Month: December 2011

Mix: Dancing Alone in Your Underwear

If you haven’t spent much time dancing alone in your room, you should know it’s better without pants. But then, that’s true of so many things.

The whole Dancing Alone in Your Underwear Mix is available on Spotify. Otherwise, links to individual songs are below. Let’s do this.

Afterparty at Jimmy’s from Anya Maria
Howlin’ for You from The Black Keys
Rill Rill from Sleigh Bells
How You Like Me Now from The Heavy
We Run This from Missy Elliot
Groove Me from King Floyd
Fix Up, Look Sharp from Dizzee Rascal
I Got You, I Feel Good from James Brown
I Know What I Am from Band of Skulls
Seven Nation Army from Ben L’Oncle Soul

Leave your own Risky Business soundtrack in comments. No judgement.

Laughing at Clouds

This Captured Series post is brought to you by Best Buy. Get unbeatable prices on all digital cameras to capture your family memories this holiday season!
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These photos were taken in Dublin, we’d been out touring for the day when the sky opened on us. We ducked into a corner shop to get Hank his own umbrella, he’d just gotten big enough to negotiate one, and he was giddy.

We stopped to take a photo of us in the alley but Hank was spinning around with his umbrella, smacking into puddles, so bangarang over the rain. I tried to get him to stand still for about 10 seconds, and then I gave in and danced with him. These pictures always make me feel lucky to have a kid I like so much.

Do you have a favorite family memory? If so, share a link to the photo in comments, and if you’re up for a little holiday money, I’m partnering with Federated Media to host a merit-based contest on Flickr where you could win a $500 gift certificate to Best Buy. Just upload a photo to Flickr that captures a family memory (up to five photos, actually). Double check that your photos are tagged public so everyone can see them, and then add the tag: #CapturedPhotoContest_MightyGirl. We’ll judge on originality, photo quality, and best display of a family memory, and then we’ll contact the winner via Flickr mail. The official contest rules are over here, and the contest ends December 24th. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.

10 Simple Ideas for Green Gift Wrapping

Glad sponsored this post as part of a campaign about producing less waste. Visit Glad.com for more information.

For the last few years, I’ve been trying to cut back on waste when I wrap gifts. It started with a trip to Argentina over the holidays, where it was nearly impossible to come by wrapping paper. The gifts we wrapped for each other that year were so thoughtful, I saved elements of the packaging to paste in my journal. That led me on a hunt for pretty, eco-friendly gift wrap ideas that reduced what ended up in the landfill. I also learned that brown kraft paper or paper bags don’t contain toxic dyes and are much easier to recycle.

Here are a few cool ideas I’ve been bookmarking for this year:

1. Recycled Paper “Nametags”

2. Recycled Paper Dots

3. Yarn Wrap

4. Calendar Wrapping Paper

5. Craft Paper with Recycled Cloth Flag

6. Candy Cane Bow

7. Lace Wrap

8. Ornament as a Bow

9. Newspaper Bow

10. Newspaper Flower

That’s it! Do you have any pretty ideas for wrapping with repurposed or recycled materials? Feel free to leave links in comments.

 

Hankformer

This Captured Series is brought to you by Best Buy who says, “Get unbeatable prices on all digital cameras to capture your family memories this holiday season.” All right then, we will.
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I have a child who likes to go antiquing. I’m not really sure how this happened, probably I did something heroic in a past life. Or possibly it’s that the shop owners give him candy and let him play with the toys. Suffice it to say, God loves me more than other parents.

Do you have a favorite family memory? If so, share a link to the photo in comments, and if you’re up for a little holiday money, I’m partnering with Federated Media to host a merit-based contest on Flickr where you could win a $500 gift certificate to Best Buy. Just upload a photo to Flickr that captures a family memory (up to five photos, actually). Double check that your photos are tagged public so everyone can see them, and then add the tag: #CapturedPhotoContest_MightyGirl. We’ll judge on originality, photo quality, and best display of a family memory, and then we’ll contact the winner via Flickr mail. The official contest rules are over here, and the contest ends December 24th. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Murmuration

Pulled off the road today to watch thousands of birds flocking over the vines. It was gorgeous, incredible really, and I kept trying to get a good photo. Finally Geri-Ayn yelled, “Look at this! Look at it with your soul!” So I put my camera down.

I’d never seen anything like it, there were so many of them, but apparently it happens a lot with Starlings. This video gives you an idea of how lovely it is to see.