Posts made in December, 2009

Sugar and Spice

Posted by Lindsay on Dec 30, 2009 in Baby Stuff, Featured Articles | 0 comments

I open my inbox this morning and what do I see?  An e-mail from baby GAP with the cutest little girls dressed in the cutest outfits!  I really love having a girl, and now that she’s mobile and turning into a little girl (no longer a squirming little baby), there are so many options for adorable outfits!  I love the eclectic, non-matching, a little wild looks for little girls…especially things with stripes.  If only Harper would grow some more hair now…

(All photos linked to collections!)

I think Harper needs a pair of Wellies…and maybe mommy needs a pair to match. 

Too stinkin’ adorable!

I love baby leggings.  Even in the winter with boots!

And sweater dresses.  Longer shirts are great!

How cute are the stripes with polka dots?  And the little Converse shoes!

Did I mention that I love having a little girl to dress up?

Harper just got a ton of new clothes for Christmas, so she’s good for a long while, but I can’t help but look!  A girl can never have too many clothes, right?

Sorry for the mess…

Posted by Lindsay on Dec 30, 2009 in Blogging | 0 comments

…but I’m messing with the blog a little.  So if you’re reading this and the page looks CRAZY – my apologies.  I get my themes from the selection at Elegant Themes and I love them.  Now if I could only get them to work the way I want…

If you write it…they will come.

Posted by Lindsay on Dec 29, 2009 in Blogging, Crafts, Etsy Finds, Featured Articles, Holidays | 0 comments

Hello.  So…whatcha been up to?  Oh, I’ve been enjoying the holidays…a little too much!  My December stats for the ol’ blog are stinkin’ big time, but can you blame me when this is who I’ve been hanging out with??

And Glenn has also been off for vacation. And while I’m sure most wives would be able to get MORE done on vacation with him off also…I seem to get less done.

I also seem to try to get this room clean, organized and decorated somehow every other day…but it simply collects EVERYTHING and is constantly messy!

We did manage to take the swirly-90′s headboard and footboard off of our bed! I seriously thought it was part of the frame and couldn’t be done…it technically is, so I need to be careful on the corners, but it gives us a fresh new start! And it has also made me realize how much I need some art in there. And we did replace the bright-as-the-sun light bulbs from our side lamps (look for lower lumen output!), which allowed us to take the black handkerchiefs off. Notice the painted chair rail! No ceiling done yet…

Another reason I’ve been neglecting the blog – WORK! Bills gotta be paid…so I get to play with fun things like this; tile, carpet, paint, furniture, lighting. This is a client’s family room project that is in the works – woo hoo! (They chose the tile and carpet, I’m working around it with the rest).

I also have a few weddings in the works – including one this Saturday (January 2nd) that my sister-in-law and I are styling, and I’m getting the ideas together for presenting to another bride soon.  My current obsession series for inspiration; We Like It Wild on Design*Sponge.

And these are only $3.99 a piece over at Save-on-Crafts:

What else am I loving right now? The portfolio of the husband and wife team of Robert and Courtney behind SixxDesign.  Wow…I wish Santa would have brought me their new book!

I also cannot get over this story of Jenny’s (the design blogger behind Little Green Notebook) Christmas Eve at-home (but not planned to be at home!) super quick birth of her baby girl Evelyn – their little Christmas Evie.  Congrats!  I only hope my next one is that quick…as opposed to my 36 hours of hurry-up-and-wait!

So that’s what I’ve been up to for now…while we’re on this break I’m hoping to do a little painting, but Glenn is over in the next room waxing his snowboard and Harper is constantly bringing me her new toys to play with so I don’t see it happening!

I did get a couple of PERFECT Christmas gifts from Glenn and the in-laws that I’d like to share…lucky me!

Glenn got me this tag combo necklace and I bawled my eyes out when he gave it to me! It’s stamped with Harper’s name, birth date (08.07.08), and it has her birth stone (Peridot) on it.  You can get one here from Mama Beth Bling on Etsy.

And Glenn’s parent’s got me my very own CRICUT!!   If you don’t know what a Cricut is, you need to go check it out. It’s an electronic cutter that you buy different cartridges for – you can cut different shapes, letters in different fonts, etc. and you can cut them out of paper, cardstock, vinyl, magnet material, fabric and more.  Great for cards, banners, scrapbooking, signs, etc.  In searching what I can do with it online, there is a wealth of resources out there to give great ideas!

Anyway – my 2010 resolution – blog more!    Thank you for hanging in there with me!  xo, L.

{Giveaway} Merry Christmas from me! …and Rollip.com!

Posted by Lindsay on Dec 20, 2009 in Advertising, Art, Featured Articles, Freebies, Giveaways, graphic design | 2 comments

Oh my…5 days and counting until Santa’s here! I still have a few gifts to find, many to wrap (as soon as Santa aka the UPS man aka my father-in-law delivers them!) and many to give! Giving is the best part, I think! So as a gift to you (and me!) the generous folks over at Rollip.com are offering a select number of my readers a chance at testing out their website – yippee! Well, what is Rollip.com? Glad you asked – it’s a professional online photo editing website that lets you add a filter to your photo in one easy step. They have 40 filters to choose from (do the cropping and such before you upload your photo) that will give your photo an interesting effect.  The various filters include 10 categories with 4 filters in each category; Classics, Vintage (my favorite!), Added Character, B&W/Sepia, Styled Lenses, Glows, B/W Added Character, Extreme Stylized, Bold Tones and Drawing Styles.

Here is what I did with some of my photos…

Yeah, that yellow Kodak date is why you want to do the editing and cropping before you upload to Rollip…   We were on vacation in Costa Rica for this pic.

And of course I played with some of my favorite pics of my baby girl!

Aawww…I love that one.

Anyway, here is the lowdown! Rollip.com is giving the first 15 of you to sign up the chance to test out their website for FREE! What you do is click over to the link below, sign up for an account (really simple – just an e-mail address and password and you can get started), and you get to edit 30 photos because they’re giving you 30 credits for free!  That’s a value of $5.98 – at Rollip.com you pay per credit, not per month or per year like some photo editing sites.  I think that’s great because you only need to pay for what you need and you’re not wasting time if you don’t use the service!

Okay, get to clicking because it’s first come, first serve with only 15 Pro Accounts with credits available!  Enjoy!  And Merry Christmas!  Oh, and if you do take advantage, please let me know what you think here on the blog – we’d love to hear your feedback for this new site.  Thanks!

Click here to get started!  http://www.rollip.com/pro?coupon=lcdesign

xo, L.

{Note: I was compensated for my time to advertise this service by receiving 1 free account of my own with 30 credits to review Rollip.com}

Velcro, I’m Over You (aka Cloth Diaper Update)

Posted by Lindsay on Dec 14, 2009 in Baby Stuff, eco-friendly, Etsy Finds, Featured Articles | 2 comments

As my little growin’ girl is now 16 months old, I thought I’d share how things are going on the cloth diapering front.  I posted my last update/how-I-do-things guide here in February.  Now that I’ve been using them for over a year now, I’ve learned a few new tricks and tips to keep things running smoothly.  To do a little summarizing from before, here is what I recommend:  Pocket diapers rock. And by ‘pocket diapers,’ I mean PUL (Polyurethane Laminate fabric) diapers that look like a disposable, not those pieces of cloth that you have to pin.  PUL is a waterproof fabric, so you don’t have to put a cover over the diaper.  And they’re called ‘pocket diapers’ because you stuff the cloth diaper shell with absorbent liners, usually made with microfiber, terrycloth, or bamboo fleece.  You stuff them to customize absorbency (I stuff them with 2 liners, 1 big and one small), and also to cut drying time after washing.  This is a pocket diaper (by BumGenius).  I have many of these, but in a few different brands including BumGenius.

These have been so great so far.  Easy to use, great quality and my little monkey looks so adorable in them!  You can see one in action in this video, to refresh your memory. 

She is rocking a diaper that I purchased from Monkey Snuggles on Etsy.  A little cheaper than BumGenius, and the quality is just as great!  Plus they have sales and deals, and for every $10 you spend you get a ‘Monkey Buck’ towards your next purchase!

I have 12 cloth diapers (that I use regularly), but I always feel like I could use more.  I am slowly adding to the collection, and after my last purchase, I have realized that I will no longer buy cloth diapers with Velcro – I am a snaps girl now!  For two main reasons: 1) the Velcro simply wears out.  It is still working, but a lot of random fuzz gets stuck in it, and the edges start to curl.  Plus sometimes you pull a diaper out of the dryer and you get a train of about 5 of them that you have to un-stick.  And the second reason is (#2) that as she gets older, she learns how to un-stick the Velcro and can take her diaper off!  Little stinker.  That is, if she’s not wearing pants.  If she’s wearing pants, it’s fine, but she can get out of that diaper quicker than you can say ‘pee-puddle-on-the-floor!’

And so that is why I recently bought this little number (below) for my little ninja-baby and so far I love it!  It comes with 1 bamboo insert, but I stuff it with another one as my girl seems to be a heavy wetter.  You might be able to see on the tag that it is “One Size.”  Almost all of my diapers are ‘one-size’ which means that you can snap them to be smaller or let them out all the way depending on how big your baby is.  This way it will grow with your little one!  Or you can buy them in different sizes, depending on their weight.  I’ve bought a few specific sizes, but it was mostly depending on a sale or special price.

That’s why, when I bought the little ninja diaper (above) I also snagged this little purple number (below) because it was on sale.  Apparently the diaper ‘wings’ are thinner than normal, so they offered them at a lower price and it doesn’t affect the quality in any way so score one for me!  And Harper, of course!

I actually like the trimmer fit, so it doesn’t rub on her little leggies.    So anyway, that is my new revelation about cloth diapering.  I have also tried using cloth wipes (when I ran out of disposable ones) and they work great!  I just haven’t invested in enough yet and when I buy wipes, I buy them in BULK and they last for MONTHS!

Also, I want to note that I have been using disposable diapers exclusively for overnight, as she always wets through her cloth one and having a cloth one on that long is how we’ve gotten a couple of nasty diaper rashes.  So I stick with those overnight.  It just makes it easier and I really try to stick with only using 1 per day (overnight).

**This is what I get asked about the most:  How do you wash them? To wash my cloth diapers I simply throw them in the washer on hot and dry them on medium.  Nothing special.  You don’t even have to ‘un-stuff’ them first.  They’re supposed to come out in the wash; sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, but I’ve found that they’re always clean and don’t get stained.  I use my regular detergent (powder), and I dry them without fabric softener.  Sometimes I use a fabric sheet if they need a little ‘refreshing’ but otherwise I don’t.

Isn’t she cute?  Harper at 11 months rockin’ her Monkey Snuggles One-Size diaper. 

I always dump the poo into the toilet, and it’s nice now that she’s eating solid foods it all just comes right out.  If for some reason the poop is sticky or absorbed into the diaper, I scrape as much as I can into the toilet and then use my washing machine’s ‘Soak’ setting before I wash them like normal.  Easy peasy.

Any questions? Feel free to send them on my way – I love talking about how easy cloth diapering has been for my little monkey.  Do you know of any other favorite Etsy cloth diaper shops?  Let me know!  But I really love my Monkey Snuggles…