Perfect Present

This is going to come off as a shameless plug, and I promise it's not. I'm just happy and grateful and wanted to spread the love.

I did a project a few months back as a favor to a colleague; some friends of his have a website that needed help. Desperately. I rewrote most of the content practically for free and in the process started what feels like a new friendship with the ladies who own the business.

They make custom-embroidered baby blankets. Their product is different from all the others out there because they fill the trim all the way around the blanket with whatever you want - poems, birth dates, family trees, etc. They're a truly beautiful gift, and I'm at that age where everybody's having kids, so they were a great find, costing the same as the other services out there that only give you a name and birthdate.

They came to me a few weeks ago for help proof-reading what they hope will become a quarterly newsletter. It was no big deal to me, only took about an hour to fix it up (there were formatting issues to deal with far beyond the few typos) and I was happy to help my new friends. They want more help but don't want to impose, so we agreed that if I do it for future newsletters I'd charge 20 bucks. (I can't imagine actually charging them my full hourly rate for something that I can do while I'm waiting for my tea to heat up, ya know?)

Anyway, the other day I ordered a blankie for my friend's baby because this is his first Easter and I'd been looking for an excuse to give him a present. Instead of an invoice, I got an email from them saying they were giving me the blanket as a thank you! How great is that?!

To keep the good karma rolling I wanted to put their name out there for anyone looking to give a beautiful, personalized baby gift. So check out Sew Adorable.

Disclaimer: These guys can't leave well-enough along and in just a few weeks have dramatically changed what I (and the tech guy friend) did for them. Please don't think I wrote, or approved the appearance of, what's there now. (This is the problem with doing favors for people. They just sent my name out in their newsletter as a thank-you, and people are now going to see a site I'm embarrassed to be associated with.) But their lack of online marketing skills is beside the point - they still make fantastic products.