FYE

I have come across two really good blogs lately and I thought I would share them with you. I love people that share their real life projects with the blogging world; it inspires me to do similar or the same projects at home and I always appreciate when they breakdown the projects step by step.

Here they are:

Home to Three Duncan Boys

Shopping Candy

Blog to Business Workshop: What I learned

About two weeks ago now I participated along with many others in Marta's Blog & Business Workshop that she shared with us everyday for one week on her blog Marta Writes, it was an awesome workshop and I learned a lot. Of course I would love to turn my blog into a money making machine but now is not the time for that, hopefully some day though. What I took away from her workshop was some good information about how to streamline your blogging and surfing of blogs along with the most important item u be u and I'll be me. :)

Something I had not used before but I am now using and find REALLY awesome is Google Reader. I love to surf a lot of people's blogs each and everyday for inspiration in all kind so things from photography to cooking and I was loading up my blog with all kinds of links so that I would always know when one's blog was updated, I still have a good amount of blog links on my blog but now I have many more neatly tucked away in Google Reader. It's a really cool and helpful tool and I know there is even more for me to learn about the reader and how I can organize it even better but for now I put in a whole bunch of subscriptions to blogs that I like to follow and every day I check in to the reader and read away all in one place. :)

Another thing I recently started using, which isn't' really because of the workshop more because the blog was not showing up properly in Internet Explorer is Google Chrome, just another web browser but for those of you who use Blogger - it's really compatible and much better (I think) thank using IE.

I did a little sprucing up on my blog over the weekend (hope you like the improvements) and learned how to center a widget which I'm doing cart wheels over! If you haven't checking out this blog CoffeeShop Photography you should she teaches you a lot of cool things on how to improve your photos thru Photoshop and also how to manipulate blogger to do the things you want!

So that's it for the moment. I hope you have a great day!

A Week in the Life: Mark your calendars

Mark your calendars because Ali Edwards is planning to do another Week in the Life Series starting on April 19th as always I will follow along, as I have with the December Dailies - but this time I will only be posting the pictures on my blog and not creating a scrapbook... or at least that's what I'm planning to do. :) We'll see how it evolves.

I'm looking forward to the project and I hope you are too.

Mark your calendars because Ali Edwards is planning to do another Week in the Life Series starting on April 19th

B&b Workbook is available

Incase you were following Marta's Blog & Business workshop last week over at Marta Writes, I wanted you to know that she made the workshop/workbook available online to download. I did and it's great!

Attending the Blog & Business Workshop

As I mentioned earlier this week Marta from the blog Marta Writes is hosting a Blog & Business Workshop over on her site, I just had to share how awesome it has been. I am learning so much this week and most of all the statement she made, something that has been her motto for awhile... u be u and I'll be me. :) I love it! Isn't that how we should all be... just worried about ourselves and our loved ones that surround us and not what everyone else is doing. I can't believe how much time we can spend worry about things that are out of our control and non of our business.

I feel the tone of her workshop is gentle but very real while her and the experts she's asked to join the discussion are sharing with us what works for them in regards to time management, starting their businesses online and getting noticed. It makes me realize I don't have to do everything at once and when you do try something new give yourself the LUXURY of doing it well. Isn't that nice.

So I had to chime in again about her workshop, if you haven't visited her site yet then hop on over there and check it out you can still read thru the week and see what she has to say, you'll enjoy it.

Join the Workshop

This week Marta over at Marta Writes is going to be hosting a workshop regarding Blogs & Businesses. It should teach us how to take our Blogs to the next level and create a business tool out of it, which I'm really exited about. She starts today so head on over and check it out.

I was a feature

Yesterday my DIY Cork Board project was featured on John and Sherry's Blog Young House Love. How awesome was that!! I am so excited. I have been reading their blog for a while now and look foward to seeing what they post every day!

I posted my story about the cork boards I created a few weeks ago and then sent in the pictures of the project to Sherry and John so they could if they wanted feature it in one of their Reader Redesign posts and they DID! I am so happy and honored to be a feature on their blog and look forward to some new found readers this "exposure" might bring me. :)

I did have a question from someone about the size of the frames since the corks fit in so perfectly. The actual frame size is 10 1/2 inches by 10 1/2 inches and the inside area where the corks were glued is 9 inches by 9 inches. I did have to play around with a lot of corks to get them to fit perfectly but it was a lot of fun.

So now the question is what should I make, as you can see I have a lot more corks to work with.

thanks for all your comments here on my blog and over on Sherry and John's blog!!

oh la la... Zico Biscuit in Paris.

A few days ago I was reading thru Paris Breakfasts blog as I do every morning and I noticed that Carol the artist behind the blog will paint "your pet" in Paris!! Who wouldn't want that! I am in the process of decorating my office at work and it seems to be going in the direction of a Paris theme so I thought this would be an awesome way to have an original piece of art with Zico Biscuit in it and even better set in Paris!! Original Art + Zico Biscuit + Paris = Priceless!

So I sent in this picture to Carol and this was the process.

a day or two after sending the photo in I received these sketches in my email box so I could pick one out to be used in the painting. I chose number 4.


after a few more days (the whole process took about a week) this showed up in my mailbox at home. Here's the cool French envelope that she uses to send the painting in. and TA DA! The beautiful painting of Zico in Paris in front of Laduree. Isn't' it great.

a close up.

here is a picture of her cool postcards she includes in the packaging that advertises her paintings of your pet in Paris. Even the postcard is a work of art.

it was such a pleasure working with Carol of Paris Breakfasts and I'm looking forward to someday seeing one of her exhibits in person and hopefully purchasing some more art. :)