To blog or not to blog?

Oh boy... here we go.  My first ever blog post.  Assuming I can figure out how to post it.  I've been thinking of starting a blog for awhile now and after talking to a friend of a friend about her blog I decided to go for it.  Problem is I didn't realize that it was going to be such a labor intensive project.  I'm not a computer whiz by any means.  I use the computer for e-mail, Facebook and online shopping.  I'm not completely clueless when it comes to formatting, uploading, and all of the other technical "stuff" but I'm not completely comfortable with any of that either.  I also do not like to fail when I try new things.  So you can imagine my frustration when I sat down one afternoon a few weeks ago to start my blog and immediately hit a wall when ALL of the blog names that I liked were already taken.  I felt discouraged right away and my frustrations only grew as that day went on.  So I decided to take a step back and give myself some time to think.

I finally came up with a name but to be quite honest I'm not in love with it.  Tulips and Toadstools?  It's okay I guess.  Tulips are my oldest daughter's favorite flower and I like them too, and we had just celebrated her 5th birthday when I got the bright idea to start blogging so I stole the toadstools part of the name from her birthday party theme.  We had a fairy party and I turned our home into an enchanted forest complete with cardboard toadstools that I cut out and painted using boxes we saved from Christmas.  Pink toadstools, cute right?  I thought so and I was tired of typing in blog names only to get a message telling me that someone else was already blogging under that name so I went with what I had.  Then I tried to upload photos, templates and a bunch of other pretty stuff to make my page look nice but that didn't work either so again frustration set in.  Time to take another break and regroup.

Here I am 2 weeks later still having no clue what I am doing but I finally decided that maybe having a pretty page isn't what's most important.  That was a hard one for me b/c I am very meticulous and anal when it comes to the way things look.  I worked in visual merchandising for 8 years before having children so I was paid to be that way.  If something isn't visually appealing and interesting then why would anyone want to look at it?  I'm still working on letting go of some of my hang-ups and trying not to be too hard on myself or worry too much about this blog being perfect but it's tough.  I have 3 children ages 5 and under, a part time job, a volunteer position at the preschool that my girls attend and a home to maintain, so everything can't be perfect all the time but close to perfect is okay too:)

So what finally made me decide to get this thing started?  Yesterday did!  Yesterday alone I thought of 2 things that I could have and wanted to blog about.  I posted them both on Facebook but I really, really wanted to write more and share the cuteness that I had found.  What cuteness you ask?  Well first of all, I was at Target (where else?) in the Dollar Spot when I came across the most adorable decorative miniature egg trees for Easter.  They were only $2.50 each and they were soooooo cute!  I immediately envisioned one on each end of my fireplace mantel so I grabbed 2 and threw them in the cart.  The bin next to the trees was empty but I noticed that the tag on the shelf said "egg tree ornaments" so I immediately began scouring the other bins to see if I could find said ornaments.  No luck.  Oh well, there just happens to be another Target about a mile down the road so I knew that I would be headed there next.  And sure enough that Target had the egg tree ornaments - 20 little eggs in pretty pastel colors also for only $2.50.  That made my day.  And just a little tidbit about me, I have been known to travel far and wide hitting as many as 4 Targets in one day when I am on a mission to find something that I want.  My best friend and I put out Code Red Alerts when one of us can't find a must have item and these alerts have gone as far as Iowa where my mom was sent out to complete a Code Red mission once.  Laugh if you want to but you know you do the same thing.  Maybe you haven't given it a name but you do it too. And not just at Target friends:)  Now I'm off track (oops!) but anyway, I got the super cute mini egg trees and the ornaments and I can't wait for Easter to decorate them and put them on the mantel.  How cute!  And cheap!  Especially compared to similar items from places like Pottery Barn Kids!  Another tidbit about me, I love to borrow ideas from places like that and create my own less expensive versions.  So fun!

Item #2 from yesterday - tissue pom poms.  A DIY project that is so easy and cheap.  Are you seeing a theme here?  Easy and cheap!  Oh, and cute!  That's the way I like it:)  So I made pink tissue pom poms to use as part of the decor for the above mentioned fairy party.  You can get a pack of tissue paper for 99 cents and each pack will make 2 medium sized tissue poms or 4 smaller ones.  Then you attach some fishing wire, hang them and you are done. Voila!  Pretty, pretty, pretty!  We used them for decor at the fairy party, then they were hung in the teacher's lounge at my girls' preschool for a Valentine's Day luncheon and now they are in my younger daughter's bedroom hanging beautifully from the ceiling and adding a cute and feminine touch to her room.  And since we are currently renting the room definitely needs all of the cute touches it can get.

So those are my 2 great gotta share ideas/findings from yesterday.  And the main reason I just had to sit down and blog today.  So please forgive my not so pretty page but I just had to get those things out there.   And I feel pretty good now.  Although I am worried that this might be the longest blog post ever. I am a bit wordy at times and I tend to repeat myself a lot but I'll try to improve those things along with the visual presentation of this page as I go along.  

Thanks for reading my first ever blog post.  Yay me!