An Honored Beach Cottage Guest

photo by me

Hello everyone, I have something really fun to share with all of you!

photo by me

Can you guess why my table might look a little beachy?

photo by me

Well there is a very good reason for it!

I am in Australia at my dream beach cottage today!

I am visiting my friend Sarah.

I have to thank Sarah for giving me this opportunity!

Sarah is one of a kind!

I can't get enough of her style and her writing! I know all of you feel the same!

So to be asked by Sarah to be a guest at her beach cottage,

Is TRULY an HONOR!

click here

to see my house with a beach cottage twist!

A Beach Cottage

Thank you Sarah you are way too much fun!

photo below is courtesy of A Beach Cottage

Have you heard of minted.com? I discovered this wonderful website last year, I had been looking at different stationery sites and trying to decide which one I wanted to use for my Christmas Cards. I always do something special for my Christmas Cards. I want the person who is receiving my card to feel like they are receiving a Christmas gift from my family when they open their card. My cards always have pictures of my kids included in the card. I used to have their pictures professionally taken, but lucky for me, my husband bought me a very nice camera for Christmas 3 years ago. So now I take my own pictures.

So when I discovered minted, I was really excited. It was something different. They have a wide selection of great designs to choose from.

One thing I liked about this site, is they use designers from all over the world. They hold design challenges. If you win the design, your winning designs are sold on minted.com. You also earn cash prizes and 5% of ongoing revenues. Then their best designers are commissioned to create minted originals. If you know anything about graphic design you should really check out minted. Maybe you are a graphic designer waiting to be discovered! This might be your chance!

Or maybe you are a mom like me who loves to take pictures of her kids, and wants to create a special Christmas card with your own photographs. So I thought I would share this site with all of you.

I also thought I would share a few pictures that I took of my kids for my 2009 Christmas Cards.

I uploaded some of these pictures to minted.com and created a mini photo book.

This gives me an excuse to share pictures of my precious kids with all of you!

My kids know that they are blessed to be able to grow up on a horse ranch.

They show horses and cattle.

I just wanted to tell my friends from Australia, the dog pictured here is a McCallum bred dog. Tony McCallum is from Australia and started this breed. My husband loves using McCallum dogs for working cattle.

My kids LOVE animals.

Remember the post I did on the bird cage, a lot of you suggested I put feathered friends in the cage, well this is what my sons keep in the cage during the summer months, praying mantises, aren't they cute?

They love insects & reptiles!

My kids are the REAL treasures in my life!

If you look in magazines such as Martha Stewart Living you can find coupons for minted.com. I also watch their site for sales.

Have fun checking out this great site, minted.com. I was really happy with my purchase from them. I know I will be purchasing Christmas cards from them again this year.

If you are someone with graphic design talent and are looking to be discovered you should think about signing up for their design challenge.

I hope you all have a great weekend. I want you to know how much I appreciate all of your comments you leave me. Just remember you don't have to leave a comment about me, feel free to share something about yourself. I love learning something new about YOU!

The Wedding of My Dreams

Do you remember these pictures that I took at Maison Reve! I just discovered the story on how these chandeliers were used in a Napa, California wedding!

This would be my DREAM wedding.

I was so excited about this I could hardly wait to share it with all of you!

Now you need to go to Style Me Pretty and check this out!!!!

Click here to read about this beautiful wedding!

Please come back and tell me what you think!!!!!

Hello everyone, it is Wednesday & I am in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania!

Well kind of! The talented Marian, aka Miss Mustard Seed, from Mustard Seed Creations, asked ME to guest post on her Wednesday Work Shop Series! I was very excited and nervous to say the least. Marian is a very talented artist. She paints beautiful murals. She has a very successful creative blog and She is very sweet. Marian has helped me out a lot with my blog. The first time I found Marian's blog was when she had a workshop series post~Tips from a blog expert. This post helped me out tremendously! I am so glad I found her blog when I did.

Thanks Marian for this opportunity to guest post on your blog! My first guest post! Marian thanks for being so patient with me : ) I am so honored to be a guest on your blog!

Please head over to the very creative blog

Mustard Seed Creations

and you can read my post there! I hope you all enjoy it!

click on the pink text

Thank you Marian!

I am glad you enjoyed all those pictures of Yasmine's shop. In case you haven't figured out I LOVE her style and wanted to make sure you all got to see how incredible her store is! I had so much fun taking those pictures!

Take Care

Maria