September Sponsor Spotlight + Giveaway

It's that time again! I hope you enjoy getting to know these ladies as much as I have this month. Enjoy!

Victoria @ Life as Mrs. Aguila (Faith, Hope, and Treasures)

 Blog // Bloglovin // Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest // Instagram // Avon Shop // Shop Facebook

Daughter of the One True King, In love with Mr. Aguila, Avon/Mark sales rep, Shoe collector, Makeup junkie, Shopping addict and Coffee Lover, OH and I love giveaways.

I blog alot about Life as Mrs. Aguila which includes Faith and Hope and I add some Treasures (Make up, AVON/MARK, my giveaway wins, fitness journey) and occasional recipes.

Favorite book?: Power of a Praying Wife
Favorite beauty product?: Currently my Fave Beauty Product is the mark. multi benefit foundation lotion, GOT THE GOODS and also the AVON Mega Effects Mascara (MUST HAVES)
Dream vacation destination?: Hawaii PLEASE!

Betsy @ Musings of a Museum Fanatic

 Blog // Bloglovin // Twitter // Facebook // Instagram // Pinterest

Betsy has a one-year blog celebration giveaway coming up soon and, trust me, it's going to be AWESOME!

I am a museum and culture loving, sometimes recipe cooking, fly by the seat of my pants DIYer, always rocking out and just living life kind of blog. Come join in on the sometimes crazy and usually unorganized but always fun times at Musings of a Museum Fanatic!

Favorite book?: Anything history related
Favorite beauty product?: Clinique Chubby lipsticks
Dream vacation destination?: African Safari

Karen @ Patching Hearts

Blog // Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest // Instagram

I'm a mommy to 3 beautiful children, two here with me and one in Heaven. I love shopping, and a great deal even more! Addicted to reality TV. Try to be a DIYer, but usually end up failing miserably.





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August Sponsor Spotlight + Giveaway

Time to introduce you all to some lovely blogging ladies & to give you a chance to enter to win some awesome prizes!

Dara from Not in Jersey

Blog // Bloglovin // Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest

My name is Dara (rhymes with Sarah!) and I'm from Not in Jersey. I
was born and raised in New Jersey, but moved to Kansas 3 years ago. I
am a stay at home mom to 3 kids - an 8 year old girl, a 6 year old boy,
and a 2 year old boy. I enjoy blogging about all the fun things we do
as a family. I also regularly write about my kids' school work, my
crafts and knitting, our house, running, and books I've read. My blog
is growing and I love meeting new people through it!

Favorite book?: The Time Traveler's Wife
Favorite beauty product?: Eyeliner
Dream vacation destination?: Disney cruise

Jess from Hated on the Playground
 

Blog // Bloglovin // Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest

It's a little bit of this and a little of everything. It has glimpses into my life and some recipes. I guess you could say it is a cross between a mommy blog and a lifestyle blog, even though I have kind of been sucking at blogging lately.

Favorite book?: Too many to choose from!
Favorite beauty product?: Anything from Paul Mitchell, especially their line for curly hair. Not big on makeup.
Dream vacation destination?: Paris

Betsy from Musings of a Museum Fanatic

Blog // Bloglovin // Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest

At the end of every month, Betsy & Steph from Not Entirely Perfect hosts a link-up to check in on how well you are doing at completing your 101 in 1001 list or other goals you may have.

I am a museum and culture loving, sometimes recipe cooking, fly by the seat of my pants DIYer, always rocking out and just living life kind of blog. Come join in on the sometimes crazy and usually unorganized but always fun times at Musings of a Museum Fanatic!

Favorite book?: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
Favorite beauty product?: Bed Head After Party
Dream vacation destination?: African Safari

Rachael from Pretty in Pink

Blog // Bloglovin // Twitter // Facebook // Instagram // Pinterest

 A twenty something lifestyle blog about happiness, traveling, personal development, being single and fun!

Favorite book?: To Kill a Mockingbird
Favorite beauty product?: Red lipstick
Dream vacation destination?: France

Gayle from Grace for Gayle

 Blog // Bloglovin // Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest

Gayle has been writing about her experience as a #Previvor, which is all about preventing genetically high-risks of breast and ovarian cancer. As a nurse, I highly recommend visiting her blog & reading these posts, especially is you have family members who have had cancer.

Hello, Breanna's readers! I'm Gayle from Grace for Gayle, and I live in Dallas, TX with my four fur-kids. I blog about pretty much anything that is NOT parenting, DIY, or cooking. I wear my heart on my sleeve in real life, and that's pretty much what you'll find on my blog. :) Lately, I have been sharing about my experience as a Previvor, and going through a preventative double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery almost two years ago (yes, like Angelina Jolie!). When I'm not blogging, you can find me at the gym, reading a book, hanging with friends, going to the pool, watching Netflix, spending time with God, and eating chips and salsa.

Favorite book?: Jesus Calling by Sarah Young
Favorite beauty product?: Maybelline NY Volum' Express Falsies Flared Mascara in Very Black (waterproof of course!)
Dream vacation destination?: Anything beach-y!!!

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Sponsor Spotlight

I'd love for you to meet these lovely ladies who are a part of my blog this month!

 Alejandra from Munchkins & the Military

Blog // Twitter // Pinterest // Instagram

On my blog I post about my life as a stay at home mom and military wife. We have two rambunctious little girls that consume most of my time. We recently made a move half way across the country which is in the process if being documented.

Tabetha from The Closet Intellectual

 

Blog // Bloglovin // Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest

I do quotes or other inspirational music etc on Mondays, crafts or projects on Tuesdays, web wanderings on Wednesdays, general comings & goings on Thursdays & Fridays are a free for all, sometimes fashion, sometimes hops-- whatever!

The Closet Intellectual blog is where I share crafts & projects, muse about life, post pictures, show off my family & generally get messy. Join us in our pursuit of the best day ever!

Lisa from Butterflies & Hurricanes

Blog // Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest

I am a fun loving girl, married to the best guy out there, a dog mom to an adorable shih tzu Gracie and a wanna be mom. I write about anything and everything. Weight Loss, my family and whatever else I feel I need to say.

Chelsea from Big, Beautiful, & Broke

Blog // Bloglovin // Twitter // Facebook

My blog is about a little bit of everything. I started it a year ago with a mission to write one post a day for a year...so as you can imagine, I had to keep topics pretty open so I could come up with a post everyday!! Anyways, I'm just a registered nurse attending grad school in hopes of becoming a great nurse educator one day. I blog about life, attempts at crafts and cooking, my family, and my struggles with budgets and weight loss.

How It All Began

 

  Let me set the scene for you: February 2009. Sitting in the oldest, ugliest academic building on the Luther College campus. Surrounded by fellow Sophomore education majors. A full-of-jokes college professor says we will each be starting a blog and write each week about what our thoughts are about the topics in class. Eye-rolls and groans commence. Myself included.

I begrudgingly do the assignment. What other choice did I have? I believe my blog name was Luther College Education Psychology Spring 2009 or something catchy like that.

You can still read those posts from February - May of 2009 here.

Somewhere along the line, however, I started to really enjoy the time I spent writing out my thoughts. Granted, the only people that read my blog back then was my professor and some of my classmates. When class ended, I didn't want to stop blogging. So I kept up, not really knowing all about this blogging community that was actually there. I renamed my blog Sweet Silver Lining because I liked the sentiment of every cloud having a silver lining, no matter how dark. I also really liked the song of the same name by Kate Voegele.


I kept up blogging &, randomly, people I didn't know started to follow me. Very slowly. I started to discover a plethora of blogs I enjoyed reading. My blogging would ebb & flow. You can probably tell that if you go to the archives. Sometimes I would go stretches of 3 months without writing. One time I even went almost 6 months without saying anything. I rediscovered my passion a year ago, in May 2012. Ever since then, I have blogged every month. And, more recently, I blog almost every day.

I guess I've kept it up because of all the wonderful ladies I've met. I had no idea there was such a great group of people that I had so much in common with and could relate to and I had never even met them! I would always be skeptical of my sister, who had friends online that she had never met, but I guess I understand now. I feel like I know some of y'all so well or we've hung out before! It's the strangest thing, but I'm really so glad I discovered this little part of the world.

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Meet Joanna from ModaMama!


Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest // Instagram

Joanna is just the cutest! I love her style. My favorite recent look was her camo leggings; the country girl in me loved it! And her sarcasm speaks to me :)

Every Friday, Joanna posts a Coffee Talk Vlog. In these vlogs, she talks about everything from personal topics like keeping her daughter off her blog & managing her time to Men's fashion, Vegan eating, skincare, and diet & exercise.

Joanna says:
My blog is filled with daily outfits as well as the awkward and often sarcastic musings on life and the grand scheme of the universe. Don't I sound profound? Trust me, the reality is far from it, but it might make you laugh.

Be on the lookout for a guest post from Joanna in the future and, in the mean time, go show her some love!

Weekend in Review

 

Friday

Friday, my mom & I went out for dinner & drinks with two of my aunts & my uncle. Where did we go? Take a wild guess. Our go-to -- Wildwood. They should seriously pay me for as much as I go there & promote them.

 

I came home & changed into my pajamas & watched the news alllll night.

Saturday

My mom & I went shopping all day. Like 8am until 3pm. I picked up a present for my cousin's baby shower. It is too adorable! Like, baby fever adorable.

We also went to Scrubs & Beyond because I needed to get scrubs for work. The color RN's wear? Ceil. Blue. Gross.

 

It completely washes me out. Plus, the store had only one top & one bottom. Thankfully, they had my size, but not much choice. So I ordered some online. Scrubs can break your bank, jeez!

Sunday

I enjoyed my last true day of freedom by doing laundry, getting myself organized, & watching Netflix. 

My first "day of work" (even though it's still orientation) starts today at 2:00pm sharp.

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend!

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Meet one of my VIP sponsors this month:

Myranda from Pretty Living PDX!


Bloglovin // Twitter // Facebook // Instagram

A little bit about Myranda: I am a mommy to 3 little ones, so I blog about them. My family and basically everyday life with some recipes and blog tutorials thrown in.

She has a new link-up every Thursday called Three Things Thursday. Each week a prompt is posted for you to write about three things. Past prompts include: 3 things people would be surprised to know about you and 3 things you should never do on a first date.

Myranda also made an awesome tutorial about how to use Rafflecopter. Basically, if you're a blogger this is a must read!

Go follow Myranda on Bloglovin & tell her hi!

Cosmo Club + Sponsor Spotlight [Giveaway]

Ever since I started college back in August of 2007, the "it" magazine to read has been Cosmo. Like, I'm pretty sure the mail room at Luther is packed with probably 100+ Cosmopolitan magazines to stuff into student mailboxes.

I remember during our Freshman year, our floor would share magazines by setting them in the bathroom ledge for anyone to grab & take back to their room. Well, most of the time, Cosmo was all that was laying there. My roomies & I used to check for new issues and bring it back to our room to share with each other.

I guess it didn't really faze me them because, let's face it, most of us are exhibitionists in college. Forget walking all the way down the hall to the bathroom to change; let me just whip this dress off in my room & get into some sweats.

Now that I got a free years subscription to Cosmo coming to my mailbox every month, my first thought is...THEY LET PEOPLE READ THIS IN PUBLIC?!

Either I was such an exhibitionist back in the day that it didn't make me even blink or their covers have become much more in-yo-face, if you know what I mean.

 

I mean: EPIC SEX, GET IT, GIVE IT, & DO IT AGAIN (with Carly Rae Jepsen on the cover, no less. Doesn't she attract young fans???)

YOUR BEST SEX EVER! (with Miley on the cover, but, c'mon, would we expect anything less from her nowadays?)

23 SWEET & SEXY MOVES. ORGASM GUARANTEED! (but doesn't Rachel's dress look so cute?!)

I'm in no way a prude. And I'm not knocking Cosmo in any way. Because, let's face it, I'm still reading it!

It's just....when did it become acceptable to read this in public?

BTW - I'm bracing myself for all the spam commenting I may receive from this post.....

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On a different note, I'd like you to meet one of my sponsor's this month:

Natalie from At Home with the Hinkley's!

 

 

 Bloglovin // Twitter // Instagram // Pinterest // Facebook

Natalie blogs about her life in Houston, as well as things she finds interesting & that are worth talking about.

Like most bloggers, she's trying to convert her Google Friend Connect followers over to her Bloglovin & Facebook accounts. So go follow her on those two platforms to keep up to date on Natalie's life!

Natalie is also being super generous & giving away $20 to Amazon, so be sure to stop by & thank her!

Of course, I must include the obligatory small print:

- No purchase necessary.

- Must be 18 years or older.

- Giveaway runs from April 10th through April 19th.

- The number of eligible entries determines the odds of winning.

- To enter, use the Rafflecopter entries below.

- Winner will be selected by random.org on April 19th.

- Winner's entries will be verified. They will have 48 hours to claim their prize. If unclaimed, a new winner will be selected.

- Void where prohibited by law.

GOOD LUCK!

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Sponsor Spotlight: Jenni

I'd like to introduce you to one of my VIP sponsors this month.

Meet Jenni from A Dash of Sunshine

 Blog // Instagram // Pinterest // Twitter

A little bit about her blog: Over on my blog, I like to share our day-to-day lives, pictures of the cutest almost-3 year old, and yummy recipes!

Go show Jenni some love!