Don’t forget about my Give Away of a 25% off discount on a legacy name document from Baby Names Research©.  To enter, simply post a comment on my Give a Gift of a Name post. (The directions are at the bottom of the page.)

Hurry!  The give away ends this Friday night, April 2.

A while back, I was on a streak about dolls — fun mannequins and sweet-as-pie Baby Buka cloth dolls.

I’ve finally been able to connect with the owner of the site Going Sew Crazy for the last doll idea I wanted to share. (Don’t you just love the name of her site?  It is ‘sew’ clever!)

She has given me permission to share this photo of her sweet, sweet clothespin dolls and let you know about her dolls.

She has written a great little ‘tute’ (short for tutorial — a term I just recently learned) with pictures.  It is so easy to follow and understand.  This is something that even I in all of my un-craftiness glory could do. I think.

What is so appealing are their little dresses.  Darling fabric!  I think that these dresses would be an absolute cinch to make.

In the main picture of this tutorial, she shows another type of doll to make — using empty spools of thread.  She doesn’t have any directions but I think that you could easily make these just by looking at the picture.  Cute, huh?

Now lest you think that I’m favoring only granddaughters, I think with a little bit of ingenuity and creativity grandmothers can take this idea and extend it to appeal to grandsons. Here are some of my ideas for ‘masculine’ types of dolls:

• cowboys
• basketball players
• doctors
• astronauts
• SWAT teams or military men
• dirt bike racers
• aliens
• robots
• animals (pigs, cows, goats)

Do any of you have ideas of other manly type dolls to make?

Just take a little bit of supplies, some paint, and some fabric and you can have a little ‘friend’ for your grandchild to play with.  If I were a grandchild that lived far away from grandma, I think it would be great fun to get a package in the mail with a flock of these play-full (meaning as in full of play for grandchildren) dolls.

A little while after our daughter told us she was expecting a little girl, the perfect name for my little granddaughter came into my head.  Instantly.  Just like that.  Without any conscious pre-thinking, pondering, mulling it over, or really giving it any attention.  Let me explain how the name came about.

I vaguely remember my paternal great-grandfather.    However, I never knew my paternal great-grandmother because they divorced long before I was born.  Her name was Ada.

My name is Nina (pronounced with a long ‘I’ sound like the number 9).

In the late 1960s, Johnny Carson did a monologue on his TV show where he talked about inflation and in particular about inflation of words.  Instead of everyone, it would be everytwo.  Anyone was anytwo.  Wonderful would be twoderful.  My older sister decided that my name should reflect word inflection and she started calling me Tena (as in the number ten with an ‘uh’ at the end).  That nickname stuck with me for several years.

I tell you all of these names because in my moment of wild inspiration, I came up with the most adorable, most unique, most . . . most . . .  most unusual name for our granddaughter-to-be:  Aida-Nina-Tena.

Isn’t that the most spectacular inspiration for a name — in all of it’s hyphenated glory?  I was so pleased with myself for being so spontaneously creative.  (I don’t think I would have been able to come up with that name in a million years if I were intentionally trying to be so cutesy and clever!)

I couldn’t wait to tell my daughter my suggestion.

She didn’t like it.  I don’t understand why.

She named her daughter Natalie.  Natalie is a nice name.  But it is so, so, so uncreative!  (Isn’t the above picture of her cute?)

Names are so important.  And that brings me to today’s topic:  my first give-away!!!

Here’s the deal.  Make a comment here on my site about one of the following options:

1.  An interesting ‘baby naming experience’ like I had with my daughter   (I knew a young lady whose husband’s family had a tradition that the first male baby of that level of generation absolutely HAD to name the son a specific name.  She was expecting that first male baby of that level of generation, and she HATED the name she was expected to name her son!  Such a dilemma.  She moved before her baby was born so I never knew what she did about that situation.)

2.  Or, tell about a special name that was given to one of your grandchildren.

I will use Random.org to select a winner of my give-away.

And what is my give-away?  The winner will receive a 25% off discount on a legacy name document from Baby Names Research©.  This beautiful site is run by Maura Hanrahan.  She will research the origin, meaning, and history of your grandchild’s name, write a 400 word essay about the name, and print it on archival paper. The end product is beautiful and ready for framing if you so desire.  You can select from a variety of colors, patterns, and fonts.

This legacy document would make a very special, unique gift that will last a lifetime for that special grandchild in your life.  It could be given to the baby when it is born, christened, on a significant birthday, for Christmas, or any other special occasion.

The give-away will close at midnight Mountain Daylight Time on Friday April 2.  I will announce the winner on Saturday April 3.

You don’t have to make a long comment.  The purpose is just to make a comment so that your name to be entered in the drawing.

So, quick!  Make a comment — you just might be the lucky winner!

We’re back from Fiji.  This is the picture of our pool that looks out to the ocean.

I’ve never had jet lag like this before.  I want to sleep at such inopportune moments . . . and am wide awake during times that I should be catching zzzzzs . . .

We survived the cyclone, fish nibbling on us while snorkeling, getting sunburns, 4-wheeling that ended up on a VERY small railroad track across a river, and 3 Fijian weddings on our beach.  I’m planning on posting about it on my ninalewis.com site.  So, in a bit — probably a somewhat long bit — you can go there to see pictures and read all about it.

Now about some mazes for your grandchildren.

I was playing around with a software to see how it was at making mazes.  I’m somewhat pleased with it. Somewhat.  I’ve made 4 and put them in a PDF document that you can download and give to your grandchildren to do.  Maybe something they could do at your Easter get together.  (Easter is coming up so quickly that I’m not sure if I’ll come up with any Easter ideas . . . )

So, go to my Free Resources page to download the file.

Enjoy!