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With the increasingly warm temperatures of late we are again starting to eat lighter and more refeshing meals.
Although it can be argued that this amount of cheese can't really be considered "light".
Thinly sliced tomatoes drizzled with olive oil,topped with mozarella and feta, and sprinkled with black pepper and salt. Served with a side of fish terrine.
Delicious!
What foods are you preparing for the warmer days?
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I'm still celebrating my recent birthday. Mainly because I still have cupcakes left. I plan to right that sometime today though. For the Banana Frog Blog Hop this month the theme is also birthdays because May is their birthday month too! Happy Birthday Banana Frog!
I did this layout using stamps from the Build-a-Cupcake set and the It's All About Arrows set.
I used a cupcake stamp as a mask before misting the background, then I stamped the cupcake and candle images.
To make the bunting I stamped arrows then cut out just the arrow head and used the traingular bits.
Happy Birthday to me and Banana Frog! Now hop on over to Jo's blog to see what delights she has in store for you.
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In addition to blogging over at Write.Click.Scrapbook this week (all about birthdays! Go see!), I also took part in the Stretch Your Sketches series that Donna Januzzi runs on the Ella Blog. Here's a peek of my layout.
Head on over to the Ella Blog to see the sketch, and how Donna and I used it for our pages. Plus if you make a page based on the sketch and link it up, you'll be entered into the monthly giveaway. Get all the info here.
I hope you have a fabulous weekend!
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Yep, I'm talking about Pinterest again today. I've been busy introducing as many people as I can to this wonderful tool, and since some of you asked for newbie tips, I thought maybe I could share some more detail on how it actually works, and how to make it work for you instead of against you. This is just stuff that I picked up along the way, and that I found works for me, no doubt there are lots of other things I haven't learned yet!
First I recommend you sign in using your Facebook ID, (if you have one). This makes it easy to find and follow your Facebook friends, plus one less set of login info to remember!
Second, start by setting up the different boards you want to use. Pinterest already has some default boards when you sign up, but you can either delete them, or rename them to more customised names. I currently have 24 boards, which seems like a lot, but some of them are for very specific things like Kieran's Birthday planning and Christmas (I don't just go crazy over birthdays). I also have boards for Crafts and DIY, Kid Stuff, Food and Drink, and Crockpot Cooking. These are probably the boards I pin to the most.
Once your boards are set up, and you have found some friends to follow you can start pinning stuff! You can do this in two ways: 1. Repinning items from the people you follow 2. Pinning items from external websites.
1. Repinning within Pinterest
When you log in to Pinterest it automatically shows you the thumbnails of the most recent pins of the people you follow.
When you see something you want to save, hover your mouse over the thumbnail and click on repin. You also have the option to either comment on the image, or "Like" it.
When you click repin a window opens up on top of the same screen. You can still see the original page in the background
Use the drop down menu to select which board you want to pin the image to. Fill in a description (this is one of my pet peeves with Pinterest, you can't leave that field blank), then check the box if you want to automatically share the pin on Facebook. Sometimes this box is automatically checked, I'm not sure if it's because the person who you're pinning it from shared on Facebook. In anycase, if you really don't want to share it over there make sure the box is unchecked. (Ask me how I know this!)
Now click repin. Once it's done you get bounced back to the original page. I mentioned before that I didn't like that when I pin something, I don't get taken back to where I was before. This happens if you actually open the pin in a new screen before pinning it. I tend to open all my pins first for two reasons: to see them bigger and be sure it is indeed something I want to save, and to double check that the source link is correct. I quickly learned to open my pins in a separate tab in order to be able to keep scrolling through the thumbnail screen. Yes, this does mean that I wind up with a gazillion tabs open which I then need to go through to pin to my boards, but let me explain.
When I first started using Pinterest I would happily repin thumbnails willy nilly. When I would go back to try to cook the recipe, or make the craft project I found that the source link did not get me back to the exact blog post or part of the site with the instructions I needed. Sometimes it wasn't even a link to a recipe, just to a pretty photograph. That doesn't help me get dinner made people!
2. How to pin and link to the correct source.
The second way to pin images is to save them from external websites. There are two ways to do this.
The hard way
Ok, it's not really hard, it just involves more steps and takes more time. When you want to add an image you can choose Add a Pin from the drop down Add menu at the top of the Pinterest Screen. It opens up this window
You can add the URL of the site the image is on, and Pinterest will pull all the images in to a slide show on the left. You then scroll through the slide show, choose the image you want, fill in the other details and hit pin. You can also click on upload, to add an image from your hard drive.
The easy way
Did you see the message at the top of the Add screen?
Pinterest has created a bookmarklet (called the pinmarklet - oh wait, maybe it's just me that calls it that?) which is a little button that you drag onto your browser toolbar.
This is my preferred method. Here's a scenario:
You're browsing an awesome blog and you see the most brilliant image ever. You must pin it now! Your hand grabs the mouse and you move the arrow towards the pinmarklet. WAIT! STOP! First things first. If you are on the home page of the blog, or happily browsing through page 11 of the blog, you first need to click into the specific post that the image is in. Pinterest will link the image you pin to whatever URL is in the address bar. If you want to be sure to correctly link the image you have to have the permalink of the specific post in the address bar. On most blogs you can get to it by clicking on the title of the post. Some other blogs will have a link to the permalink in the foot of the blog post.
This also applies if you've done a search for something on a blog, or in Google or Yahoo search. Make sure that you are pinning from the actual post the image comes from. What happens if you don't? Well what is page 11 today, will be page 22 in a couple months, so when next you go to find the tutorial instructions, or the recipe, you will end up in an entirely different place on the blog. I can't tell you how much time I spend hunting down the right blog post to go with a recipe or craft that I really really really want to do. I want you to avoid this frustration by all means! Ok, vent over. I feel better already.
Now that you are in the right spot click on the pinmarklet and a screen will come up with all the images from the page.
Hover over the one you want and click Pin This
The window will pop up and you can fill in the info as usual, then pin the image.
And there you go! Now that I am at the end of this long post I realise that a video might have been a better idea! I hope that this helps out the new Pinners some, and makes Pinterest a bit less of a time waster.
For the next installment in this series (wait, it's a series now?) I'll talk about things like adding boards, rearranging them and other little things within Pinterest itself.
Now all that's left to say is Happy Pinning!
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My birthday was this past Saturday and on Friday I sent this tweet out
I must say that all my wishes came true.
Well all except that number being 23 instead of 43. Although come to think of it the idea of being 23 again makes me shudder!
I got to sleep in late on Saturday, was fed breakfast in bed by my two guys, and spent all day lazing around, chatting online and browsing Pinterest to my heart's content.
I got fed delicious meals.
I didn't change any diapers or do any laundry.
I had enough free time to make a few changes to ye old blog (did you notice the new category images to the right?)
On Sunday morning I went to the flea market and picked up a few goodies
Then spent the afternoon alternating between paper crafting (I'm working on a new art journal) and baking cupcakes.
I tried this lime cupcake recipe, and also a great new way to make frosting. Both recipes turned out to be more time consuming than expected, but were totally worth it. I highly recommend you try them, but please learn from my mistake and don't start baking at 3 p.m! I'm really glad I only made one dozen, because it is taking all my will power not to gobble them all up!
Speaking of birthdays, this week I am over at Write.Click.Scrapbook talking about birthday party planning, using your scrapbook supplies for celebrations, and of course scrapbooking birthdays. How's that for a neat segue?
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It's been a really long time since I talked about the cats hasn't it? They used to be my main photographic subjects, but these days they don't get no loving. So when I saw Naala lying quietly in a well lit spot the other day I grabbed the camera to take a few photos.
Of the two cats, she is surprisingly the one we see most often. When we first got her she was pretty shy, and would hide whenever strangers came to visit, so we didn't expect her to be such good buddies with Kieran. She will sit and let him pet and kiss her, and it's rare that she is scared by his sudden movements.
Mozaique, on the other hand, mainly hides so that he can't get to her. He is actually pretty gentle with them, but I think Mozaique is still trying to figure out what species of creature he is, so for now she just stays out of his way.
Naala will follow us into his room when he wakes up to say hello, and even tries to climb on top of us when we are already holding Kieran in our laps!
She is really such a sweetie.
Wishing you all a lovely weekend!
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Lately Kieran has wanted these four books, and these four book only, read to him at bedtime. Usually in this order.
La petite grenouille qui avait mal aux oreilles
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
At least he is fair and there are two books in each language! He has had the Dr. Seuss books for over a year now, but suddenly his interest in them has increased. The two French books were birthday gifts from his godfather this year.
Originally I would only read him books in Enlish, and Lucas would read him books in French, but since he started deciding which books he wants it's no longer up to us. Luckily my level of French is good enough for kid books!
Once he is tucked in we then read Goodnight Moon (or Bonsoir Lune) and it's sleepy time.
Are there any bedtime books that your kids just absolutely love?
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I had fun with the May kit from Little Black Dress. Remember I said it was great for boy pages, girl pages and boy & girl pages?
Exhibit A: Boy Page
Exhibit B: Girl Page
Exhibit C: Boy & Girl Page
Oh yeah. I had tons of fun!
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This 30-Day Photography Challenge from Super Barbs to my Photography Board. I think I will do it in June!
This gorgeous idea for using washi tapes from How About Orange to my Crafts & DIY board.
Thinking about getting this for Kieran's room, Pinned to my Kid Stuff board
I'm thinking I can try recreating this myself. Another one on the Crafts and DIY board.
I love this printable mantra about motherhood which about sums up my approach. At least on the days that I remember to breathe. Pinned to my Quotes and Quotables board.
Finally this funny e-card, which sums up my life so well sometimes. Pinned to my Cute and Funny Stuff board
I'd love to see what you've pinned recently! Let me know your user name in the comments so that I can find and stalk, I mean follow, you over there.I do still have invites so if you want to try it out let me know (and make sure to fill in the e-mail field in the comment form).
Have a very pinteresting weekend!
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Hello hello! I'm sharing some sneaks from the latest kit from Little Black Dress:I'm Smitten
This kit was full of lovely colours and patterns, and perfect for boy pages, girl pages and boy & girl pages too!
As soon as they have been shared on the site I'll post them here, so please come back to check!
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Welcome to Callaloo Soup, my creative lifestyle blog, where I share my crafting, photography, scrapbooking, and writing, as well as a glimpse into my day to day life in France. You can learn more about me and what I love here
