Home Wong Nga and Black Cty: May 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

around the shop

Just another day around the shop.

Thought you might like to peek in...

My mind is still working away from last Saturday and the conversation of monetizing blogs. It's a hot topic and there are a lot of varying opinions out there. For the evening read, here are two posts I really like that I think pose two unique views: Is your Blog the Show or the Commercial and On Privilege and "Selling Out".

At BlogPodium Nicole's keynote talk was perfect - it gave a great insight into the different ways that a blogger can make some money from blogging. What I really loved was that Nicole shared that she too was struggling to find a balance with sponsored posts - asking the audience what they felt the appropriate number of sponsored posts in a month was. After Nicole we had the panel of Canadian contributors (myself included) that offered insight into the Canadian Blogging world and monetization.

Although I think the panel touched on a lot info for the new bloggers (like getting product in kind, what bloggers charge for advertising) I'm not sure the insights from the panel were deep enough well established bloggers who really want to hear how to make a living from their blogging. For that, I've written some thoughts.

Read more »

{ Homemade Summer Camp }

If your like most of my mom friend's you just can't wait for school to end so your children can follow you around the house and beg you for snacks, drive them somewhere, "when does the pool open?", "can I (fill in the blank), "do we have any popsicles?", "I'm bored", etc....

Good times.

So a few years ago moms in the neighborhood invented -

It Takes a Village Summer Camp,

'cause it does.

The kids LOVE it.

We've had great themes, such as -

cooking lessons

water balloon fights

tie dye parties

ice cream socials

arts & crafts parties

water fun parties

You can find tons of suggestions here, here, and here.

We also use

Lots of Helping Hands calendar to keep track of whose having what camp when.

This year I made the printable above and sent it out to all the interested family's.

Feel free to copy it and send it to your friends, 'cause it takes a village people!

linking to

house for rent

STOP PRESS!!

The house featured for sale here, is available to rent from 25th August to 2 September 2012, and during the last two weeks of October.

If you are interested, then email the owner here for further details

How charming are these pictures of a 18th century home, restored and decorated to create a comfortable family home. What I especially love is the way that so many old pieces of furniture and objects are used, effortlessly.

The sort of items I love to buy in my local brocante fairs and flea markets. Living proof that it's not because it is old, it can't find a place in a family home today.

The chair above is just like the pair I found in local market last week, in fact I think I may use this idea of toile de jouy to recover the seat.

I particularly love the pastel colours, the soft sunlight, and the clever use of space in the kitchen. The soft beige stone of the outside of the house is typical of the area in south west France, known as Gironde.

Beside this old armchair, is a delightfully faded painted panel on the wall. Quite possibly original to the house.

The kitchen is just the right size, and I love the butchers block placed beside the range. Those old copper saucepans have never really lost their popularity, and are something I often buy here for clients. Same for the old baskets hanging from the ceiling. I could even source old blue and white tiles to reproduce this charming backsplash around the range.

lovely colours in the bathroom and outside...

on deliciously vintage chairs that can be snapped up every weekend here ...

the perfect place for tea!

Wishing you a little vintage gentleness today.

all photos thanks to Campagne et Decoration

Aubrey took down the upper cabinets! We posted the cabinets on Craigslist and found someone that just wanted to buy the uppers. So much better than seeing them go to the dump. Baby steps!

Image??? Help!

Guest post by Meg from Whatever

This is a guest post written by meg duerksen from whatever.

when Clorox^® asked me to write about making messes with my kids and cleaning them up
i said, "YES! we are GREAT at making messes and coincidentally . . . CloroxClean-Up^® is my favorite cleaning product!"

they directed me to the Clorox Clean-Up Recipes for Fun--Where Mess Doesn't Matter!
have you been there?
it is FULL of ideas for crafts or cooking or even science experiments to get messy with kids!

i make crafts with my kids quite often and i LOVE to see them get really into their project no matter how messy it gets!
at the Recipe for Fun site i found an idea for using collage and color together to make a color wheel!
we got busy on the mess making.

i got out our stack of old magazines and began ripping out anything that was mostly one color.
we made a big pile of magazine pictures.
i cut a large circle from a piece of poster board and drew lines diving the circle into six equal sections.
i wrote the names of the colors in rainbow order on the wheel to know where to put each scrap.
then we started gluing down our pictures.

i came across rubber cement at the grocery store and wondered if my girls had ever used it.
i knew i had never purchased it, so i got some.
my daughter was very curious!
"WHAT is this?!" she asked in a doubtful tone.
then i showed her how it had a brush INSIDE, and she was excited to use it.

we also used a paint brush dipped in the glue bottle so we could all work at the same time.
it's just like painting but you paint with glue.

layering and layering . . . picture after picture . . . overlapping until there are no white spaces at all.

Rrrrip!

we almost always make our crafts at this table.
i painted it white almost 10 years ago.
my kids use everything on it!
and it always comes back to white with Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner.

i was out of town recently, and when i came home i noticed my 10 year old had organized this coca-cola crate
with our art supplies by color!
how cute is that?! i love it! we like to do lots of things around here in rainbow order.

it was coming along quite nicely at this point.
there was glue all over our hands and the table!

they finished their color wheel collage but the mess still remained.

well...every Recipe For Fun needs a Recipe For Clean.
Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner combines a cleaner and the disinfecting power of Clorox Bleach letting you spray away messy play. It removes tough stains as well as the germs you can’t see, leaving your home sparkling clean and ready for the next recipe.

usually after craft time my kids quickly scatter leaving the mess for me to clean up.
but today my youngest surprised me by helping out!
she loves to use spray bottles and paper towels.

clean up! clean up! everybody... every where...

when she saw the marker and glue wipe right off she said, "this is going great!"

with my daughter's help, a trash bag & Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner, the room was cleaner than when we started!

find the perfect activity for you and your kids to live it up, mess it up and then clean it up at Clorox Clean-Up Recipes for Fun – Where Mess Doesn’t Matter!

do you like getting messy and creative with your kids?

tell me about it in the comments and be entered to win one of ten $100 Visa gift cards!

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post*

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post*

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

Entries from all participating blogs will be pooled for winner selection; only two entries per household. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

*Entrant is receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for the tweet/blog post.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 5/30/2012-6/24/2012.

Clorox^® and Clean-Up^® are registered trademarks of The Clorox Company.