New Winner for Wallat!

So since I've not been able to reach my previous winner for the Walla Wallat, I've decided I just need to select a new one! Hopefully this time I can actually find them and give someone a bright happy day!

{drumrolls}

For our Walla Wallat:

Entry #36 Courtney F

congratulations Courtney! Hopefully I'll either get in touch with you through the e-mail provided by rafflecopter, or you can shout out at me through 1035kwhite{at}gmail{dot}com!

Winners for the I'm a Blog Nerd Giveaway!

Well the moment I'm sure some of you have been waiting breathlessly for is here! Thank you all for participating, I've appreciated it very much! The winners are as follows...

For our Walla Wallat:

-redrawn-


For the custom Bloggy Facelift:

Entry #99 Amy C.


For Free Adspace on Imprintalish:

Entry #10 Jen M.


Thank you so much everyone for participating! I will be contacting the winners shortly. If you do not hear from me within twenty four hours, please e-mail me at 1035kwhite{at}gmail{dot}com

I'm A Blog Nerd Giveaway!

All right guys, you have no idea how totally pumped I am! This is officially my VERY FIRST GIVEAWAY! So I hope y'all bare with me and forgive any grievances or mistakes I might botch. I'm quite excited, so just think of me as a bit of a puppy ready to stain your brand new rug just at the sight of you!

Ahem. Now. Moving on.

Yes, in fact, I am sickeningly precious.

There's a few things up for grabs in this little giveaway of mine. First and foremost, I'd love to introduce you to the little homemade business of Walla Wallats! They are the one who got this whole shebang goin since the business is run by some members of my family, Melanie and Maggie. They are incredibly talented, and ever since they've started up this little venture, I've been enthralled with their designs. So cute and awesome, and I'm seriously touched they decided to make their bloggy debut right here on Little Homemade Housewife!

Now here's your chance, to win some serious swag! They've agreed to offer one of their nifty designs up for a chance to win!


This design was made by Maggie, and isn't it just awesome for all you DIY'ers, crafters, and just whoever! I've fallen in love with this design, and am actually mildly jealous y'all have a chance to get it for free!

BUT WAIT!

That's not all....

Another lucky winner can snag...

From ME here at the Little Homemade Housewife!

Here's the deal. I love designing. Point blank. I'm hoping to open up a little sub-blog that offers design services exclusively, but as I decided to do this little giveaway, I have figured to offer it up to one of you lucky winners first! Free of charge, you can choose from designs such as a new custom header, background, social media buttons, blog buttons, sig banners, facebook landing pages and timeline headers. You name it, I think I can make it, even if I have to do a bit of research first, I'll work to make sure you're happy!

Yet another happy follower can gain some wonderful things from some of my sponsors! For instance!


Now if that's not a swank deal, then I really don't know what is. A brand new set up as sponsor for the Month of may over with Lish at Imprintalish! She has some great traffic, as well as she's just a super sweet lady, and it's great to work with her, I should know!

All right. So. This giveaway will be open

APRIL 14 - APRIL 21.
Winners will be drawn on APRIL 22.

I look forwards to hearing from everyone, and I hope everyone enjoys my very first giveaway!

Guest Post: Tricia @ Mama Marchand's Nest

It's another exciting guest post here at Little Homemade Housewife. Tricia from Mama Marchand's Nest, another one of my lovely sponsors, is here to spread a little love and wisdom from her time in the blogosphere. Sit back and get rich in more inspiration and how it all started!

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Hi, Little Homemade Housewife readers! I'm delighted to be guest posting for Mrs. White today. I’m Tricia and I blog at Mama Marchand’s Nest. Mama to my daughter, N, and witty wife to the hubs, I write honestly about mamahood, marriage, faith, fashion, health, and a little bit of just about everything else. I also have an Etsy shop, Mama’s NestDesigns, and it is filled with new & upcycled handcrafted jewelry and every piece is made with love.

When Mrs. White posed the question, "what would you say is your main creative aesthetic, and how did you start/find it?" I had to chuckle because I think I've tried every creative medium that exists! I started out in paper, creating stationary and greeting cards using rubber stamps, embellishments, embossing, and mulberry paper. I happened to be working at a gift shop that sold all of that so I ended up creating sample cards to show what you could do with the supplies that we had in stock. To be honest, I miss this and writing about it makes me want to start that up again!

From there, I discovered my love for painting on canvas in a college art class so I dabbled in that for a bit. That led to making mixed media collages with good old fashioned mod podge, scrapbooking, and then started making jewelry, after coming to terms with my addiction to accessories.

That's the creative aesthetic that stuck. I create jewelry for my Etsy shop with upcycled elements (beads, spacers, etc) from my own jewelry collection. Friends and family members often send me surprise packages of broken jewelry or items they never wear and it's like Christmas to me! I take them apart and use those, along with new elements (beads, charms, chains, etc), to create something unique. I have to tell you - I do a little happy dance and get a goofy smile on my face when I get an email that someone bought an item from my shop. Not only is it INCREDIBLE that other people like what I make but I also happen to love the fact that I can create something to match any outfit I wear. An extra bonus!

Thanks, Mrs. White, for sharing your creative space with me today! Have a great weekend, folks, and be sure to hop over to my blog and say hello. Hugs!

Guest Post: Lish @ Imprintalish

Today we have the distinct delight of having Lish from Imprintalish guest posting at my dear little webspace. I hope you enjoy hearing from her just as much as I do, for once again we're opened up to the indepth look at inspiration and fame in the making!

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Hello Little Homemade Housewife readers! I'm so happy to be here today! When Mrs. White asked me to answer the following question, it really got me thinking and analyzing how I spend my creative time.

'What would you say is your main creative aesthetic, and how did you start/find it?'

About 15 years ago, I would have answered fairly quickly by saying that painting was the main thing I used to show off my creativity. I started painting and drawing really early in life. I remember spending many summer days outside sketching our family cat laying in the sun, drafting up my dream house on graph paper-room by room. I had all the patience in the world, erasing and redoing until it was perfect. My imagination was endless! Enter in high school and ART class was the place I fit in, I felt like that was my passion. I loved the freedom of painting my sketches, I loved the smell of a new canvas, the fluid motion of my brush in the wet paint...

Over the years my passion for painting is still there. But the time to do it, is not. Jobs, boyfriends, school, friends...and then a husband, two kids, a home...it's hard to find the time to get out the paint (other then to finger paint with my almost 3 year old!)

Now, the one thing that I can truly say will always be my creative aesthetic is photography. I don't even think twice about picking up my camera and shooting 100 different shots in an hour. It's a natural part of our day, my kids always see me with my camera, and they know that mom is taking pictures, again. Editing them is so much fun, playing with textures and actions in Photoshop, there really is no limit as to what you can do! I love it! Truly bringing a moment to life through a photo is an amazing thing.

The best part of this passion of mine is that it is an essential thing. Everyone takes photographs, right? For remembering special moments, keeping track of milestones. It fits easily into my life and I don't have to carve out a particular chunk of time to do it in, photography is portable goes with me everywhere. It's a great tool to use to appreciate the small things in this fast paced life!

Photography will always be a part of me, especially with little feet running around. Painting will always be there too, just not on a large 5 foot by 3 foot canvas, but on a roll of paper; paint oozing from tiny fingers. As I grow and learn new things, as I try to balance, fall down and pick myself back up, creativity will always be there and for that I am so thankful! And that's what my blog, Imprintalish is about. It's my Impressions, Inspirations and Imperfections. My moments of being a mommy to two gorgeous little boys, to being a wife, to being an aspiring WAHM, to being the best women I can be, one day at a time, through all the ups and downs and of course, through all the beautiful moments too!

I hope you come visit and say hi! And a big thank you to Mrs. White for inspiring me all over again to truly appreciate the creativity in my life!

Easter Gab and Empowerment

Hey everyone! I know it's been a bit slow around these parts so far into April. I had a bit of a project scrap since my jumpsuit I worked so hard on decided not to fit. I'm still proud of all the steps I learned in making it, such as pockets and putting together a pair of shorts. And an elastic back panel that was pretty fun. but other than that, I've, unfortunately, not had much going on.

But!

Coming up this week :

• Lish is guest posting tomorrow! So be sure to peek back on that!
•Tricia from Mama Marchand's Nest is guest posting Friday. Another exciting inspiration overhaul.
•My very first giveaway is this weekend! I have a really exciting prize all lined up for ya, and some free ad space is up for grabs as well!

Ahem...Now. Moving on to some updates.

I wanted to share this darling easter cake I did. I got the inspiration from Chrissy over at The Taylor House. I saw the idea, and I knew my mom and I had to tackle it. This is how it turned out!



Now we didn't do a whole lot of research on what recipes were used on the cakes we looked at, so we did an oreo cookie cake, and it turned out really really good. Also, all that you see on there was edible, save for the ribbon. We added the ribbon just to ensure that the kitkats would stay up while it froze into a good spot, that and we had to travel an hour with it in our trunk. We thought it added a sweet touch. And everyone seemed to really love it.

But that's not all I did on Easter...




"Your hair looks like an easter egg!"

I personally think that if Frenchie had been trying to make it in this day and age in the hair biz, she woulda done just fine. But you know, I always loved her anyway. (Such a grease lover).

But yes, my scalp still itches a bit from the bleach, but other than that, I'm content as can be!

Also, two of those pics today are from right after I worked out. Now, women don't typically do this. Hell, I don't typically do that hehe. But I'm thinking this morning, perhaps with a renewed sense of confidence and goal in mind, I'm definitely about trying to improve myself. I'm trying to get on the right track to do so physically, but I'm also all about doing it mentally as well. Like we're always hesitant to open our living room window when we work out, because someone might see us. But I'm also beginning to get more comfortable with the frame of mind that, so what if they see us? We're doing something good for our bodies. I'd say that's nothing to hide behind.

So I'm focusing more on loving the real me now, as well as working towards a me I can love even better in the future!

Loves on a Thursday (But really Friday)

So Lish over at Imprintalish has changed her 'how pinteresting' projects to Loves on a Thursday. And I'm again, all for it. Though this week I find I just don't know what kind of theme to follow. I scan through Pinterest without much interest recently, but I have been finding some other posts that have made it into my book of exciting things to do, (or will be doing shortly...hopefully).

So I think that's what I'm going to be doing this Thursday (hush all you naysayers that it's not Thursday, I didn't think about what I could do until today!)

So without further adeu...




DIY Turban @ C&C || Quick & Easy Carrot Cake Cupcakes ||
The Making of a Dress @ Made it on Monday || Blueberry Peach Buckle || Short Jumpsuit by Simplicity

Here's the turban I created in between steps on my jumpsuit.



And the cupcakes. So yummy, though we did use a homemade frosting. More on that later.



The blueberry peach buckle and dress making are not something I've technically started yet but the recipe is one my sister is raving about and the dress making just seems like it would be so much fun. Besides, the step by step posts she's making seem to make it really easy.

So thanks again to Lish for bailing my ass out of not posting for like... all of April. So! Thanks again for that!

Sponsors!

It is officially April, and I wanted to take a small moment to introduce all my lovely sponsors on a bit more individual basis. So. Starting with the well known..



From The Guest Room
Facebook || Twitter

Mary Kate has got to be the most kind hearted soul I've ever met. She's helpful, and incredibly wonderful when it comes to boosting one's moral. If you ever need a helping hand with anything, she seems to be the one there for ya. She's helped me build my following in a number of ways, as well as give me the confidence to try new and ever brighter things! I guess it makes sense that March was Hospitality Month over at the Guest Room, you should really peep over and check it out and see what she has coming up this month!



Digging Deeper Into Design, Mommyhood, and...Everything else
Facebook || Twitter

Digger is a chick that has really helped me "branch out" so to speak in my own blog. When I first started this, I had pretty much convinced myself it would be strictly a place I shared recipes and crafts. Because that's about the only thing I felt I had to offer. But upon reading blogs, and perhaps especially Digger's, I began to realize that it would be okay to open up and cover a few more bases. I'm a girl who enjoys having my thumb in seventeen pies at once, and Digger made me feel a little like that was okay. She also got me started on my list fascination. So why not go see the original in action?



Imprintalish
Facebook || Pinterest

Lish is a sweet chick, I have to admit. She's another one of those ladies that you think would truly give you the shirt off their back if you should so need it. She's also one who writes about things from her own life, and the thoughts she's having on them. I feel like a lot of the time I can relate to her in how she's feeling, but then again, she also puts up some stellar pictures. Her family is adorable, and her spring time shots just make me want to go out and sniff the flowers! Go share some love!



Mama Marchand's Nest
Facebook || Twitter

Now I will be the first to admit that I've not yet had the true pleasure of interacting too much with Tricia, but from what I've seen I really always enjoy reading up on her. She seems similar to me in her ever changing styling of her blog. I always love the bird theme though, I'm a sucker for it. She's also always gettin into or upto something, and that's what keeps me coming back to her blog. I'm hoping to have a possible guest post from her this month, so keep an eye out, and in the meantime, why don't you go give her some sponsor love!


And now for the new girl of the month of April....



Elise's Pieces
Facebook || Twitter

All righty, Elise is brand new. So obviously, I've not gotten much chance to catch up with her yet. BUT! I love reading her blog. She's closer to my age (I believe) than some of the other bloggers out there that I read. I've always been kind of an old soul, and reading Elise's blog reminds me to be young and have some random giggly fun. That, and I love her Dear Boy Posts. You really should go give em a read, most the time they have me crackin up, and well, I've written one so far. I will definitely have to give it another go!


All right! So now you know all my lovely fabulous ladies, you should definitely go buzz about their blogs. I know you're dying to, and that you are, indeed, busy little bees. Hehe. Also, please do keep an eye out, because I am definitely hosting my first giveaway this month! It's going to be pretty spiffy, even if it's only me contributing. But I'm hoping maybe a few others might want to too! If you're interested, don't hesitate to e-mail me. I'd love to hear from you!