Startup Princess Reatreat: feelin' the love.

This past weekend I was the luckiest duck. I was able to attend the first Startup Princess Retreat in Park City Utah at the Zermott Resort, and oh! What a blast! It was a small group of no more than 35 people, and honestly, felt like one big sleepover. Such amazing energy and charisma in this group: a fantastic mesh of fun personalities. I miss you ladies already!

Topic of the weekend? Social networking and marketing to women. Guest speakers came from all over:

Holly Buchanan: co-author of the Soccer Mom Myth, and founder of Marketing to Women Online; from Richmond, VA: fabulous presenter and got us all thinking about how we present our businesses to every type of woman.

Barbara Jones: Founder of the One2One network offering products that match your business in order to get feeback and increase your own social networking. Such an amazing background in the music industry, and such a doll! This woman is Gold!

Janet Meiners: SEO guru and writer of Newspapergirl; Such great info on how to get people to find you on the web.

(gwen with Kelly Anderson: founder of Startup Princess)

Gwen Bell: Social networking queen (voted one of the top 50 most influential people in social media); Member of the Kirtsy Team, twitter expert and social enthusiast. This woman has done it all. If you ever get a chance to meet this woman, do! www.gwenbell.com

(Me with Gabrielle...she has the greatest hair!)

Gabrielle Blair: Design mom and co-founder of Kirtsy. Need I say more? Just a doll! Shared her story about starting her blog and kirtsy and gave some fantastic tips on blogging. She is a gold mine of info and resources!

And all these women were just so open and shared advice with us one on one the whole weekend! We went from professional acquaintances to great friends in just an instant.

And those who attended shared nearly just as much. We had time to get to know each other and share ideas too. I met some awesome women with some amazing companies! I hope to be sharing more about them in the coming weeks, as well as some great info I gleaned from the weekend.

And especially, a HUGE thanks to my husband who watched the kids (fed them Baskin robbins, KFC and spent the day at the children's museum) while I was with the girls. He is the BEST dad!

Biggest benefits: being in a close knit group with women just like me: social, creative, wanting to share their ideas with others. We were all just a bunch of humanistics, concerned mostly about building good relationships, which is what this whole blogging world is really all about!

Thanks ladies for an incredible weekend! Can't wait to share more about what I learned! If you missed this weekend, I hear through the grapevine another is being planned for January! Get on board!

Park City Retreat.

I have been waiting for this weekend for a long time...Startup Princess is having an all women entrepreneur retreat in Park City Utah this weekend, and I am ready to soak it all in like a dry sponge. The weekend's topics: Learn the Magic of Marketing to Women Online. Speakers include Gabrielle Blair from Kirtsy and Design Mom, Holly Buchanan and Michelle Miller authors of the Soccer mom myth , Janet Meiners Thaeler and expert on internet and affiliate marketing. I am also so excited to meet some attendees there: Gwen Bell from Kirtsy, Marie LaBaron from Make and Takes among others. I plan on coming back with LOTS and lots to share! And if you are in Utah, email me. It may not be too late to come and join up!

Happy Site Friday: Livingplaying

Christmas is here, and we all have our wish lists for our kids. Or, our kids have wish lists for us. Either way, here is a fantastic place to find creative play toys all in ONE place.

About them: "LivingPlaying.com is an online store providing high-quality educational and developmental toys, products, and publications that enable parents to teach, guide and inspire their children through creative play."

Wooden kitchens, wooden cars, puppet theaters, unique decor, doll houses, construction toys, even montessori toys. My kind of store!

Just stay little.

If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.

Thomas S. Monson

Oh how true!!! The total chaos around the house (like Ian pulling out the entire roll of toilet paper and his new found skill of sneaking utensils out of the kitchen and putting them in the washing machine) is simply physical proof that I live with angles. Funny angels. Clever angels. Know-how-to-push-me-to-my-limit angels...but angles. Oh...I wish they could just stay tiny forever! I just hope that when we are all big and fat and old, that we will still love each other just as much...maybe even more. But I sometimes find that hard to imagine! Just stay little!

Stationery, Seasons Greetings, and SALE!!!

Much awaited: Cards are here! These packs were so much fun to put together. Most of my cards just come with cards and envelopes. These have an added bonus: pretty box and gift tags to match! I had a lot of fun making these! I wish you could just see them in person. They are just yummy.

"Winter Cheer" Stationery Set

"Handmade Just for you" Stationery set

"Wellesley and Winslow Christmas Post" Stationery Set

I hope there are more Holiday cards coming, but I as far as "sets" complete with gift cards, this is it folks!

And while we are on the subject of GIVING....

How about a BUY 2 GET ONE FREE sale? Sound good? It does to me!

Just purchase TWO products, and mention the THIRD product in the message to seller box at the time of purchase, and I will include it in your order! Quesions? I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks to those of you who have been so patient waiting for these! Happy gift giving!!!

Have fun in the shop!

How to be a mom and an artist and a business owner.

Have you ever tried Googling that phrase? I have. I know. A little embarrassing. But the truth is, you can't really find an answer to that question. Experience is the only teacher.

Well, I guess if you googledd that phrase now, you would find this.

I was invited to be a guest blogger at Le Papier Studios, (A DARLING shop by the way...get your christmas goodies here!) and I spilled the beans about balance, and life and priorities and trying to live all three roles.

Something I hope to learn more about everyday. Life is meant to be lived...and when life is busy, there is no reason you still can't enjoy it all. So...here is my two cents on the subject. (Ok...more like 10 bucks...it is a bit long, but then, couldn't we all write novels on this subject?)

Enjoy!

What to do when your daughter is wearing a an extremely famous dress for Halloween?

Take lots of pictures!

The dress came in the mail at 3 pm Halloween afternoon, and that was the end of being a Witch for the night! I actually video taped her opening the box...and Oh! The dramatic response when she saw what it was. What an amazing dress!

As we were putting the dress on, Ian ran back to his room, grabbed his "prince" crown and his blanket for me to tie up as a cape. He immediately bowed to Addie and asked for the next dance. He is such a romantic...and well, it doesn't help that he has an Anne of Green Gables for a sister. And...well, I am not much better. I wonder where he gets it from!

This dress is a dream, and Addie is in heaven wearing it. We wore it trick or treating and let me tell you the comments we got! She was quite the featured trick-or-treater. (We only went to maybe 8 doors and took our time going door to door. They will get older one day and figure out faster walking = more candy) We ended up carrying her up each door step making sure she wouldn't step on this masterpiece. And that is what it is. A masterpiece.

I still feel a little guilty for having such an amazing dress..and so popular at that! I am just tickled to see how regal Addie becomes when she wears it. Her manners are perfect, and she becomes royalty. And in response, Ian becomes royalty too. We are already planning a party around this dress! And oh, what a ball it will be.