Unconventional Workouts

Anyone else out there hate working out? I like exercise, and I know it's good for me, but the concept of paying money and taking two hours of my day preparing, going to, and cleaning up after the gym has never appealed to this girl. I also don't have enough self-motivation at home to workout, I hate to run, and I really don't think yoga is for me, so what to do?
I find unconventional means. I primarily play Just Dance 4 or Dance Dance Revolution. I know it's a little silly, but I love to dance and I'm sweating just as much as I would be at any gym. Any of you go this route? What could be better than learning some sweet dance moves and getting fit at the same time?! Also, who's excited for the release of Just Dance 2014 this October?

Dance on!

World Record Holders

Good Saturday to you! I am a "lead" volunteer for a great event we have in Grand Rapids called Laughfest, which runs this year from March 7th - 17th! Laughfest supports our local Gilda's Club, named for SNL great Gilda Radner who was diagnosed with cancer, and as a result lost her funny. She eventually made the most of the remainder of her life but unfortunately lost her life to the disease. Luckily, her legacy lives on! Gilda's Club is a free and open place for those grieving to find their funny and be a part of a great community! Anyway, Laughfest directly supports this great organization and I'm volunteering for my third year, which is coincidentally the third year of Laughfest.

To kick off the festival, we always attempt (and succeed, obviously ) to break a world record! This year it was the most people to wear a fake mustache! Very fun. So my friends and I helped out:

Can you believe it - they actually ran out of mustaches! The previous record was 648 set in St. Louis. We more than doubled it with 1,544. And we would have had over 2,000 if the mustache supply was adequate!

Tonight several of my friends and I are going to see Joel McHale! I'm super excited because the rest of the festival is volunteer mode for me, where I may or may not get to see the show (crossing my fingers extra hard for Wayne Brady)!

Have you heard of Laughfest where you're from? And what do you have going on this weekend? Remember to smile!

The Versatile Blogger Award

Another week, another award! I like that! But seriously, it's so great evolving as a blogger. I've been able to collaborate with other bloggers, meet new people, do fun giveaways with great Etsy artists, and it has just opened my eyes to a whole new world that I never realized the intensity of! I love it! So today I want to thank Avé over at Avé Renée for nominating me for the Versatile Blogger Award!

Here are the "rules"

1. Nominate up to 15 fellow bloggers who are relatively new to blogging.
2. Let the nominated bloggers know that they have been nominated for this award.
3. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
4. Thank the blogger who has nominated you.
5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your post.


Seven Random Facts About Myself
1. You can normally find me drinking water, coffee, beer, or wine. I rarely sip on anything else!
2. I only buy music if it's in the form of a beautiful vinyl record nowadays: )
3. I am dying to go on a little trip soon - Chicago? San Francisco? Portland, Maine?!
4. My half birthday is on the Ides of March - beware!
5. I love my cats - Ellie, Dewey, and Stevie. If it was acceptable, I would definitely be a cat lady.
6. When I was little I was afraid to sit on Santa's lap.
7. I love to volunteer! I help out with a lot of nonprofits and arts groups. I feel like I should be directly helping people (or animals!), but I love to give how I am able!


And here are my Nominees! I only have a few since I just chose several for the Liebster Award, but I found all of these bloggers on the Better Blogger Network and can't wait to explore their blogs further!
The Little Brown Book
Nicolle Shelton
Taylor Calvillo
Gowk
Sunny Days are Love
Violet Daffodils
My Lifebox

This was a fun post! Thanks again to Avé for the nomination! : )

P.S. December 21st is almost over! Congratulations on surviving the apocalypse!

Liebster Award!

Lovely Llorys was nominated for the Liebster Award! Thank you to studiomaison for the nomination! 

So, here's the deal: Bloggers nominate other bloggers with 200 or less followers. Liebster means "favorite" in German so everyone can promote their favorite blogs... or maybe find new ones! If you are nominated, you just have to follow the rules (below) and nominate 11 more blogs to keep the fun going!

Rules for nominees:

1. List 11 facts about yourself.

2. Answer the 11 questions given to you.

3. Create 11 new questions for the bloggers you nominate for the award.

4. Choose 11 bloggers with 200 or less followers to nominate.

5. Go to each bloggers page and let them know about the award.

6. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.

11 Facts About Me:

1. I am a barista

2. I love cats!

3. I could eat pizza and Greek salad everyday

4. I once touched the Stanley Cup

5. I have been to Disney World 4 times

6. I like the smell of skunks

7. I rarely burp

8. I love themed parties, like a certain decade or sequins and bowties

9. The Beatles are my favorite band

10. I am a pescatarian

11. I have been to 4 *NSYNC concerts (rip, single Justin Timberlake)

Questions from Saralyn at studiomaison

1. Where are you most excited to travel?

I love to travel and want to see as much as I can, but my top choice is still Europe because I love it so much. We are looking at Iceland or Turkey next. I also really want to see Prague! And I wouldn't mind just going back to Croatia.

2. What is your favorite book?

The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy. I always recommend this, but no one ever reads it! I couldn't say exactly what it is about it, but I just love this book.

3. What inspires your blog?

Travel, photography, style, fashion, neat things that I want to buy... I am a mixed bag when it comes to this blog. I always think I want to have a clear direction, but so many ideas pop into my head it's hard to take the straight road!

4. What is one of your guilty pleasures?

...Keeping Up With the Kardashians. And the Michael Buble Christmas Album!

5. What is your favorite movie?

...Home Alone, seriously. But I also LOVE Lost In Translation.

6. Do you have any pets?

We just got a cat a week ago! I think his name will be Stevie. He is adorable and soft and cuddly and I love him.

7. What is your favorite scent?

I have so many! But I will go with the perfume Twirl, by Kate Spade.

8. If money was no object, what would you buy?

I would travel everywhere!

9. Who inspires you the most?

My friend Colleen really inspires me! She is such a trendsetter and a great person and I love her!

10. What are you looking forward to the most during the holidays?

Everyone loves Thanksgiving so much, but I prefer Christmas. I just love all the music and seeing friends and family and parties and food and lights! I really like the lights.

11. How did you get started blogging?

Speaking of Colleen, she started a blog a few years back and I decided to as well as a way to keep in touch. We both gave up for a while, but I decided in the spring to try and keep mine going. There is such a great community of bloggers and so many potential opportunities! I love connecting with people, so I've kept it up: )

My Nominees:

Wanderlusted

Running With A Glue Gun

One Delightful

a yank (who was once) in darwin

The Artist's Blog

Horses of Ares

Hey Miss Pickle

ButtonMunch

Kitty Cat Stevens

Tea Tree

Lazarus bell

Questions for my nominees:

1. What is the best vacation you've ever been on?

2. Do you sleep with socks on?

3. What is your standard coffee shop order?

4. Do you like to volunteer? If so, where?!

5. What's the best class you've ever taken?

6. What's at the top of your Christmas list this year?

7. Favorite muppet?

8. Current best show on television?

9. Favorite magazine?

10. Do you have an unusual talent?

11. Why did you begin blogging? 

Thanks again, Saralyn! What a fun way to get the week started. I am looking forward to all my nominees' posts!

Giveaway // Telestrations!

Hello my lovely readers! I am really excited about this giveaway! One of you will win a Telestrations game - the fun new party game from USAopoly. They sent me the game to try out, and we finally got to this weekend, being home for the holiday. I can't wait to play it with more people this holiday season. The goal of the game is to have fun and laugh a lot, and we sure did! Here's how you play:          

Telestrations is for 4-8 people, and we had 6. I think the more the merrier (and increased fun)! Anyway, everyone gets their own booklet, dry erase marker, and eraser to start. 

Then everyone gets a card and you decide if you'd like to do "This Side" or "That Side." We did a couple of each. Then someone rolls the die and everyone must draw the corresponding number's secret word. In that round I had to draw Old School, it was so difficult!

So you write the secret word on the first page, and then draw it on the second page. The you pass the whole book to the person on your left. They look at your drawing and write their guess of what it is. Then the whole book is passed to the left again.

 Then the next person looks at the previous guess and draws their best interpretation of it, so the above drawing was for the guess "falling in love." 

This goes back and forth until you get your book back. Then it's time to see how your initial secret word has progressed! And time for laughs.

We were all dying here because Mr. Hall's word was boxer and he drew a boxer. I guessed boxer, Andrew drew a pretty great match, but then Andrew's dad thought the gloves in the match were hearts and guessed "Falling In Love!" So somehow we went from "Boxer" to "True Love." So silly! (And Andrew's dad didn't even want to play, looks like he was having fun there!)

You can choose to score competitively or friendly. We did friendly, so you awarded one point for your favorite drawing and one for your favorite guess, and you also got one for yourself if your secret word matched the final guess - I think that only happened about 5 times out of our three rounds!

My favorite things about Telestrations were how silly the progression could be from the initial word to the final guess, the fact that they have dry erase booklets instead of wasting a bunch of paper, and that it was simple to set up and play and way fun! Thanks, Telestrations for sharing!

Here's a video that Telestrations asked me to share, and it seems qu accurate! 

Now onto the giveaway! I have to limit it to the United States only. I hope you will enter! Just think of all the fun you could bring to your family's holiday get-togethers: ) a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Best Soirees Have Photobooths

 These photos are from the photobooth we helped create at our friend Gaby's birthday party, the theme of which was bowties and sequins. I've been wanting to share them for so long and she fiiiiiinally uploaded them to facebook, so here are some of my favorites! Above is the group shot, of course.

I love this last one. Where are they going? Beyond the streamers? Or are they just hiding from the camera? It's so artsy.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed these and maybe gained some inspiration for your next party! I love it when people take the time to set up something like this! It creates some silly memories! Happy Thursday. We're almost to the weekend!!!

The Fancy

guys! have you heard of this website, the fancy? i found it earlier while i was working on my next tuesday treasures post, and i've been addicted since. it's the basic setup of pinterest, but i don't know, more artsy? better photography? more elite? not really sure, but it's neat-o. if you want to sign up, here is a referral link to do so. i think the main differences here are that the fancy shows bigger photos than pinterest, and that you are able to build up credits on the fancy to buy the things you see. you can find links to buy, and if you own it you can also sell yours. i don't really know how all that works because i've just been "fancying," but you should check it out! here are some fun things i found:

what do you think? just like pinterest? better or worse? or does it just have something of its own to offer? well if you sign up, make sure to follow me!