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Friday, March 5, 2010

The Style Files: Organizing your home inspiration


Recently, I've devised my own little system of logging all the great inspirational home decorating pictures I find on the web. I've made an "Inspiration File" as a Word Document in Microsoft Word. When I find a great staircase or a kitchen I love, I copy the picture and paste it directly in the Word Doc. I'm always careful to save constantly.


Before, I was just throwing photos in a Gmail draft but that wasn't too easy on the eyes or easy to print if I need to. With my inspiration document, I can literally print out a book of all the things that have me thinking creatively about my home.


My way of organizing my favorite home decor across the web is just ONE of the many out there. Take these for example if you're still wondering how best to keep yourself ready to create:


Young House Love

In this post on their site, John and Sherry describe how they keep their thoughts straight by creating an actual physical catalog. They literally rip out pages, slide them in clear page protectors, and throw them in a binder for easy perusing later. Read more for their extra tips here

Craftgawker

This recent addition to the Gawker Family (along with WeddingGawker.com and FoodGawker.com) is a visual search engine of crafts, including art for the home. If you register with them, you can favorite any of the posts to keep them handy. However, this is obviously limited to whatever photos they have and not the entire interweb. Same goes for Etsy which will allow you to favorite items and sellers. I prefer to favorite sellers as items disappear the minute they are sold!

Houzz

I used Houzz to pull together my office space inspiration and I really love it as a design inspiration gatherer. They've got an easy to use interface, great search, and best of all a quick way to add any picture to your own "ideabook." You can make several, divisible however you'd like. This is also a great option for inspiration you can get to from any computer.  

Apartment Therapy

In a reply to a reader who's amassed hundreds of scanned photos and online ones, AT suggests the option of getting a specific small USB drive to store the photos and printing yourself an ideabook once a year through a site like Shutterfly. For more of that post, click here.

AT also recommends these 11 other options for storing online inspiration. Some are traditional (printing out and organizing by hand) and some are very creative such as using Flickr.


No matter how you organize, the trick is to find a system that works for you and gives you an easy way of creating and USING your style file.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Congratulations to our Giveaway Winner!

Who's the chef ready to take on the Queen o' Butter and the WINNER of LivingwithAnnie's first ever GIVEAWAY!

Google Follower CHERYL WILSON! Congratulations Cheryl. I'll be contacting you shortly to claim your awesome cookbook.

Thanks to everyone for participating. I used random.org to generate a random winner and gave everyone who was also a Google Follower an extra entry. 

This giveaway was such a success, I'm definitely plotting another one soon (perhaps with Disney swag!) so stay tuned and get excited for your time to win next time!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

PAULA DEEN COOKBOOK Giveaway! Enter now!

Hello all my lovely blog readers, today is the glorious day you can comment and enter to win this gorgeous tome of deliciousness....


How do you enter?

Leave a comment for me letting me know what your favorite Living with Annie post has been so far. I'd love to know what you guys are enjoying so I can put more of it out into the blogosphere.  
You have until tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9pm PST to leave a comment.

BONUS ENTRY - If you leave a comment AND are a Google follower, I'll give you a double entry in the giveaway.

The winner will be randomly chosen but it doesn't hurt to have two votes in there for your future cooking needs. Just make sure only to follow the blog if you actually are interested in following :)

Please leave contact information or check back on the blog on Thursday to see if you won. The winner will have 48 hours to claim their prize, after which I'll determine a new winner.

Much thanks to CSNStores.com and AllChildrensFurniture.com for sponsoring today's giveaway. They have a great selection of home stuff, accessories, and even kids bedding. Check out the bazillion things they have to offer here

Good luck everyone and happy cooking!

Monday, March 1, 2010

Giveaway Postponed til Tomorrow (Tuesday)

Hi all - I'm sorry to announce that the Giveaway for the Paula Deen cookbook will start TOMORROW, not today as originally planned. Thanks for your understanding and see ya tomorrow for giveaway awesomeness!!
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