Dealing cards the Arabella way

5 of my Favorite Pinterest Pinners

Probably the main reason that this blog is so neglected is the huge time suck that is Pinterest.

 Here are a selected 5 pinners that consistently keep me from productivity with gratuitously beautiful pins:

 1. Natalie Bowman - http://pinterest.com/missbeaux

Natalie's color palettes are feminine and gorgeous.

Pin is here

2. Haley Wertz - http://pinterest.com/yelah250/

Haley's interior design pins

I thought I hated ALL purple until I saw these bookshelves - now I'm obsessed with this shade.  Pin is here

3. Chris Norman - http://pinterest.com/stormincndc/

Chris has the most gorgeous special event / holiday boards, hands down. Definitely check out her easter board for inspiration / inferiority inducing ideas.

Yes - I'm already married, no - I'm not planning a wedding. But this cake spoke to me - especially having just seen the Oz movie last week. Pin is here

4. Dawne Pace - http://pinterest.com/dawnep/

I cannot sew, but once I learn (and I'm GOING to learn!) I will be working my way through the awesome patterns and techniques that Dawne pins, and making gorgeous homemade dolls for Arabella like this:

Gorgeous doll - pattern by Gingermelon on Etsy - pin is here

5. Emma Lamb - http://pinterest.com/emmalamb/ 

Emma is a textile artist from the UK - I love her color coded inspiration boards. Here's one from the Tangerine to Russet board:

Orange velvet is one of my most favorite things ever. Pin is here. 

I limited this list of 5 to lifestyle/entertaining pinners, but I plan to keep posting lists of 5 in other categories - Parenting, Organization, Food, Clothes, et cetera.

Are there any pinners you love? Please let me know in comments!

First day of Minimalist Parenting Camp!

"If you understand yourself, you can belong to you." - Arabella (02/28/2013)


I thought this wise-beyond-her-years Arabella quote above is a great lead-in to my latest project:

The Minimalist Parent camp, that is (Thank you so much to local blogger Nichole Beaudry of In These Small Moments for alerting me to this great opportunity!).

From the website:
Through a series of 14 daily tasks, you'll make real progress in the areas many of us find challenging: managing your time, handling clutter (in your home, schedule, and mind), simplifying mealtime, and making room for self-care.

And when you complete your task, you get a badge, just like in Girl Scouts (I was a sucker for Girl Scout badges). 

And it's free - what's not to love?

Today I had my first task - make of list of things I want MORE of and things I want LESS of. The things could be anything: 

1. In the MORE column, list things that enrich your life and the things you'd like more of.Feelings, objects, experiences...anything goes. List even the far-fetched and impossible-seeming stuff. Try not to censor yourself (this list is for your eyes only).
2. In the LESS column, list the things, assumptions and situations you'd like less of. Things that are complicating your life, reliably dragging it down, or are plain un-fun. No guilt or judgment allowed.

Followed by this great advice: Resist the urge to let “shoulds” sneak onto your list. What’s right for others isn’t necessarily right for you or your family. Keep your list somewhere readily accessible so you can refer to it as opportunities and obligations come up. You may begin to notice that your More and Less List helps guide your decision-making.

So I spent a good 20 minutes this morning making my more/less list: 




I want MORE: 

And less:

And here's my sweet badge:

If you'd like to join camp, here's the link: http://www.minimalistparenting.com/mincamp/

What would be on your More/Less list?

Arabella Story - All's well that ends well

             I don't have any extra available focus/concentration 

             to write a decent blog post myself, but I can retype this  

             lovely story Arabella created in preschool today 

              (her preschool in Roseville, CA by the way - just throwing that out there since this is a Roseville mom blog and I'm trying to organically get Google to 

              pick up on that fact):

Once upon a time there was a princess named Cinderella and a princess named Snow White, and a princess named Bambi. 

And dragons were flying and going "pht, pht, pht." 

And then princesses went into a castle. 

And then they saw something big, dark and scary. 

And it was just their pet cat. 

The end. 

The author on her porch - possibly contemplating future creative literary endeavors.

My husband baited me the other night...

..with his reply when I asked him if I could mention the fact that he enjoys watching Bunheads with me on the blog. 

He said:

"Sure - no one reads your blog anyway."  


Burn. 


So now that I have the biggest one day audience I've ever had due to generous tweeter @vjack (from the Atheist Revolution page on Twitter), who picked up the link from my friend Katie's blog at http://athmorality.blogspot.com 

I am putting it out there. 

We also watch Project Runway together.  

And those are two of the biggest reasons I love you honey. 

Valentine's Day kid's picks for Etsy

And now for something completely different from my last post. 

It's a shameless attempt to get the peeps on my most popular Pinterest board (Arabella's Dream Wardrobe) to come check out my blog.

I've made 2 collages of my most favorite Valentine's Day kids clothes and accessories available on Etsy - here's the first one (mostly modern less-traditional colors).

1. Itzi and Bitzi 2. Sparkkids Clothes 3. mfandj 4. TheAfricanLlama 5. SweetandSilly3 6. kakabaka 7. Itzi and Bitzi 8. TheStripedSwallow 9. Giddy Up and Grow 10. 3lp Couture

And the second one (mostly traditional less modern):

1. Sunflower Seed Stitch 2. Giddy Up and Grow 3. pdstudiosstore 4. The Modish Life 5. ArtsyCraftsy 6. shopantsypants 7. Birdy Boots

I used PicMonkey's collage feature which was painless and intuitive to use. Almost immediately after I made these, I saw this tutorial from A Creative Cookie showing how to use Photoshop to make the item collages with a white background like all the cool blogger kids do - next time. 

In case you're wondering, I won't be ordering a Valentine's outfit for Arabella this year due to our budget, and also I'm hoping to get her to wear the cute pink dress that I couldn't get her to wear on Christmas.

This one:

If you know me In Real Life, this dress is a 4t - so please call dibs in the comments if you want this hand-me-down when Arabella outgrows it.