Blog Business
Are You New Here? A small sampling of our favorite posts.
Hi all! Hope you’re having as awesome a pre-Thanksgiving weekend as I am.
I’ve had a ton of new readers stopping by lately, so I wanted to take a moment to say hello, and give you a 5-second overview of a few posts you may enjoy as you get to know us here at The Borrowed Abode.
First, if you’d like a tour of the space I’m spending the most time in this holiday season, you can see my sewing studio here.
Or maybe you’re in the mood for some humor? Check out my fiance Ryan’s series of “from-the-man’s-perspective” posts, aptly entitled “What the Hell?”
For those of you interested in furnishing spaces fashionably, yet on a budget, check out my surprisingly cheap budget breakdown of our mid-mod influenced living room.
And if you’re really just nosy about our engagement, check out Ryan’s super sweet proposal surprise here.
In the mean time, I’ve got to get back to sewing! :) Thanks so much for stopping by!
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Giveaway Winner, and a Q&A with Janery!
First, congratulations to the winner of this week’s Janery giveaway – Ashley at Design Build Love – this is your lucky Friday! The floral forest pillow cover you love can now be yours! Drop me a note so I can hook you up!
Second, I was recently interviewed by Cat at Budget Blond – not only was it my first interview as a “business owner” but also my first interview in blogland in general! My favorite question to answer was one where we discussed whether the blog and shop originated together or if one came from the other. . . and even though I knew the answer, that questions really provoked some interesting observations about the whole process.
So I hope you’ll hop over and check it out, and say hi to Cat while you’re there. She recently moved to the island of Grenada with her husband, who’s completing medical school there. And I’ve got to say, even though she says there’s no crafting stores in sight, I’d rather be there than here on this chilly November morning!
Thanks to Cat for your patience as I took forever to complete the questions, and also for even wanting to interview me in the first place! I’m super flattered!!
As seen on Kalanicut!
Please pardon the less than exciting title. I was up very late last night sewing, and didn’t even get a second to think of blogging. Fortunately I awoke today to find that my blog buddy Kalani had written the sweetest post about Janery and this here blog!
You may remember her from when I recapped my adventures in California – and got to meet her in person! Why don’t you hop on over to visit Kalani and see what she has to say? :) I’ll be back tomorrow or Friday (schedule permitting) with a big update on our totally fabulous wedding venue.
Calling all awesomeness!
I’m endlessly grateful to my readers for stopping by my virtual borrowed abode to poke around and see my latest projects.
That gratitude got me thinking about your projects. The internet is an amazing source of inspiration (Hello, Pinterest . . .) which made me realize that I’d really love to be showing off some great reader DIY projects and home spaces. After all, the best part of blogging is the community that results, and it’s thanks to my community that this blog has grown – so what better way to say Thank You than to share the love?
If you look at the right sidebar of The Borrowed Abode you’ll see the “show off your awesome rented space!” button. This submission button is for DIY or decorating projects big and small that would be useful to TBA readers, as well as being generally awesome.
Small, useful project:
Larger scale project:
The only thing I ask is that we keep these projects rental friendly since many of our homes are borrowed. But that doesn’t mean you yourself have to be a renter – it just means no major demolition or renovation projects. :) I’m super excited to see any and all reader submissions though – I want to give you guys props and continue introducing awesome projects, tips, and organization for a borrowed home to the blogosphere.
So click the button guys. You know you want to share – and I know I want to see your work! Win, win.
The Flooded Abode
This is not a decorating post. Nor is it a fun post. Or a project post. This is a “real-life-at-the-Borrowed-Abode” post.
As you may know, here in the DC area we’ve been getting just a bit of rain this week. Yesterday they said we got 10-12 inches in one day.
At 3 pm yesterday Ryan left work, and cars were floating in the parking lot across the street from the building (see below). Shortly after that, our security team issued an email that they were evacuating our building, because it was flooding. As of this morning there was over a foot of water in parts of the first floor, and the office is closed until further notice. Read the rest of this entry »
Introducing: The Week of Awesome at the Proposed Abode
Hi all! The last 10 days have been such a whirlwind of excitement and travel! When we last talked, I was heading out for a weekend in the mountains with Ryan – which you all know now included a surprise proposal – followed by a rather anticlimactic week-long business trip to Southern California. It was anticlimatic simply because after the most perfect romantic weekend with Ryan, it really sucked to be away from him for 6 days.
Also, I spent Thursday evening trying not to think about the fact that my work trip was the reason I had to decline an invitation to a party held by Emily Henderson in New York City that night. Oh, the horror! She’s pretty much my favorite HGTV show host – I love how real she is on her blog – and I would have just loved to meet her.
But there was a silver lining to that cloud. Because I was still in Cali, I was able to visit a fabulous coffee roaster and then shoot up to Beverly Hills for the Decorate book signing with Holly Becker, where I also got to met two more awesome bloggers in real life – Kelly from Ever Kelly and Kalani from Kalanicut!!
I stayed that night at a beautiful, luxurious hotel . . . only to have to leave at 3:30 in the morning to drive back to San Diego in an attempt to NOT get stuck at the airport and actually get home before the now infamous hurricane.
And when I arrived home, rather than still being grouchy for having to cut my California trip short, I was just overcome with joy at seeing Ryan and being in my home sweet home.
You know what? California was fabulous, but it just wasn’t fun without Ryan there to experience it with me. And while the hotels had the most comfortable beds, not to mention maid service, they don’t hold a candle to our little Borrowed Abode, even with the shedding pets and the dishes piled up in the kitchen sink.
But enough sappiness. I’ve scrapped my scheduled blog posts for the week, because I have a week of awesomeness to share with you – starting, of course, with the proposal and trip. So if you’re looking for projects, you’ll have to come back next week.
Your Chance to Win $5000: The 3M Couple Speak Video Contest!
This post is brought to you by me & Ryan, and our quest for better communication during DIY projects. (It’s also officially brought to you by 3M, but more on that later).
Let’s start with a phrase we hear all too frequently at the Abode:
“That’s a great idea, but do you really need to stop everything and do it right now, in the middle of dinner?”
If you’re anything like me, the answer is always:
“Yes!! I must do this now!”
But if you’re anything like Ryan, you actually take time to plan ahead. You think cautiously. And despite that, the Couple Speak ensues. For example:
I say: “Here’s the measuring tape.”
But I really mean: “Remember how the last time you hung a painting it overlapped the door frame?”
Our relationships are way more important than home décor, but we often encounter minefield discussions when more than one person gets involved in the work. Explaining to Ryan why bloggers repurpose things was hard enough, believe me. Add in the time when I stuck takeout containers up as hat storage or taped envelopes inside my kitchen cabinets and he likely thought I was nuts.
Since we have our fair share of DIY hilarity (two months to build simple nightstands, ahem) I figured I should tell you all about the 3M Couple Speak video contest. Plus, I’ve also had some luck of my own winning 3M video contests and I thought maybe I’d be able to virtually pass on that luck to some of you!
The new 3M video contest, Couple Speak, is being hosted on the 3M Frameworks Facebook page and they’re looking for hilarious (but not mean) entries that demonstrate how couples work out their communication issues during home improvement. Of course, they’re hoping that a 3M product might be the solution to ending ‘couple speak’ miscommunications. The contest will have two grand prize winners who take home $5,000 each.
Yes, you read that right. Five thousand dollars! Imagine the DIY projects you could complete with that kind of cash!
So here are the details of the CoupleSpeak Video Contest:
- To enter, simply make a video demonstrating a couple-speak challenge
- Keep your video to 2 minutes or less
- Keep it clean, and don’t be mean!
- No 3M products can be shown in the video
- And finally, be sure to end your video with a provided end reel animation of one of five 3M products that could have helped the situation from the “materials files” on the 3M FrameWorksFacebook page
Not in the mood to be a film star? You could still win $250!
If a video isn’t in the works for you by the October 6, 2011 deadline, don’t worry. You can still participate on Facebook, by uploading your own script of hilarious couple speak to the 3M FrameworksFacebook page. Every single week, one lucky script-writer will win a cash prize of $250.
In the spirit of hooking other DIYers up with the chance to win some cash for future projects, feel free to share the contest on Twitter and Facebook.
Let me know if you participate in the contest – I’d love to highlight your videos here on the blog! And if any of you Borrowed Abode readers win prizes, that would seriously rock! Not to mention it would probably help you avoid some miscommunication in the future as well. . .
In the interest of keepin’ it real: This post is officially sponsored by 3M. I was happy to partner up with them because I’m a fan of their blue painter’s tape and the entire family of Command adhesive products (especially for renters!). As with the rest of my business, a portion of all proceeds will be donated to the Carpenter Center, a local homeless shelter.
Launch Week Giveaway Winners & Special Janery Discount!
Has it really been a week since I launched Janery, my handmade home accessories shop? I guess it’s high time I let you all know who the winners of the launch week giveaways are!
**The eco-friendly Janery package (cloth napkins, reusable produce bags, and a flour sack towel) goes to Ashley from “Sunny Side Shlee“. Ashley, let me know which pattern towel you’d like!
**The autographed copy of the UnMarketing book goes to with Christina from “The Scrappy Housewife“.
**The Gadanke “Become” journal will find a home with Sarah from “Sarah with an H“.
**Kelly from EverKelly will be getting a caffeine fix from Caffe Amouri, along with the portable coffee dripper.
**And finally, Lisa C. and Anna H. will each receive the $25 store credit to Janery.
Congrats to you all, and please shoot me an email with your mailing address. Lisa & Anna, when you’re ready to use your shop credit, just let me know and I’ll give you the details :)
And to all of you who participated, thank you SO MUCH for your comments and feedback! It was an amazing first week of running the shop!
As a thank you to everyone, I’m offering a discount for the rest of June: get %10 off your entire purchase when you use the code “JUNE11″ at checkout.
In other news, I’m back from helping my amazing friend Melissa move, and we have so much good stuff to share: the before-and-almost-after of her new studio apartment, a quick trip to New Hampshire to pick up furniture, and then all the fun of fitting the new furniture into the house. . . and more. Oh, and the part I’m most excited about? We made two totally dorky videos of her space – before, and after. They’re really bad. Complete with awkward Jane commentary about unrelated things. :) Have an AWESOME weekend!
