Pinterest: Who to Follow, Kids’ Niche

Pinterest: Who to Follow, Kids’ Niche

Continuing from my 2,000 pinterest followers post, I’d like to share with you some people and boards I think stand out. I believe that if  you want to get the most out of pinterest, you need to seek out people to follow who have similar tastes and interests to you, and who pin frequently. Unless you’re real life friends with Justina BlakeneyJoy ChoBonnie Tsang, and Bri Emery, if you are only following your real life friends, you’re doing it wrong. If you are only following the people pinterest suggests that you follow when you first sign up (this is not what I experienced when I signed up, but they do that, right?), you’re getting more out of it than people who choose to follow only people they know, but there is another, deeper level of following that you’re potentially missing out on. You might have different tastes than your real life friends, and everyone follows Joy Cho (yes, you should still follow her), so if you are interested in filling your feed with images and ideas you will be interested in but less likely to be exposed to, you need to put a bit of effort into who to follow. But I’m going to cut out some of the work for you, since I already do that. If you follow me, and enjoy what I pin, then perhaps you’ll be interested in some of the people and boards I follow!

Because I’ve been so focused on kids and kids rooms over the past week, I’m going to share with you a few of my favorite kid-related boards, curated by people with less than 10,000 followers.

 

WHO TO FOLLOW

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Kids’ Fashion

Littles by Jenna Thielen: I believe I started following her after noticing that she repined a few things from my for the littlest board, and so I clicked to the board she was repinning too, and behold! But then, I discovered love pretty much everything she pins… It’s definitely one of those pinterest moments where one thinks, “based on your pins, we could be best friends.” She has no idea I have a pinterest crush on her, and will probably never read this, but I’m going public.

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Kids’ Rooms

Young Ones by Emily Mughannam // EM DESIGN; I first discovered her after Joy or Holly Becker or someone elese internet famous pinned this image, which is a showcase room she did. This board is huge! Over 500 pins and good ideas! And, of course her Interiors board is great, too.

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Kids’ Organization and Storage

Mini: Bookshelves and closets by Bee@Hellobee: Say what?! A whole board dedicated not only to kids, and not only to kids rooms, but specifically to bookshelves and closets! This is very niche, but parents will know that these categories can be the most troublesome and most needy areas for sophisticated organization! And let them be beautiful to boot!

I sure hope you enjoy following these talented ladies! What do you guys think? Should I share more of the people that I follow on a regular basis?

Big Girl Bedroom, Day 2

Big Girl Bedroom, Day 2

2c_derekswalwell_337L

Isn’t this just dreamy? It’s making me consider dark gray walls for her room, instead of light gray… and makes me dream of a wicker headboard, but I do think the bed we have will shine once I know what to paint it! Also, the quilt… Can I do such fine hand quilting? It’s so gorgeous! Credit to Derek Swalwell.

I sure hope I’ll get out of the habit of writing these late night posts after this long weekend!

Today I don’t feel like I got as much done, but that’s probably because a lot of the work I did in/for Laelia’s room required me to either make more of a mess (going through closet, drawers and toys will do that), or required me to sit at the computer searching for the right item, sifting through pinterest, and planning on how I am going forward.BigGirlRoomDay2_ShelfI patched her walls, and spray painted the last handle on her kitchen set. I’m moving some curtains from our room to her room, so I moved her tassel garland around, it hasn’t settled on a home yet (see photos). I went through her clothes, and determined what’s going back to people who let me borrow, what’s going to be sold, and the few items I’m saving for sentimental reasons. I also packed up her cloth diapers, diaper bag, moby wrap, ergo, and baby toys. I have got to say, this is a really emotional thing to do. I’m not saying that I was sobbing mess of a mother, but I it was hard not to become sentimental in my mind. I bet a lot of people have babies by the time they need to do this for their older child, and I can’t say if that would be better or worse, but in my experience it’s definitely a little sad. Will I ever use these things again? Tyler did say to Laelia, however “You’re growing! That’s what you’re supposed to do!” and I appreciate that. A little reminder that all is going the way things are supposed to go.

BigGirlRoomDay2_KitchenSet

I’m struggling with a few areas in her room. Her closet is overloaded but only one drawer is being used (what can I say, I significantly prefer to see clothes hanging over stuffed in a drawer–I’m way less likely to use an item of clothing if it is stuffed away in a drawer). I don’t think I can set up her easel (which I want to do for a little “art” area) unless I put the EXPEDIT on it’s side and move something else on the old quilt wall. I’ve also decided that I would really love to have a playroom and a garage. I’d put all her toys and activities in a playroom, shove everything that’s if-y or not being used in the garage and it’s a done deal. The idea that John and Sherry from YGL are putting together Clara’s (she’s about a month older than Laelia) big girl room leisurely before she even leaves her nursery is so insanely irksome to me! I mean, of course that’s exactly what I would do if I were them,  because we’re all smart like that. ~.^ And I love them and what they do, and it’s totally my problem, but sometimes when people talk about spare rooms, guest rooms, play rooms, garages AND basements AND attics AND sunrooms, it’s just like, ugh! Meanwhile, as a person lacking all of those things, if we are going through stuff, it has to sit in our living room, kitchen or under our desk until things get sorted. And there is always something that is being sold or stored. It’s so not awesome to share an otherwise beautiful living space with a rotating supply of temporary storage. Anyway /end rant! I do very much enjoy living the curated & simple life, but it does require a lot more care and thought, and it’s definitely not as easy as having a lot more space (or at least a patio! yeesh). I suppose I’m just envious, but maybe there is some slight injustice in the way that people will very off-handedly discuss this sort of thing like it’s nothing. People, you are very lucky. :)

BigGirlRoomDay2_Closet

Because we want to get my dresses out of Laelia’s closet and our fallout/storage/stuff situation is completely out of hand at this point we have decided to buy our PAX wardrobes a whole month early. We’re thinking of having a garage sale (We have SO much stuff to sell, it’s too much for Craigslist and Ebay alone!) and selling our bedroom furniture will cover, and maybe more than cover the wardrobes. Buying the wardrobes now will also force us to go through our clothes, which we could then add to our garage sale stuff. IKEA has a super fun PAX planner, for anyone who wants to play around with building a closet. An added bonus to purchasing these is that it’s likely that we can use these in our next home, even in a walk-in closet, and add on to them. :)

Anyway, we’re probably off to IKEA tomorrow for curtain rods, storage boxes, a frame or two, and maybe even to order our PAX! I think I’ll end my night by going through my fabric to see if there are any I’d like to use for Laelia’s quilt! Hopefully I can get more day time photos; photos with artificial light are just never as pretty! D:

Big Girl Bedroom, Day 1

Big Girl Bedroom, Day 1

MessThis is what Laelia’s room looked like yesterday morning (and this morning, minus the crib). We got her big girl bed (an old twin mattress of Tyler’s and a bed my parents had) almost 2 weeks ago, and we finally moved her crib to storage (a.k.a Beth’s shed, after we helped her reorganize them!) yesterday afternoon. I started work on rearranging things around 11am this morning…BigGirlRoomDay1…And this is where I stopped around 8:30 pm today. It’s come a long way! I think I have the basic layout of the room down.

BigGirlRoomDay1_Bed BigGirlRoomDay1_Dresser BigGirlRoomDay1_KitchenSet BigGirlRoomDay1_Shelf

There is still a ton of work to do, but I think I’ll know the direction now I have more of a vision of where things will be placed! Here’s a quick, short checklist:

  • Paint! If we don’t just touch up, I’m thinking a pale gray
  • The nightstands and the bed are getting a makeover
  • If we don’t get a new chair, this yellow chair will finally get it’s makeover (which is overdue).
  • A new twin quilt for Laelia is in the works (okay, it’s still in my head, but it will happen).
  • Artwork artwork artwork! I need to rehang some artwork, but I think there is a lot more room for frames in this room, so yay!
  • shallow shelfs for books
  • Either significantly reorganize toys in the Expedit, or replace toy storage. (methinks we need more storage)
  • Move my dresses out of her closet (waahhh)
  • Replace/remove dwell studio dresser. The top is all damaged from the changing pad buckles, which is really annoying…

I’ll be posting the official before photos at some point, but I thought it would be fun to share my progress today! :D What do you think?!

2000 Pinterest Followers

2000 Pinterest Followers

2000_pinterest_followersOkay, so I know it’s almost midnight here, and I’m cutting it close on my 30 day blogging challenge, but it still counts! And for the record, I was writing most of the day, but I had to split it in two because I realized I wouldn’t finish on time….

On Wednesday, I hit 2,000 Pinterest followers! I’ve been on pinterest for almost two years ago now, and it’s safe to say I can’t imagine life with out it. I wrote about my initial impression of pinterest in March of 2011 (You should click the link just to see the old pinterest interface!). So, I’d like to talk a little bit about what has changed since then, and tell you about how I use pinterest, and my favorite people to follow.

When I originally wrote about pinterest, I said I’d like to see three things happen:

There are a few more options I’d like to see on pinterest; the ability to keep boards private if you are working on something personal, for a client, or simply would like to unveil a finished product. Also, I’d LOVE to be able to arrange items within a board–currently, the images on your board show up in the order that they were pinned. I’m very particular about what image is near what on a board, so it’s difficult to not be able to do this. I’d also love to see an iphone/ipad app for this.

  • For a while, I thought they were never going to have private boards, because I thought it would really impede the social aspect of pinterest (repinning). While I’m not sure how much of that has been effected, it doesn’t seem to have changed my use or view of the social aspect of pinterest. I also have a few private boards, one because I don’t want to spam my followers with hundreds of prints I’m thinking about for Laelia’s twin size quilt, and another because I want to reveal the project at a later time. So, I’m happy for the private boards!
  • As far as arranging where the images are placed, I fully grasp now that images mostly appear in chronological pinning order, and, from a programming perspective, it’s very difficult to allow you to determine what images lies where. I wrote this comment only after a few days of using pinterest, and with the desire to use it exactly the same way I might make a mood or inspiration board. Pinterest boards are similar to inspiration boards, but they don’t negate them. So, I don’t even think about this comment anymore!
  • The iphone/ipad app has been around for a while. I still don’t think there is a way to pin from the web on your phone yet, is there?

When pinterest first came out, it was invite only, and I think I might have been one of the first 100,000 or 200,000 users (I’m not exactly sure about this). Pinterest was full of nothing but beautiful images (re: no comic sans in sight!). I would frequent the everything board, where I would find new and amazing things I otherwise would never have been exposed to (or thought to search for). I remember very vividly that the first rule of pinterest was “Be nice!”. That rule seemed to go by the wayside later (when the trolls landed) and people seemed to be bickering all over people’s pins! And there was always someone who said, “come on guys, this isn’t facebook!”. I found this extremely discouraging, and it was around that time that I stopped going on the everything board, and started to really curate a good group of people to follow. And with that said, I think I’d like to add a little monthly post about who to follow on pinterest, and my favorite boards. :)

 

My Bathroom: Update

My Bathroom: Update

So, as promised, here is a bathroom update one week later! It’s a later-in-the-day post (Thank you, Valentine’s day), but it’s here none-the-less.Bathroom_Progress1Bathroom_Progress3 Bathroom_Progress2Progress! Progress has been made, and, thankfully, the act of comparing the photos has helped me remember that… We’ve brought out the tile work and de-cluttered, but there is still work to do! We removed the curtain and faux pelmet box I had over the window, but we haven’t replaced the window covering yet… We are kinda waiting on a set of blinds in the as-is section of IKEA, but lately I haven’t felt opposed to other options. We did put up a towel rack (also found in the as-is section, $5) over the non-functioning wall heater, which I appreciate because it covers up that eye-sore. If it doesn’t work, I don’t want to stare at it! I centered the pulls in the doors to give the vanity a more furniture like look.

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Welcome

Welcome to Visual Vocabularie! My name is Jesyka, and I am a designer, artist, mom to Laelia and Luca, wife to software engineer and UX designer Tyler, coffee lover, and all around enthused person. This is my blog; here I share my personal projects, whether it's a furniture makeover, a new painting, a birthday party, an invitation I designed, or a favorite outfit for my little. You’ll also catch a glimpse into our family life in Los Angeles.

Popular Tutorials

  • Pinwheel Tutorial

  • Tissue Tassel Garland

  • Triple Pinch Pleat Curtains

  • Ikea Mini Kitchen Makeover

 

Link with Love

You are free to pin to pinterest, or post my photos on your blog, but please give proper credit to my full name Jesyka D’Itri Marés (I know, I know, it's not the easiest name!), and you link back either the home page of this website, or the permalink of the original post (although, I'm sure your followers will thank you for the permalink!). I would LOVE to know if you enjoy my work enough to share it, so please don’t be shy and drop me an email!