...fast. And although I absolutely LOVE fall & winter, fall especially, I start to think that soon our days outside are numbered and the weather will force us to bundle up and stay cozy inside.

So Mason and I headed outside for a little fun in the sun and a little "photo shoot", I use that term loosely since I have no professional skills (as you can see from the pics) and I really dont know what I am doing most of the time. We had fun and I thought I would post them, and to prove that I dont work "all" of the time...just "most" (to those that have accused me, hehehe). Please enjoy!

I have to apologize for my absence from the blog for the last week or so...I have been busy with both designing new cards as well as continuing to work on my latest venture. I have missed blogging and in an effort to say sorry I am giving everyone an opportunity to get a "sneak peak" at a couple of new designs.

These will be available in both the QuickExpressions line as well as in our stationery boutique. If you purchase from our boutique you will also have the option of printing on the reverse side as well. This a new feature that we will be adding to most of our notecards for a very small fee. I posted an example here.

These cards do not have to include a photo, especially if we are doing the printing. They are great used as invitations as well!

I hope you like the new designs, we have more ready and they will all be unveiled this Thursday in our email. If you would like to be added to our email list and receive our announcements and specials please email me your email address.

Ok, well, some of you know that we are going to be branching out and starting a new venture that will run along side of Tan-je-reen Design, a sort of "sister" store. I don't want to give away what we will specialize in, but...it has to do with sewing.

For this I have enlisted the assistance of my mom, "the master seamstress". This is a woman who not only made HER wedding dress, also made ALL of the bridesmaids and flower girl dresses. That being said, since she is incredible, I have asked her to help me with some ideas and designs I have floating around in my head. But needless to say, to be able to produce enough of these beautiful, high quality, carefully hand-made products to keep orders rolling in and customers happy, its a lot of man hours and work, even for the "the master seamstress".

So, that leads me to this...I have taken on the task of learning to sew. Not only do I want to help out with the labor, I want to be able to design and create pieces that may be hard to explain or convey to people.

Some have used the term "obsessive" or "anal" to describe how I am about my designs or work, a bad trait to have in some cases, but when you are creating and producing custom pieces for people, they are GREAT traits! and I found out that its a great trait to have for sewing.

I sat down at the machine, after having multiple heart palpitations and deep breaths, lined up the fabric with the needle, pushed the pedal thing (I guess I still have to learn the correct terms) and off I went. I designed the pattern from scratch and did all of the sewing myself (can you tell how proud of myself I am)

Although not a fancy pattern, in fact very basic, I am very fond of my new business card holder. The fabric is a bit bold and bright for my taste, but it has grown on me and I think its pretty cute!

Enjoy the photos, please leave a comment, I would love to hear your thoughts!

A big thank you to the "the master seamstress"!

PS - We are working hard on some fabulous Fall and Holiday Card Designs, keep checking the website for updates!