Project Gallery Is Live!

I have been working pretty hard behind the scenes here trying to figure out how to build a project gallery.   After combing the internet and many blogs, I finally found a tutorial that was very user friendly and I was successful at using.  Tuula over at The Thrifty Rebel has the one that I used.  Check it out if you are interested in building a project gallery on Blogger and show her some love.

Now my project gallery is still a work in progress as I go through 3 years of consistent blogging and locating everything I have done.  I will be updating it frequently and hope to keep it updated as I go once I am all caught up. 

I would love it if you go check it out and let me know what you think!

HTML is Going to Kill Me

So, I have been giving myself a crash course in HTML so I can put together a project gallery to help make my blog easier to navigate for older posts.  I am failing miserably right now, even when it comes down to using the HTML that other bloggers have graciously offered up.  I will figure this out!  This Labor Day weekend, I will not be relaxing, I will be laboring over my blog. 

In the meantime, not all my creativity has been stifled by my agonizing over HTML.  I have been practicing some wood burning and painting with wood dyes.  I showed this off over at my facebook page but I love it so much I need to show it here too.

Curly Maple board and I used Mixol wood dyes. 

Any link that takes you to Amazon is an affiliate link, like the one above. 

Back Up Your Blog

With all the changes that the site has been undergoing, I thought I would show you how to back up not only your blog, but your template as well.  This will definitely give you the security you need in order to play around with your blog and make changes.

The blog back up is 4 easy steps.
1. Select Settings
2. Under Settings, select Other
3. At the top of the Other page, select Export Blog
4. Click Download Blog and Save.

If you need to import your saved blog, instead of clicking on Export, click on Import and select the file.  Easy peasy!

Backing up your template is just as easy.

1. Select Template
2. At the top right hand side, select Backup/Restore
3. In the pop up box, click Download full template, then Save

If you need to reload your template, instead of clicking on the download, below that select the Browse option, select your saved template and click Upload.

Feel free to play with your blog without the fear of losing it all or screwing it up. 

Ch-Ch-Changes!

Summer has almost come to a close.  School starts in a few weeks and that is going to give me a lot more time to dedicate to creating, the blog, and all the other awesome ideas I have floating around in my head.  I also have some exciting news to share, but not just yet.  You will have to wait until next week.

I am making a few improvements around the blog if you haven't already noticed.  I have added a a contact me form on the right hand side so you don't have to search for my e-mail address.  Over there you will also see a link to my new facebook page for this blog.  You should totally like it.  I know, I am finally jumping on the technology bandwagon.  I even got a smart phone!  No joke, it's about 5 weeks old.  My very first one! 

It's been suggested to me that my blog is not too user friendly for finding older projects.  I would have to agree and will be changing that.  Hoping to get a project gallery up and running in the near future.  I don't have a deadline for that as I know it will be rather time consuming.  I have been blogging for almost 3 years!  Wow!  It's hard to believe it's been that long.  Lots of projects to sort.

I also updated my profile photo.  Maben is getting to be a rather good photographer.  I am hoping to get a friend of mine to do a fun and creative photo shoot in the near future as well.  Lots of ideas, let's see how many of them I can get rolling.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, likes, dislikes about all the changes, please let me know.  I don't just blog for myself, I blog to connect with other creative people and your opinion matters to me.

Feedburner is No Longer

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but if you signed up to receive posts via the e-mail subscription through feedburner, you aren't getting them anymore.  No one who used feedburner is.  They decided to stop service earlier than expected.  

I am not a blog expert, I am far from it.  I have learned everything as it has come.  I tried looking into MailChimp and that thing is just confusing me.  So I need your help.

I am looking for a plugin or service that can replace it on the cheap (free would be nice).  Any suggestions?

Anonymous Commenting

I don't know about any of you other bloggers out there that are getting spammed, but it's driving me crazy and it is something that just recently started happening.  I am getting "Anonymous" comments that aren't posting to the blog, but hitting my e-mail directly.  They are all very vague or talk about issues with blogging and then attempt to get me to click a link.  Of course, I don't actually go to any of the links. 

The crazy part, they look exactly like they would if it was a real comment from an anonymous person commenting on my blog.  Take a look.

Is anyone else dealing with this?  How do you handle it? 

For the time being, I am just going to turn off Anonymous commenting, so if anything hits my inbox like this, I will just delete it and not worry about reading it.  I know that it might keep some people from commenting, but know that it is because I really would like to avoid getting hacked or get any type of virus.

Design, Design, Design

Whew, I am tired.  I have been helping my husband out with designing a logo, business card, handouts and updating his blog.  Some of it being very last minute due to some unforeseen problems. 

My hubby is a project manager, public speaker and blogger.  He is actually giving a public speech today.

Good luck hunny!  You will do great.

So last night was the deadline to really get everything in order. 

I started off with lots of logo ideas for his blog, C4 - Explosive Leadership Tactics.  If you have been around my blog long enough, you would have seen a logo that I did (I think back in the spring) and it just didn't work.  Here is the new logo.

I think the logo design fits perfectly. 

The "C" is the bomb and an integral part of my husband's concept. 

C4 stands for the 4 "C's" that my husband feels are the most important aspects of leadership: Conceive, Communicate, Command, Complete. 

Since the full name of the blog is C4 Explosive Leadership Tactics, I really wanted to play off the explosive part of the name, hence the bomb. 

Did I miss anything?  Does it all work?  Do you like it?

I Feel Honored!

I felt absolutely honored this week.  A fellow blogger passed an award onto me.  First of all, thank you Emilee from Momma Made It for passing this onto me.

Before I go into the award I have a few things to say from the heart.  

I do this blog because I want to push my creative side.  I felt like I lost a lot of that when I had children. It is a very important piece of what I love and who I am.  I know I look at life differently than many people and I have a hard time expressing myself in words, so I do it in pictures, drawings, paintings, fabric, etc.  I believe that life is a delicate balance of finding yourself, your purpose, spreading love and caring for others. 

I didn't realize how much joy I would get out of blogging.  I have connected with other amazing people who share the same creative spark that I do and share is some of the same struggles I do as well.  Thank you to all those out there who provide so much inspiration to me.

So, without further ado, The Liebster Award.  

(BTW does anyone know where this originated?)

 

The Liebster Award spotlights up and coming bloggers who generally have less than 200 followers.

Upon receipt of the Liebster Award, there are a few very simple rules:

1.  Copy and paste the award on your blog

2.  Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you

3.  Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

4.  Hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

Now I will pass this award on to 5 other blogs that I truly enjoy.

 

1. Three Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

A blog started by a dear friend of mine to document her journey through the adoption process.  She is truly an inspirational person who tries to look on the brighter side of any situation.

2. Just a Girl with a Hammer

I adore this blog about a girl and her turning her first house into her home.

3. Reckless Glamour

I love this girl's style and she has some serious photo skills when it comes to capturing children.

4. Think Liz

This blog has a little of everything.  Cooking, crafting, toddlers, books and just living a better life.  

5. Being Brook

I just recently discovered this blog.  While she does have a larger following that the previous ones, she is new to me and I am loving this craft blog.

I hope all the recipients I was able to award this to feel as honored as I did in receiving it.  You ladies all deserve it. 

Happy 100 and a Giveaway!

This is the 100th post since I started blogging!

I am so excited and can't believe that I have made it this far!  I started this blog to help me keep track, inspire and share with everyone all the creativity that bubbles up and out of my head.  When I first started I didn't know how this would evolve or how far it would take me, but am loving the ride that the blog has taken me on so far.  I also love all the people I have gotten to know and all the awesome bloggers that I have discovered existed out there!

In celebration of my 100th post I am doing a giveaway!  (My very first giveaway!)  You have the opportunity to win one of three pens that I churned out last night for this awesome occasion. 

All three pens are a slimline style pen and the wood is redheart.  I turned each in a different shape and if you win, you can choose which pen you want!

There are a few rules to this giveaway!

1. You must be a public follower of my blog!  Leave me 1 comment letting me know you are a follower.

2. Actually, that is really the only rule, but if you want additional entries into this giveaway, blog about this giveaway!  That will give you an additional 2 entries.  Leave a comment for each entry. 

You have the chance to get up to 3 entries into my very first giveaway!  The giveaway will close at noon, central time on Sunday and I will announce the winner on Monday.

I am sharing this over at Vintage Wanna Bee.

I Feel Official

I have business cards now!  They came in the mail.  I feel so official.  I can't wait to hand them out to...ummm...EVERYBODY! 

I found that I love blogging, it's something I look forward to and has caused me to put my creativity in the fore front of my mind.  It sat on the back burner for a while and I found that blogging has helped me keep it up front.  I also love all the people I have been connecting with because of blogging.  You all are so wonderful and nice.  Many of you help inspire me to keep going and try new things.

I have a lot of projects in the works and can't wait to share them all.  Of course, I need to finish a lot of them.  My creativity has exploded to the point where I have TOO many great ideas and I want to do them all.  My sketchbook is slowly getting filled with sketches and ideas.  It also travels almost everywhere with me.  I am so happy I put a pocket on it to hold a few pens and pencils. 

(Check out the post on my sketch book cover here)

The project which I will be wrapping up today...

That's right, the Preschool Bench will be wrapped up and finished today.  It's loaded up in the back of my car to go to the preschool for some hand printing.  I am looking forward to sharing the finished product with all of you.  I am so excited about getting this finished!  If you haven't been keeping up with the Preschool Bench, you can check that out here.

It's the last time...I swear!

After looking over the blog (and I know I just said that I wasn't going to change it) I discovered a flaw in my design.  The icons that I had were leaving out a large area of my creativity, POWER TOOLS!   Seriously, how could I forget that?  I love power tools.  So, I had to upgrade the design!

Old design.

New design.

Not a huge difference between the two.  I also realized I never went into why I chose each of the icons above.  I think they are self-explanatory, but this is what they represent to me.  I hope they also represent that to everyone else.

Arrow - Graphic design
Camera - Photography
Scissors - Sewing and paper crafts
Saw blade - Woodworking and powertools
Paintbrush - Art and painting

So, I think it is much better.  What do you think? 

I also updated my blog badge.  Check it out in the sidebar.

I Think I Like It

Yes I changed the look of my blog...again.  But, I think I have finally found a look for my blog that I really like.  It's clean, the design is one I have been working on for a while now and I love it.  There isn't too much color, but enough to make me happy.  It incorporates most of the things I will be representing on my blog, so tell me what you think?  Better?

Old header.

New header.

Okay...WAY BETTER!  Especially when you compare them side by side.  I think I am going to stick with this one for a while.  Definitely more than a month...which is about how often I have changed the look of my blog.

Blog Badge

Take a look at what I did last night.  Look on the right, now scroll a little down.  That's right, I have a blog badge now.  Not that I have a ton of readers at the moment, but I have faith they will come.  When they do, I will be ready for them.  I found by far the easiest tutorial ever from Everyday Living.  Now, I can't say that I read that blog ever before this, this is just the first tutorial that I found that I liked and it worked.  So big thanks to Everyday Living! 

So, if you like me, use my badge/button/whatever you want to call it and promote me!  (I know, totally shameless, but I am okay with that)  Now, what else to add to the blog before I get swamped with readers...hmmm.