Bloggy Business Cards

Look who's putting on her big-girl blogging pants and finally got some business cards?

Me!!!!

One side has all the pertinent blog info, and the other has my picture and a few photos from the blog. They are from Moo.com, so they are thick, and shiny and totally lovely to hold in your hand, and the incredibly talented Elke Barter, of the blog redesign fame, did them for me as part of our barter:)





And I tried to follow all the sage advice of Haven and blogging conference veterans: put your *name* on the cards (ahem, Kara), put your photo on the card, and your website, and Facebook, and Twitter, and now Pinterest, and Instagram...

Wait, did I totally forget to mention that I am now on Instagram?

Yep, I did. So head over there to follow me, since it's super easy for me to post pics right from my phone, especially good if you are a relative of mine and you have a vested interest in seeing adorable photos of my kids. Or photos of my adorable kids, either way:)

Next up, I have to plan my blog conference wardrobe, ack! Any good advice on that one?

Jessica

Pin It

New Look for the Blog

After a year and a half of the old header, I felt like it was time for a new look. So I bartered services with a good friend, Elke Barter, graphic designer extraodinaire!

In exchange for a new header and business cards, I got to pick out all of her paint colors and carpet for her new house and create a special pinterest board of ideas for her house! Umm, I think I got the better deal since I totally would have done that for free:)

Here's a peek at the Pinterest board I made up for her.



I love that she challenged me to use more jewel tones, instead of my go-to charcoal grey and cool blues, and I am already dying over the pictures of the space.

A sneak peek at my business cars coming soon, once I can pry them out of my baby's hands. I think she thinks they are baby-sized playing cards:)

Jessica

Pin It

Why Keep Blogging?

I've been asking myself this question ever since my whole family got sick in January and it took us 5 weeks to fully recover (we were sick in sequence, so it took forever)!

I started this blog last year as a way to document my family life, what I was doing with the kids, decorating our then-new home, and as a way to connect with relatives and friends who aren't close by.I had a newborn, which meant a *ton* of time on the couch nursing, like 8-12 hours a day of that, which gave me plenty of time to blog and visit and comment.

Over a year later, I discovered that blogging is a whole new world. It even has a name, the blogosphere. I've made blog-friends who I now reference in conversation with my husband, having to explain to him, that in many ways, blog-friends are more "real" than facebook-friends. I might have known a facebook-friend at one point in my life in person, but I know my blog-friends *now*. I'm even going to a blog conference, Haven, in August to have fun and meet them in person!

At first I was addicted to watching my numbers. How many people visited each day, how many new followers I got, how many comments, how many features... Then it started to turn into work. And not fun, I'm going to music class and being a mommy work, but I'm-obligated-to-visit-and-comment work. Yuck, not what I thought it was going to be.

Plus, our house is now not-so-new, and it's 95% done. A few minor tweaks here and there, a new poster, apparently constant dining room rug swapping, my attempts to style things, but pretty much done.

I'm still cooking 3 meals a day so this could easily turn into a cooking blog (which you might have noticed it's emphasized these last few weeks). I think I'll just continue to use it to record the NEW recipes I make, and celebrations we have (although this year it's a fireman birthday party not the construction machine birthday party, that is the focus of my attention). I used to keep a food journal where I wrote down what we served our friends at various dinner parties so that I wouldn't repeat the same meal over again. The blog can take over that Type-A part of me.

I still love sharing photos of my kids, and remembering what they are doing at this exact moment, because  so quickly, these moments are gone. We are already past my 5 year old's first day of kindergarten, and I'm so glad I had a chance to write about it here.

In short, I'm going to keep blogging for ME. Not for readers, for blog-friends, for numbers or stats, or even for family. Just for me.

Keep reading and we can all see where I take this. I think it might have moments of more parenting, cooking, and even a few design projects in the future, but I'm going to stop spray painting things just so I can link up to a link party:)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on blogging. Mommy-blogs, blog-reading, DIY blogs, pretty much anything and everything!

Jessica

Pin It

Fave Five of May

I know it's already June 8th, but in my mind it's April, so I say that balances it all out!

The entire month was spent in a giant lead-up to my son's construction birthday party.

Between the slanted stripe construction tape cake, the DIY pinata, the knockoff mason jar sippers and the washi tape party cups, I feel liked I blogged about that more than anything else!



Thankfully, there was also a perfect outdoors brunch on the deck,



and a pink and teal nursery reveal.

A quick nightstand switcheroo, with a "new" orange nightstand to go with my son's construction machine bedding, and a "new"white and pink nightstand for my daughter's butterfly bedroom.



Oh, and of course, my Mother's Day vases from baby food jars!

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! 

Please feel free to follow me with all those nifty buttons in the sidebar:)

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS Feed

Pin It

Butterfly Art- Passing it on

I finally had a moment to myself to be abe to create gifts for three of my blog friends, Colleen from So Much to Say, Megan from Balancing Home, and Candice from New Modern Momma. I've guest posted for Candice before (see that here), and I'm in almost daily email contact with these ladies, which just proves that online friendships can turn into real friendships as well.

Given my daughter's love of butterflies (her room is a veritable explosion of the winged creatures), I am planning (3 months in advance) for a Butterfly Birthday Party. Step one was clearly to buy a butterfly punch from Martha Stewart. Obviously. The I scoured Pinterest (you can see some of my inspiration on my Celebrations board). Then I made a list.

Circling back to my point (I'm a talker writer, what can I say?), I had a butterfly punch, a stack of lovely magazines, a small portion of an afternoon to myself, and a Pass It On Project to complete. The spirit of the project, is to make something by hand and send it to online friends. Then they make something to "pass on" to their friends. Like a giant handmade/crafty gift swap.You can see what I received from Linda from it all started with paint, here. I'm not a sewer, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't spray paint some furniture to ship across the country, so I looked around and was reminded of my very first crafting project that I made in February, some Heart Art for the upstairs loft.

And so, the punching began...

Punch out butterflies.

Arrange on card stock.

Dot glue (Elmer's in my case) on the back.

Press down.

All done!

Have you entered the giveaway yet? Click here to go back to the post and enter for a chance to win a $30 gift card to Fashion 2 Figure.

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! 

Please feel free to follow me with all those nifty buttons in the sidebar:)

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS Feed

I link to these awesome parties:

Sunday: I Heart Naptime, Nifty Thrifty Things, Inspired Honeybee, It's Overflowing, A Rosie Sweet Home  Monday: Delectable Home, C.R.A.F.T.  DIY Showoff, Between Naps on the Porch, Thrifty Decor Chick, Alderberry Hill, Debbie Doo's, Home Stories A to Z, Evolution of Style Tuesday: Coastal Charm, Nest for Less, Tip Junkie, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Carolyn's Homework, Our Delightful Home, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Get Your Craft On, Kurtz Corner,  Centsational Girl  Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style, Organize and Decorate,  Mommy Solutions, Power of Paint, Newlyweds Recipe Linky, Southern Lovely , Home Happy Home, Crafty Sasse Wednesday, Grateful Belly, Gingersnap Crafts, A Crafty Soiree  Thursday: The Shabby Creek Cottage, Made in a Day, House of Hepworths, the 36th Avenue,  Craft, Scrappy, Happy, 52 Mantels Friday: Making Lemonaid, Blissful and Domestic, One Artsy Mama, Serenity Now, Tatertots and Jello, The Shabby Nest, Thirty Handmade Days, Addicted 2 Decorating, Funky Junk Interiors, Financial Friday, Furniture Friday, At the Picket Fence, The Rooster and the Hen, Classy Clutter

Pin It

Pass it On, and a Piano

Do not be distracted by the adorable girl, focus on the amazing burlap pillow in front. 

The one with the ruffles.

The other two were from Crate and Barrel, just so you know.

I was a lucky recipient of the Pass It On Project.

That means I got an "in real life" gift from a "virtual" friend, Linda from It All Started with Paint, which is pretty awesome. The pillow arrived while we were away, and by the time we got home it had been raining really hard (lightning even hit the Golden Gate Bridge!) for days. But the package was perfect, and inside I found a card and 2 (!!) pillows.

Obviously, I'm keeping one. The other, I'm passing on to someone else, to brighten their day. I haven't quite figured out who yet:) Part of this project is also that I will make something and pass it on to a few blog friends of mine, also not something I've managed, but it is on the to-do list. You can find a fabulous tutorial for the pillow right here.

What's that? You see a piano in that picture? And you remember that our entry used to look like this:                           

 

Lucky for me, my mother was doing a bit of a tweak in her own living room and her piano had to go. This is the same piano that I took lessons on for five years as a child and yet i still can't play. My sister didn't have room for it, so that is why the less-musically-inclined sibling wound up with the piano. Although my husband tells me that he played the saxophone for years and can technically read sheet music and play the piano. Time will tell.

Anyway, with dreams of children banging on the keys learning to play, we cleared the space out...

And three very unhappy movers pushed the piano up the driveway and then carried it up the 30 steps to our front door.

Tada!

The table that used to be there is now under our TV in the living room, in case you were wondering:)

Jessica

Thanks for stopping by! 

Please feel free to follow me with all those nifty buttons in the sidebar:)

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS Feed

I link to these awesome parties:

Sunday: I Heart Naptime, Nifty Thrifty Things, Inspired Honeybee, It's Overflowing, A Rosie Sweet Home  Monday: Delectable Home, C.R.A.F.T.  DIY Showoff, Between Naps on the Porch, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Thrifty Decor Chick, Alderberry Hill, Debbie Doo's, Home Stories A to Z, Home Savvy AtoZ , Evolution of Style Tuesday: Coastal Charm, Nest for Less, Tip Junkie, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Carolyn's Homework, Our Delightful Home, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Get Your Craft On, Kurtz Corner , Natural Nesters, Uncommon Designs, Centsational Girl  Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style, Organize and Decorate,  Mommy Solutions, Power of Paint, Newlyweds Recipe Linky, Southern Lovely , Home Happy Home, Crafty Sasse Wednesday, Grateful Belly, Gingersnap Crafts  Thursday: The Shabby Creek Cottage, Made in a Day, House of Hepworths, the 36th Avenue , Bloggeritaville Craft, Scrappy, Happy, 52 Mantels Friday: Blissful and Domestic, One Artsy Mama, Serenity Now, Tatertots and Jello, The Shabby Nest, Thirty Handmade Days, Addicted 2 Decorating, Funky Junk Interiors, Financial Friday, Furniture Friday, At the Picket Fence, The Rooster and the Hen, Classy Clutter

Pin It

What Do You Want Your Blog to Be- Link Party!

Yesterday I posted my vision for my blog. Thank you so much for the positive feedback! Today is a chance for you to link up your vision for your blog, what you want it to be when it grows up. My blog is only an infant, much like my three month old daughter, but I have hopes and dreams for her (somewhat colored by the people my older kids already are!); likewise I have dreams for my blog. I can't wait to see what everyone else has to say!

Here are my fabulous co-hosts, each of these ladies is amazing in her own right, I encourage you to check out their blogs as you "hop" around.

it all started with paint   www.itallstartedwithpaint.com

Thistlewood Farms   http://thistlewoodfarm.wordpress.com/

the space between  http://thespacebetweenblog.wordpress.com/

Eclectically Vintage  http://eclecticallyvintage.blogspot.com/

The Cottage Market  http://www.thecottagemarket.com/

Primitive & Proper  http://primitiveandproper.blogspot.com/

Adventures of Our Fami-Ly http://www.adventuresofourfamily.com/

Bliss Ranch  http://blissranch.blogspot.com/

Top This Top That  http://topthistopthat.blogspot.com/

So here we go:


Pin It

Growing Up As a Blog

What do I want my blog to be when it grows up?

Sure, this started out as a project while I was (still am) nursing our new baby so I didn't go crazy, but it's grown into more than that for me. Not only does it motivate me to be more organized, but it allows me to create new projects, and the ability to document all the decisions we've made in building our house.  The validation from all of you is just so meaningful to me, I hope I can pass that on to others as well.

Here are my five goals/hopes/dreams for this little darling:

1. I want my blog to be just like me.

A true reflection of me. Some parts wife, some mother, some friend, designer, chef, baker, wanna-be crafter, relaxed party-thrower. I want all the aspets of my life to come together here. A blog isn't just a platform for spreading a message (more on that later) but it's a virtual album of my life.

2. Stand for something.

Something big. Way bigger than me. Being a stay at home mom is so much more than just snacks and sippy cups. Being a mother alone is a huge, life long undertaking. Let's celebrate all that mother's do, support each other, and stand up for the small ones; the little people in our lives, and those whose lives we could help.

3. A lifestyle.

I'm dreaming big here, I know. This little blog only started this year, but I want people to know the name "Stay at Home-ista". We should say it like fashionista or consumerista. "What do you do?" a stranger asks,  "Oh, I'm a stayathomeista". There might even be witty T-shirts and bumper stickers, I'll have to work on that. You can help this along by following, liking, following on twitter and pinterest, and by voting for me at Apartment Therapy.

4. A soft place to land.


There is plenty of controversy you can find on the internet (especially among the mommy blogs), that's not what I want for my blog. I want to be real, presenting life as it is, not an idillic version; I just want to skip the animosity that can arise. Writing this blog brightens my day, makes me smile, and reminds me of what a great time I had (usually with the kids) doing all the projects. I want that for you, my reader. A peek into the happy/rewarding/beautiful parts of stay-at-home life, something that makes you smile.

5. Make some money.

From Google Ads, a media network (Rivit, Social Spark, BlogHer? any ideas are welcome), an amazon store. I do truly love the items that we have in the house, I hope I can share that authentically with people and hopefully help them find a new tool to make life at home easier.


I have the incredible honor of co-hosting a party tomorrow so we can all share what our dreams are for our blogs. Come check it out.

I link to these awesome parties:

Sunday: I Heart Naptime, Nifty Thrifty Things, Inspired Honeybee, Nest for LessMonday:Between Naps on the Porch, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Thrifty Decor Chick, Alderberry Hill, Debbie Doo's, Home Stories A to Z, Home Savvy AtoZ  Tuesday:Coastal Charm, Tip Junkie, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Carolyn's Homework, Made in a Day, Our Delightful Home, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Get Your Craft On, Kurtz Corner Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style, Mommy Solutions, Power of Paint, Newlyweds Recipe Linky, It's Overflowing, Southern Lovely Thursday: The Shabby Creek Cottage, Made in a Day, House of Hepworths, the 36th Avenue , Bloggeritaville Friday: Serenity Now, Tatertots and Jello, The Shabby Nest, Thirty Handmade Days, Addicted 2 Decorating, Funky Junk Interiors, Financial Friday, Furniture Friday, At the Picket Fence, The Rooster and the Hen

Pin It

Let's go to the hop...

First off, I want to say thank you to all of you who are reading my blog. It started out a little less than three weeks ago as a place for me to show off all the hard work I do in the home. Today I have had over 1,300 hits in one day! That might not sound like a lot to some of you, but last week I had 1,300 hits ever. So thank you, I am so grateful for all of you.

As I figure this blog stuff out, I still want you to have a way to connect with me and stay upraised of all the posts, and given that Google friend Connect is going away soon that leaves fewer options. You can add me to your circle on Google Plus (link on the sidebar, I'll add you back!), follow on Twitter, Pinterest, and now you can follow me with Linky Followers. Linky Followers is just below Google Friend Connect on my sidebar to the right.

Back to the Blog Hop!  This is the first time I’ve ever done one of these, but it sounds pretty cool so I’m jumping on the bandwagon. 

What is a blog hop?

Since Mr. Linky Followers (the dude who keeps the Linky parties and Linky buttons working so well for all of us) stated it so well, I’ll just quote him: 

“A blog hop is a linky list that is SHARED ON MULTIPLE BLOGS.
When several blogs put the same linky list code on their blog, the exact same list appears on each blog.
Blog visitors can submit their entries on any blog that contains the list.
The entries will appear on each blog where the list resides.
Blog readers see the same list on each blog, and can "HOP" from blog
to blog seeing the same list of links to follow: BLOG HOP!”

Have a blog? Participating in a blog hop will bring more people to your site, because your link will appear on everyone’s blog who is participating in the party. 

Here’s how to play:

1.  Add the Linky Followers tool to your site.

2.  Follow the blog who shared the party with you

3. Add your site to the LINKY PARTY below.

4.Then grab the BLOG HOP code (right under the Linky Party where it says “GET THE CODE HERE”)

5.  Hop around!  Let folks know you’re following them and that you’d love it if they followed you back. 

I will follow everyone who follows me!
This is a Blog Hop!

Pin It