Flea Market Finds

Going back to my Long Beach garage sale roots, I decided to check out the Pasadena Flea Market at The Rose Bowl last week. If you're looking for an exhausting day filled with entertaining people watching (including a few celebs) and some vintage furniture where you will have to barter your way down to something halfway reasonable, then this is the place to be! 

I loved these pre-wired lanterns, but the guy wanted $75 and I was over it being at a loss as to where the heck I would put them... Yet another reason why I need a big house. 

Gorgeous fuschia fabric. I would make the wood part a bright color to modernize it! Lime green, bright orange? Ideas?

Beautiful entry table! Difficult to see the gorgeous detail in the bright sunlight, but once again worth every penny it would have cost me! The guy was willing to bargain too!

Beautiful trunk asking for $100 and I couldn't justify it. :(

This beaut would have taken a bit of work, but where do you find those kind of lines anymore! #Obsessed.

In my world, this would be painted hot pink instead of gold. It's a jewelry tree, but I love its simplicity and Asian inspiration. 

Ok. This was my favorite and last find. I was inspired a la this photo that I would like to recreate in my beach house remodel. 

5 Quick tips:

1. Bring lots of cash! Some places take Debit/Credit, but don't bank on it. If you have to pull out cash, you'll be charged a crazy service fee!

2. Look for the places that are a little more rough around the edges. Here you will find the better deals. If you are immediately drawn to the perfectly manicured spaces, prepare to pay a pretty penny for your pretty finds. 

3. Wear comfy shoes and arrive early! The shopping is massive and you will not get to very many places if you show up between 11am and noon! They close at 3pm and some shut down by 2pm!

4. Eyeball your faves and head back right before they close. Vendors will tend to decrease their prices towards the end of the day because they don't want to haul it back! 

5. Get a large Bud Light while you're there and make the shopping more casual while opening up your purse strings a bit. Or better yet, smuggle in a few in a large purse and save some $$$ for shopping like Bre and me below!

HOW TO: Be a Best Friend in Social Media

Let’s break this down. So when you were in elementary school and they were teaching you all about reading and learning new words, you could take an obscure phrase that you didn’t understand and break it down make sense. Right? So let’s take the phrase “social media” and break it down. You are using new media to create social interactions.  Let’s dive into this a little more…

Have you seen a company enter into the realm of social media and only promote themselves and their products? It’s like meeting someone new and having them enter a room to only talk about the latest happenings in their own life. BORING. Or that one friend that everyone has who never asks you questions and only cares to talk all about their drama. Does anyone particularly like that person? The answer: No. At the end of the day, most people like to talk about themselves. It’s a fact of life that people like the company of that generous friend who allows you to talk about things happening in your life. 

The idea behind social media is to be the fun and generous friend. Be the one who is constantly providing useful information and engaging with your followers. You have to spend a good amount of time to foster new relationships in real life and in the social media realm, so if you plan to exist on social media, know that you must commit to be successful!

Be an individual and show your personality! Obviously you need to remain polite to respect your company’s reputation, but make sure you come off as an actual human being! Have fun with it because it’s all about being social!

Just a tip of what NOT to do:

As I’m writing this, I read a tweet saying, “[We’re] simply the best.” Can I just say ICK! Who wants to read that? Bragging is so unattractive especially when it is blatant.  So take a cue from this tweeter and be engaging, fun and humble! Be your reader's best friend!

HOW TO: Create a Custom Facebook Welcome Tab [Simplified & Up to Date]

Listen up if you want that custom, sleek look on your Facebook Page without a lot of hassle. Making this will take you to looking more like a pro who knows what they’re doing without even touching that complicated HTML coding stuff.

 

1. To start off, you need to figure out your content.

• If you have a special promotion or sale, it would be ideal to advertise this here especially if it makes a difference if the viewer becomes a fan of your Facebook page (See: Pottery Barn). 
•  If you are not selling anything and simply want the viewer to become a fan, take some advice from a page like Red Bull and design a call to action image that will increase your numbers with a fun image.
•  Look at this opportunity as a premium advertising opportunity. Take your most important aspect of your company and promote it here.

2. Once you have figured out what you are going to have on your image, you will need to create the actual image.

•  Now if you have Adobe Photoshop and know how to use it, this will be easy.  You will need to create an image that is 540 pixels wide by any amount of pixels long (Note: length does not matter because it is on a web page and you can scroll down).
• If you do not have Adobe Photoshop, but have experience with the skills behind it, try out Aviary.com. It is a free online tool that allows you to create images with software that is just like Photoshop.  Use the image editor option and set your new document to be 540 pixels wide and how ever long you please.  Then design away!
• If you are completely clueless when it comes to computer design, you can make a simple image your tab by resizing it to be 540 pixels wide, or you will have to ask someone for help.  There are a number of websites that will charge you a pretty penny to design this or you can bribe a friend to help by making him/her dinner!  Use foodgawker.com to find a fun new recipe that will prove that your eyes can be bigger than your stomach!

3. Time to upload! So you have this 540 pixel-wide image and now what do you do? Well in my previous Social Media post you saw that I recommended Involver.com as a tool to download a welcome tab. Involver is great, but there is another app that I like use to enable having even more custom tabs (Involver limits you to two tabs without paying). PageLever.com is a great tool. It has a thumbs-up icon on the tab that to me sends subliminal messages to your viewers to “Like” the page. BUT here is the low down...

•  PageLever is now in “beta testing” and is super exclusive to admit new entries.  However! I am an incredible Google-r (and on a tight budget) and I found the Original Page Lever just for you that will enable you to create your Welcome tab without a wait!
• Once you install this on your page, it prompts you to upload the image, which you now can easily do!
• Then you will simply need to go to “Edit Page” and click “Manage Permissions”.  Then go to the “Default Landing Tab” drop down menu and click “Welcome”. Once you save your changes you are good to go! (See below for the example)

CONGRATS! You just made a custom tab!

Share your success story below in the comments! I want to see your creativity and "like" your page!

Glam Dream House

When it comes to dreaming about the “when I grow ups,” I’m not the typical twenty-something. Instead of dreaming about my wedding, what my dress will look like, whether my ceremony will be in a church or outside, what color the napkins will be, etc. etc., I prefer to fantasize about my dream house. Not just the people who will fill it, yes the dream husband and children exist but that’s not the focus of my dream.

I dream of the ultimate glam-house with an excuse to have a chandelier in every. Single. Room. I Stumbled long and hard to find my favorite images that show it is possible to be glamorous in every part of you house. Enjoy!

The Entry

The hallway

The living room

The Dining Room

The guest bedroom

Guest Closet

Bathroom

The master bedroom

The closet (via Christina Aguilera)

Patio Dining

One Facebook Update Your Brand Needs!

At the risk of sounding too “sales-y,” I’m going to shamelessly promote a website which I have no affiliation with but only because when I discovered the Twitter app last night I got embarrassingly excited! Here is a simple site of an upgrade you can make today to your Facebook Fan Page! I have been using Involver for quite some time now for the Facebook Pages I manage. If you’re not using it, you should be. It’s extremely user-friendly and allows you to upload 2 applications per page for FREE! After that, it can get a little pricey (starting at $99/month) especially for a smaller business.

Now you’re thinking well which two should I choose? There are over 20 different applications (not all free), but here are my top FREE picks with matchmaking criteria:

Upload the Welcome Tab IF:

1. You are trying to increase your Facebook fans aka “likes”.
2. You want to set your page apart from the others and look like an expert!
3. You have the capabilities to create a custom image that is 540 pixels wide (the size of the Facebook frame).

*Creating your image - This can easily be done in Photoshop and is the perfect tab to highlight a feature of your brand or a special promotion.

Upload the Twitter App IF:

1. You are very active on Twitter and having conversations with your followers that you wish you could simultaneously post to your Facebook page.
2. You are looking to grow your Twitter fan base.

*Cool feature - There is a button that says “follow” which creates a direct link to your Twitter page.

Upload the YouTube App IF:

1. You have a YouTube stream for your brand that you consistently update and would like to broadcast these videos to your fans through a tab.

*Insider tip - For the free version, you have to go in and manually update it. You simply click the YouTube tab, then click “Edit Tab Settings” (the orange button), scroll to the bottom and click “Save changes” (the blue button). Then go back to your page and voila!

Upload the Flickr OR Photo Gallery App IF:

1. You have a Flickr account and update it consistently.
2. Photos are extremely important to your business. You may be a photographer, event planner, florist, etc.

*The Difference - Flickr App will pull your stream directly from Flickr, but with the Photo Gallery app, you manually upload images from your computer.

Another awesome feature of Involver is that they have custom icons. This means that when you go to click on your tab you will see for example, the Twitter bird that livens up your page more than the gray arrow icon on the "Welcome" tab featured to the left that was custom created by Static FBML. 

Getting Things Started

What do you do when things you’ve dreamed about but doubted yourself on finally fall in your lap? Do you take charge and go for the gold without hesitation or do you step back in fear of failure?

Clearly people who know me read this and think, duh Chels, you do it! Why would you even hesitate? And normally my positive go-getter side agrees, except that I’ve always been the kind of person who wants to make sure I have everything planned out and prepared before I can go full force. Yes, I am the overly-cautious CRAWLED-across-the-moving-playground-bridge child that my mother still jokes about. Yet my boss’s Wednesday morning meeting mantra rings in my head, “I can accept failure. What I can’t accept is not trying.”

Today I was approached to be a social media manager for a children’s sports camp. Presenting what I thought would be a simple Facebook tutorial suddenly turned into a freelance opportunity. I almost didn’t know how to react feeling surprised and flattered I look to some of my local Social Media idols like Kirsten Wright and Mirna Bard and think I hope one day I can be as good as them, but how do you ever know when you’re expert enough to go for it? I wonder if I am ready to dive in. Is this my moment to begin a career in social media management? I mean I know the basics to getting started and how to compose marketing plans but the dangers of doing it wrong keep flashing in my mind. I immediately turn to Google to figure out answers to the questions I can’t answer and I discover a few what not to do’s.

This list includes:

- Horror stories of divulging the entire marketing plan and then having the company turn around and complete the plan with interns and staff. (That’s the jist of it, the stories themselves are much more painful).

- Not knowing how to create contracts and winding up without a dime and lost energy and effort. 

- Undercharging and spending too much time and energy without having the worth match the work.

Recalling the words of Seth Godin from his LinkedOC presentation, which made me think I could conquer the world, I find encouragement. He said, “Initiative isn’t something you’re given, you have to take it,” and with that I will proceed with caution hoping that I will eventually “Pass Go and collect $200.”

Is this my new direction I am supposed to take? I want to hear how most small business owners gained the courage to get started? Was there an “Aha!” moment?

Finding Beauty in the Ordinary

Our house has quite a bit of beach house cottage "charm." The built-in distressed kitchen nook and front dutch door among other nautical flair make it truly unique. After endlessly craigslisting, we spotted this house and immediately fell in love with it not only for its distinctly quaint features, but also because we could squeeze 5 cars behind the house! If you’ve ever tried to find parking on the Newport peninsula, you would know that it is rather unheard of.

My latest addition to our rental beach house are these cute little glass vases. Being recent college grads, we tend to have quite a few people over and to enjoy our best friend “Chuck” along with the ever-so charming sale of the week bottled beer.

I simply love the concept of displaying the unexpected. Wine corks (even if they are Charles Shaw) can be beautiful when collected. Even beer bottle caps in an eloquent jar create a mash up of the boring and ordinary with the elegant and ornate. Our little corner ledge was crying out for the perfect decor. Even though we are moving come summer time, I know that I will keep these my entire life. The great thing about vases and keeping decorative ones in your kitchen is that you can adapt them to fit the season. Change out the corks and bottle caps for sea shells and sand with candles come summer time or take it to a practical function and store fruit, pasta, flour or any other baking supply. They are really something to play with while enhancing your personality and interests at the time.