Goodbye GFC

Do you keep up with The Elephant's Trunk by this little tool?

For those who don't know, GFC will be a thing of the past tomorrow for non-blogger sites. That makes me think that soon it could be a thing of the past for Blogger as well. For me I rarely use it for following my favorite blogs. So you know, there are plenty of ways to still keep up with The Elephant's Trunk...

Bloglovin'

Hello Cotton

Facebook

Twitter

RSS Feed

Google+

Newsletter

Pinterest

Bargain Fashion Finds

There is nothing I like more than finding fashion at a bargain and here are a few of my favorites out there now:: 

Frosted Bowler Bag- $53.72

Striped Dolman Jersey Top- $15

Pyramid Metal Tip Clutch- $26.86

Essie Luxeeffects- $8

Bow Skinny Belt- $8.06

Linking up to these finds to Yes, Teacher. 

Reinventing The Ordinary- Coupon

If that picture doesn't draw you in I don't know what will? That adorable pup (Blake) belongs to Becky of Reinventing the Ordinary. I am so excited to chat you all up about Becky for a little bit. Becky is an incredibly talented woman who inspires me and constantly amazes me with just a simple visit to her blog or her Etsy shop. 

Becky is not only a beautiful person on the outside but she is also stunning on the inside. She is one of the most thoughtful and supportive people I've met through this blogging experience. 

Here is a bit more about Becky in Becky's own words:: 

"I started blogging about 4 months ago after having taught high school for a number of years.  My education was in Architecture ... Interior Design ...and Art... so I've always loved to create stuff.  I got interested in blogging through my daughter's blog ... started my own blog ... discovered Pinterest ... opened an Etsy shop ... and here I am on The Elephant's Trunk.

On Reinventing the Ordinary ... I try to have some fun.  It's been said I'm a bit .... sarcastic ... okay... I'm a bit of a smart aleck.  I love to show you projects I'm trying ... remodeling I've done ... and hopefully an interesting observation from time to time.  I can pretty much guarantee I won't be doing any recipe sharing ... as I rarely cook.  I could perhaps do a "microwave tutorial".  Anyway... I love music ... especially Oldies ... my Yorkie ... Blake ... and power tools.  

I try never to be boring ... never take myself too seriously... and never use Comic Sans. (I've been warned by the Font Police about that).  

My Etsy Shop opened in late November...so it's still in its toddler stage.  I carry mostly things for the home ... and of course puppies....and I am adding new items all the time.  It's my goal to create a variety of unique items and price points."

A few highlighted items from Becky's Etsy Shop::

& here is an exclusive sneak peek for you of a new item coming to Becky's shop soon::

Want to do a little shopping at Becky's shop? Make sure you use this coupon code for 20% off your entire purchase PINKELEPHANT

Where You Can Find Reinventing The Ordinary::

Blog

Etsy

Facebook

*Stop by and let her know I sent you*

Advertise @ The Trunk in March

Grow your blog or business by advertising at The Elephant's Trunk.

Large Ad Details ($20 a month or $50 for 3 months):

Includes- Twitter shout outs, solo highlight post, chance to offer coupon code and/or giveaway included with highlight post. 

Small Ad ($10 a month or $25 for 3 months):

Includes- Twitter shout outs, monthly group highlight post and the chance to offer coupon code.  

Stats: 

The Elephant’s Trunk started in August 2010 and has drastically grown and continues to do so.

-Monthly Page Views: 8,000+

-Google Connect Followers: 940+

-Twitter Followers: 950+

-Facebook: 360+
-Hello Cotton (joined in Feb 2012): 14+
-Blog Loving (joined in Feb 2012): 13+

Details:

-All payments for ad spots will be made through PayPal

-Each ad will begin at the first of the month

If you are interested in advertising at the Elephant's Trunk please e-mail us: elephantstrunk{@}gmail.com 

I'm Not Telling You How To Pin Your Life... Part 1

I've been pinning for almost a year now (go on... call me a pin-veteran) and I've found a few tricks of the pin. I want to share them with you in a series of posts, but I want to let you know that I am not telling you how to pin your life, just what has worked for me.

Part 1-- The Like Button 

Let's get pinning, shall we? One of my favorite loves of Pinterest is the "like" button. I am constantly using the "like" button on Pinterest when I am "browsing" Pinterest. I "like" something when I am just casually browsing Pinterest and I am too lazy to actually click on the link to see if it is in fact a true link to a tutorial, recipe, etc. I don't want to pin some fabulous recipe and then find out later when I want to make that recipe only to find out that it is a link to no where land and there is no recipe attached... talk about a Pinterest let down. 


Here is how to "like" something previously pinned on Pinterest... 

You can see in the above picture that I "liked" this Photoshop tutorial I saw pinned. I wasn't sure if this was a pin to somewhere or to internet no where land, because of this thought I didn't want to commit to pinning this to one of my boards, go to use it at a later date and then realize it was a link to no where. This is why I decided to "like" it because I wanted to essentially save it for later when I could further check up on this link. I do this a lot when using my Pinterest iPhone app. I like to browse Pinterest on my phone, but rarely re-pin anything from the iPhone app, because when I'm on my phone... I simply don't want to take the time to find out if the pin links to something I really find useful, inspiring, or worthy of a spot of one of my boards (I'm a bit protective of what I pin). 

Here in the above photo you can see the like button on the iPhone app. 

Now you're probably thinking what do you with all those "likes"? 

Every now and then I hit up my like page and check out those links I've "liked". 

Currently I have 93 likes (hey, I've been busy "liking" things). Let's go with the first "like" for example, "Secret Ingredient to a Great Blog (Blogging Advice) via Miss Mustard Seed". I click on the link, give it a glance, if it goes to a legitimate website and if I have time to read it I will. I will then re-pin it if I found the link useful enough to share or something I want to save for a later time. 


You're probably thinking I really don't care if my fashion/home decor or other inspiration pins go to a legitimate website or not and I agree with you on that point, because in a lot of ways Pinterest is about visual inspiration. I do however find it sad when I click on one of these pins to discover it linked to a Tumbler account with no credit given to the photographer of the photo or original source.


Once again I'm not telling you how to pin your life I'm just trying to share a few helpful tips I've learned from my experience on Pinterest.




Stay tuned for more helpful Pinterest tips to come. 

One Simple Place- Coupon Code

We all want that One Simple Place we can go when things are going a little crazy in our lives, that One Simple Place that will slow everything down and give us that relaxing feeling we need to escape. I'm thrilled to introduce you all to, Tia who has embodied that feeling relaxing in her Etsy shop properly named-- One Simple Place.  

Painted Ladies

One Simple Place is filled with gourgeous photography pieces and inspiring prints. 

Love Is...

Tia just opened One Simple Place and already I am in love with every piece that she has in her shop. Luckily for you all Tia is offering all of you 25% off your total purchase with coupon code TRUNK2 at checkout.

Mr & Mrs.

Tia is excited for the new adventure that her shop has given her and she also blogs. I adore Tia's determination to learn more and the constant addition of new items to her shop. I encourage you to escape to that One Simple Place. 

Where You Can Find One Simple Place: 

Shop

Blog 

Facebook

Large Ad Space Giveaway For March

In order to gain awareness for The Trunk advertising program I am giving one large ad space away for the month of March (just as I did in February). Use this advertising spot to show off your small business, handmade business, shop or blog. 

Large Ad Details ($20 a month or $50 for 3 months):

Includes- Twitter shout outs, solo highlight post, chance to offer coupon code and/or giveaway included with highlight post. 

This giveaway will be open until Tuesday February 28th at 11:59 pm central time. 

Ways to enter (please leave a separate comment for each entry completed)::

1. Follow The Trunk through Blog Lovin' 

2. Subscribe to The Trunk through RSS Reader

3. Like The Trunk on Facebook 

4. Follow The Trunk on Twitter

5. Subscribe to The Trunk Newsletter

6. Tweet or Facebook about this giveaway

For those who have already purchased an ad spot for March you are free to enter and if you win you will be reimbursed for your payment for March.

Bring A Little Color To Your Nails

When you think colors for your nails let's be honest most of the time you think pink or red. I want you to know that there are so many other colors out there and it's okay to be a little scared, but you can do it. Go on put a little colors on your nails. Need some inspiration? 

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My challenge to you is the next time you go to buy a new polish or go to get a manicure pick a color you normally wouldn't think about . Let me know what you choose. I'd love to see what color you splash on your nails. Happy manis! 

The Love Story Linkup

Brendan and I have known each other for a long time, but it wasn't exactly love at first sight. We attended the same elementary, middle and high school together. Brendan was a grade older than I was but age-wise he is only 3 months older than I am. Back in school we weren't ever sending each other love notes or kissing behind the bleachers. We hung in the same group of friends, I the varsity soccer player and Brendan the varsity football player-- but at that time in our lives it just wasn't meant to be.

It was probably for the best we were both a little crazy back in our day and thankfully when we met we were able to calm one another down. College came around and Brendan headed to North West Missouri State to play football and I went to The University of Colorado (Brendan eventually transferred to the University of Missouri where he graduated with a bachelor's in finance). 

My good friend in high school Casey invited me to a Denver Nuggets' basketball game over a Thanksgiving break and I replied yes before even knowing who was going. Casey picked me up for the game along with Brendan and another high school friend. As the night when on and the beers started flowing the flirting started to begin. After the Nuggets' game Brendan and I hung out about 3 more times that Thanksgiving break before he headed back to Columbia, Missouri and I to Boulder, Colorado.

We continued to talk between Thanksgiving break and Christmas break and Brendan asked me on our first official date right before Christmas in 2008. Brendan took me to a great place in Denver that had fancy comfort food that has sadly since closed down. 

Right after our date we both headed to opposite ends of Mexico for vacations with our families for New Years. Brendan and I kept in touch in Mexico through Facebook. Once we both arrived back in the States we picked up right where we had left off. 

Brendan and I did the long distance thing for two years and when he graduated we made the decision to move together to San Antonio, Texas for a job offer Brendan received. I finished school online and now we live in Texas the two of us with our chocolate lab- Carmelo. 

Brendan has become my best friend and someone I completely let my guard down with. There is nothing better in the world than knowing you have someone who 100% behind everything that you do. I would be lost without him and I am forever thankful that he chose me. 

Now it is your turn, please share your love story by linking up here! The link will be up until Friday so you've got a bit of time to write your story. Feel free to grab a button for your post.

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I Want You To Share Your Love Story

This Valentine's Day I want you all to share your love stories on your blogs and come link them up here. I'm a hopeless romantic and one of my favorite questions to ask people is how they met. I wish you all a very special Valentine's Day filled with the ones you love. Please spread the word by grabbing a button about this love story link up. The link up will open up on Tuesday (Valentine's Day) and will be open until Friday (the 17th). 

<center> <a href="http://www.thetrunkblog.com/"> <img src="http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Lauren_Bird/ShareYourLoveStory-1.jpg"/> </a></center>

Fill In The Blanks

1. I started my blog because: I moved to Texas with Brendan and knew not a single person in the state of Texas let alone San Antonio. In between job hunting and training the puppy I started this blog as a creative outlet. 

2. One thing I love seeing on other blogs are:
I adore creative projects, high quality photos, humor, recipes, people being true to themselves, and easy to follow tutorials. 

3. Something I love about blogging:
Being able to receive positive feedback from readers about a post I know I've worked hard on to put together. I love being able to put a lot of myself in this blog. I hope people are able to get a sense of who I am by reading this blog. 

4. A favorite blog post of mine:
I will always love my About Me Page it constantly changes but it is a place I really try to introduce myself to people who are just stopping by my blog for the first time. 

5. Something my friends in real life know about me that I've never before mentioned on my blog: 
That I don't know how to swim. 

6. My new favorite blogs to read are:
I know it has been around for a little but I love to read The Beauty Department. I also recently discovered Miss. Indie and I've really been enjoying catching up on that blog.  

7. Some things I tend to avoid doing on my blog are:
I really try to avoid posting just to post. I want to post quality over quantity. 


Linking up to The Little Things We Do. 

Beyonce Is My Hero

Nothing makes me happier than dancing while I get ready to a Beyonce song. That girl can sing it. If I could be any singer I'd be Beyonce. I love this song and that's why I've picked Get Me Bodied as my song for Goodnight Moon's song party. Watch this video all the way through and I can promise you will not be let down. 

How Do You Follow Your Favorite Blogs?

The blog world is all a buzz with disappointment that Google Friend Connect or GFC will be no more very shortly. GFC is a tool that allows people to follow their favorite blogs. I honestly haven't really looked into the details of the discontinuing of GFC, because I really don't utilize this tool. I "follow" via GFC blogs and what not, but that's it. I've found GFC to be a little useless to me (that's just my take on it though and maybe I'm not using it right). 


I've been experimenting lately with finding ways that work for me to follow the blogs that I love. I'm here to tell those of you who are very set on using GFC to follow your favorite blogs that there are other ways to stay in the loop. That maybe when GFC goes away you will be able to find something else that works for you. Here are a few of the new ways I'm finding helpful to me. 

I'll start off by saying I'm no expert in this category and that I don't fully use this tool to it's potential, but here is what I do know. RSS or Google Reader is a simple way to follow blogs. When you visit a blog that you would like to follow through your reader the first thing you should look for is their RSS feed button and that button looks like this. 

It may be different colors or sizes or even located in different locations, but the button will almost always have the rainbow like lines in it's apperance.You will have to be logged into a Google account to add a blog to your reader. Once you've added a blog you like to your reader and would like to visit it at a later time simply go to www.google.com/reader and you can see a list of blogs you are "subscribed" to. 

The subscriptions are different than the blogs that you follow. From what I believe the "blogs I'm following" tab will soon disappear so make sure to subscribe to the blogs you love.

Lately I've found myself keeping up with my favorite blogs more easily by using Facebook. Now when I started using Facebook to follow blogs I would "like" Facebook Blog pages using my personal Facebook account and then when I would log on to Facebook it was information overload. Social media can be a helpful tool or very overwhelming and that's what happened in this case. So I went ahead and started using my own blog page to "like" my favorite blog pages. That way I could opt in or out of when I wanted to view the feed of all the blog fan pages I follow. To use your Facebook as your "business page" make sure you click the following link. 

In the upper right hand corner you can see that I highlighted to use Facebook as The Elephant's Trunk. Once I'm using Facebook as The Trunk's Facebook page I then visit my favorite blog pages and "like" them as The Elephant's Trunk. I won't see their feeds if I'm using Facebook as my personal page, but I will see them when I use my personal page. The only downside to this option is for those looking to grow their Facebook fan page numbers-- when you like a page as a business page it does not count as a "like" towards your total numbers, but it is a great way to keep your personal feed personal and your business feed full of your favorite blogs.

A pretty self-explanatory one but I always follow my favorite blogs via Twitter because I am on Twitter often and will most likely click on a link posted by a blog I like. 

I am new to Blog Lovin, but so far I am really liking how user friendly this site is to follow my favorite blogs as well as how easy it is to find new blogs via my interests. Blog Lovin works much like Google Reader does, but for me it is much more simple and I just seem to like the layout more. I also enjoy the Blog Lovin app that I downloaded to my iPhone. 

In the photo above you can see my blog pulled up and all the posts in order. It is super easy to use. I downloaded it and within minutes was browsing around and finding new blogs through the popular and top blogs tabs. The new posts tab lists all the blogs you follow through Blog Lovin followed by a number next to blog name that let's you know how many new posts have been posted to that blog since your last visit. You can follow The Trunk on Blog Lovin by clicking the link below. 

What can't you do on Pinterest? I've recently started to use Pinterest to collect all the blog links I adore in one spot. 

I simply created a board just for blogs. I made sure when I pinned the blog that I was on their home page and I selected a main photo or logo as the image I pinned (that was just mainly for my ocd pinning ways). Now when I want to do a little blog hopping I can log on to Pinterest and head over to blog board and click around on my blog pins. 

There are many ways to keep up with your favorite blogs and these are just a few suggestions for you. What are some of the ways that you keep up with your blog reading?