The Found and Fabulous Mobile Boutique Truck

Not that I needed something else to add to my list of strangely fun and offbeat ventures, but two and a half months ago I decided to buy an old laundry truck and transform it into a mobile boutique. Owning a mobile boutique has been a little pipe dream for me since I first encountered the concept on a trip to Seattle in 2012. Since I apparently have some weird innate ability to find the most random projects ever and focus on them until they become a reality, building out a mobile boutique was right in my wheelhouse.

I decided to merchandise LuLaRoe brand clothing because it is super fun and unique, but mostly because I didn’t want to have to deal with all the other work involved in finding multiple wholesale dealers with products I love. What started as a side project that was purely for my entertainment and a way to get out and meet new people has quickly taken on a life of its own. LuLaRoe is very new to my area and I’ve been enjoying sharing it with people, but I had no idea how popular it would be. I’m attempting to limit my “Pop Up” event bookings to two nights a week and one weekend event a month, but there is so much more potential. I’ve got other projects going on that need some attention, so I’m forcing myself to avoid over committing to events.

I am very fortunate to be able to choose what I do with my time and financial gain was never a primary goal of owning a fashion truck. It was about the experience (and hopefully breaking even on the money that I had invested.) I never expected LuLaRoe to be a profitable venture, but it has definitely surprised me. I just sold the equivalent of a month’s take home pay (when I was a public school teacher) in two days. I’m sharing this because while I’m struggling with trying to find a balance between all my other bizarre things I do (like writing another book, organizing a national convention, and being a mom to arguably the most awesome little boy ever.) There are lots of friends out there that are struggling in other ways. It may be a financial struggle or just longing to create and build something that is yours. Just go for it! You never know where it will take you.

Summer Living: Bringing a Little Costal Flair to the MIdwest

I updated our living room for the summer. I found some new beachy throw pillows for the couch (at Target) and I finally got around to using some of the shells we collected in Florida. They weren't very nice to look at when I started. The shells looked like they had a foggy film on them and had lost their luster. It took some fine grin sandpaper to smooth out the surface of the shells and then polished them with a little mineral oil. I "borrowed" some sand from L's sand box and placed it in the bottom of these fun containers I purchased at Michaels for 60% off. I really like how changing out just a few little details in a room can bring about such a transformation.  Now I'm enjoying the warm weather and pretty costal décor from the Midwest. ♡

My KonMari Journey: How One Little Book Helped Change the Way I Looked at My Stuff in a Big Way

Beautifully folded tees make it quick to choose a top.

I've spent countless hours chasing my tail when it comes to organizing my home. Once one area has been "organized", another area needs attention, and then another, and it is soon time to start all over again. It is a vicious cycle full of bins, storage tubs, and pretty patterned boxes. I only need to find the right container or storage system and my home will be put in order and I can finally rest. This was my mindset. This was my mantra.

By tucking items away out of sight, things may seem clutter free and in order for a bit, but clutter has a way of escaping those pretty patterned boxes and perfectly sized baskets. Soon, I'm face to face with the Clutter Monster and he's gaining ground. He'll take over my home room by room, unless I fight the battle daily. It's disheartening. It's exhausting. It's depressing. My home is no longer a sanctuary. It is a prison. I'm being controlled by my possessions and I am tired of fighting a loosing battle.

I'm not sure how I stumbled on the KonMari method. I suppose it came across my news feed from one of the many organizing groups to which I subscribe. The name intrigued me. It seemed foreign and magical. Upon further searching, I discovered the KonMari method was created by a petite Japanese woman by the name of Marie Kondo and in fact, her best selling book is titled, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing ." In a matter of moments, I had placed the book in my online shopping cart and it was soon in my hands. Though small in size (5.2 inches by 7.3 inches) and length (a little over 200 pages), Kondo's book is big on Joy. In fact, the heart of the KonMari method is to declutter and discard all items in your home that do not "spark joy."

To determine if your items meet this joy sparking criteria, you must sort through each category of items in your home in a specific order. Every item must be held in your hands and you must ask yourself, "Does this item bring me joy?" If it brings a smile to your heart and you feel warm fuzzies inside, then the item makes the cut. If not, then the item is promptly thanked for its service and discarded. Kondo believes that every item holds energy and by thanking an item for the role it has played in your life, you are releasing that energy to reenter your life in another form at another time.
As Kondo suggests, I began my KonMari journey by tackling my clothing. I soon found that while the KonMari method is simple, it is not easy.

My closet is now neat and orderly. I can find things at a glance and I no longer feel overwhelmed when choosing an outfit. 

Clearing out items has always been a struggle for me. If I thought I may need something someday, or if something was still good , I believed it was worth keeping. Since I started clearing things out using the KonMari method, I feel so much lighter and I've noticed the more items I sort and properly store, the more time I seem to get back in my day. Once items in a category pass the "Joy Test," the items are promptly put away. They need no additional attention. Prior to beginning the KonMari process, I was spending time trying to maintain and organize items that didn't really matter. I have completed the clothing category and am now ready to move on to the next category, books. The tail chasing has ceased, at least as far as my wardrobe is concerned, and I couldn't be happier with my progress.

Eleven bags of items were thanked for their service and discarded. The nicest items were pulled out for consignment and/or sale and the others were donated to charity .

Playdate: Little Leprechauns St. Patrick's Day Playdate

 I have so many things to post about, but finding twenty minutes to blog has been a struggle. We've had a full schedule in March and April and I hope to give you a glimpse of some of the fun.

Typically, when spring rolls around, I tend to focus on all things Easter in my decorating, playdates, and parties. My home is usually filled with bunnies, chicks and pastels and I love it. This year, however, I decided to mix things up and go green for St. Patrick's Day. I hosted a Little Leprechauns playdate at our home.

 It was a morning playdate, so I went light on the snacks and purchased Shamrock Cookies from a locally owner bakery, Heitzman Bakery. I typically go with Loft House Cookies, but the selection at our local Kroger was pretty slim and these were still yummy and festive.

When planning a Playdate, I like to develop activity stations that are not only age appropriate, but high interest for the little ones. Plus, if the kiddos are happy, then the mommas get chat and hang out, and let's be real... that is at least 50% of why we go to Playdates! This station I called "Create a Sticker Scene." Preschoolers and toddles LOVE stickers so this station was a favorite.

I pulled out some green cardstock that I had in our home office and placed it on our kitchen table. I had picked up some fun St. Patrick's Day themed puffy stickers at the Dollar Tree and I tossed them in a basket along with some crayons. I've found that puffy stickers work best because little hands can easily peel them off the backing.

 

The second station, was a simple "Play-Doh Play Station." To make it fit into the holiday theme, I used green Play-Doh and kneaded nontoxic gold glitter into it to make it sparkle. In the past I've made my own Play-Doh and there are some great recipes out there, but a few months ago, I discovered that Wal-Mart stores sell Play-Doh for fifty cents a can. You can grab a variety of colors, or in my case, load up on 10 cans of green. Not only did it only cost me $5, it also saved me time and cream of tartar (seriously, the homemade Play-Doh recipes always clean me out of cream of tartar!)

 

The final station was a fun "Photo Booth Station." This was my favorite. To create your own at-home photo booth, all you need is a couple of yards of fabric, something to hang it on, fun themed props, and a digital camera. I use a portable double clothes rack that I had in the basement to hang the fabric and then use duct tape to tape the fabric to the bar.  You could always tape your fabric straight to the wall, but I'm afraid of it pulling the paint off during the removal process and I don't want to have to touch up my walls. The fabric that I used for this photo booth was originally used for my son's Mickey Mouse themed birthday party a few years ago and it was perfect.

 

All of the photo props came from the Dollar Tree and I borrowed the green tub from our front bathroom. It usually stores my son's bath toys.

To tie in the St. Patrick's Day theme in the entry way, I pinned some fun sparkly shamrocks to our repurposed shutters that act as a seasonal display for photos, cards, or L's artwork.

We had a great time and ended up with some super cute photos of everyone from the photo booth that we shared via email and Facebook with the group.

The Clutter Monster: Your Email Inbox

Clutter can come in both physical and digital forms (thanks to overflowing email inboxes!) It can be overwhelming and challenging to sift through all the special offers, newsletters, and junk mail to discover the few messages that actually deserve your time. To help remedy this problem, I've made my email inbox my top weekend organizing priority and hope to purge the digital clutter monster.

If you are interested in putting the digital clutter monster in his place, it is important to understand the nature of the beast. Email correspondences typically have one of two purposes: to SELL you something or TELL you something.

Merchants spend big bucks trying to convince consumers they will somehow benefit by owning their product. If you frequently purchase items from a particular merchant and genuinely enjoy seeing new items offered and promotions, keep them on your radar by allowing them to continue to send you emails. However, if you subscribed to a merchant's email list to receive a one time coupon, or just forgot to uncheck the "please send me daily emails" box when joining a group or website, you should unsubscribe.

By subscribing to a merchant's email list, you are essentially inviting them into your home and offering them your precious time on a daily basis. You probably wouldn't invite physical strangers into your house to peddle their wares, so why let cyber merchants be any different?

Messages from friends, family members and co-workers usually include bits of information tailored to social or work related meetings, events, projects, and news. Things start to get tricky when friends, family, and co-workers use email as a platform for sending .gifs, chain letters and other nonessential information. All the dancing cats and internet memes add up and before you know it, you've found yourself off task and out of time to get to the messages that actually require your attention and merit responses. Not to say that quotes and videos of skateboarding dogs don't have a place in cyberspace; they are just better suited to Facebook, Instragram, Twitter, and Pinterest. If a friend, family member, or co-worker is a repeat junk mail offender, point them to a social media website and tell them to share those types of items with you there.

Companies and special interest groups love to keep you informed via email of their newest projects and accomplishments along with stories and information related to their fields. This is great if you are genuinely interested and engaged in a majority of their content, but if you find yourself deleting their messages without even opening them, you should probably go ahead and unsubscribe. If you find yourself with a renewed interest in kayaking, or baby sleep tips in the future, you can always subscribe again.

Join me in simplifying your inbox in the new year!

May the 4th (Birthday) Be With You!

It is no secret that we are all big Star Wars fans, so when our little guy turned four, what better way to celebrate than with a May the 4th (Birthday) Be With You Party! Matt collects Star Wars items, so he was pretty excited to bring some of his items out of storage to provide party décor. He may or may not have asked about keeping them permanently displayed in our living room. He may or may not have been promptly shut down. 😆

May the 4th (Birthday) Be With You Partyscape

Our mantle got a temporary makeover with Star Wars paper pennants, and buckets of  themed photo booth props.

Lots of lightsabers, meant a few impromptu battles. 

Masks, old Halloween costumes and some quick quotes glued to wooden dowels made quick and easy photo props.

Gingerbread Men turned Wookie Cookies with the help of a fork, some black icing, and a few silver cake decorating bits.

Lemonade is always an easy drink choice along with bottled water for the kiddos.

I went super simple with the cake and just added some  sugar stars I cut out of fondant, some paper cutouts hot glued to toothpicks, a glittery silver number 4,  and a couple of simple Star Wars toys.

This was my husband's favorite part of the party décor. I removed everything from our living room built in and temporarily replaced them with everything Star Wars.

We ended up with some great pictures of our friends in front of our makeshift photo booth. I took a cheap rolling clothing rack that I had in the garage and taped blue tool over the top. Then, I hung clear Christmas lights in the back so they shined through. Instant twinkling stars backdrop!

Great minds think alike! They looks so cute in their matching shirts.

This metal Star Wars sign was one of only a handful of things that I actually didn't source from our garage. Of course, it made its way into Matt's collection afterward.

Our friends were all such great sports with dressing up and getting into character.

Getting some use out of some character mugs and vintage trading cards.

We kept the food pretty light with fruit, cheese and crackers, Chick-Fil-A nuggets (as requested by the birthday boy) and cake!

Everyone went home with a silver little treat bag full of Star Wars themed goodies.

Holiday Inspiration: Top 5 Christmas Packages

It is no secret that I don't like wrapping gifts. Each year, I wait until a few days before Christmas and then hold a marathon wrapping session. It is in no way enjoyable. By the end of my wrapping session, my back hurts from hunching over packages on the floor and chances are I've endured no less than three paper cuts.

This year, in an attempt to convince myself to get an earlier start to wrapping our Christmas gifts, I've compiled a list of my Top 5 beautiful wrapping examples:

1. I love that these packages use things that I already have around the house: mailing paper, baker's twine, and Christmas stamps. These would be so cute piled into a bag to take to a family Christmas party!

lmnop wrapping: http://www.lmnop.com.au/2010/12/parcel-pressies/



2. This monochromatic sheet music wrapping paper tied with black and white ribbon and topped with jingle bells is terrific. You could purchase a roll similar to this on Amazon, or if you had some unused sheet music stashed away somewhere, this would be a great way to repurpose it.


Just Imagine: http://justimagine-ddoc.com/crafts/gift-wrapping-ideas/?pid=4988

 



3.  I'm always trying to find fun little crafts to do around the holidays with my son. I like this idea because the end product can actually be used and enjoyed instead of winding up in a drawer somewhere.


Splash of Something: http://splashofsomething.com/2013/12/09/wrapping-week-2013-holly-jolly-reindeer-prints/
 

4. This would be perfect for someone who enjoys traveling.



http://limedoodledesign.com/2013/10/adventure-awaits/

5. Here's another simple option, but you could easily add some more color with store bought paper. Adding a lollipop or candy cane to the package is such a cute idea and adds an extra "gift" to the package.

 

Good Housekeeping

My packages will undoubtedly be wrapped in store bought paper and I may get "fancy" by adding some grosgrain ribbon and some little extras. Maybe next year I can turn it up a notch and compete with these lovely examples. Happy wrapping!



Our Favorite Peeps Easter Party!

I'm always looking for an excuse to host a party and if our friends and their kiddos can be included, even better! I scheduled Our Favorite Peeps Eater Party on the Saturday before the holiday. Pretty pastels, gingham, and all things bunnies and chicks provided the inspiration for this party.

A pretty pastel partyscape decorated with all things Easter.

Cute little favors created with some fun printables, plastic snack bags, and Peeps.

There was no shortage of sweet treats at this party! I found these bunny and chick sippy cups at Target and our littlest guests each took theirs home with them at the end of the party.

A bowl of chocolate miniatures went perfectly with the color scheme.

Cupcakes and candy and marshmallow sticks and jellybean filled carrots!

Each little guest went home with an Easter basket filled with treats.

It wouldn't be an Easter Party without an Egg Hunt!

We put out an assortment of sprinkles so the little ones could decorate their own cupcakes.

Stickers and crafts gave the kids something to keep their hands busy while the adults chatted.

Until next time, Cheers!