Charlie The Cavalier : 2012

5-Step Pom Pom Centerpiece from Tissue Paper Tutorial

I am still getting ready for my little girls birthday balloon party. Here is the cute hello kitty invite and the pinterest inspiration board for the event. For a centerpieces I created these pom pom tissue paper diy centerpieces. A quick, easy, and cheap way to make a little girls birthday special. I am sure you could do the same thing with different colors for other party themes.

See these finished centerpieces at the party!

Materials:

* 6 Pieces of Tissue paper

* String or wire

* Scissors

Step 1. Tissue Paper- Lay 6 pieces of tissue paper on the table. The top layer is the layer that will be in the middle of the flower.

Step 2: Accordion- Fold the paper in accordion style about an inch each way. Yes I was wearing a heart robe when I created this tutorial :). I made this after I put our little girl to bed before her big day (it is that easy).

Step 3: Tie Off- Tie with string or what ever you can find in the center. You can fold the paper in half to find the center.

Step 4: Cut edge- Cut edge in a round way. Don't worry it does not need to be perfect. Just try not to have gauged edges. Craft scissors would give this a neat effect too!

Step 5: Lay Out- Lay out on table

Step 6: Lift Up- Start lifting each layer towards you. Don't be afraid to put hard. The center piece should be tight so you don't see the center.

About Lisa Rusczyk
Lisa is the creator of the blog Charlie-The-Cavalier and His Friends, Family, and Home. She is also the author of 50 Things to Know Before Having a Baby.. Send Lisa Rusczyk and email at lbrennec@gmail.com.

7 Things You May Forget When Traveling On An Airplane

These are some packing tips that may sometimes get overlooked:

1. Carry on - Decide if you are going to take all of your luggage with you on the plane or not. If you are not remember that liquids need to be kept in a separate bag.

2. Medicine - You may need something for a headache, allergies or sleeping pills. When traveling to different places you never know how your body will react.

3. Umbrella - It is a good idea to pack an umbrella on the outside of your luggage. This way whatever climate that you arrive you will be dry. You never know what type of weather situation you will get yourself into. The (airport worker) will even think you are smarter for doing this).

4. Extra travel bag with all amenities- If you travel a lot it is a good idea to create a travel bag. This is a bag that you do not unpack, that has all your travel needs in it. This can include shampoo, conditioner, soap, tooth brush and toothpaste, brush, floss ect.

5. Pack in a plastic - Before flight or layovers your luggage may be on the run way for a long time.During this time it may be uncovered during the rain. This may cause your items to, you guessed it, be all wet when you receive it. A good idea is to pack your luggage in a trash bag in the bad. This will keep your clothes dry for when you get to your destination.

6. Exact change envelope- Keep exact change in an envelope so you will not spend it. Then if there are any tolls which need exact change you will be ready.

7. Winter Jacket- Remember not to pack your winter jacket if you are going to a cold place in case your luggage gets lost.

10 Things to Know to Ready Your Home For Winter

Is your home ready for the winter. Our house is in Pennsylvania. Today we have a forecast to get over a foot of snow! How excited. We just god a new sled for Christmas too! Help protect your house and family for winter. Get the boring stuff over so you can enjoy the fun stuff. Hot chocolate, being snowed in, sledding, and snowmen!

1. Have Furnace Inspected- Make sure ducts are clean.

2. Buy Furnace Filters- Buy a couple extra filters do you do not need to run out to the store every time.

3. Program Thermostat Properly- The temperature at your house should be at a minimum of 55 degrees while you are away.

4. Examine House for Cracks- Check for open seals on windows and doors. Go to home improvement store to properly seal.

5. Trim Trees- Trees to keep them from falling during winter winds.

6. Assemble an Emergency Kit- Flash lights, first-aid kit, extra bottled water, non-perishable food, and blankets.

7. Snow Removal Equipment is Ready- Shovels, bags of ice-melt, ect. Have them ready before you need them.

8. Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Monitors- Have them installed and ready with full batteries. keep extra batteries on hand.

9. Fire Extinguisher- Replace one that is older than 10 years.

10. Contact Insurance Agency- Completing some of these things can save you money off of your home insurance.

10 Thing to Know to Save Money on Your Electric Bill

After our friend from Home for Three create a post about how they are saving money, I thought I would create a post on how our electric bill for our 1,100 square foot house last month was $26. Just so you are aware, normally our bill is about $60, and we do have gas stove, but I will share the ways we stared off on the right foot to keep it down. After living in an apartment with "free electricity" we knew we had to make some lifestyle changes. I think we are both happy with the outcome.

There are other things that I would would like to do with the house. These include adding storm doors to the front and back doors, getting a more efficient central air conditioner, and new washer and drier. I think that so far we have made small steps and we can keep making them to create an efficient house.

1. New Shiny Appliances - Before we moved in we donated our old appliances, and got a new fridge, oven, and microwave. These are more efficient than the old ones. Luckily, my husbands Uncle took the old stove and fixed it up for this cabin.

2. New Hot Water Heater- Self explanatory. The inspector told us we needed a new one anyway. The seller gave us money for the purchase.

3. "Newer House" with insulation - Our house was built in 1999. This only makes it about 12 years old. When we moved in the neighbor told us he saw it being built, and there is way more insulation in the house than there needed to be.

4. Smart Strips - We ordered two smart strips for our house. These will turn off the other electronics when the main one is turned off. For example, if you turn off your tv, the dvd player, cable box, and wii will also turn all the way off. We have one on our main tv, and one on my husbands "high power use" computer.

5. Automatic Lights and Dimmer- I did not know my husband could do electrical until we moved into our house. We now have lights that turn off and on automatically in the kitchen and bathrooms. We also have a dimmer on our kitchen light. These definitely save electricity, and are nice to have too.

6. Automatic Thermostat- This means the temperature of our houses changes for when we wake up, when we leave for work, when we come home, and when we go to bed. I am glad my husband figured out all that technology :).

7. Energy Saving Outlets- Do you forget to unplug your cell phone when it is done charging? With these outlets you don't need to worry about using electricity when your phone is done charging.

8. Home Comfort Monitor- Monitor the temperature in different places in your house. While the area around the thermostat may be cold, the upstairs computer room may be hot.

9. Solar Power Shed Light- When we moved into our house we needed a shed light to illuminate the back yard. We choose a solar powered one. For less than $30 we did not need to wire the light or use electricity. I do admit, we did loose the solar panel in a hail storm, but our home insurance company helped pay for a new one.

10. Solar Powered LED Path Lights- A great way to light up a front path without using electricity from your home.

You may also be interested in: 6 Tips for Getting the Most from Your Discover Cash Back

50 Things to Know to Downsize Your Life

This book will help you downsize your life. Relationships and experiences are a place to spend time and money. Stop buying stuff, stop cleaning stuff, stop organizing stuff, and live your life!

I wrote "50 Things to Know to Downsize Your Life" because I wanted to create a concise guide for people to follow to learn to live a better life with less.

This is a collection of 50 simple tips that any person who would like to know while learning to downsize their life.

The book offers practical tips for your bathroom, kitchen, closet, bedroom, downstairs, children’s rooms, and even what to do with your extra time. The book also includes 10 things to know to save money on your electric bill.

A great quick read. This book was written and published in 2013.

How Pinteresting!: 10 Thing to Know to Have a Blog Post Go Viral

Please pin this post if you like it. Thanks!

I got the idea for this post from my friend from The Clerical Error. She wrote to create a post on "how to use Pinterest to boost blog success and make money.". So I thought I would come up with ten tips on how to make a blog post viral. I did this for two of my posts: 50 Things to Know Before Having a Baby and 50 Thing to Know in the First Year of Parenthood. So far each post received 423,000 and 89,000 views.

Pinterest is where I get the most visitors to Charlie-The-Cavalier. This is why i keep researching and trying different things to keep working on finding more visitors from this social media. I have also tried and have links to other social media. As you see on the right facebook, amazon, google, you tube, email, and rss feeds. Here is another post you may be interested in: Self-Publishing and Blogs and Ads OH MY!- 5 Steps to Self Publishing a Book and Actually Making Money. The traffic sources for these views pinterest mobile, pinterest, and pinterest!    Here are 10 Thing to Know to Have a Blog Post go Viral. I would love to hear your feedback. I have read many tips but these tips are what works for me and what I work on daily to market my blog. The reason I do this is because I love to get information out there to others. Knowledge is power.

1. Image with Text- As you can see in the post 50 Things to Know Before Having a Baby I have an image that people are interested in. When I took a marketing class in college I learned that people love to look at animals and babies. People are drawn to them. So I choose a picture with a dog and a baby for that reason, but also because it when with my post. I choose white arial text. Arial is easy for people to read. White pops out. I only had Microsoft paint to create this image, so that is what I used to create this picture. I recently read that creating long and skinny pictures for pinterest will allow more pins.

You may want to add a couple images with the text. Then the audience can decide which one works best with the post when they re pin the post.

You can also create your own ads on your own blog. As you see on the right there are some of the most popular pins with text for other people to view and follow.

2. New Interesting Topic- Pick a topic that people on pinterest would be interested in. Both of the posts that I referenced have content that would be helpful for someone who is or wants to have children. There is a nitch there but not too small of a nitch. The topic could have pictures, be well formatted, and have videos that goes with the post. The videos could be yours or someone elses that goes with the topic.

3. Pin It Button- You can add a pin it button from the pinterest.com about section under the picture of the blog post that you want people to pin. This will make it easy for people who don't use pinterest often to pin your page if they like it. When you create the pin it button on this site, it will ask you to create a description. Write a description that your target audience would like to use.   You can write something to include "pin now, read later".

4. Post with External Links- When you create a post with external links you are creating more value to what the reader is reading. They do not need to click on every link but the ones that reader is interested in may be helpful for them to find more information. If you are smart you can make money from the links that they click on. They can go to your amazon associates account for example. If you don't want them to leave your site just write the content but do not make it a hyperlink. For example, mashable is a great place to get up-to-date information on pinterst. Since I don't want you to leave my site and go there because I won't make any money off of the referral, I won't make mashable.com a link.

5. Follow People on Pinterst that are Pinning your Pins- You can see who if following your pins on your blog by going to http://pinterest.com/source/charlie-the-cavalier.blogspot.com/ Replace charlie-the-cavalier.blogspot.com with the name of your blog. You can look at each person who pins your pin. I usually like the pin and follow the person's board back. Since my topic is babies, I can see what baby stuff they are pinning, including my future baby pins. Sometimes the people will follow me back.

6. Create a Following on Pinterest- Create boards that contain content in your niche. My niche of the post that I want people to follow is babies. I create a couple boards including baby stuff. People can follow my boards. I have about 2,250 followers at this point. I can then pin my new posts and hopefully people will continue to pin them. Recently i created a  board that was for balloon birthday ideas for my daughter. Somehow the one board has over 1,400 followers in a couple weeks.

7. Readability - As an instructional designer I like how this post is formatted. A list that people can easily scan though. Your readers are busy people! An image or two. Well formatted post (a picture or two with easy flow). I prefer a white background and an arial type font. Most of the views on my pinned blog posts area read on a phone. A list is easy to read on there, and I believe that is why people keep pinning the posts.

8. Review and Make Changes- AddThis.com is another way people can use social media on the blog platform I choose blogger.com. You can see your shares, clicks, and viral lift here. Google analytics is another place to understand how people are entering your site. As you view how people are making it there you can try to put more effort into certain areas to get the biggest return. For example, I can see what posts are getting the most attention and make these posts better. Feedjit is another place I look to see in real time where people are leaving my site. Try to understand where the traffic is coming from and leaving. Keep working on those areas to increase traffic and move that traffic to your revenue creating areas.

9. Link and Create Similar Content to Other Posts- Try to get viewers to other similar posts to increase ad revenue as you see on my ads on the right. The more people who look at your blog, and the more people that click on the ads the more revenue you make. Other posts can also bring them to more amazon associates links which will hopefully create more revenue. Viewers may also pin this new content to bring your more viral views. Below you will see other posts that is similar to my most viewed post go keep followers viewing, following, and pinning the blog. I included an image.

50 Things To Know Series

10. Verify Your Blog- You can verify your website or blog on pinterst. This took me an hour and I had to get into the html code to do this, but since I did it, I gained 1,000 more followers on my boards in about 2 weeks. I think this takes some skill but if you follow the right tutorial you can do it!