How to Add "Follow Me On Pinterest" Button to Blogger

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you know I am a bit obsessed fond of Pinterest. It might just be the coolest thing since sliced bread.

I lovingly wrote about how much I love Pinterest here.

Do you see that little icon over in my sidebar, below the "Follow Me on Facebook" section? It looks like this:

Today I am going to show you how to add one to your blogger blog. I am sure the process is similar for Wordpress and other platforms.

First, log into your Pinterest account. Click on the "About" tab in the upper right corner.

Click on the "Goodies" tab on the left side of your screen. {The goodies tab is also the place to grab your "Pin It" button to add to your bookmark bar.}

You will scroll down until you see a heading that says: "Follow Button" for Websites. It looks like this:

You can click on any of the four pictures and then html code will appear next to it for you to copy and paste. I chose the top icon. 

Now you are going to need to log into your blogger account. Go to your blog homepage. Click on the "layout" tab. {I have upgraded to the new blogger interface. The steps are still the same even if you are using the old interface, but the following screen shots will look a little different.}

After clicking on the layout tab, click on "Add a gadget".

When the pop up box opens, scroll down until you see "HTML/JavaScript". Click on the "+" button.

Another pop up box will open. This is the place where you will paste that code you found on pinterest:

Copy and paste the code in the large box that says "content". You can add a title that will show up on your side bar as well. I just left mine blank. Click "save" and you are done!

{Note: You can move around any gadget you add in the layout screen of blogger. After it is saved, just click on it and drag it to where you want it to be.}

See how easy that was? Now we can all share our love of Pinterest with others. And if you want to follow me on Pinterest, you know where to find me. 

Fall Wreath {Redone}

I FINALLY pulled out the fall decorations. Yesterday was the first day of fall, after all.

My old fall wreath was in desperate need of a re-do. 

See those the faded colors? That is not bad picture taking, that is just how it looked. I made this wreath probably 10 years ago. It has held up well, but it was time for something new!

I started by ripping all the old flowers and decorations off the wreath form.

Kitties love to help with crafts!

I then made a bow out of some sparkly pumpkin ribbon I had. I hot glued it right to the wreath.

Then, I just started playing around with some floral elements I had. I bought some new pumpkins and ghourds from Dollar Tree, but everything else I had on hand in my craft supplies. Once I had everything laid out how I wanted, I hot glued it all down.

Now to get out the rest of the decorations! 

A question for you all: If you have small children who are into EVERYTHING, where do you put most of your holiday decorations? I don't have a mantel, and my littlest one now thinks it is super fun to climb on the kitchen table. I am struggling with where to put stuff so it won't get into prying little toddler hands.

Linked up here:

One Artsy Mama: Falling for Crafts Challenge, Homemaker on a Dime: Creative Bloggers Party Hop, The Girl Creative: Just Something I Whipped Up, Tip Junkie: Tip Me Tuesday, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Sugar Bee Crafts: Take a Look Tuesday, Not JUST a Housewife: Show Me What Ya Got, Clean & Scentsible: The Creative Spark, Delightful Order: Delightfully Inspiring Thursday, Tatertots and Jello: Weekend Wrap Up Party, The Shabby Nest: Frugal Friday

I Won! {The Versatile Blogger Award}

I just received "The Versatile Blogger" award from That's What {Che} Said. I am very excited to receive this award. It is an award given by bloggers to other bloggers. 

There are some rules with accepting this award!

Rule #1.  Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.

I am so grateful to have received this from Cheryl at That's What {Che} Said. I think if she and I met in real life we would be fast friends. She even has two kids that are the same ages as my kids. When I read her blog it is like reading a page from my own book. She is funny and smart and a little sarcastic at times, just like me! Oh, and does the cutest crafts! You should definitely head on over and check out her blog. Thank you, again, Cheryl!

Rule #2:  Share 7 Things about yourself

1. I think I use the word "super" too much. For example, I am "super" excited or I heard something "super" funny. And I use WAY too many exclamation points when I write. I guess I am just highly excitable.
2. I am a little OCD and a hyper-organizer. I am extremely good at organizing other people's things, but my own stuff I struggle with. I guess I am a bit of a pack rat at heart and can't seem to part with my own stuff. 
3. I have been crafting since I was a little girl. I used to watch the old craft shows on TV. {Anyone watch the Home Show with Carol Duvall in the late 80's? I think I was only 9 or 10 when the show came out.} I would watch the quiliting shows and I then I would make small quilts for my Barbies from the patterns they demonstrated.
4. I am a total sap for a good romantic comedy.
5. My absolute favorite food is Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby - a little salty, a little sweet, plus ice cream. It is the perfect snack.
6. I have been slowly working on turning my brown thumb into a green one. I think I am finally getting the hang of not killing every living plant I touch!
7. I love to play board games.

Rule #3:  Pass the award on to 15 blogs that were recently discovered! {And contact them to let them know}

1. Blissfully Ever After
2. Echoes of Laughter
3. Just Pleased as Punch
4. Lil Pink Pocket
5. My Greenbrae Cottage
6. My Swanky Crafts
7. On Sutton Place
8. One Artsy Mama
9. Stamps and Stitches
10. Sunny Simple Life
11. The Arena Update
12. Choose to Thrive
13. The Happy Scraps
14. Little Lovelies
15. Clean & Scentsible

You should definitely check out the above blogs. I have been super so inspired by each and every one! :)

Task Management Tuesday: Week 8

Source: thegirlcreative.com via Laura on Pinterest

This is my final week of this series. I have taken some baby steps to create more order in my life. Here is an overview of the 8 weeks and how it went.

Week 1: Purpose of Task Management Tuesday - to create some calm in my life by getting some routines set up and some order BACK into my life.

Week 2: The top 10 things I do on a daily basis to keep my household (and life) running smoothly.

Week 3: Morning and evening routines as well as my weekly and monthly list of "to dos". I also showed what my kid's schedule looks like.

Week 4: Printables from my home management binder

Week 5: More printables from my home management binder. This time, a little more pretty. Pretty makes me happy, which equals more getting things done. {I am a girl after all!}

Week 6: Kitchen organization tips

Week 7: Regrouping because I still felt like I was floundering around a little with my time management skills.

So now we are here at week 8. My house is definitely more organized and cleaner. I still have those days where I can't seem to pull it together and my house looks like a bomb went off, but they are fewer and far between.

This last week I really tried to focus on my time management. I am doing much better. I am trying to stick to my schedule and my kid's schedules. This does not mean that things do not come up, but I am feeling more focused.

I got a new planner {gotta love back to school sales} that I have divided up in 8 sections for each day. This gives me just one main thing to focus on in each area. This is not to say I don't do other things throughout the day in each category, but if I can check off the big ones, then I feel like the day is a success.

In no particular order the categories are:

• Appointment
• Exercise
• Household
• Blog
• Computer work (I help out my dad with this)
• Kids
• Dinner/meal plan
• Extra - anything that doesn't fit into the above categories

Overall this series has helped me regain focus and order, which is exactly what I needed. Thank you for taking this little journey with me! 

Source: optimisticminds.tumblr.com via Laura on Pinterest

Gallery Wall

I am so excited to finally be able to share my gallery wall with you.

This space is in our entryway when you first enter our home through the front door. We have had a poster sized picture hanging in this space since we moved in five years ago. It was a floral print I framed in college and doesn't really match the decor of our home. 

I have had this box full of empty frames sitting in my craft space forever and wanted to get them up on the wall. I promised myself I would use as many frames as I could and any that were left would get donated.

Also, I wanted another space to hang pictures and art work that were meaningful to our family. And I think it is a great way to welcome people into our home.

I started the process by creating a gallery wall inspiration board on Pinterest. You can check it out here.

I wanted to incorporate meaningful pictures and pieces of art. I also wanted to incorporate colors from these awesome throw pillows I got from Target that are on our couch. {The entryway is right off of our living room.}

Target

The color of the flowers look correct, but the actual pillow is more of the color you see here:

Sherwin Williams SW7608 Adrift

Then I found this really great vinyl from the Dollar Tree.

I knew it would be perfect to use to make a wooden sign for this space. You can read about how I made the sign here.

Wooden Welcome Sign

I created an important dates sign with significant dates to our family. The background color is the color of our pillows. I spray painted the frame Satin Nickel by Krylon. Before it was a gold color that doesn't go with anything in my home.

The last piece of art I created for the space was a hand painted monogram. 

I may eventually add some smaller 'S' letters to the space, but I was trying to do this project from materials I had on hand and not buy anything new other than the photos I had printed.

To arrange the photos, I traced each frame onto newspaper. I labeled each paper with a number and put a small piece of masking tape on each frame with the coordinating number. Since I had a few similar size frames this helped me stay organized.

I then taped them to the wall until I had a layout I liked. It changed a little as I actually hung everything up, but for the most part I had my layout just how I wanted. It really helped to have an idea of where things would go so I didn't end up with a ton of extra nail holes in the wall.

I used this tip I had seen on The Scrap Shoppe blog to hang the pictures:

The Scrap Shoppe

The top half of the wall: I used a picture of a rose from our garden. The two 5 x 7 pictures are of my husband and I as toddlers. On the left is a collage print I made of pictures of my mom and on the right is a collage of pictures of my husband's father. 

My husband's father passed away last year and I made this collage print for the funeral. I have been wanting a place to hang it and this was the perfect spot. It inspired me to create a collage print of pictures of my mom. She passed away when I was 8 years old from breast cancer. I realized I didn't really have very many pictures up of her in my home and I felt like this was an appropriate spot alongside my father-in-law's photos.

The butterfly hanging above the monogram was from our wedding. We were married outside underneath an arbor. We had these butterflies hanging above our heads as we were married. My mom loved butterflies and I think I have always been drawn to them because of her. This is also why I included butterflies in the background of my important dates sign.

The bottom half of the wall has our engagement picture, a photo from my brother's wedding and some special pictures from the current year. 

This beauty was a clay plaque I made in first or second grade and hung on to all this time. I thought it actually fit nicely into the space.

I love how it all came together. There is still some space to add some small details. I wouldn't mind finding a small antique clock and a few more 'S' letters to fit in. 

When I had been planning this wall, originally I was going to paint all the frames to match, but I thought I would just get everything hung up for now. But, I think I am going to leave the mismatched frames. I think it matches our household's quirky personality and brings some extra character to the wall.

What do you think?

Linked up here:

Not JUST a Housewife: Show Me What Ya Got

Sugar Bee Crafts: Take-a-Look Tuesday

Clean and Scentsible: The Creative Spark

Idea Room: Linky Party 2

The Shabby Nest: Frugal Friday

Just a Girl: Show and Share

Tatertots and Jello: Weekend Wrap Up Party

Batman Party Invitation

My oldest is turning 5 next month! I can hardly believe it. I remember bringing him home from the hospital. Where did the time go?

He has decided he wants a Lego Batman themed birthday party. Yesterday I made up his party invitations using My Memories Suite Software. And here is what I came up with:

The three extra characters in the upper left, bottom left and upper right corners are my son's favorites from the game {two face, man bat, and killer moth, in case you were wondering}. 

Funny story: 

I originally made the invitation with the Batman character you see on middle left side. I thought it looked pretty good. So, I asked my son if he liked it. {It is, after all, HIS birthday!} He said, "No." So I asked him what should be different. He told me he just wanted Man Bat on the invitation. Knowing that not everyone {or perhaps anyone} would know who Man Bat is, I told him no one would know what kind of birthday he was having if we only put Man Bat on the invitation.

So, we went on the official Lego Batman kid's website and he showed me his three favorite guys. I found pictures of all them on Google Images and started playing around with my software to figure out how I could make the invitation look right. My son kept coming over to me and asking "How's it going, Mom? Are you getting it all figured out?" It was really cute he was so concerned with my progress. And when it was all said and done, we had a winner!

I am either going to have them printed at Walgreen's as postcards or I may just have them printed out as regular photos and stick them in an envelope. I need to compare costs between postage and all that good stuff.  I am hoping to get them in the mail in the next week or so.

I have been collecting ideas for this party on Pinterest. {I know. You are completely shocked, right?} If you click the link below you can see all the ideas I have found! One more reason I love Pinterest - I have everything in one convenient place!

Lego Batman Party Ideas via Pinterest

I will keep you posted on how the rest of the party planning is going. 

What fun ideas have you done for a themed birthday party?

Linked up here:
Tatertots and Jello: Weekend Wrap Up Party
Homemaker on a Dime: Creative Bloggers Party Hop
The Girl Creative: Just Something I Whipped Up
Tip Junkie: Tip Me Tuesday

Make Your Own Hummingbird Feeder Food

I love having my hummingbird feeder outside. It hangs right outside my kitchen window and I get to see all these beautiful hummingbirds while I am doing dishes.

Last summer my hummingbird feeder broke and I had to buy a new one. This new one I got I absolutely love. It is much easier to clean and it holds more liquid. It came with a package of hummingbird food powder that you dissolve in water. It turns the water red and has all kinds of strange stuff in it that I cannot pronounce. I figured this probably was not all that good for the birds. I knew you could make your own "food" from just sugar and water, but I didn't know exactly how to make it. I was super excited to find out it is really easy and inexpensive to make {thanks, Google!}.

What you need:

• Sugar
• Water

{See, I told you - super easy!}

The recipe calls for 1 part sugar to 4 parts water.

{1/2 cup sugar : 2 cups water}

First you will add your sugar and water into a pan.

Heat the mixture on the stove until the sugar dissolves. This usually only takes a couple of minutes. {You can also boil the water first. Then add the sugar to the boiled water and stir until dissolved.}

Allow the mixture to cool and fill up your feeder.

Leftover hummingbird food can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. You want to clean out your hummingbird feeder each time with hot water and a bottle brush. I have read recommendations to not use soap to clean your feeder. During hot weather you may need to clean out your feeder and change your nectar daily, but at least every 3 to 4 days is recommended.

Hang your feeder outside and enjoy the beautiful hummingbirds you attract! (I keep trying to catch a picture of one, but when I open up my back door they hear me and fly away!)

Task Management Tuesday: Week 7

I have a confession to make. I lied. I am not going to be sharing my meal planning techniques with you like I said I would last week. I am not even sure anyone is even reading these Task Management Tuesday posts, so maybe no one will notice.

I originally started writing this series because I felt like I was running in circles in my life. Each thing I was doing was only getting done partially and I never felt like I was doing a really good job at anything. Harsh, but true.

Source: google.com via Laura on Pinterest

I am happy I started writing about my time and household management. Keeping the house cleaner and more liveable, has definitely been a success. Just keeping on top of things and doing a little bit each day has really made a huge difference. But my time management still sucks.

Source: bethbrigham.tumblr.com via Laura on Pinterest

Hi, my name is Laura, and I am addicted to the internet. {This is where you all come together and say "Hi, Laura"}

I facebook, I blog, I Pinterest, I check my bank account, I check three {yes, THREE!} different email accounts, I Etsy, I check Craigslist. It is sort of disturbing the amount of time I spend on these things. Now, I don't typically just sit on the computer the whole day, but if my kids are playing nicely I will come on here to check things out. If my daughter is taking her nap and my son is watching TV, I will be on here. I just really need to set some limits for myself. I am not sure what those will be, but it needs to happen.

I have been terrible about keeping with my schedule and my kid's schedule. We do have a schedule in the most general sense of the word, but I don't feel like I have really been spending quality time with them. And I feel really guilty about that.

I originally started this blog as a personal blog to just keep up with friends and family and help me document my daily life. Then I decided in February I wanted this to be a place where I can share my love of crafting with other people. Now it seems to have merged into a little bit of both, which is okay, but my post ideas are all over the place. So for the next week I am going to work on getting a little more organized.

Source: bitsotruth.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

Part of the organization that needs to take place is writing about my home management binder. I have mentioned it in several of my Task Management Tuesday posts, but I feel like sharing it in bits and pieces is too confusing {mostly for me}. So, I plan on writing one more Task Management Tuesday post next week to let you know how I am managing my time and then I will start a new series of posts dedicated to my home management binder. I feel like I just need to start from the beginning rather than jumping all over the place!

If you stuck with me through this whole post, I certainly do appreciate it! I hope you will keep checking back to see the new ideas I have to share. I am definitely a work in progress.

Source: etsy.com via Laura on Pinterest

Oh, and if you see me on facebook, feel free to tell me to get off the computer! :)