How to Beach-Up Your Home

Today I’m going to walk you through step-by-step how to beach-up your home.  Even if you don’t live by the sea, it’s super easy to get that breezy beach vibe flowing through your house.  Chances are, if you’re anything like me, you already have a lot of the elements needed for a coastal design.  It’s just all about how you put the look together and finish everything off!

Let’s start with fabrics. Using more natural fibers like linen and wicker around your home can make it feel more connected to nature i.e. the sea

Incorporate sea shells as trinket dishes on coffee tables or in bookcases.

Bring in the scent of the sea through coastal soaps, candles and essential oil diffusers.

Weathered wood fits perfectly into a beach home and it’s super easy to distress a piece you already have with some white wash and sand-paper.

The bedroom is another great place to add more natural fabrics, a linen throw and simple striped pillows add just the right touch.

If your beach home doesn’t have beach views, consider adding beach prints instead!

Soft blue hues on cabinets offer reminders of the sea

Now let’s take a look at the outside of your home. If you’ve got room for outdoor seating make sure you take advantage of it!

A cozy spot in the shade, surrounded by plants and still maintaining that breezy-beach vibe through striped pillows and wicker seating.

Dutch doors and weathered stoops feel super coastal. If you rent or are afraid to saw your door in half, don’t worry! Just add a beachy doormat and some plants to beach-up your entrance.

via Rue Mag

 

 

 

 

 

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7 Ways to Style Your Jeans This Summer

What’s one of my favorite go-to items in my wardrobe?  Jeans!  They only come second to stripes.  Today I wanted to talk about the different ways we can style our jeans for Summer.  Have you notice the floral jeans trend happening right now?  It’s so cute!!  You can get the look in a variety of ways from printed denim to embroidery to even patches!  Yes, patches are back in style.  Check it out:

Printed floral jeans from Anthropologie

a mix of patches and embroidery from Free People

 

Do denim dresses ever go out of style? This cute denim dress from Madewell

Add a vintage tee for a retro feel. From Reformation

Effortless jumpsuits are the perfect piece to slip on for Summer. This one from Madewell

from Anthropologie

Add a button up and pearls to balance out those ripped jeans. From Reformation

Perfect for festival wear! From Reformation

I will forever love this style! From Reformation

From Free People

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Coastal Thanksgiving Inspiration

Who else has already started planning their coastal tablescape for Thanksgiving?  I actually started planning three or four weeks ago.  I blame this on my type A personality and some weird need inside me that wants everything to be perfect.  ugh!  Any-hoo, I thought I would share my coastal Thanksgiving inspiration with you because tablescapes are hard or at least I find them challenging and it’s nice to have something to guide the whole process along.  Take a peek:

This gorgeous coastal tablescape has been brought to you by Know How She Does It

 

DIY Mermaid Corn from Breezy Designs

 

via Lauren McBride

 

Just add stripes!

 

Buy them or DIY! via Etsy

 

You can never go wrong with sand, shells and coral! via Starfish Cottage

 

Cinnamon is so festive! via A Beach Cottage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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6 DIY Ways to a Mermaid Costume this Halloween

It’s Columbus Day but to be honest that guy is the farthest thing on my mind.  All I’ve been thinking about is getting ready for Halloween!  It’s by far my favorite holiday because it’s always so much fun.  This year I wanted to share some DIYs to help you create a perfect mermaid costume!  Click pics to check ’em out as well as some more DIY Halloween links at the bottom of this post:

The Costume via Lauren Conrad

The Crown via Creative Green Living

The Trident via Cosmo

Shell Hair Pins via Swell

Mermaid Makeup Tutorial via Shaaanxo

Mermaid Nail Art via Elle and Ish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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21 Smart Strategies To Increase Your Pinterest Followers – Part 3

This is the last part in the series of posts, 21 Smart Strategies to Increase your Pinterest Followers.  If you haven’t been following along, I recommend reading Part 1 and Part 2 first.  If you’ve read the previous posts and haven’t started implementing the strategies, what are you waiting for?  It’s time to take action!  For those of you who have started to incorporate the strategies into your Pinterest, you may be noticing some growth but not quite the instant overnight success you were looking for.  That’s why today I’m going to talk about growth and your following, as well as posting original content – what and how that should look.  So let’s get started:

 

So you’ve read the previous posts to this blog series and you’re still not at 18k+ followers.  Don’t worry and stop doubting!  Trust in the process and keep at it just a little bit each day.  With every social media platform there’s a certain number of followers that once you hit, the ball really starts rolling.  For me that number was 1,000.  It probably took me about 1 year or a little more to gain my first 1,000 followers on Pinterest but the next 1,000 came within a month!  Why is that?  Let me explain.  When a potential follower comes across your Pinterest page, he or she is looking for things that resonate with them.  The potential follower probably isn’t going to go through your entire Pinterest page, most likely just the top (where hopefully you followed the previous posts and put your best foot forward or rather best pins!).  Your Pinterest page isn’t going to resonate with everyone but for the potential follower that it does resonate with, that person will be thinking about following you.  If you have at least 1,000 followers, to that potential follower, there are 1,000 other people who loved your Pinterest page and clicked follow.  This is called social influence.  If everyone in the office is talking about a new TV show they watched last night and how much they loved it, you’ll be a lot more likely to go home and view it yourself, than if you just saw a quick commercial.  Real people have real influence and your followers are real people.  You just need to be patient till you have enough followers to gain that influence you’re looking for.

 

This was an Instagram post that I did showing some wire nail art I made for fun. It fits right in with my Nail Art Pinterest Board, but it also fits in with my beachy turquoise theme of my overall Instagram and Pinterest pages. You’ll notice that my original content got far more re-pins than my not-so-original-content.

Next I want to talk about original content.  If you’ve spent anytime in the blog-o-sphere, you’ve probably heard this term before.  Original content is content you created.   Chances are if you have a Pinterest page, you most likely have some other forms of social media as well.  Whether it be a blog, instagram or tumblr etc.  If you have a blog or instagram, most likely you’ve already been creating lots of original (visual oriented) content.  You absolutely need to take advantage of what you’re already doing and make sure to share these pics on your Pinterest.  Since each social media platform was created for your business (or at least you should have one of each for your business) there should be a lot of overlap and similar themes going on between all of your social media accounts.  What I mean by that is (this goes back to Part 1 about Pinterest Boards) we came up with Pinterest board names that resonate with the products that we sell.  The images (non-business images) that you are posting on Instagram should be pinned to Pinterest boards that go together.  For example, let’s say I gram a picture of the ocean.  I’ll then pin it to my ocean board, my turquoise board, and maybe even my colors, background and inspiration boards too.  Keep in mind that I’m not pinning the same image over and over again in one sitting.  I’m spreading it out throughout the course of a day or even multiple days.  Pinterest will warn you that you’ve already pinned this image.  The only time it’s okay to pin an image multiple times is when it’s your image or original content (including business-related pins).

Every once in a while, show your face. Your followers want to see who you are but unless you are the face of your business, your social media shouldn’t be filled with pictures of you or your pet. You’ll notice that my Instagram account is mostly pictures of my jewelry line and other beachy related images.

If you don’t have any other forms of social media platforms, and you don’t have any original content, then it’s time to take action and create some!  Remember that when creating original content for your business whether it’s product images or other original content images, you want them all to be in line with your business.  It’s okay to throw some personal images in there every great once in a while.  People want to see you and the lifestyle you have behind the brand.  However, if you’re posting pictures of your cat every week, it’s time to give Tiger a break and get back to business.  I also want to point out that since the end result is to drive traffic to your business site, remember that when you are creating other social media platforms, to have a link to your business there as well.

That wraps up 21 Smart Strategies to Increase your Pinterest Followers!  I hope you gained a lot of insight and information into the world of Pinterest followers and I hope you feel inspired to take action.  If you get stuck at any point or would just like a general critique of your Pinterest page, I’d love to help.  Just leave a note in the comment section of any one of these posts!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21 Smart Strategies To Increase Your Pinterest Followers – Part 2

If you’re just finding this blog post, this is Part 2 of 21 Smart Strategies to Increase your Pinterest Followers.  You can find Part 1 here.  These 21 tips and tricks are in order and it’s best to start from the beginning.  Also make sure to follow along as there’s more to come!  You can follow by clicking the “Sign me up!” button in the top right corner of my blog.  Now let’s get started:

 

 

 

 

 

Today I’m sharing with you who to follow on Pinterest, how to use your likes to your advantage and how to make your pins more effective.  However, before we get to all that, I want to do a quick run down of how to set up your profile.  When filling out your profile on Pinterest, you should start by introducing yourself and your business.  Just a short sentence or two.  The next thing is to include a profile picture, this should be the same profile picture you use across your other social media platforms.  If you’re the face of your business, you can have a picture of yourself or your business logo works great too.  When you pick your Pinterest name, make sure it’s related to your business and nothing personal.  This makes it easier for your customers to remember you!  Lastly, make sure to include your location and a link to your business.  I can’t tell you how many Pinterest accounts I’ve come across that I’ve wanted to find out more, only to see that there was no link.  This link is your one and only link so make it count!

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about who you should be following on Pinterest.  Remember last time when we set up all those boards?  For every board we have, we’re going to find a handful of other people who have similar boards.  You want to make sure before you follow a person’s board that they are actively pinning to that board and the board has at least 300 pins.  I just want to specify that we’re doing this solely for our non-business boards.  If there’s a board that you plan on pinning to more frequently, go ahead and find more than 5 other boards to follow.  The same goes for the opposite, if you think you’ll only pin to a board 1 -2x per week than having only 2 – 3 boards to follow is okay.  I realize this may all seem tedious and you’re probably like, “Jen!  I just spent all that time setting up my boards and now I have to go through and do this too?!”  My answer to you is, YES!  Keep in mind that we are building the foundation to your mansion of followers.  If we don’t take the time to lay the foundation right, the whole thing could collapse or not get build at all.

Make sure that the boards you are following are active and have at least 300 pins

One last thing to keep in mind.  If you have a business that is seasonal, you may find that during your off-season people aren’t pinning to these particular boards as frequently.  For any boards that are seasonal, i.e. a Summer board, you may want to find closer to 12+ similar boards to follow.

By now you’re probably wondering why we’re doing all this?  Let me explain.  Now that you’ve found an arsenal of boards to follow, your Pinterest should be looking a little different.  You should be seeing lots of great pins to repin to all your boards that you created.  Don’t go on a repining spree just yet!  Instead, whenever you come across a pin you’d like to share with your followers, simply “like it” instead of repining.  What we’re doing is creating a piggy-bank of pins that we can reach into any time we need a certain kind of pin for a particular board.  This ensures that we always have the best pins at our finger tips to pin from whenever we need them.

Now that we have our piggy-bank of pins saved up, we can actually start pinning!  When you want to pin, simply go through your likes and pick 1 pin for every 7 – 10 boards (non-business boards).  Then you can pin 1 business related pin from your website or blog.  Make sure you don’t go crazy pinning in one sitting.  Instead repeat this step at several times throughout the day.  Try to hit every board at least once a week and if you end up pinning to one board several times a day that’s okay too.

Two things to keep in mind while pinning. Number 1 – make sure you are pinning pins to related boards.  If a pin doesn’t fit in to any of your boards, you may want to forget about it or if you feel you have come across enough pins to start a new board then go ahead and do that.  Number 2 – Changing the description.  So often times I come across pins that instead of a descriptive text say something like, “This pin was repined by so-and-so”.  Don’t do this.  If you follow all my Pinterest tips and tricks, there’s no need for this and it flat out just looks spammy.  Instead put a short description of what’s actually in the pin, i.e. Row of Palm Trees in Malibu.  You don’t need to write a paragraph, keep it short and to the point.  Also make sure that whatever you are putting in the description contains the name of your board or is some how very closely related.

I realize that this may seem like a lot of work but I can tell you that it will pay off.  Pinterest is great way to drive traffic to your business!  Besides once you’ve finished doing all the hard work, your Pinterest account will basically run itself.  You won’t have to go looking for pins or end up pinning 10 handbag pins because you couldn’t find a great outfit one.  That wraps up Part 2 of 21 Smart Strategies To Increase Your Pinterest Followers.  Make sure to follow along by clicking the “Sign me up!” button in the top right corner of my blog. Next time I’ll be talking about your followers and original content.  Stick around for Part 3 coming soon!

 

Click to read Part 1

 

21 Smart Strategies To Increase Your Pinterest Followers – Part 1

I was recently asked by a colleague how I was able to gain 18k+ followers on Pinterest. After our conversation I started thinking more about how exactly I increased my Pinterest following and all the steps I took without ever realizing it at the time. These strategies are mainly geared towards business accounts, however, I still think many of these strategies would help gain followers on a personal account as well. Today I’m going to share my Pinterest strategies or hacks with you! This will get you and your business on the right path to gain the Pinterest following you want. Due to the volume of information, I’ve broken this up into a series of posts that I’ll share over the coming weeks. Make sure to click “Sign me up!” (top right corner) so you don’t miss a post!  Now let’s get started:

 

 

 

The #1 rule with boards is to never delete a board! When you delete boards, you delete followers that are following that one specific board. If you find a board is off-brand then simply go ahead and change the board. You can change the title and start pinning content that relates to your new title. By change, what I really mean is alter slightly. You don’t want to completely do a 360′ but just alter it to be more in alignment with your brand and its culture.

 

 

Now that we have our #1 rule out of the way, let’s move on to board basics. You’ll notice that Pinterest has a variety of categories. Currently there are 32 of them, i.e. food, health, design. You’ll want to create a variety of boards to hit as many categories that are related in some way to your business. Also if your business is in the food industry, you may want to have multiple boards that are listed under the “Food” category but maybe only one that’s listed under “Sports”. To give you a better idea, I currently have 54 boards that hit 14 categories and I plan to add more boards to increase my visibility under additional categories.

 

Many of my boards have keywords that are associated with my brand’s identity. You don’t have to do this with all your boards but close to half is a good target.

 

Another important thing to keep in mind when creating boards is the title of the board itself. You want this to be a keyword that is related to your industry. When I say keyword, what I mean is a word one of your customers would google to find an answer that will be in your board. So if you’re in the fashion industry, you might want to have a board titled, “DIY Fashion”. Even if DIY isn’t your main category, you’ll want your DIY to still be related to the fashion industry and you’ll want the title of that particular board to reflect that. You’ll also want to make sure you pin accordingly.

Now that we have the basics out of the way, you’ll want to add boards that correspond directly to your business. These are the boards that you’ll pin your products or services to. I have 54 boards and 3 of them relate directly to my business. It is important not to overload your Pinterest with your “business” boards. A good ratio is 1 business board for every 7 – 8 other boards that you have OR less! With that being said, I still pin some of my products or original content to other boards BUT only if it truly relates to those boards. For example I took a picture of the ocean and shared it on Instagram, I then pinned that picture to my Ocean Pinterest board.

 

You can find the number of followers a board has by clicking on the board and looking in the top left under the board’s title.

 

So we have all our boards created but we’re not done. The next step is to map out the location of all your boards. The first step of this process is to go through and list your boards by the following count. (Don’t include your business boards just yet) You’ll want to place your boards with the highest number of followers at the top of your Pinterest page. Why? Because these are your most popular boards and when someone clicks on your Pinterest page to find out more about you, you’ll want to grab their attention with additional things they like. The more you can grab their attention and show them that your Pinterest page is filled with content that they like, the greater the chance that they’ll follow you.

Doesn’t it make sense that if we are placing our most popular boards at the top of our Pinterest page that we should also place one of our most popular pins as the cover to each and every board? I think so! If you’re running an apparel shop, you wouldn’t put a drape last season outfit in your store front would you? Of course not! You’d put the brand-new most popular outfit that everyone wants! You’ll want to do this with your business boards as well.

 

The main color in my logo is turquoise. You’ll notice a turquoise/blue theme throughout my Pinterest page. It’s not always the main color in every cover photo but it is always there.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is having your overall Pinterest page look cohesive. If you have a color in your logo or on your website, have this color be in line with your Pinterest page as well. The cover photo of each board is the most noticeable, since it’s the largest picture showing for that board, make sure it’s in agreement with your color scheme. Sometimes this means picking your second or third popular pin in a particular board instead of your first and that’s okay since you’re still putting a popular pin up front.

 

You’ll notice that this board is titled “Coral” but even the cover photo for my Coral Pinterest Board has a hint of turquoise sky in the background.

 

The next step is to strategically place our business-related boards throughout your Pinterest page. You should have one main board for your business. This board goes in the top line of your Pinterest page. Then you’ll add a second business board to your second line of boards, a third business board to your third line of Pinterest boards, etc.

 

Your head may be spinning from all this information and that’s okay!  Just go through each strategy one by one and remember you can ask questions in the comment section below.  I’ll try to get back to you asap.  Also keep in mind that this is only Part 1 of a series of blog posts.  So you’ll want to follow along by clicking the “Sign me up!” button in the top right corner of my blog.  Next time I’ll be covering strategies for pins and more!  Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

Click to read Part 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How To Do More With What You Have

 

How to do more with what you have.  One thing I love about being a jewelry designer is that if I create something I’m not head-over-heels in love with, I can melt it down and start again.  Unfortunately not everything in life can be melted down and re-shaped.  We can’t all be Marge Simpson with her Chanel suit.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me explain.  Out of the hundreds of episodes that aired of The Simpsons, the only one that has stuck in my head since I was a little girl is when Marge finds a Chanel suit for dirt cheap in a thrift store.  Even at such a young age, I was able to fully grasp that this was a once-in-a-lifetime fashion moment.  She then repurposes the suit to fit her daily wardrobe needs, at one point even turning it into a ball gown.  So while you can’t turn last year’s wedges into this year’s flatforms, there are some things you can do!

Simplify – So often times we find ourselves thinking we need more.  More stuff, more money, more, more, more!  Have you ever found yourself thinking, “If only I had more… I would have the options I need.”?  Pretty much everything we need can be found right in front of us.  The trouble is we already have too much stuff that it keeps us from seeing what we’re really looking for.  So the next time you think you need to go out and buy something, try getting rid of some stuff instead.  Even if it means putting it into storage for a while.

Stop Dwelling – The easiest way to make yourself unhappy is to dwell on something that bugs you.  Maybe you regret the color of your sofa or the apartment you just moved into or the hair cut you just got that looked amazing on that famous actress but looks more like something out of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on you.  Dwelling on it and wishing you hadn’t gotten bangs won’t make your hair grow any faster.  It will only make you unhappy.  Instead try getting creative and accept the challenge with grace and gratitude.  Paint your living room walls to contrast against your crazy colored sofa and embrace the bold.  Acknowledge that no apartment is going to be your idea of perfect but no matter the difficulty, you should still go about making it your home.  And as for your hair, bobby pins and hair spray can do wonders!

Now while these first two things have to deal more with stuff and money, my last bit of advice has to do with you!

Recognize Your Skills – I’d like you to make two columns.  In the first column I’d like you to list all your professional skills.  This may be typing at 70 wpm, speaking a foreign language or the fact that you hit your sales goals every month.  List as many things that you can think of.  Now in the second column, make a list of your hobbies, interests and things that you love to do.  Maybe you have a creative hobby like painting or wood-working?  List them all and when you’re finished, I want you to see where these two columns can be combined.  For instance, if you’re good at sales and love to paint, why not try selling your artwork?  This doesn’t have to be your new full time job, but if you’re looking for a new job maybe it could be.  A new opportunity could come to light that you never realized before, or if you did think about it, you worried that it wouldn’t work.  So many people fear the risk of investing in themselves but it comes from my experience that this is the least riskiest of all investments and the one that can pay off the most.

So to recap about how to do more with what you have, simplify and embrace what you already have.  Learn to be grateful and work with what you have already.  Second, realize that things can be repurposed and fixed.  Often times with things you already have in your home.  No one wants to hear you walking around whining about what you want changed, so you might as well just get your butt up and change it!  Lastly, remember that you are full of more knowledge and skills then you might give yourself credit for.  Sometimes it might mean facing a few fears to get to what we want but knowing in the end it will be worth it!

How to Style a Coastal Thanksgiving Table

I’m so in love with this coastal Thanksgiving table from Sand & Sisal, that I thought I would show you how easy it is to recreate!  Not only is it incredible easy but pretty low cost since most items are natural.  Take a look:

 

What you’ll need:

• white pumpkins
• seashells
• starfish
• mini starfish
• burlap table runner
• blue plates
• white plates
• you can find similar napkins here, but I also love these ones here
• blue tapered candles
• white tapered candles
• candle holders
• greenery and branches
• silverware
• wine glasses

 

I linked the items I had a harder time finding but you could pick up most of these items at a craft store.  Also check out this coastal wreath I’m obsessing over!

How to Wear a Monochrome Outfit

via FIGTNY

 

ear climbers / sweater / sunglasses

scarf / skirt / cuff bracelet / boots