Guest Post: Bellissimo Bebe + A Giveaway

It's been a couple of months since I did an official guest post here on the old blog and I decided it was time I get back into that.  I love being able to collaborate with other bloggers and business owners and then introduce them to you so you can love them too!

Today, I've got Maranda on the blog.  She owns a darling little Etsy shop called Bellissimo Bebe.  Maranda and I have known each other for a couple of years.  We live in the same neighborhood, go to the same church and are in the same book club so we see each other pretty regularly.  Maranda is super talented when it comes to all things crafty and home decor and you should see their house during Halloween through Christmas!  She totally puts the rest of the neighborhood to shame. *wink* I'll let her take it from here!

(p.s. There's a giveaway opportunity at the end so read about Maranda and then go enter!)

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The BEST Zucchini Brownies

When my husband and I bought our home a few years ago, we knew we wanted to make space in the backyard for a garden.  The first year, we grew cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, carrots and (my favorite) zucchini.  At one point, I ended up with a zucchini that was as long as my arm from my elbow to the tips of my fingers!  That is a ton of zucchini my friends.  And what do you do when you have ridiculous amounts of zucchini?  Make some amazingly easy, yummy, chocolate-y zucchini brownies with melt in your mouth, gooey frosting of course!

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Fab 5: Erin and Susannah

Hello and Happy Friday!  I'm excited to introduce you to two more lovely ladies as part of the Fab 5 Series I started last month.  If you didn't see last month's post, Fab 5 is all about getting to know the women behind the blog and seeing that amazing people they are.  The last Friday of each month will be dedicated to this series.

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How To Use Smooth Heat Transfer Vinyl

Earlier this month I posted a tutorial about how to use flocked heat transfer vinyl and showed you how to make a cute 'mama bear' shirt.  About a week after making the first shirt, I decided to make another one using smooth heat transfer vinyl.  I learned some important differences between the two types of heat transfer vinyl (also referred to as HTV) and I am sharing them with you today along with a tutorial for how to make a t-shirt using the cute pineapple pictured above.

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How To Sell Stuff Online: Posting and Followup Etiquette (Part 4 of 4)

Welcome to the final part of the How To Sell Your Stuff Online series!  Thank you for sticking with me and reading through each of my posts.  I know it is a lot of information to digest, but I truly believe that if you use my tips that you'll see success in selling your own items.  If you haven't already, please be sure to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 before continuing to make sure you are all caught up on what I've already gone over in terms of taking pictures, pricing and the anatomy of a good post.

In this part, I'll be going over some tips when it comes to posting your items, as well as some follow up etiquette.

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How To Sell Your Stuff Online: Anatomy of a Post (Part 3 of 4)

We are on Part 3 of the How to Sell Your Stuff Online series!  It's been so great for me to be able to share some new information with you and hopefully help you sell your unwanted stuff.  If you haven't read Part 1 and Part 2, I highly recommend checking those out before continuing with this post so you'll be all caught up.

So you've learned about taking good pictures and pricing to sell.  I could probably stop right here and it's likely you will sell your item.  But if you want to sell it fast and avoid lots of questions like "How big is it?" or "What are the dimensions?" or "Is that brown or black?", then you'll want to read on.

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How To Sell Your Stuff Online: Pricing (Part 2 of 4)

Hello and welcome to Part 2 of the How To Sell Your Stuff Online series!  If you haven't read Part 1 about taking pictures, I would highly recommend checking it out before continuing on.  After you've read it, please come back and read this post here.  (Or, you can check it out after you've read this post.)

One of the most difficult parts about selling stuff online is knowing how to price your item.  If you price it too high, people might not even bother looking at it.  If you price it too low, you will probably sell it, but you might regret feeling like you "gave it away" and could have gotten more for it.  It's a delicate balance and can be tricky to figure out.

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How to Sell Your Stuff Online: Taking Pictures (Part 1 of 4)

Today I'm introducing the first of a four part series about how to sell your stuff online.  Just this summer, I sold over $1100 at ONE yard sale.  I've sold hundreds of dollars worth of stuff through Facebook yard sale groups over the last few years, as well as through local sites.  I've even sold items on Amazon and Ebay although not as often as the others.  So I feel pretty good about sharing some advice with you in the hopes that you can have some success as well.

In the first part of this series I'm going to go over taking pictures.  I'm going to explain why good pictures make a difference and I'll give some examples of good and bad pictures.

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I Love To Laugh

It's Friday!  Woo-hoo!  In honor of the weekend (and the fact that I get to go boating), I want to share some happiness with you.  One of my favorite things in the world is to have a big, huge, my-stomach-is hurting, tears-are-flowing-down-my-cheeks, try-not-to-pee-my-pants, I-seriously-can't-breathe laugh!  On days when I'm feeling a little down, I like to find things that make me smile or laugh.

And if the weekend isn't enough to make you smile, I'm doing an entire post of funny pictures, memes, etc.  I hope at least one of these will do the trick.

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I Am A Broken Record

As parents, it's our responsibility to teach our children right from wrong, up from down, left from right, true from false and the right way to put the toilet paper on the roll.  Our children come to us as these perfect little humans, completely dependent on us for their care.  We wash them, clothe them, feed them, change their diapers, wipe their face and hands, rescue them from sticking foreign objects in their mouth and the list goes on.  We are rewarded with crying, fussing, being spit up on and peed on.  Maybe even at the same time.  It's a tireless job and a thankless one.  Our days seem to be on repeat.

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Lemon Squares

When my husband and I were first dating in college, he invited me to a get together with all of his best friends and their wives/girlfriends.  I was a little nervous because these were his best friends and I wanted them to like me.  So what did I do?  Well, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach so I decided I would make a treat to bring and share.  Out of all the recipes I could have chosen, I chose one of my best tried and true desserts: lemon squares.  It didn't hurt that my then-boyfriend, soon-to-be-husband's favorite desserts are anything lemon.  I wasn't going to take any chances. *wink*

Long story short, his friends all liked me and all the wives/girlfriends wanted my lemon squares recipe.  Win-win!

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Font Friday: Back to School

Happy Friday!  I hope you had a good week.  Today I'm sharing more FREE fonts with a Back to School theme.  Can you believe school is starting up again already?  I feel like the summer just started yet here we are.  My daughter will be going to her second year of preschool and I'm not complaining.  I don't even want to think about her going to kindergarten next year.  Because if she's going to kindergarten that means my son will be starting preschool and I really don't want to think about that!

Whatever you might be doing to get ready for school, I hope you enjoy these fun fonts.  To download, click on the name of the font below the picture.  If you need a tutorial on how to install these fonts, go HERE.

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How To Use Flocked Heat Transfer Vinyl {Tips from a Beginner}

I was browsing a favorite blog of mine, called A Girl And A Glue Gun, and I saw an entire post about using something called HTV (not to be confused with HGTV, which I also love).  There were pictures of clothes and pillows and aprons and hand towels using this stuff.  I clicked on the post and read a little further where I discovered that HTV stands for heat transfer vinyl which is basically vinyl you can cut out and iron onto anything that is smooth, like t-shirts.

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Parmesan Chicken

A week after my husband I were married, we drove from Utah to New York so he could do some summer sales.  As a new wife, I wanted to practice my domestic skills and make food for my hungry and tired husband after a long day knocking doors.  One of the meals I made quite often was Parmesan chicken because it was easy and inexpensive to make, plus it provided leftovers for a couple of days.

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