Thoughts on blog monetization in Canada

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.

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

gentle living in south west france

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

kitchen progress

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!

This Could Be A Future Cabinet Color of Mine..

Image??? Help!

Tivoli Audio

One thing I'm really looking forward to is "accessorizing" the new kitchen. One thing that is on my wish list  is a Tivoli radio that I heard about from Lesley (@smidgeboxdesign). Do you have a radio in your kitchen? I think it may be quite nice to put some classical on very softly at night, or listen to conversations on the CBC. Anyhow, just a little product love. xo Lindsay

{ Free Garden Art }

Beside the fact that I love playing with the new Pic Monkey Collage feature,
I also love getting floral-ish centerpieces for my home...and you can too.
Here's a pictorial of how to -

linking to

Sample Spree and Lots of Fun Goodies

I know I said that you couldn't really purchase individual yards of fabric, trim, ect. at International Quilt Market, but there is one event that is held before market opens where you can and it's called Sample Spree.  Again, this event isn't open to the public, but it's about the only chance that one has to purchase lines of fabric that have yet to be released and may not be released for up to five more months.  It happens around 8:00PM the night before market and goes until 10:00PM.  Not every fabric manufacturer participates, but a lot of them do.  There is a lot of fabric as well as trims, patterns, notions, ect. that can all be purchased at wholesale cost (without the huge minimums that generally come with ordering wholesale). 

Sample spree is nuts!!  Seriously.  Imagine all the chaos that goes along with the running of the bulls, but instead you have hundreds of ladies obsessed with fabric all running to grab the new lines.  And once it's gone, it's gone, so I'm sure you can imagine the madness.  Mom and I signed up for Sample Spree last spring which was our first time, but we skipped it this past fall, so we thought it would be fun to do it again.  Luckily for us, there are no fabric lines we just MUST have, so we are much more relaxed about the whole event.  Some people would not find sample spree fun at all.  Certainly if you don't like crowds, you would not like this event.  But we like the excitement and hub-bub of it all, yes, we are the type that actually like shopping the day after Thanksgiving.

People start lining up for Sample Spree up to four-five hours before they even open the doors.  Mom and I arrived about 45 minutes before it started and this (picture above) was what the line looked like and we ended up pretty much in the middle.  It seems kind of nutty to wait in line that early since once the doors opened we were all in there in about 5 minutes, but to each his own.

So here are some of the things we brought home from sample spree and some freebies from different people at market..........

I firmly believe that you can never have too much rickrack, especially in pretty colors such as these!

I picked up pretty much the whole collection of 'Rhapsodia' by Art Gallery Fabrics (which has already been released).  These are all 1 yard cuts and I am in love with this line.  Feminine and girly, yet still modern.  And if you've never felt Art Gallery Fabrics, you are definitely missing out.  They are dreamy and wash better than any of my other quilting cotton.  Perfect for garments!

And while we were at the Art Gallery Fabrics table, I picked up one more bundle of fabric that I might love even more than 'Rhapsodia'......this one is called 'LillyBelle' by Bari J. for Art Gallery Fabrics.  This line will be released in June which is just around the corner.  This is only half of the collection as the other half was already sold out by the time we made our way to this stop at sample spree.

I have been waiting for this line from Riley Blake Designs to come out for about 6 months now.  It's called 'Seaside' and it is just perfect.  Yes, Riley Blake Designs sends me fabric for all my design team projects but I wanted to have all of these fat quarters of each print so I picked up this fat quarter bundle at sample spree.  I'm seeing a quilt here with this set.  Although, I may have to get some yardage as well because a few of these prints are begging to be made into children's clothing.

I don't have very much seasonal fabric in my stash, so I picked up this fun Christmas collection from Anna Griffin.  I like that it incorporates some pink and blue into the traditional red and green color scheme.

Here is a little freebie from the folks at Windham Fabrics.  This is Lotta Jansdotter's new line 'Bella'.

 

Some free, super-cute 2.5 inch pre-cut squares.

I picked up a Kona Cotton Color Card that they were giving out for free.  It's a great thing to have because it gives you an actual swatch of each solid fabric that is much easier to coordinate than just looking on your computer.  This card is also great when you are trying to pair a solid with a patterned fabric.

This was a cute bundle of embroidery patterns that I picked up.  I have been embroidering a lot lately and I am really enjoying it.  I may have a little embroidery up my sleeve coming out soon, so these sweet little designs really caught my eye.

Here are some pictures I took in our hotel room with some of mom's fabric too.......

And that's a wrap.  We had so much fun picking up these goodies at quilt market.  It's so nice that Mom and I both love sewing and fabric and can bond over fun experiences like quilt market. 

I think we both have A LOT of sewing ahead of us with all this gorgeous fabric!