paper love, real life, blog love, and party shout-outs

What I really WANT to do is blog. And do decorating makeovers. And host parties. That's the fun stuff. What I find myself doing is a whole lotta other stuff. Like doctor appointments for my kids. Grocery shopping. Laundry. Packing for next week's vacation. Writing blog posts for other people's blogs. (What? Something's wrong with this picture.) Fulfilling card orders. (Okay, that can be considered fun...but it's still not actually blogging.) Watering my garden (sort of). Working in the yard (occasionally). Cleaning my house (half-heartedly). 

"happy" custom rhinestone notecard set from NestInk

All of that to say, I am missing my little blog. I wish I could write every day, but I seem to be in a season where real life is even more of a balancing act than normal lately. And what's cool about balancing Nesting Instincts (interior redesign business) with NestInk (custom stationery business) is that it seems whenever one is lagging, the other picks up the pace. It must be a God thing, because I certainly couldn't plan it that way.

I've had several large card orders lately...in other words, multiple sets of custom cards for the same customer. I even did some custom event invitations last week that were a lot of fun. I haven't gotten up the guts (or is it just the time?) to list things like that in my Etsy shop yet, but I'll get to it eventually. I do so love creating invitations that set the mood for an event. My client wanted something summery (but not too obviously summer, like flip-flops or something) so we chose the "Happy" pattern as the inspiration for the invitation. I thought they turned out cute and it just occurred to me that of course I forgot to photograph them for my blog. If I'm not careful, my blog will begin to feel horribly neglected and get her (she's a "her", of course)  feelings hurt and then start giving me errors when I try to post. Or stop uploading photos. Or something like that.

Angela's Ranch Redo  (The Painted House blog)

ANYWAY, in my current state of Bad Blog Author, I have at least continued reading and occasionally commenting on other blogs. One of my most favorite blog posts EVAH was this one from Angela at The Painted House. It's part of her series on "What Makes a Home Beautiful?" and it is so worth the read. It initiated a flurry of emails between Angela and I because she touched on a few things I'm fairly passionate about. Also, her whole blog is beautiful and worth reading, but I especially loved her recent post about updating the exterior of her ranch home. It is GOR-geous now.

Another site I recently discovered was The Grocery Shrink. I'm still a teeny tiny bit intimidated (okay, a lot intimidated) by the money-saving genius I've found there, but I'm baby-stepping it. Have been receiving her free emails on how to make my own cleaning supplies, which I may just start doing. I am still waiting on the email on how to make my own housekeeper. I'd even pay for that e-book!!

And last, but not least, a great BIG thank you to a few sites that have featured my parties recently:

my Dr. Seuss Party:
CafeMom.com blog, The Stir
Guest post at The Birthday Girl
Kinser Event Comapny blog

My "Baby Meet Orange" shower:

BumpSmitten.com (site is still under construction, I'll let you know when the feature goes live)

Anyway, if this hasn't been the most random of all blog posts! For those of you still reading (thanks, Mom) I hope you have a lovely rest of the week. Me, I'm getting ready for vacation...can I get a WOOHOO?? Trying not to get overwhelmed at the amount of work involved in getting three kids (one of them still a baby) ready for a week-long trip. Oy.