Event

Spring into the Dream | Pinterest Contest

0 · May 14, 2012 · 52 Comments

Ever since I was a little girl I have LOVED spring. I remember walking around my neighborhood in the rain with my brand new umbrella taking in all of the sights and smells. The flowers blooming, the earthworms crawling out of their grassy slumber to enjoy the rain. I loved the cleaning away of the crust of winter. Even as a child I could tell it was a fresh start, an awakening. It was time to open up and embrace life again.

Now as a grown woman, I embrace this great time of year to freshen up my life and my home. I love how you can add a new pop of color to your home to create a whole new fresh look, just like the spring flowers do for the world. For the next two weeks I have teamed up with the fabulous folks over at Homes.com for a fun Spring into the Dream Pinterest Contest. You can join me as well!

I have created a fun Pinterest Board with all kinds of fun ideas of how to add a little spring into your step when it comes to your home.

I have fun, out of the box storage and organization ideas…

Fabulous Lighting ideas that will brighten up any home…

Creative and inexpensive was to dress up your floor…

Simple and fun ideas for how to freshen up the look of your entry way.

I will be updating my board for the next two weeks {May 14-25} with all kinds of fun ideas of ways to dust off that layer of winter and Spring into the Dream within your home. I have fun ideas that will be coming up for your living rooms, kitchens, laundry/mudrooms, bathrooms, bedrooms, kids rooms and your yard.

I would LOVE for you to join me and create your own Spring into the Dream pin board as well on Pinterest. All you have to do is…

1. Create a “Homes.com Spring into the Dream” pinboard on Pinterest. {if you need an invite to join Pinterest send me an email and I will send over an invite.}

a. Two repins from Homes.com’s “Spring into the Dream” board
b. Two pins from articles on Homes.com blog
c. And any other pins you’d like to include related to the “Spring into the Dream” theme

2. Follow Homes.com on Pinterest

3. Leave a comment with the link to your pinboard on this post.

If my pin board is selected as the winner of the contest, Homes.com will give a $500 gift card to one of you who create a Spring into the Dream pinboad as well. So, head on over to Pinterest and create your board and then come back and leave a comment with a link to your board and you will be entered to WIN!!!

Homes.com is not only here to help you attain the American Dream, we’re also here to inspire you to
dream big! In spring, or anytime of the year!

Happy Pinning EVERYONE!!

Pinboards will be judged by their internal judging panel based on: Creativity, Positive representation of brand message, Composition, and Style expertise of board submitted. Contest runs May 14, 2012 through 11:59 p.m. (ET) on May 25, 2012. All rules must be followed in order to be eligible to win.

disclosure: I did not receive any compensation or free products for this post.

Mirror Memo Board | Teacher Appreciation Week

2 · May 2, 2012 · 4 Comments

Can you believe the traditional school year is coming close to the end. You know what that means… It's time for Teacher Appreciation week!!

The other day I was hosting a get together at my house and for hours I was busy playing hostess. When everyone headed home I finally had a chance to take a look at myself in the mirror and almost SCREAMED! My hair had gone totally NUTS! I yelled at my husband and asked how long my hair had looked like that… to my chagrin he lovingly said, "the whole time… I thought you were trying something new." Ahhhhhhh! I was mortified.

Although the experience was not one of my favorites, it got me thinking. I'm sure that teachers have the same problem. They are busy working in front of their class for hours at a time and do not time to run to the bathroom to just double check to make sure they haven't morphed into a bag lady. It would be a perfect teacher appreciation gift to give your teacher a small mirror to add to his or her classroom for those quick little hair and makeup checks throughout the day. Then I thought it would be good if it could serve a dual purpose. That's how I came up with the idea for the mirror memo board. Here's how I made it…

I started with a thrifted mirror that I spray painted white and then distressed a bit.

I found some great washi tape at Target that coordinated with some fun clips that were perfect for dressing up the mirror. I framed the boarder of the mirror with the tape and then with another tape pattern I created another boarder on the frame. It looked great!

With my Silhouette CAMEO I cut "Mrs. Johnson, You make life beautiful!" out of a lovely green vinyl and applied it to the mirror. I used Courier New and Sign Painter as my fonts for the saying. Then I glued the coordinating clips to the bottom of the frame with E600 and that was it. It truly can't get easier than that!!

For good measure I added the cutest apple Post-it Note pad holder to the mix. All I did was again, used my Silhouette CAMEO to cut the same green vinyl to add Mrs. Johnson's name to the apple. A perfect addition to any teachers desk!

Here is another Teacher Appreciation Idea from last year that I just loved…

It's a super cute pencil bouquet that our teachers just loved. You know you can NEVER have too many fun pencils, especially if you have a classroom full of kiddos who are constantly needing new ones.

Snips from Snap! | A Creative Social Media Conference #SNAPconf

0 · Apr 25, 2012 · 22 Comments

I am so excited to share about my week last week while I was at SNAP! A social media conference for those of us in the creative blog world. Let's just say… IT WAS A HUGE SUCCESS!!!!

SNAP! Team

SNAP! is the brain child of Tauni the PR executive turned social media guru. Tauni saw a need to create a place for those of us who speak DIY to gather, connect & learn valuable tecniques for getting our brand and our content out to the masses. I first fell in love with Tauni while at Creative Estates last year. She has such an amazing take on this blogging world and how to turn your hobby into a thriving social media business. I knew from that point that Tauni was a woman to follow, and follow I have. All over the place! 😉

img source | kristen duke photography

Tauni pulled together a dream team of talented bloggers to help her vision of SNAP! to become a reality. Each person on the team had a huge part in making this conference the success that it was. Starting from the branding, or creating the look of the event by Lara {Miss Ellie G} from Less Cake More Frosting, to finding a venue, searching for sponsors, class development, marketing, event planning, logistics… you name it they all had a huge roll in making this happen. A little known fact about me… Before I started WhipperBerry, I was a conference and event planner for a company here in Las Vegas for five years. I KNOW how much time, energy & money goes into an event of this sort. In my opinion SNAP! was top notch!!

SNAP! Connections

For me the biggest part of a blogging conference are the connections you make while you are there. Connections with fellow bloggers and connections with brands who you would like to work with in the future.

Last year, when I attended my very first social media conference I was alone in this blogging world. I hadn't had the opportunity to meet any one else who lived to create and share like I did. When I walked into Creative Estates I was so overwhelmed!! I was in the same room with people who I had followed {stalked} for some time. I nearly passed out when I saw Shelley Smith from House of Smiths out of the corner of my eye. That was the beginning… Through attending a few conferences last year I now have so many GREAT and true friends all over the world!!

SNAP! was a great way to renew old friendship and create new ones {live and in person} with so many fabulous people that I have gotten to know through the blogging world.

Here's some of my Instagram fun with some of the fabulous ladies that I've been crushing on FOREVER…

SNAP! Theme

I LOVED the theme for SNAP! this year…

How beautiful is that! How many times do we get caught up with the constant need to compare and then feel the need to be someone we are not. I know that I struggle with that demon at times. There were so many wonderful classes that addressed this very topic. It started with the opening night dinner when Tauni and Amy from The Idea Room opened the conference with two amazing presentations on how to be yourself. The following night we had a wonderful surprise from Amy Cornwell, a lovely Just be You necklace…

It's a lovely simple reminder that no matter what, you need to be true to yourself. You don't have to worry about being the next Tatertots & Jell-o or Eighteen25… YOU JUST HAVE TO BE YOU!!

Don't worry too much about trends… what ever you love is the trend. You have to be authentic for yourself and for your readers. That is the only way this crazy world we live in is going to work!

img source | amy cornwell

SNAP! Classes

This years class line up was aaaaaamazing. You should go and check out the line up of SNAP! presenters. We had everything from Blogging Basics…

keri Ucreate | cheri I am Momma Hear me Roar | amy Mod Podge Rocks | cindy Skip to my Lou

To SEO {search engine optimization} from Dennis of The Next Corner a SEO genius…

And everything in between. I even had the opportunity to speak with some of my favorite people about creative collaborations…

me | kim Today's Creative Blog | brooke The Crafting Chicks | jamielyn I Heart Naptime

HOW CRAZY IS THAT!!

SNAP! Wrap

All in all, it was a WONDERFUL week. Tauni and her Snapettes put on a wonderful conference and I CANNOT WAIT until next year. This event is hands down my favorite blogging event all year!! I hope I get to see you there next year!

Tomorrow, I am going to show off some of my favorite stuff from SNAP!

Come Learn to Knit with WhipperBerry & Craftsy

0 · Mar 20, 2012 · 1 Comment

When I was a little girl, my Mom patiently tried to teach me how to crochet & knit. The crocheting came rather easily to me as long as I could crochet one looooong chain and didn’t have to figure out how to turn and then build something out of the massive chain. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have a need for a yarn chain that was two miles long… so I quit! The knitting on the other had was a little more challenging, you know… having to use two needles for a young girl who had no hand-eye coordination to speak of was almost impossible.

Fast forward several years… My sweet Mother-in-Law came to visit and taught me how to crochet FOR REAL and I discovered a love of the yarn arts. Knitting on the other hand, as much as I would love to knit… I have to admit that art has been a bit of a challenge for me. It’s a hand-eye coordination thing again, I can’t play video games either.

That is until I discovered Craftsy…

Have you discovered this site yet? It’s amazing! The team at Craftsy has worked really hard to create a site that is not only beautiful, but super user-friendly. I wrote a full craftsy review here.

It delivers top-notch online video classes that are unmatched on any other site that I have seen. They have searched high and low to find instructors that are masters at their crafts and then given them the tools to create the best online learning environment out there. Here’s an example…

If you are taking a class on how to quilt and half way through the video a question pops into your head. You can pause the video at that point and type your question right there in the user interface and the INSTRUCTOR will answer your question as soon as they see it!! How cool is that?

So here’s my thought… I want to learn how to knit. I want to be cool like Julia Roberts and all those other cool knitting people or if you just want to gift someone a handmade gift. I am going to sign-up for…the Knit Lab at Craftsy and I would LOVE it if you guys {all of you who don’t know how to knit, or would like to brush-up on your skills} to join me!! Won’t that be fun?

The sweet folks at Craftsy have given all of you guys a 25% discount on the price of the class. It’s only $29.99 for all my sweet WhipperBerry friends! Head over to Craftsy and check out The Knitting Lab and see all that it has to offer. You can even watch sample videos to see if this is something that you would like to do.

So, come learn to knit with me! If you decide to accept this challenge, leave a comment in the comments section and then let’s get started! I will check in with a post next week to show how far I have gotten and then maybe we can set-up a link party for everyone to show off what they’ve made in a few weeks.

So who’s in? I can’t wait to give this a go!!