Paisley Oven Mitt

So I absolutely, positively, totally fell head over heels in love with this fabric that I found at Hobby Lobby!

(Don't tell my husband- he may get jealous!)

Have you ever come across a pattern that you just love so much you want to cover everything in it?

Well, that's how I feel about this fabric!

So far I've used it for my Kitchen Stand, this oven mitt, pot holders (I'll be posting those soon), and embellishing a kitchen towel (post coming too).

I'm thinking of using it for a step stool, a spoon rest, oh and maybe some curtains, ooooh and maybe some EAT letters for the wall... too much?

My entry into504 Main’s Tickled Pink partysponsored by Appliances OnlineBosch Washing Machines.

My old pot holders and oven mitt were

St. Patty's Day Features from Manic Monday

With St. Patrick's Day a little over 2 weeks away there are some adorable projects out there.... 

We had several link up at Manic Monday and I want to make sure everyone sees these fantastic ideas!

Silo Hill Farm's

Super Easy Wall Decor

The NY Melrose Family's

Irish Blessing Plate

Pocket Full of Pink's
St. Patty Wreath

Caught My Fancy's
St. Patty Wreath




Frazzled Mom of Five's
St. Patty Mugs

Pam's Party and Practical Tip's

Pot O' Gold

Queen B and Me's

St. Patty Prints

Pam's Party and Practical Tip's

Leprechaun Pops

Mrs. Fox's Sweets'

St. Patty Pretzels


You ladies rock!  I feel like such a slacker as I haven't done anything for St. Patty's Day yet.
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Manic Monday 6 Features

It’s time to feature the top posts!

But first,

I feel like a Grown Up Big Girl blog now!

Do you notice something different?

SerendipityandSpice.com

Yup! The .blogspot.com is GONE from my web address, I'm all grown up.  I no longer need my .blogspot parents!  You can now just type in SerendipityandSpice.com to find me!


I'm wearing my Big Girl blog pants!  WooooHoooo!

The best part....

I have it for the next 2 years and it cost less than $10!

Go Daddy Deal of the Week: Get a domain for $4.95! Offer expires 2/28/12.

If you don't already have a direct domain name I highly recommend getting one!

The other day I was playing around with Google Analytics and noticed that there were a bunch of searches for "Serendipity and Spice Blog" or "Blogger Serendipity Spice" so I realized people were having a hard time finding me with the extra .blogspot.com.

I began to research domain names and was surprised at how simple and cheap it is to have a custom name.  Like I said, for $5 a year I now have SerendipityandSpice.com.  The best part is it took about 5 minutes to set it up and nothing else has changed!  I'm still hosted on Blogger. My dashboard is the same.  I write my posts the same.  People who go to serendipityandspice.blogspot.com can find me. People who go to serendipityandspice.com can find me.  It's fantastic!

If you want to get your own domain I highly recommend Go Daddy.  They are set up to work easily with Blogger and they're the cheapest thing I've found.  So Simple!!

Disclaimer: I was not asked by GoDaddy to write this post.  I just want to share the good news and great deal with my bloggy friends!

New Blogger Series - Week 4 - Legal Stuff You NEED

Wow, can you believe we're on to week 4 of the New Blogger Series! And February is almost over...this year is just flying by...I feel like Christmas was just a week or so ago. 

This week's New Blogger Series is...

Legal Stuff

Yup, believe it or not there are some legal necessities to get out of the way- who knew that being a blogger could bring about legal issues- I didn't realize until this week that you could be sued! SCARY!!

 

So I decided this needed to be a TOP Priority for our blogging series! Don't worry, there's not a whole lot that you have to do.


First, you need to copyright your blog.  I didn't think this was necessary at first because I really don't think I have anything so earth shattering fantastic that someone will want to steal it. So, why should I copyright my blog? I read about a blogger who's articles were copied verbatim along with the pictures and even the typos and someone else claimed it as their own with no link back to the original post.  Well the site that stole the blogger's information got ranked higher and therefore received more traffic and wasn't even producing it's own content. So the original writer lost out on getting recognized for his/her work, didn't get the backlink (which increases SEO- we'll be going over this soon- I'm trying to figure it all out), and people interested in the original blogger's content were dupped.  Plus, stealing is wrong and I don't think people should profit from stealing other's work.  By placing a copyright on your blog you are letting potential thieves know that you don't tolerate intellectual theft!  It took less than 5 minutes to place a copyright on my blog.  Go to Web Weaver and use the copyright generator for free to get a copyright.  Then add an html gadget to your main page with the copyright inserted.  You can see mine at the bottom of the page.

This site has some great links to get free pictures , clip art, and photos the legit way.

Now that your blog is copyrighted now you need a Terms of Use/Service for your blog.  This is some major legal mumbo jumbo about how you're not responsible for how people use and post on your site- but it's still legally required.  You can use the free Terms of Use generator from Legal River.  This is lengthy and comprehensive so it can be used for business sites too.  I just skimmed it after it generated and took out my address and phone number because I don't want just anyone having those but I did insert my email.  Once it's generated you can just cut and paste it into a new page (You want to put each of these on it's own page because that will help increase your SEO).

Next up is a privacy policy. A Privacy Policy is extremely important for your blog if you host any linky parties where readers will input their email.  Basically a privacy policy for blogs says whether you will sell their emails, how often you will use their information to contact them, and so on. It's alot more legal mumbo jumbo that I don't fully understand but luckily there's an app a generator for that! Go to http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/ or http://www.generateprivacypolicy.com/ to generate one in less than 5 minutes.  Then copy and paste it into a blog page.




Do you have any ads running on your blog? Do you make money from sponsored posts? Do you receive or accept free product for sponsored posts? Do you get or want to get compensated in any way through your blog? IF so, then you need a Disclosure Policy. Many sites like Social Spark require you to have a Disclosure Policy easily accessible on your blog in order to participate.  You can use this Disclosure Policy Generator to easily make one. And, yet again, just cut and paste it into a page.

(Do you have a Social Spark account yet? Do you want to make a little extra money from your blog? Click the link above and sign up for Social Spark- not only do you get paid for posts but they also have an ad network that will help you earn some extra cash in addition to google ads.)

Finally, you need a Disclaimer Policy for your blog.  A disclaimer policy protects you- your rights, free speech, your content, ect.  More basically, this covers your butt if someone does one of your projects (like painting their countertops) and it doesn't work right- they can't come sue you and make you pay for their DIY fail. I know alot of this seems to overlap with each other but better safe than sorry! Luckily, yet again, there is a free generator that will take care of all the legal speak for you.

I urge you to please take the 30 minutes it took me to set all of this up so you are protected!

Have you missed a week?

Week 1:Blog Basics

Week 2:Blog Design 
Week 3: Ettiquette

Stay tuned....

Topics on the way include:

Blog Lingo

Branding your photos

Optimizing Feedburner

Making the most of Linky Parties

Using Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Stumbleupon to grow your blog


Update: I have received many questions regarding how to put these pages at the bottom of your blog- I made a video showing you how here.

Linking up at:
CRAFT

Fun to Craft

Marriage from Scratch

It's a Hodgepodge Life

Every Creative Endeavor

Crafty Mom's Share

Fingerprints on the Fridge

Sassy Sites

Pocket Full of Pink

5 Days 5 Ways

I Heart Naptime

Positively Splendid

Wayward Girls

A Simply Klassic Home

Petite Hermine

Country Homemaker Hop, Sugar & Dots, Wicked Awesome Wednesday, Wow Me Wednesday,
Southern Lovely

Thrifty Decorating

A Creative Princess

The DIY Dreamer

Gluesticks

I Gotta Create

The 36th Avenue

Crafty Scrappy Happy (crafty scrappy happy)

The Sasse Life

504 Main

Chinese Restaurant Donut Recipe

Chinese restaurant

donuts

 

I love those little sugary donuts that you get at Chinese restaurants! They melt in your mouth with their warm, sweet, taste! Well, the hubs and I are trying to eat out less and one of my new year’s resolutions was to try at least 2 new recipes a week- so of course, I had to make these! And let me just say…they taste exactly like the yummy goodness we get at the Chinese restaurant!!!

To make things even better- they are ridiculously easy to make!

Damask Personalized Wall Plaque

I don’t know about you but I am soooo ready for Spring!  I can’t wait for the weather to be warm enough to start writing these posts from my porch! 

So until then I will just have to dream….

In addition to some pre-spring cleaning I am on a rampage of adding color to my house!  I feel like everything is just so drab…maybe it’s the winter blues, or the fact that I’m ready to move!  This house always seems so dark!  I’m wanting a more open floor plan with LOTS of windows! 

But, anyhow….

Nothing brings color into a room like turquoise!  This was a really simple and cheap project that took me about 30 minutes and it looks so cute in my entry way.

I purchased one of those $1 wooden plaques from Michaels:

Painted it with some turquoise paint that I had left over from my Lamp Refashion.

Then I got to use my new Silhouette Cameo to cut out the lettering.  I cut “The Family” using black vinyl and our last name using damask scrapbook paper.

I know- you’re probably wondering “How the heck do you pronounce that last name?”  Everyone always gets it wrong!  It’s pronounced Zsa (as in Zsa Zsa Gabor) Doe (like Doe, a deer, a female deer…) The double L's make a zsa sound in spanish.

I attached the scrapbook paper with some Modge Podge- just like I did with my Modge Podge Letters.

Finally I used my hot glue gun to add a black satin bow.

Ta-Da!

Pin It





Linking Up At:
A Creative Princess, Gluesticks, Fireflies and Jelly Beans, Thrifty Decorating,36th Avenue, Crafty Scrappy Happy,House of Hepworths, The Sasse Life, make-it-yourself-monday, Northern Cottage,  Creatively Living, Today's Creative Blog, Kurtz Corner, Hope Studios, New Nostalgia, Sugar Bee, Flamingo Toes,Adventures of a DIY Mom, Homework, Embracing Change, Savvy Southern Style, Stuff and Nonsense,Every Creative Endeavor,I Gotta Create, Sassy Sites, Shine On Fridays,  Fingerprints on the Fridge, 504 Main, Fun to Craft,Pocket Full of Pink, Our DIY Diaries, Remodelaholic, Naptime Crafters, 5 Days 5 Ways, Whipperberry, Dwell on Joy,  Creation Corner, Quilted Euphoria, Marriage from Scratch, I Heart Naptime   Positively Splendid, Wayward Girls, 3 Mango Seeds, Sweet little gals, An Original Belle, Pinkapotamus, Uncommon Designs, Oopsey Daisy, 

Trading Blogs Party - Guest Post Sign Up

Are You Ready for

Trading Blogs???

As part of the New Blogger Series I thought it would be fun to do guest postings on each other’s blogs to help each other grow our blogs.


If you're looking for the Manic Monday Linky Party click here.

How to participate:

Link up your site URL below.  Please only link up once.

You can link up until midnight 2/27- so spread the word- the more the merrier! If you want to do a post about this party to your readers it would be greatly appreciated.

Once you link up grab the button and place it on your main page sidebar to help spread the word.

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Next week I will send out emails to each of you letting you know who your Trading Blogs partner is.

Once you get the email- go check out your partner’s site and see what their audience likes- connect with each other and discuss what you are thinking of doing and make sure that it’s okay with your partner.

Write a fantastic post- something you would be really proud to have on your own blog- remember, you’re trying to attract new readers to your blog so you really need to draw them in! (Please make it a new post- not something you’ve done on your own site before).  

Email your post, along with any pictures, to your partner no later than March 8^th so they have time to get the posting ready.  Make sure you add an introduction to the beginning of the post thanking the other person for having you and let their readers know that they can be found on your blog today.

We will trade blogs March 10^th. You must leave the guest posting up, on your main page, for at least 24 hours.   Please wait 1 week (7 days) before re-posting the post on your own site.

The day before the guest posting goes up make sure you get your readers excited about who will be visiting your blog and where they can find you- promote each other!

Have Fun!

I Need Your Vote!

So I entered the American Crafter challenge and I need your help!

Remember my adorable Lamp Refashion?

Well, I entered it!

Please go vote for me!  

My Lamp Refashion is #19- click on it to vote!

Manic Monday 6

It’s Manic Monday!

This week’s theme is …

Color!

Let's put color back into our lives... I don't know about you but I'm ready for SPRING!!!


If you haven't checked it out yet, please go look at my BlogLovin' Blog Hop!
After much consideration I have realized that Linky Followers is not a good replacement for GFC. BlogLovin' is the closest replacement-- so far I'm totally Lovin' it!

We had some amazing link ups last week….

and I can't wait to see what you guys have in store for me this week!

 I will be featuring the 3 links with the most traffic- hense, your way to vote on your favorites.

Look for the FEATURE post Saturday evening.

I will feature 2 additional links- my favorite crafty or decorating link and my favorite recipe linked up (I will try several linked up recipes throughout the week and pick one- that way I can honestly feature something that tastes as good as it looks and sounds).  I will also pin these to pinterest - so you’ll wind up with more traffic….

Alrighty, now on with the Party!

There are some changes to the Rules this Week:

1.     Follow me! (In which ever feed you use, personally I'm lovin Bloglovin- but use what you use!)  I’d also love it if you would like Serendipity and Spice on Facebook or Twitter:

2. The project you link up must be something you did, no pinterest inspiration lists, no parties, no feature lists.


3. You need to visit the link before you and after you and leave some feedback love.... out of 171 projects linked up there were only 90 visits to other's sites - it's a party, we need to have fun and visit each other.

4.     Please link back by grabbing a button and posting it on your blog or put a text link at the bottom of the post you are linking up. (It helps both you and me! See my New Blogger Series reference to Linky Party Etiquette and SEO)

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4.     Please make a limit of 3 posts per person! If you link up 3 posts then you need to visit at least 6 other links. You should visit 2 links per post.

5. HAVE FUN!


There are 2 categories now:


Category 1: Projects, Tutorials, Tips
Category 2: Recipes and Food

New Blogger Series - Week 3 - Etiquette

I know I’m a little late with this post- I apologize, I was working on finding a better RSS feed reader because Linky Friends was just too confusing!  I encourage you to hop over to my BlogLovinblog hop and join in the fun!  If you haven’t checked out BlogLovin yet, you must, it’s the closest to GFC that I’ve found!

This week’s New Blogger Series is…

Silhouette Wall Plaque Tutorial

When I was a little girl I remember my grandmother having silhouettes of my mom and uncle hanging above her bed.  I always thought these were so sweet.  Well I decided to make one of my son...

The only problem is:

how do you get a 4 month old to sit still long enough to trace his silhouette?

You don't!  Keep reading to find out how I made this!

White Lasagne Roll Ups

Happy Valentine’s Day!   

 What are your plans for this day of love?

I woke up to the pleasant surprise of a quiet house!  My husband let me sleep while he and Logan went to store… I’m guessing he just remembered this morning that it’s Valentine’s Day—but that’s okay, I have at least an hour of piece and quiet!

My husband’s favorite food is lasagna and since I can’t eat tomato sauce right now (Logan’s little tummy does not like it at all!) I’m going to make White Lasagne.  I originally pinned this recipe from The Artsy-Fartsy Mama but, of course, made my own little changes.  Although let me say, her alfredo sauce is AWESOME (and really easy)!

Manic Monday 5

It’s Manic Monday!

This week’s theme is …

Anything Goes!

A yummy meal, home décor, DIY, a funny story, etc.

Before we get started I just wanted to share this AMAZING deal that I've found!
Do you have young one's? Do they love Sesame Street?

Right now Eversave has a special where you get 3 Sesame Street hard books with CD's for just $12!  This price includes shipping!  This is not a paid posting but I do get a merchandise credit for any new Eversave customers.  I just purchased these for my son and wanted to share the savings with all of you!

We had some amazing link ups last week….

and I can't wait to see what you guys have in store for me this week!

 I will be featuring the 3 links with the most traffic- hense, your way to vote on your favorites.

Look for the FEATURE post Saturday evening.

I will feature 2 additional links- my favorite crafty or decorating link and my favorite recipe linked up (I will try several linked up recipes throughout the week and pick one- that way I can honestly feature something that tastes as good as it looks and sounds).  I will also pin these to pinterest - so you’ll wind up with more traffic….

Alrighty, now on with the Party!

The Rules:

1.     You must follow me! (I know, it's so bossy... but I'm trying to build an audience here!)  I’d also love it if you would like Serendipity and Spice on Facebook:

2. No giveaways or linky parties... apparently this is an issue since I see it on every linky party post!

3.     Please grab a button

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post it on your blog and spread the word to your followers about my new site!

4.     Visit at least 2 other links and leave some feedback love...

I get so excited every time I see feedback!

5. HAVE FUN!