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!

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.

Another MishMash Post

1. OK, hopefully the large cute picture of Arabella made you stop and look!  There's no Arabella in this post specifically, but I thought I would use her to reel you in to read this. 


Anyway, the inspirational blogging topic and composition fairy did not visit today, here's another mishmash post of things I found interesting today.


Found this page on Stumbleupon that has THE strategy for solving a Rubik's cube. Now I need to figure out where I can get my hands on one because I want to try this. (This will be much more emotionally satisfying than my previous method of removing the stickers and replacing them)  Does anyone know if toy stores or Target still sells Rubiks Cubes?


http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2NoQOR/:1wP24fii-:TePgo@c_/www.chessandpoker.com/rubiks-cube-solution.html/




2. Something else I have been working on (you know, besides the actual work that pays the mortgage) is Zulily's Pinterest Kid's Fall Essentials Challenge - they are giving away a $100 credit for the winning board.  If you have kids of your own or any kids that you ever shop for in any capacity you should join Zulily (zulily.com) - it's a flash sale site for kids' clothes and toys (plus often has clothes and accessories for home and moms).  If you want to set up your own board for the contest, the link to the rules is http://www.zulily.com/pinables-campaign . If you just want to ooh and ahh over the board I made for Arabella to try to win and comment how great you think it is, it's at 


http://pinterest.com/arabellajane/kids-fall-essentials/


If you decide to make your own boards for the contest, please let me know so I can make sure to check them out!


3. I went to the Los Cerritos Neighborhood Association meeting and it was way more interesting and eventful than I expected, although I don't necessarily want to blog about it!  But I am very excited that there is a plan for a community garden once a good site can be found.  Also, I signed up for a block in our neighborhood to distribute newsletters to, so Arabella and I will get to be mail carriers for a day - she is already super excited about it.  


4.  



Reminder for anyone that lives in Roseville (or just wants to drive out for this) - the next Movie in the Park is "Bee Movie" on Saturday August 11th at:


Fred Festersen Park
2150 Village Green Drive
Roseville, CA 95747


RCONA, the Roseville Coalition of Neighborhoods sponsors these movies in the park that run every other week in the summer time - go to www.rcona.org for a full schedule.


We are super excited about this one since they flashed the posters for the upcoming movies at the first movie 2 months ago - Arabella saw the Bee Movie one and got completely stuck on it.  Every day, she told us she wanted to see the Bee Movie, and when we went to see Brave she told us she wanted to see The Bee Movie so now that it is finally upon us, I hope that it lives up to her expectations.  (I still have never seen Bee Movie either even though it's over 10 years old) 

Hope we see you there!