Do you know what happens when you put up a Chandelier that has 23 lights in it?

They pretty much all go out at the same time.

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post Real Life Week: My Entryway appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

I just got back from SNAP and it was INCREDIBLE!! I loved every single second of it! I will be posting a recap soon (because I didn’t bring a camera and am at the mercy of everyone else to post their pictures!!)

One thing that I think gets us down a bunch as wives and mothers and bloggers and humans is that we feel like everyone else has their crap together and we are the only ones with lives that are not as we imagined.

So this week I am going to give you a peek into my life. And you should be warned that you might not think I am as legit as you did before you started this post.

And guess what? I am 10000000000% fine with that.

So lets get on with it shall we? Also you should notice that I am starting this series on Wed. not on Mon. because….my life is crazy.

When you think of my living room you probably think of this image:

Right now I am in the middle of an overhaul. ANd when I say in the middle I mean that I have had it planned out in my mind for 9 months and moved all of the old stuff out but havent been able to get it going because guess what? It’s a little daunting. When I start painting in here it has to extend into all of the hallways and my kitchen. Sounds fun right? Especially the 12 foot ceilings…

So.

This is what my living room looks like today:

Oh yes. Just soak that up for a minute.

Notice the gray wall paint? That’s because I never painted behind the faux fireplace when I was in the time crunch for Nate.

Also please notice the dust on the fan,  the ladder that has been there for 2 weeks, the paint on the wall and the banana peel on the rug. Who wants to come and live with me now?

Be back tomorrow with more (I hope your stomachs can take it.)

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post Real Life Week: My Living Room appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Happy Thursday to you!

Welcome to Challenge #2 of the Fearlessly Finding Awesome Club (FFA,  no cows involved). Last challenge I encouraged you to write about how you want your home to FEEL.

Yesterday I jumped on the Homegoods website because its my FAVORITE Store store (ie non thrift store) and saw that they have a style quiz. Now if you’ve read VR long enough you know that I love junk like that and ALWAYS take them.

Well, guess what?

It was DEAD on. It took everything that I have spent months trying to say and describe and wrapped it up in a neat little paragraph.

Freaky right?

This is what it said about me:

Mandi, You Are A DRAMATIC MODERN
You keep up with culture, style, and trends, but have a classical appreciation for beautiful forms and well-made, functional objects. You are inspired by good design and quality craftsmanship, but have a sense of the theatrical and the fun. You liven things up and infuse personality into your rooms. You like how something ornate mixes with modern, or how daring flourishes, like bold color or a wild pattern, can inject some humor and contrast to the serious, straight lines of modern pieces. You are a style leader, and your friends look to you for advice. You are not afraid of glamour. Because you embrace color, art, and elegance, your home makes a happy impact.
You value creativity. You are stylish and fun loving, and can be an inspiration to others. You have a natural sense of drama, and you know you have to be willing to take risks—whether with colors, finishes, furniture choices, or ideas—for your home to stand out. Your home can be happy and lively and the place all of your friends want to be.

Literally Homegoods are you looking in my windows? It also said that I have a problem with organization and clutter…YES!

I think that describes me PERFECTLY. I mean it even talks about humor! And not being afraid to take risks. I literally want to marry whoever wrote this because CLEARLY they are my soul mate.

So.

For today’s challenge I want you to take the quiz and post about your results or post them in the comments below if you don’t want to write a post about it. (I always like to know what all the other quiz options are….)

Last challenge I did not enforce these rules much,  but for the love of all things spray painted PLEASE only link up posts that are for this specific challenge. It just makes everyone mad (I got a few emails last week about it AND I hate being the bad guy.)

Take the quiz HERE

This post is in no way sponsored by Homegoods, I just love their store and love the quiz!

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post FFA Challenge #2: Defining Your Style appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Love it or hate it blogging has become a business for many of us. But blogging is such new frontier that there are few set rules and even fewer guidelines on how to do it the right way. There are so many little tips and tricks and ins and outs of this crazy world that I want to share with everyone what I have learned along my journey.

You should know that I am not the expert in all of this but I have a few morsels of awesome I want to pass along.

You may or may not remember this post about Ways You Can Make Money Blogging.

I highlighted a few companies that I work with to bring in some flowski (as Court calls it).

One of which was Social Spark.

For those of you who don’t know what Social Spark is here is the readers digest version:

Social Spark is an ad network where you write sponsored blog posts about a certain company or subject.

I Love Social Spark because you set your price and then they send you offers from all different types of companies. You can either accept or decline the offer. You have no obligation to post something that isn’t in line with your content. They tell you in advance how much each campaign is worth. They range anywhere from $5.00 to hundreds. They work with a lot of large reputable brands and have AMAZING customer (blogger) service.

Because they have such a wide offering you just have to make sure that you are blogging with what you feel comfortable with. I get offers daily from Social Spark. Most have nothing to do with my blog so I don’t accept them. You can determine for yourself what is right for your blog. I just choose to keep mine on the topic of my niche.

You can see an example of a post I did that was sponsored by Social Spark and Pier 1 here.

But here is some info that I can pretty much guarantee you haven’t found even if you are apart of Social Spark.

Did you know that they give an estimate of what a sponsored post is worth based on your blog’s analytics?!

Once you sign up with Social Spark and link your analytics to their site it will give you an amount of what your posts are worth to sponsors!!

Really quick here is how you find it.

Log into your Social Spark Dashboard. Click on Your Properties.

Then click on Edit Property:

Then scroll down to #3. That will give you an estimate of what your post is worth based on your stats. You need to remember that SS works in points not $,  so count one penny for each point.

The question then becomes, will companies pay that? The suggested price for Vintage Revivals was much much higher than I thought it would be. You should know that I have not been paid the amount that my suggested price is, but knowing what it is has significantly improved my confidence when I work with brands and on other Social Spark campaigns. I am not scared to negotiate because the brands see what my suggested post price is and they know they are getting a deal!

When you work with Social Spark you have the control to blog about what YOU want, there is NO obligation to post if you don’t want to. I love that. I feel like I am in complete control. You actually have a say in your prices,  and work with really great brands. You can sign up here. Good Luck!!

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

In the spirit of full disclosure I will receive referral credit if you sign up with Social Spark. But truly all opinions are 10000% mine yo.

The post Insight Into How Much A Sponsored Post Is Worth appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

I am totally aware that this post has nothing to do with Home Decor. But SERIOUSLY you guys are better than Google. So todays post is going to be a Q&A sesh about gardens. With me asking the questions.

This is part of our backyard:

Its not huge.

WHen you round the corner you see the garden area…

Which is huge, like 12×20.

I planted a garden 2 years ago and it was great,  some things did not do so good and some were out of control (nothing like leaving on vacay for a few days and coming back to zucchini the size of logs…)

The first question that I have relates to watering. There are sprinklers that cover this entire area (because when we put them down we werent sure where the garden was going to be)  Can I use those to water it? Or does it have to be a drip system or hand watering?

Question 2. When we had the garden 2 years ago I planted corn. It seemed like it was growing really really well and then when it came time to harvest all the ears were pretty much empty. Should I plant again and to see if they grow better this year?

Are the pants that you buy at a nursery better than ones that you would buy at like Home Depot or Lowes?

And last but not least, tell me all of your secrets. (of the garden variety thankyousomuch.)

I found this super great website this weekend that I spent HOURS on called Smart Gardener. It helps you plot out your garden and tells you lots of great info about growing stuff in your area. Do you guys have a site or book or info (other than the guys at Home Depot that you look to for info?)

Love  Your  Gardening  Guts,  Mandi

The post Do You Have A Garden? Cause I Need Your Smarts. appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

This is a very sensitive subject for me to talk about.

Craigslist.

I love Craigslist most of the time. But sometimes I hate it. Particularly when you get a crappy seller (ok, we aren’t really going to blame the seller because she might not know how to use gmail.)

See this couch?

Yes I know you are DYING right now. As was I.

$50.00

I KNOW.

I emailed the seller Sunday evening and was told that she wouldn’t be available to sell me the couch until Thursday. So I emailed her every other day letting her know that I was still interested and begging her to call me so that we could get a pick up arranged while I waited. Thursday rolls around and I still hadn’t heard anything. So I emailed her again this time a brand new email.

I got a reply saying that she received a higher offer and wanted to know if I wanted to counter. Let me make this CRYSTAL CLEAR. I have ZERO problem with people offering a higher amount for an item. I told her that I would gladly pay twice what she was asking.

Guess what?

I didn’t hear back from her.

So on Saturday Morning I sent her another email only to find out that she did not receive my last one (or any of the other ones that I sent by hitting Reply) and the couch had just been picked up.

Tears. Sobs. Wailing. And so much pain that I couldn’t get on CL for a week.

So. If you are the awesome person that lives in St. George that bought this couch, you are luckier than a duck. And I will buy it from you. Or trade for a furnishing of your choice from my house. Or my first born. Or a year of FREE Durangos.

Some of you who hate the way that I Craigslist will say that this is Karma, and I am not denying that. But I will say that its not going to change my approach, I will just have to make sure to send a new email and not just hit reply. (wink)

AND.

If you spot a couch similar I would love a heads up, there might be something fabulous in it for you…
Have you ever had a Craigslist heartbreak? Tell us all about it! And how do you feel about offering more for something?

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post Did YOU Steal My Couch? appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Before you can start decorating all willy nilly you need to have a plan.

We are not talking a room design plan here people.

When I design a space the FIRST thing that I start with is the FEELING that I want to get from it.

I want my home to feel like me. Happy, energetic, a little strange, positive, and really really unique. So that is how I decorate it.

Today you get to write about YOUR personality traits. What are some of your favorite things about yourself?

And decide how you want your home to feel.

A house doesn’t feel Shabby Chic, it feels worn and loved. Does that make sense? Don’t hold back. If you want your house to feel exciting, neutral, and collected then that is GREAT!

When I look at Hailee’s house, to me it feels energizing and calming at the same time.

YOU DO NOT NEED A BLOG TO BE IN THE FFA!

This is something that you can do on your own in a journal, you can do it on FB, or if you want to start a blog its really easy.

Link up your posts below about how you want your house to feel.

And PLEASE bear with me as I try and work through this process! If you have feedback I would love to hear it,  I have never started an awesome club before (except the time I was in 3rd grade and started a club with my cousin called The Explorers).

Please only link up posts discussing this challenge! The linky will be open for a month so if you don’t have a spot on your blog or time right now to do it THAT IS FINE!!

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post FFA Challenge #1 Catch A Dream appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Holy Frijoles! (we have been reading Skippy John Jones at our house…)

To say that I was overwhelmed with the response to the question of starting a club would be the understatement of the year! You all are amazing. The End.

So are you ready to hear about this little design club?! Introducing:

It’s the FFA! (No cow jokes allowed) Don’t you LOVE the logo?! Lara designed it for me, I love that talented girl.

I want this club to be a place that pushes us outside our comfort zones, somewhere to build friendships, and find inspiration.

We are going to have different “challenges” every other week and linky parties to show off all of our bravery. Some of the challenges are going to be theme or color based, some are going to be project based and some are going to be internally based.

Everyone is welcome to participate and if you want you can add a badge to your sidebar(just copy and paste the code in the box)

A post is going live tomorrow with the first linky so be on the look out!

What do you guys think?! Are you EXCITED!!?

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post Introducing: Fearlessly Finding Awesome The Club. appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Hey my friends!

Sorry I have been a little MIA this last week! We have lots going on over here and in order to not COMPLETELY lose it I had to take a break for a minute! I cant believe all of the amazing responses to getting more organized. You guys are AMAZING! And I will for sure be doing a follow up post about what I have found works for me (as soon as I have time to implement it…hahah)

BIG HUGE Thank You to everyone who voted for Vintage Revivals for the Homies, even though I didn’t win I TOTALLY felt like a winner. mwah!

I have a fun post coming up tomorrow about the thrifting treasures I have found and lost the last little while (its going to be a GOOD one!!)  I love posts like that, where everything is still in its raw thrifted form. FOREVER ago I used to do a bi-weekly linky party called “Look What I Found Friday” and while I don’t think I will bring it back, I will totally add a linky to tomorrows post if you guys want to link up your thrifty junk. Let me know!

I am in the middle of like 5 projects for Dylan’s room (cause that’s how we roll at the Gubler’s)  Here is a sneak peak at one of my faves! Can you guess what it is?

I found out last night that there are only 15 tickets left for SNAP! If you are thinking about coming I PROMISE you will LOVE IT. The things that are planned are out of this world amazing and I would love to meet you!

Ok. I think that is everything.

Oh and I have LOVED the interactive type posts that we have had lately. Do you guys like those too? Should I do them more often?

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post By Way Of Announcements and a Sneak Peek appeared first on Vintage Revivals.

Dudes.

I need your help. I am the most fly by the seat of your pants and hope everything works out great person that you will probably ever meet. I am NOT organized,  I blame my creative mind.

So, I am asking for your advice. What do you do to keep your life organized? Stuff like a clean house (what’s that?!), happy children, and your mind at peace?

My problem seems to be that there are SO many things that I want to do and have going on that I can only deal with what is pressing AT. THAT. MOMENT. (please tell me I am not alone!)

I need some ideas of what you have done to get things under control.

And because no post is complete with out a picture, this is my Dyl with her new bike (that I put together all by myself!)    She woke up at 6:30 this morning so she could sit on it and watch Olivia.

Oh, and can you see where she cut her hair? Right in the front. Yes. We are awesome at our house.

Love  Your  Guts,  Mandi

The post How Do You Organize Your Life? appeared first on Vintage Revivals.