What's all the fuss about Pippit?

There's a new app in town that has bloggers, creative business owners, and ladies everywhere all kinds of excited. It's called Pippit, and if you're on Instagram you've probably heard a thing or two about it. So what exactly is this new app and what's all the fuss about? Here's my take on it.

What:

Pippit simplifies social media by allowing you to share and view blog posts, images, and videos all in one place. Think Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube and Bloglovin' combined (insert hallelujah chorus here). And those features that you love so much about the social media platforms I just rattled off? They're all there - and more. 

How:

It's super easy to get started. Create an account, follow others, and start sharing! This new app shares content in the form of a "pip" (very similar to a "pin" on Pinterest). The pips you share and the pips of those you follow appear in your newsfeed. 

Uploading new pips is super simple. You even have the ability to edit your images (just like Instagram) and add "dots", linking content in your image to websites or items in a shop. More than one dot can be added to a pip, which means that one image can include multiple links.

For example, say you're a fashion blogger and you're sharing a photo of what you're wearing today. With Pippit, you have the ability to place dots on your dress, your shoes, and your bag, linking them to shops where people can buy them. 

The ability to "like" posts has been stepped up a notch with more options. In addition to liking a post, Pippit allows you to designate which pips you want and which Pips you find useful. Want to refer back to the pips that you liked? The "my opinions" button in your menu lets you reference them all later.

Another feature that I love is the ability to read blog posts directly from the newsfeed. No more of that clicking and opening new windows nonsense - everything is all in one place.

(Sidenote: see that green bar underneath those delicious looking muffins? That designates a blog post in your newsfeed.)

And it gets better. Users have the ability to link their blog's RSS feed into their profile, so every time you hit "publish" on a blog post, a pip immediately appears on your Pippit feed. One less thing to think about when you're sharing your blog posts on social media. 

Why:

Pippit is a fun, simple way to access all of the lovely photos that you enjoy on Pinterest & Instagram, the blogs you love to follow along with on Bloglovin' & Feedly, and the videos you watch on Youtube. You have the ability to shop effortlessly from the app and share your interests with others. 

For bloggers and business owners, Pippit is a great way to link photos and videos to your site, monetize with links, track engagement with analytics, and gather feedback on content. It's a one stop shop for your customers, allowing them to see your photos and blog posts all in one spot, and you have the ability to add a lot of information in one pip.

As with most new apps, Pippit has some kinks to work out, but I have a feeling this app has potential to grow into something great. 

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Are you on Pippit? What are your thoughts on this new app?

Monday's Letters

Dear Mr. Hooker, apparently saying "I do" to spending the rest of my life with you also meant that I said "I do" to coming down with any and every sickness that you will ever have. Last month you passed along your poison ivy, this weekend I acquired your cold. Sharing germs willingly? That's love.

Dear NC DMV, "hospitable" is not an adjective I would use to describe your attitude toward new residents. Even though Jake and I have been driving for just shy of 10 years now, you are requiring that we take a driving test to obtain our NC driver's licenses. So today we're reliving our awkward teenage years (sans-braces) with a trip to visit you. Welcome to North Carolina.

Dear Tupelo Honey, it was love at first sight. Your pretty outdoor lighting, wooden beams, colorful menus, and those chocolate mints you offer on the way out the door - it seems like no detail was overlooked. Oh, and your food is delicious, too! Jake and our friends picked on me for the joy that all of your design details brought me, but what can I say? Pretty design makes my heart dance.

Dear Jake, Elle & Company followers get to read about you in Monday's Letters each week, but they don't get to see your involvement in this business behind the scenes. Thank you for all of the late night brainstorm sessions, encouragement, and excitement over what's in store this summer. Knowing that I have your support means the world. 

Coffee Date with Kaitlyn Blankenship

My childhood wouldn't have been the same without the pretty lady who's joining us for this morning's Coffee Date. Kaitlyn and I were inseparable from the time we were 5 years old, spending every weekend at each other's house and practically sharing families. We spent hundreds of hours "playing pretend" and dreaming about our future. Our plans? To attend Virginia Tech together, live in an RV on campus (ha!), meet our future husbands, and live happily ever after.

Fifteen years later, I think our 9-year-old selves would be elated over how things turned out. We checked off every dream on that list. (Okay, all except the RV. Can't say we're too disappointed about that one...) But the best part? We're still great friends. I'm so excited for you to meet the girl who's been a sister to me since kindergarten. Friends, meet Kaitlyn!

What's in your coffee cup this morning?

No coffee cup for me. I haven't ever really gotten into coffee. I am just a milk person. I don't feel like I've eaten breakfast if I haven't had any milk. My husband likes to make fun of me for this because he claims the only time I get up early on a Saturday is if we were out of milk and I had to run to the grocery store.

Give us a glimpse into a "day in the life" of Kaitlyn.

Oh boy... well, let's flashback to before Toph got a new job and had to move until I finished up school, and to before this last week of school when things are crazy. Ha! Typically, I wake up and get ready as fast as I can because I like to get to work early. It helps me feel more prepared if I can spend some time thinking through the day. My commute to work is my time to meditate on truth and preach the gospel to myself. Often times I do that through listening to music. I need this "talking to myself" time before I walk into the busy environment of an elementary school and my mind is in a million places at once. I also need this so that I can have a more gracious heart as a teacher. Somewhere between 8:10 and 3:45 I manage to teach what needs to be covered, get my students to sit still long enough to do their work, be a referee for 2nd grade drama (yeah, apparently they have drama), repeat directions hundreds of times, listen to the lamest excuses for needing to see the school nurse, and laugh... a lot. I usually stay after work to clean/organize, grade papers, make copies, or whatever else comes up!

I get home later than I ever though an elementary school teacher got home but it's worth it. Then I make dinner while Toph tells me about work (which is a lot of engineer talk that I do not understand) and make him listen to all the cute (or annoying) things my students did that day. I've gotten better at resisting the urge to do work at home that doesn't really need to be done that quickly.  This makes time for reading on our back porch, walking JoJo, or a run before bed. My day feels busy but I probably won't know "busy" until I am a working mom. I am blessed to have a job that I love going to, a husband I can't wait to come home to, and a God who has graciously sustained me this year.

I'm sure that being an elementary school teacher can get crazy. How do you simplify and keep it all together?

Post-it notes. I use them like crazy. I also make a lot of lists. Lists of what I have left to grade, lists of to-do's for home and school, lists of long term to-do's and deadlines to keep in mind. Lately I've just been using a small 5-subject notebook for the lists and to make notes in. Throughout the day, I have to be able to jot things down quickly before I forget so I can keep track of it all and having this notebook to grab helps me keep it all together. And as I mentioned earlier, I have to stop myself from wanting to do it all at once or as quickly as I can and think, "What can wait until the weekend?" or "Do I really need to do that?" As my mom would tell you, I've inherited her tendency to say "yes" to any commitment or to make more work for herself when it doesn't really  need to be done. I'm trying to get better at discerning that now that I've gotten some experience as a teacher.

You and Toph recently celebrated your 2 year anniversary (woohoo!) What is the funniest habit that you two have formed?

Oh goodness. Ha! This is a tough one. We are really weird. Let's see... I'm not sure if this is a "habit" as much as it is an ongoing joke. I have always loved the movie Footloose. I've seen it countless times (but not as many as Remember the Titans, of course). So if you've seen it, you know the classic part where Ren is all angry and frustrated with the town and their rules so he goes to dance it out. He's kicking and running around and dancing... mixed in with some gymnastics and banging his fist on stuff while "Never" by Moving Pictures plays. Anyway, Toph does a GREAT impression of this and one night started reenacting the scene... moving around the house and dancing all frustrated and it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. So now, we call it "footloose stress relief" and together we reenact the scene (well, Toph does it and I can't move from laughing so hard). The best part is we'll be talking about something serious and then it'll transition into "man, I just can't take this!" and we start banding our fist on the wall and moving/dancing around the house like Ren. It might only be funny if you actually see it happen... but I warned you, we are weird.

What is something you've been loving lately?

God's faithfulness - in a personal sense. I've been humbled to see how God has provided for me. What I love most about it is that He's done it in a season of my life when I feel like I've been pretty inconsistent in prayer, reading the Word, and other spiritual disciplines that I can easily put on a "I am loving God today" checklist in my mind. Since I am prone to think more about my performance rather than Christ's sufficiency for me, it's nice to have so much proof lately that God's goodness towards me and His provision are not determined by my works or the degree of my love for Him. He is faithful even when I am unfaithful. He delights to give good gifts to His children. Obviously I pray I'll grow in faithfulness, but seeing His goodness despite my unworthiness has been a healthy and awesome reminder of His grace.

On a smaller scale, I've also been loving: the fact that we have moved back to Salem, Coldplay, Sour Skittles (I forgot about these until the other day), the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and my precious students who I have to say goodbye to today. They are the best.

Just for fun, what was the best question you were asked by one of your students this year?

Man, I wish my memory were better. I'm sure there are so many good ones that I'm not remembering. I do remember one that was blurted out during the middle of a math lesson...

"Mrs. Blankenship, is Barack Obama on the 8-dollar bill?" (My autistic student who loves money asked this. I wondered where on earth he got that idea from... but sure enough, I googled it, found one that someone must've created, and put it up on the Smart Board for the kids to see. He was so excited.)

Also, earlier this week I was just letting my kids talk and play games like "7 up" and "peanut butter" (remember playing those in elementary school?) since it's the last week of school, and one of my more difficult students, who I have had the hardest time motivating to learn and pay attention, comes up to me and says, "What are we doing?" I said, "What do you mean?" and he asked, "Well, aren't you supposed to be teaching us or something?" Mmmm.... nahhh. 

Jake's jumping in again this week, so brace yourself! His request: A "dog shaming" photo of JoJo. 

Toph sent me this one from this week. JoJo loves chocolate - of course!

Sidenote: if you have never heard of "dog shaming", google it and look at the images. It had us in stitches earlier this week!

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Click here to view more Coffee Dates, and here to follow along with Kaitlyn on Instagram.

And don't forget - the Elle & Company Instagram Giveaway for a Daybook Planner ends tomorrow! Click here to enter your name into the drawing. Happy Friday!

An Instagram Giveaway!

I'm spending the day working on some new and exciting things for Elle & Company, and all of this designing and planning has me excited! So what better way to share the excitement than to host an Instagram Giveaway? 

Here's how to enter:

1. Head on over to Instagram and follow along with me!
2. Leave a comment on the Giveaway image.
3. For an extra entry, tag a friend (or 2... or 20) in a separate comment.

The giveaway ends tomorrow night at 10pm EST.

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Thanks for following along with me friends! I can't wait to give you a sneak peek at what I'm up to. I have a feeling you're going to love it!

4 Tips for Finding & Embracing Your Design Style

There was one guy in design school who made the rest of us green with envy. He had a knack for walking into class critiques fashionably late, and every time he set foot in the door my heart would sink a little. Don't get me wrong, I really liked the guy. But I knew that the work I had spent countless hours on would quickly be overshadowed as soon as he pinned up his latest sketches. There was no denying it; this guy was extremely talented.

I took notice of the positive feedback that Kyle would constantly receive from our professors, and I wanted someone to gloat over my work too. So I tried my hand at mimicking him. Now, you have to understand how different our styles are to fully appreciate the hilarity of this situation. Me, a colorful girly-girl, trying to mimic the edgy, eclectic designs of a hipster. Needless to say, I failed miserably. 

Somewhere along the way I realized that I would never be successful if I continued copying other people's style, so I began to embrace my own feminine, illustrative aesthetic. And that's when my work began to stand out among my classmates. Not because it was better, but because it was distinctly my own. I walked away from my 4 years at Virginia Tech with a portfolio filled with designs that looked like me, not Kyle or anyone else in my class, for that matter.

So today I'm sharing some tips on how to find and embrace your design style.

Now before you "non-designers" click out of this post, I need to let you in on a little secret. Everyone is a designer. Whether you've decorated a house or picked out an outfit, you've exercised creativity in some shape or form. Every person has a unique perspective that they share through design - whether it's through their clothing choices, home decorations, or Instagram photos. And I don't know about you, but I think it's rather boring when everything and everyone looks the same. It's much more fun and interesting when people step out from the crowd and create something distinctly their own.

With that said, are you ready to break out from the mold? Here are four tips for setting yourself apart.

1. Avoid being a follower.

It's good to have sources of inspiration - there's no doubt about that. But attempting to emulate another person in your field is a disastrous plan. You'll never find your thing if you hop around from one inspiration to the next. Your work will be an imitation, not an original. There is no one quite like you; you have something that only you can offer. But you won't get there by following. 

I would be lying to say that the temptation to imitate has been completely removed, especially with so many great designs floating around Pinterest and other blogs. It's easy to see the work of other designers, interior decorators, writers, and photographers and get inspired. But I've learned that there's a difference in what you're inspired by and what you actually create. 

2. Play up your strengths.

Before you can play up your strengths, it's important to identify what they are. Start by answering a couple questions. What excites you? What do others compliment you on? What are some habits, hobbies, or accomplishments that set you apart? It might even be helpful to ask those around you to identify the strengths that they see in you.

Once you've identified your strengths, find ways to put them into practice and showcase them. For example, I love to illustrate. Instead of sharing photos of simple recipes that I enjoy on the blog each month, I've been illustrating a recipe printable to share instead. I don't know what this step looks like for you, but I do know that you've been gifted with a particular talent. Play it up!

3. Experiment.

Spend a couple hours experimenting with your camera or your sketchbook. Clear your mind of all the other work you've seen and just create. Use colors, patterns, illustrations, fabrics, and whatever else appeals to you; don't let the latest trends stunt your creativity. Some of my best work happens when I remove all parameters and allow myself a couple hours of creative freedom. 

4. Keep it up!

It's easy to let others approval (or lack thereof) affect your creativity. I have a lot to say on this topic, but I'll save that for another day and another post. Here's the short version: Even if you aren't getting the response that you were hoping for, stay persistent. Hold true to your style and don't settle for being a copycat.

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The people who have the most distinct style are often the ones who catch your eye. There's a lot to be said for those who see what everyone else is doing and take a leap of faith in their own direction. 

I want to know how you have embraced your design style! What tips have you found helpful?