Merry Christmas (Jason's December Post)

If you're wondering why you haven't heard much from me lately, the answer, as you may have already guessed, has something to do with Jenni's unwillingness to share the creative spotlight. After routinely nixing my numerous project and tutorial suggestions and then posting them as her own, there comes a point when it just gets old. Yarn trees? Chalkboards? Tufted Ottomans? ...All my brainchildren.

Okay, honestly, I had to check our sidebar and scan recent posts to come up with those three topics (seriously, what the heck is a tufted ottoman?), but still I'm sure there have been plenty of other occasions where I had a promising blog-related thought stolen by our pseudo-leader. Where I finally had to draw the line in the proverbial sand of her authority, of course, was with my now-annual Christmas card picture. I would not be letting her shoot down another fantastic idea.

After our family's 2007 Christmas card was deemed inappropriate by a fraction of the people who received it (Jenni still won't give me permission to post it here...), our mother decided to put the awkward photo fest on the shelf. Given that Jenni seems to lack any semblance of a sense of humor, I knew her cards wouldn't pull their own weight in the comedy department. That's why last year I decided to revive an old family tradition with this card. However, what soon surprised me was how few people realized that Lola was photoshopped in. At the time she couldn't even sit on the ground, let alone a metal beam.

That got me thinking that this year's photo should capture a more true-to-life moment in the world of Dear Lillie. I wanted something that not only featured all of our real decision makers, but also depicted a typical day at the office. So without further ado, Merry Christmas from the Dear Lillie team...

The Employee Files (Jason's August Post)

While most of you are probably under the impression that Dear Lillie is primarily a one-man show, rest assured that I do get some help from time to time. Because of this common misconception, I figured it was about time that I introduced you all to everyone on our ever-expanding payroll.

In order of their official hire (but certainly not overall importance)…

Jennifer Holmes

My caption got edited out...

Our Vice-President is more than just a former pretty face now past her prime. In between trips to the spa, she can often be found doing simple arts and crafts or rearranging small objects in her home—then taking 4,000 pictures of the new look. She also enjoys light jogs (on company time!) while her husband raises their two children. On the rare occasions that she does feel moved towards productivity, she designs all of our products and does about 99% of the blog work, but that’s not important.

Jason Crotty

Jenni honestly doesn’t think these shirts would sell (probably because I thought of it).

President? …I know, right? Jenni wanted me to take care of the legal paperwork, so honestly what did she expect to happen? While single-handedly building our establishment from the ground up, I do most of the managerial stuff as well as all of the screen-printing and most other day-to-day tasks. I generally split the emails 50/50 with Jenni just to keep her involved. However, you may have noticed that the ones with my name at the end come back about a week or two earlier than you-know-who's.

Jamie Druke

This makes my neck hurt.

Jamie has earned a bit of a reputation around the office as the first person at work in the morning and the last person to leave a night. That being said, she leaves her house less frequently than anyone I’ve ever met. Good thing we work from her home. If you have ordered a shirt or pillow cover in the last five months and noticed that the packaging seems a little more thoughtful, then you are absolutely correct. Jamie’s chief duty is packaging and shipping small items, and I must say she takes it very seriously. Sometimes I just sit there and watch her take twenty minutes to package one pillow. Her pace is literally amazing.

Jacob Miller

And yet this is even more painful to look at.

Jamie actually escaped being on the receiving end of a few more jokes about her lack of hours worked because our newest hire drastically cut back his hours in order to pursue a more lucrative job as a teaching pro at our local tennis club. Jake’s 2-3 hours each week generally start with lunch break followed by “alright, lets get this done quickly so we can golf,” which I of course never object to. Master of the flash-dryer, Jake eventually intends to head up our sales department, because as I’ve heard, most companies have departments.

We do have a few independent contractors who help us out with the sewing and a few other projects as well, but hopefully this gives you a mildly-accurate picture of how our little operation works. I don’t intend to take another six-month hiatus from posting, but then again Jenni is not always willing to share the spotlight, so who knows…

Pajama Dress "Tutorial" (Jason's February Post)

When I started doing monthly posts for Dear Lillie last summer I made a promise to keep my topics of choice "somewhat related to the general theme of the blog." In keeping with that promise, I decided to try my hand at a little crafting this month. What I thought would take about five minutes wound up taking three days... and still ended up looking like it took only five minutes.

So here is my attempt at a Pajama Dress tutorial...  Please keep in mind though that I have never used a sewing machine before (unfortunately I guess I can't really say that anymore).

STEP 1 - FIND FABRIC

Just Jenni's taste...

Lillie, of course, had to go with Dora.

STEP 2 - TRACE TWO OUTLINES

My right hand was apparently crippled in the outlining process...

STEP 3 - CUT OUTLINES

At this point Lillie and I found ourselves a bit overworked and decided take the rest of the day off.

Little did I know Lillie would want to take turns cutting... Expect this step to take at least an hour if your "helper" is equally interested in "helping."

STEP 4 - PIN SIDES

Lillie was actually surprisingly good at this.

STEP 5 - POSE WITH A PIN WAY TOO CLOSE TO YOUR FACE

STEP 6 - SEW EDGES

Jumping up and down on the foot pedal continuously makes things interesting.

No one says it has to be perfect, Lillie.

STEP 7 - REALIZE YOU SEWED THE ENTIRE DRESS SHUT

Apparently when Jenni said "now sew all the edges" I was supposed to know that meant to leave holes for Lillie's arms, legs, and head. Rookie mistake.

STEP 8 - HAVE A WOMAN EXPLAIN HOW TO FIX IT

STEP 9 - TURN DRESS INSIDE IN

Clearly Lillie had lost interest by now, at which point I realized I was just at Jenni's house making a dress by myself--awkward.

STEP 10 - PHOTOSHOP SOME EXTRA LENGTH ONTO THE DRESS

STEP 11 -  PRETEND IT TURNED OUT WELL

So yeah, it looks like something a Flintstone might wear when dressing down, but at least we tried...

Happy Birthday, Jenni! (Jason's January Post)

I’d like to start off by wishing Jenni a very happy 30^thbirthday! This would also probably be a good place to point out that until few days ago, I was under the impression that Jenni was twenty-five or twenty-six. No, that’s not my way of giving her an underhanded compliment and saying she looks younger than she really is (the look test would probably put her at about 35-40 right now), it's just that I genuinely have no idea how old anyone in my family is.

Age discrepancies aside, I began to recall my reputation for slacking off on other people's birthday gifts. There was that birthday of Dana's that I felt it appropriate (and cost-effective) to give her an empty box completely covered in glued-on pretzels (surprisingly she wasn't that upset...I actually caught her nibbling away at the packaging a few hours later). Then, of course, there was that summer I gave Jamie a pet rock--complete with its own shoebox ecosystem. The only time she spoke to me that week was to make a threat on my life (#angryphase).

So needless to say, I figured that I really needed to step up my game for this important milestone in Jenni’s life. Then I remembered that the things that Jenni likes (houses, decorating, ect.) are not in the slightest bit interesting to me. So instead of getting Jenni something for her birthday, I decided to get Lillie something.

Now before you criticize my logic, let me at least pretend that there was an attempt to be thoughtful on my part. The gift that I got Lillie just happened to be her very own children’s digital camera so that she could in turn give Jenni a present.

The result (as you can see below) was a bunch of near-studio-quality photographs, complete with Lillie’s very own watermark! So while Jenni putters around listening to Tim McGraw’s “My Next Thirty Years” all day, sit back and enjoy Lillie’s handiwork!

"Happy birthday, Mommy!"

In an unrelated event, Jenni had a little difficulty putting the tree back in the box last night, and I felt it necessary to snap (and share) an incriminating photo before helping her up. Enjoy...

And this is why she won't be allowed to use the Baby Bjorn anymore...

What You Really Wanted (Jason's December Post)

Seasons Greetings? (Jason's November Post)

You've all seen the wonders that Jenni can create for her holiday photographs, but what you may not know is that our family has a bit of a history when it comes to Christmas cards, and as a general rule of thumb, the goal had always been to make each year's photo increasingly more bizarre than the last. Now those of you who have seen Jenni's cards in recent years are probably a bit confused, as nothing about her holiday greetings is in the least bit strange or unorthodox, so let me explain...

Growing up (like a lot of other families) our parents would line us up each Thanksgiving, snap a few crooked photos, look for one where everybodys' eyes were open, add a generic seasonal pleasantry, have it printed, and then send it to all of our friends and extended family. Unlike a lot of other families, however, the Crotty children were particularly un-photogenic. For years and years, our mother would send out pictures featuring more Nike headbands and Lloyd Christmas haircuts than genuine smiles or enthusiasm.

Determined to put an end to rather mundane routine of Christmas card normalcy, I finally convinced my parents that swift change was in order. Now I had seen funny cards before, but I wanted something that didn't quite make sense. I didn't want whoever opened the card to laugh... I wanted them to be simply confused. The photo below seemed to do the trick.

2005

The following year I came up with this arrangement...

2006

You'll notice that Jenni had been replaced by a man who would later become Jamie's husband (at the time though I'm not even sure that Jamie and Josh were dating, which helped add to the overall awkward feel I hoped to attain). Also, I'm sure there will be some inter-family backlash for claiming this as solely my own idea, but whatever, this is my post so I will take creative license as I so choose.

In my opinion, 2007's photo (not pictured here for numerous reasons--in short, my hands are tied) was the icing on the proverbial family photo cake. It also is the reason that the Crotty family stopped sending out Christmas cards, but that's a fact I like to take as confirmation that our cards were garnering the reaction I had hoped for.

Now that we are all grown up, each family has branched off and started sending out their own cards. Since Dana and I are both single (as Jamie likes to say, we "don't have families") and Jamie and Jenni have forgotten what its like to have a sense of humor, I took it upon myself carry on the family tradition.

In my mind, the fact that a 22-year-old, single male would have his own Christmas card is outlandish enough in its own right, but I also wanted to make sure it still created the "uhh...?" reaction of our old family cards. I wanted something that at first glance might seem like a relatively normal picture until you notice that something is a little out of place.. The result was something that I hope is as equally "off" as one might expect from a Crotty family Christmas card.

So, for what its worth... Seasons Greetings, everybody!

The Family Dynamic and Christmas Thermals (Jason's October Post)

Just wanted to let you all know that our 'Twas the Night Before Christmas Thermals are now available in our shop!!! Just click here!

Photo courtesy of JLYNN PHOTOGRAPHY

And now here is Jason with with his October post....

To put it simply, our family is different.

Yes… I know… Everyone thinks that his or her own family is the craziest group of people around and is deserving of its own sitcom. I can’t count the times I’ve heard someone casually toss out the phrase “they should really make it into a TV show” after telling some mildly entertaining story about one of their relatives. So don’t worry, I’m not about to claim that our family is in any way more worthy of having a camera crew follow us around than your own may be—but still, I feel as though it is at least a subject worth touching upon.

For instance, I can comfortably say that under most circumstances we are at least remotely reasonable people, but put us all together on a croquet court or in front of a board game and the result is always at least one utterly savage argument. Now I don’t want to give the impression that we’re all a bunch of hotheads running around and swinging mallets over a possible double tap, I’m just trying to paint an accurate picture of the unhealthily competitive nature of our relationships towards each other (I mean I’m willing to bet you’ve never seen more dictionaries at one game of scrabble). As children, we had to write our own rulebooks for most of our games simply because we came across countless scenarios not covered by the actual rules. And don’t even bring up Cranium… One sister may or may not have declared that I was “not even a real person!” during a particularly ugly battle over the validity of the use of a singular form of a word when the answer called for the plural.

Jenni would probably want me to mention that we aren’t always arguing. In fact, these days there seems to be an unspoken agreement that no games are to be played at family gatherings, and in spite of our childhood clashes, we remain unusually close.  In fact, my youngest sister Jamie is the only sibling to not have lived with Jenni and Jon at one point or another (but with the rising frequency of her visits, I’m actually shocked that she hasn’t started receiving mail at their home). Somehow in our youth, I think Dana, Jamie, and I all developed the misguided notion that Jenni somehow knows everything. Take Jamie, for example… a capable decorator in her own right, she can’t even purchase a piece of furniture for her own home without first seeking Jenni’s approval (or pick paint color for her bedroom… or which book to read next… you get the idea).

Just look what happens to Jamie and her overwhelming fear of crowds when Jenni isn’t around to direct her… It's taken directly from the Boston Celtics' jumbotron a couple of years ago, and trust me, its worth watching.

In recent years Lillie and Lola have thrown a bit of a wrench into the family dynamic. Its not necessarily a bad thing, but should a six month old really be the one determining our holiday plans? To say that our family obsesses over its new additions would be a bit of an understatement. Its as though with each new thing Lola learns, a family announcement is in order, and with each word Lillie says, one of us is ready to pounce on the opportunity to win her affection. Its fine for now, but I wonder if that will all change when they’re old enough to play croquet…

We'll do just about anything for them... For now.