Simply Klassic Sunday Link Party and Last Week's Features

It's almost time for the Beginner Bloggers Club! For all the info on the BBC, check out this post. Be sure to check back every day in April for features and blogging tips!

What a great party we had last week!

I am in love with Courtney's sweet little birdhouse at French Country Cottage.

Quick, somebody invite me to a spring party so I can make these adorable Strawberry Shortcake appetizers from The Lady Behind the Curtain!

Feathers are hot right now, and so is this gorgeous feather wreath from Budget Design Girl.

I love a good pallet project, and you won't believe this pallet lemonade stand from I Know the Plans I Have For You! How cool is this???

If you were featured, feel free to grab a button from my sidebar.

Thank you so much to everyone who linked up! I'm doing my best to get to all of the links and trying to comment on everything.

Time to link up your projects. I can't wait to see what you've been up to! The linky will be open until Friday. Feel free to join in at any time during the party. I'll be featuring the projects that most caught my eye each week.

The rules:

• Home projects, crafts, tips, DIYs, makeovers, recipes, tips etc. are welcome. Show us what you're proud of this week! 
• Link directly to your post, not your home page. 
• Link as many posts as you would like, but please make sure they are new to this party. 
• No giveaways or shops, please. (If you have a giveaway or shop, I'd love to feature it for you - email me for details). 
• You do not have to be a follower, but I would love it if you were! 
• Play nice - visit and comment on other blogs!
• Please link to Simply Klassic Home somewhere in your post so others can join in on the fun. (A big THANK YOU to everyone who's already doing this!!). 
• By linking up, you give me permission to use any part of your post, including pictures, in a feature or on Facebook. Proper credit and links will be given to you. 

Feel free to email me with questions or leave them in the comments below. 


So grab a button and link up your posts below. Can't wait to see what you have to share!






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The Beginner Bloggers Club Starts April 2

Welcome to the BBC! 

The Beginner Blogger's Club started as an idea that I wanted to start featuring new bloggers. I know how blessed I have been by some of the friends I have made through blogging, and none of that would have happened if I hadn't put myself out there. I had several really awesome bloggers feature me earlier on in my blogging "career" and I am so grateful for that support.

The more I started thinking about the features, the more my little idea grew into a big, month-long series. I contacted my some of favorite seasoned blogger friends to be mentors, answering questions that some of the beginners may have, and also put out a call on Facebook and the blog for new bloggers who might like to be featured. I received an overwhelming response and within 48 hours, I had 20 new bloggers and ten mentors ready and willing to participate! Wow, and thank you!

The series will begin on Monday, April 2 and will continue pretty much every day through the end of April. The first dozen new bloggers who contacted me will be featured during the series, and in May I will begin a regular Friday feature showcasing new bloggers, starting with the eight I wasn't able to feature during the April series.

Meet our Mentors:

Clockwise from top left:

Roeshel from The DIY Showoff
Blog Etiquette

Bonnie & Trish from Uncommon
How to Market Yourself and Your Blog

Kim from Savvy Southern Style
Photography Tips

Amy from All Things Home
Building Relationships with Your Readers

Gwen from Gwenny Penny
Organizing Link Images

Kristin from Simply Klassic Home (that's me!)
Sharing Personal Information & Stories on your blog

Pamela from PB & J Stories
April 24: Why and How to Purchase Your Domain

Courtney from French Country Cottage
April 26: How Do You Know What to Write About?

Denise from Pink Postcard
Don't Give Up!

And here are our featured new bloggers for the month of April (to qualify as a new blogger, they have been blogging for six months or less and/or have less than 100 followers). I will be updating daily to include links to their feature posts.

Kirstin from Burlap & Buttons

Jen from At Home in the Northwest

Katie from Hems for Her

Sarah from Imperfect Patina

Andrea from Modern Yet Old Fashioned

ChiWei from One Dog Woof

Megan & Amy from Our Pinteresting Family

Sandra from Stash Burning

Becca from The Sassy Penguin

Laura from Top This Top That

Gleeful from The Captivating Life

Kathryn from Create-W-Kat

The Simply Klassic Sundays link party will continue to run each weekend, starting Saturday evenings around 5 pm. On April 29, the link party will also include a special section for you to link up your posts on all things blogging related - your favorite tips & tricks, advice, where you blog, what you've learned or just a general introduction to your blog. It's up to you! So start writing those posts now, so you'll be ready on the 29th! (and by the way, one lucky linker just might win a blog design from yours truly).

THEN, just a little head's up, my big annual birthday giveaway will be happening in May - I've got a bunch of fabulous giveaways lined up of some of my favorite things (some of which I've already featured here on the blog) so get ready!!

Be sure to follow Simply Klassic Home either by Google Friends Connect, Facebook or subscribing in a reader or by email so you won't miss a thing ~ Click one of the links in my sidebar to stay connected!
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Slow Cooker Carnitas

The other day when I posted my Mexican Pizza recipe, I promised to share with you my recipe for slow cooker carnitas. I've actually revived this from my old blog, but the recipe is pretty much the same. Please note that the amounts are a general idea, as I almost never measure when I cook.

I have used Pork Shoulder, Pork Butt, and Pork Loin Roast. Even with the pork loin, the meat came out super tender and full of flavor, and the smell I was greeted with when I walked through the door at 5:00 ~ heavenly!!

So, here you go. Let me know if you try it!

Slow Cooker Carnitas

Ingredients:

2-4 pound Pork Shoulder or Butt or Pork Loin Roast, trimmed and cut into large chunks

2 Oranges, quartered

2 Tbls Chopped Garlic

1/2 onion, quartered

2 tsp Oregeno

2 tsp Cumin

Salt & Pepper to taste

2-3 cups chicken broth or water

Place oranges and onion on the bottom of the slow cooker. Add the meat, and season with spices on both sides (make sure to add plenty of salt). Add water, pouring carefully around the edges, so as not to rinse the meat. If using a high fat meat, I do not add any broth/water.

Cook on low heat for six hours. 

This is what it looked like when I came home. Don't you wish your monitor was scratch & sniff?

Take the meat out of the broth, and shred with a fork. It shredded so easy!

This step is optional: Heat some oil in a large frying pan and fry the meat. Season with salt if needed. This helps to give a nice crispy texture. I would probably do this in two sessions, as all of the meat in the pan was a bit much.

Spoon into taco shells, or flour tortillas, and garnish with your favorite toppings. Serve with beans and rice, or as a topping for taco salad, or even a Mexican Pizza!

The best part is you can make a lot, and use half the recipe for pulled pork or BBQ pork sandwiches!

I make this recipe probably once a month. I stock up pork roasts when they are on sale for this very purpose. I usually cook a lot, then freeze half of it to use later.

Tonight we're having BBQ pork sandwiches! What are you having for dinner?

Linking up:

At The Picket Fence

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

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What I'm Loving Right Now

Since I'm in the middle of a bunch of projects with no results to show you right now, I thought I'd share a little of what I'm loving at the moment.

Wendy's Apple Pecan Salad

I've had this salad for lunch at least twice a week for the last month. Yes, it's that good. REAL chicken breast, pomegranate dressing, sweet pecans, blue cheese. Um, yum.

Wendy's Wild Berry Tea

It's pretty safe to say I'm in love this stuff. I might even marry it. It's refreshing and not super sweet. There's no added sugar, just from the actual berries.

TOMS

I realize that TOMS are big right now. Kinda like Birkenstocks were in the 80s. Ok, maybe not. These are seriously one of the most comfortable pairs of shoes I have ever owned. I'm currently saving up for these gorgeous crocheted ones.

via

Which my mother pointed are a kinda like a pair of shoes I owned as a kid in the 80s. Hmmm.

The Body Shop Shea Body Butter

I have always loved the Body Shop, and I've always loved their body butter. I strayed for a few years into the Bath & Body Works realm, but I've recently converted back to my beloved Body Shop. I absolutely love the shea body butter- the fragrance is pleasant but not overwhelmingly sweet or musky, and it leaves my super dry hands super soft.

Aviator Glasses

Every time I walk by a sunglasses display, I have to try them on. Haven't bought them yet, but if I did, do you think they'd make me look cool, like Charlie?

Ombre

I'm seriously crushing on this style lately. (Yes, I know, I 'm late to the party. As usual). I love it on

clothing:

via

Curtains:

via

and hair:

I used to always change my hair several times a year and until last September it had been the same for four years. I went darker (love it) but I'm thinking about going ombre at my next appointment in a few weeks...what do you think?

What are you loving right now?

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Homemade Mexican Pizza (Just like Taco Bell. Sort of.)

Wanna know what I made for dinner last night?

Sooooo yummy!! I pinned this Taco Bell knock-off (because who doesn't like a good knock-off?) recipe from Honey What's Cookin' a few weeks ago and since I set a personal goal to make at least one pin a week, this seemed like the next logical choice. Right?

It was super easy, and the steps are outlined beautifully at the original post, but I'll give you the run down of how it went at my house.

First, line your cookie sheet with foil and heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Lightly brush two tortillas with oil on each side, lay them on the cookie sheet, and place the sheet in the oven.

In the meantime, heat your beans on the stove, adding a little milk and taco seasoning.

Bake the tortillas five minutes on each side.

Break up a fight between your children.

Suddenly realize your timer went off a few minutes ago. Rush to the kitchen, open the oven, remove the burnt  tortillas and start over.

Once the new tortillas are finished, remove them from the oven.

Realize you haven't taken any pictures, run to grab your camera only to remember you left it at your office. Again. Bad blogger! Pick up your point and shoot and pray the pictures are "blog worthy."

Spread beans on one half (this is where I also added some leftover slow cooker carnitas. I'll have to share that recipe with you soon). You should probably remove them from the hot cookie sheet at this point so you don't burn your fingers. Not that I know anything about that.

Top with the other tortilla and spread salsa on top.

Remove all tomatoes and peppers from the salsa after your son walks by and declares he won't eat that "icky stuff."

Top with cheese and pick up the cookie sheet to place back in the oven.

Immediately drop the sheet because, by golly, that sucker is still hot!

Using your oven mit this time, place in the oven for about five or six minutes.

Remove from the oven, transfer to a cutting board and cut with a pizza cutter or a large knife.

Announce to your children that it's time to eat, and enjoy!

Original recipe found here.

Oh, and obviously I need to work on my photography skills with my P & S. Or get a new house with better lighting. Either way.
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Hand-painted Wooden Sign Using Wax Paper Transfer

I love typography - printables, hand-painted signs and so on. When thinking up artwork for the walls in my office, I decided various kinds of typography was the way to go.

My friend Pamela at PB & J Stories has beautiful hand-painted signs in her shop, and one of them was the inspiration for a little piece of art I created for my office this weekend.

Since my first attempt at a hand-painted sign was a bit of a failure, I was a little hesitant of attempting another one. But I think this one came out much better as instead of painting completely free-hand, I used a wax paper transfer method.

The base was an old cabinet door I had painted last year and added a piece of dropcloth I'd printed on. It's painted white then dry brushed with light gray and distressed. I kept the original printed dropcloth piece and will be using it elsewhere in the room.

To paint the letters, I used a multi-step process.

First, I drew out the letter onto a piece of paper until I was happy with how they looked. The lined paper helped to keep them proportional.

Next I flipped the paper over and taped a piece of wax paper to the back. I traced just the outline of the letters onto the wax paper. You can see where I wasn't happy with the original placement I just adjusted as I traced.

Then I flipped the wax paper over on the wood and positioned it where I wanted the words to be, then rubbed the letters with the back of the marker to transfer the outlined letters to the wood.

I wasn't really sure how this would come out, since the few tutorials I've seen used freezer paper that was put through an ink-jet printer. But my printer isn't hooked up, so I'm glad to know that wax-paper and a sharpie works just as well!

After transferring the letters, I took some black paint and filled them in, then touched up with the light gray. Sorry, I was so excited that the transfer worked, I forgot to take a pic!

I love how this project turned out, and it's definitely something I would do again.

You also got a little sneak peek of how the room is shaping up. It's smack in the center of my house, with no windows even really near it. My SLR was left at my office over the weekend so I'm using my point and shoot, not too hard to shoot without flash but editing to lighten it up is a lot harder! I'll give you a few details later in the week.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week!


Linking up:
DIY on the Cheap
At Home with K
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Savvy Southern Style
French Country Cottage
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Simply Klassic Sunday Link Party and Last Week's Features

Holy Cow! I can't believe how much quicker the week goes by when things are going wrong!!

If you follow me on Facebook or if you read this post, you know that our water heater went out last weekend, sending a flood halfway into our garage. I am grateful that the water was IN THE GARAGE, instead of in the house like I know so many people have. I am also grateful for having a wonderful neighbor who came over right away to help then installed the new one the next day. I am not grateful for the amount of money I had to spend to do so. Sometimes, I think I'd rather be renting!

Despite the homeowner trauma, I still found time to make a fun new recipe (click on the image to go to the post):

But, that little issue kept me pretty busy this week, so I was grateful to Shannon from Fox Hollow Cottage who gave us a witty tutorial on how to remove word verification from your blog. Please, if you didn't read it, go read it now! I'll wait.

Ok, now that you've done that, let's recap Friday's post in which I shared an announcement of a new series coming in April!

Click on the button for more information. I've lined up 20 guest posters - both beginner bloggers and seasoned veterans. I hope you'll join us - it's going to be quite the party!

Now on to the features from last week's party! (Sorry I didn't get to visit as many blogs as I would have liked this week!)

I love this printable from One Dog Woof, especially considering I haven't found time to make any myself this season!

Laura's spring burlap wreath, from Top This Top That, is my kind of project - easy!

A beachy coffee table from Art is Beauty.

If you were featured, feel free to grab a button from my sidebar.

Thank you so much to everyone who linked up! I'm doing my best to get to all of the links and trying to comment on everything.

Time to link up your projects. I can't wait to see what you've been up to! The linky will be open until Friday. Feel free to join in at any time during the party. I'll be featuring the projects that most caught my eye each week.

The rules:

• Home projects, crafts, tips, DIYs, makeovers, recipes, tips etc. are welcome. Show us what you're proud of this week! 
• Link directly to your post, not your home page. 
• Link as many posts as you would like, but please make sure they are new to this party. 
• No giveaways or shops, please. (If you have a giveaway or shop, I'd love to feature it for you - email me for details). 
• You do not have to be a follower, but I would love it if you were! 
• Play nice - visit and comment on other blogs!
• Please link to Simply Klassic Home somewhere in your post so others can join in on the fun. (A big THANK YOU to everyone who's already doing this!!). 
• By linking up, you give me permission to use any part of your post, including pictures, in a feature or on Facebook. Proper credit and links will be given to you. 

Feel free to email me with questions or leave them in the comments below. So grab a button and link up your posts below. Can't wait to see what you have to share!

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The BBC (Beginner Bloggers Club) - A New Series

***For more information on the series, and a complete list of participants, click here***

If you know Debbie from Debbiedoo's, you know she has always been a fabulous supporter of new bloggers. She even hosts a Newbie Linky Party for just that purpose. I wish I had known Debbie's blog when I first started blogging two years ago. It would have been wonderful to have the kind of support she has been offering to her "newbies."

The best part of blogging, for me, is the way we are able to lift each other up. Blogging is hard work, and so is getting your name out there. Linking to parties and hoping to be noticed. Following in the hopes of being followed back, and commenting in the hopes of receiving the same love.

I have been inspired by Debbie and I thought I'd reach out to any of my readers who may be new bloggers who would like to be featured on Simply Klassic Home! So I've started the BBC (Beginner Bloggers Club)!

I'm not a "super-blogger," and let's face it, most of us aren't. Some days I still feel like a "newbie." My goal is to support new bloggers and hopefully introduce you to someone you may not have met otherwise.

The thought behind the series is to gather some new bloggers who might have questions about blogging, and get them answers as well as featuring their blogs. During the month of April, I'll be featuring several different beginner blogs, as well as sharing tips and advice from some of my favorite seasoned blogger friends (I'm so excited!!!):

Kim @ Savvy Southern Style

Roeshel @ The DIY Showoff

Amy @ All Things Home

Bonnie & Trish @ Uncommon

Sarah @ Cozy.Cottage.Cute.

Gwen from Gwenny Penny

Denise from Pink Postcard

Pamela from PB&J Stories

Do you have a new blog that you would like to have featured? The criteria to be considered "new" (stolen borrowed from Debbiedoo's) is:

• blogging for less than six months and/or
• less than 100 followers

Basically, if you still feel like a "new blogger" and want to be featured, I want to feature you! I welcome you to contact me if you would like to be featured. Be sure to include the following information:

1. Your name.
2. Your blog URL.
3. A few links to your favorite posts.
4. A brief bio of you you and your blog.

What do you think? Do you want to be a part of the BBC?

UPDATE - The BBC is currently full for the April series. But I would still love to feature you, so please still email me your information! If there's enough interest I will keep this as a weekly series after the month is over.

I would love it if you could help spread the news about the series - Grab a button from my sidebar, and if you have a blogging question feel free to leave it in the comments and I'll see if I can get it answered for you!

Don't forget, Simply Klassic Sunday will be up tomorrow night!

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How to Remove Word Verification from Your Blog - A Guest Post

We are so lucky today to have a fabulous guest poster - Shannon from Fox Hollow Cottage! Do you LOVE having to type those two crazy words that don't even look like real words before being able to leave a comment on a blog? Me either!!! That's why I asked Shannon to share with you how simple it is to remove it from your own blog ('cause she's so much nicer about it than I would be!).


Hello Simply Klassic Home Readers!

My name is Shannon and 

I am happy to be guest posting for Kristin.

Most days, you'll find me blogging at  Fox Hollow Cottage 

but today

I'm sharing some important information about

How To Get MORE Comments On Your Blog

It is so utterly Simple.

but so very Serious.

YOU 

Must

R E M O V E

WORD VERIFICATION from YOUR BLOG.

I can just bet you!

 there are people who would

LOVE

nothing more then to

leave lovely, wonderful, poetic, praise-filled comments

for you on your blog...

BUT

They Do Not.

BECAUSE

Your poor, poor readers are now forced to type-in

2

Yes

TWO

Indecipherable Words.

And we all know...

Nobody.

Has got time.

 For that.

So, if  YOU want comments...

(and I am pretty darn sure we all do)

Please, Please, Please!

follow these very simple steps on

If you have a BLOGGER blog do this; (*If you are using the "updated blogger interface", you'll need to switch back to the old version to make this adjustment. You'll find it in the very upper right hand side of your dashboard.)

1. Go To Your DASHBOARD.

2. Select "Settings".

3. Then, Select "Comments". (it's right under settings) and looks like this;

4. Scroll Down.

You Will See This;

Show word verification for comments?	YesNoThis will require people leaving comments on your blog to complete a word verification step, which will help reduce comment spam.Learn more Blog authors will not see word verification for comments.

5. Select NO.

6. Save.

That's it!   

You're DONE.


(I sure hope I didn't come across as a bossy pants know-it-all?)

I'm really and truly just trying to do my part to pass on information and it is so great that Kristin wants to help spread the word.

I have heard time-&-time again

from readers and fellow bloggers that they are

not even bothering to leave comments anymore 

if they have to jump the hurdle of

Word Verification.

Technically known as "Captcha"

Which, I'm sure it's useful in some cases, but certainly not 
necessary on our blogs.

So ditch it.

Quick!

Thanks a bunch for having me.

Oh how I love Shannon! Thanks for sharing this useful blogging tip with us today!!

Do you follow on Facebook? I been asking looking for some "newbie" (as my friend, Debbiedoo's calls them) bloggers who would like to participate in a fun new series. A "newbie" is a blogger who has been blogging for less than six months, and/or has less than 100 followers. Basically, if you still feel like a "newbie" I'd love to feature you! Email me at simplyklassichome (@) aol (.) com. This fabulous new series will be coming in April - stay tuned for more information.

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