Working on it...Monday morning thoughts

Good morning!

I've obviously been missing around here for quite some time. Something happens to me during the Christmas season. And, I don't think it's all bad. I tend to abandon my time on the computer in favor of soaking up every last minute of holiday cheer. Our family took a 2-week vacation to Michigan, and I only opened my computer once. It was wonderful. I may just make a yearly tradition of taking the last 2 weeks of December 'off'. It really was great to be unplugged for a while. Truthfully, I didn't miss much, either!

I do have a few holiday things to blog about, so you can either participate in my holiday reminiscing, or you can just ignore those posts and wait another week to hear something new from me. *wink*

I have put together a bit of a plan for my blogging this year, which I've never done before. I like the concept of being more intentional with what I write about. My hope is that I'll have some more meaningful and thoughtful posts tucked in with the usual family updates, funny stories, and crafty projects. You'll find out a little more about what I have planned in early-February. Stay tuned!

A tiny little blogging tip...

Hi friends!

I hope you all are enjoying this lovely Monday. My kids are napping [at the same time!!! Yay!} and I'm just catching up on some emails while cookies are baking in the oven.

So, I have a little request/tip for you. I love reading each and every one of the comments you leave for me, and I do my best to respond to them all. All of the comments left on my blog get emailed to me, and I'm able to respond to you personally through email, which is such a fun way to get to know you better and to thank you for stopping by! Sadly, I'm unable to respond to you if your account is set up to be 'no-reply'. If you'd like to hear back from me {or from any other bloggers you leave comments for}, follow these simple steps...

1. Go to blogger.com
2. Click Edit Profile
3. Under Privacy, check the box next to 'Show my email address'
4. If you don't have an email address displayed, just enter your email under Identity where it says 'Email address'
5. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and select 'Save Profile'

Simple, right?

Happy Monday!

Where to begin...

Hi friends.

I hardly know where to start...it's been so long! I've spent way too many days recently formulating posts in my head, and I finally just decided to take the plunge. I feel a little as I did many months ago when I first started this blog. The only difference is now I feel like a bit of a let-down after my l-o-n-g break. If you're still out there, and you happen to be checking back in, thank you! I sincerely hope to never have an absence quite so long again...but no promises!

If you write a blog, you've probably dealt with the sense of urgency to keep up with posting on a regular basis. If your blog is more family-focused the pressure might come in the form of capturing and sharing every significant moment of your life in a timely fashion. If you write a crafty or decorating blog, you probably feel more as if you must keep ahead of trends, constantly be thinking of revolutionary wonderful ideas, and producing content faster than your two little hands can complete the projects. I love to blog, and I have loved the community of friends I've made here at Oh Write. BUT, I love my family more, which is why I've been absent for so long. I needed a break to focus my best energy on my family, on my relationship with Jesus, and on my relationships and commitments I have in 'real-life'.

During my time away, I've done some thinking about the direction in which I'd like to take things here at Oh Write. I'm excited to be back, and I have several new projects in the works. I also want to be a little more candid about my life as a wife and mom. Some of my favorite blogs in my reader are those combining fabulous creative ideas and decorating inspiration with reflection and tips on day-to-day living. I really do love to write, and up until now I feel as though I've let the pressure to write great tutorials and to share awe-inspiring before and after projects overshadow the real me. I am not perfect, my house is not perfect, and sometimes I have projects that fail. I have found the blogging community to be an incredible, inspiring resource. But, it can also promote feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and jealousy. Unfortunately, I'm guilty of being overtaken by all those and more. I want to do my best to avoid stirring up those ugly responses here on my blog, which is why I have a new-found desire for a more candid approach.

Wow...if you've made it this far through my 'ramblings' I thank you! I do want to share a few 'lighter' things with you all!

My pregnancy is going great, and thankfully I've been feeling fabulous since Christmas. I am 20 weeks along, and we are looking forward to finding out if our little one is a boy or a girl bright and early tomorrow morning!

Maren is successfully potty-trained! I'm thinking of sharing more about our experience with you all...interested?

I joined a local quilt guild, but was unable to make it to the first meeting due to a snow-storm. I've got a pattern and the fabric for my first little quilting project, so stay tuned for my progress!

Our list of pre-baby house projects is quite impressive. We'll see how much actually gets accomplished! I do plan to paint and 'face-lift' a few rooms in the next couple of months, so hopefully there will be some fun pictures to come. (And when I say, "I plan to paint", I actually mean, "I plan to pick out the colors and organize a closet or two while my sweet husband paints a few rooms." Ha! I actually hate painting...thankfully Brett doesn't mind the work!)

My first creative projects since the holidays were some new notecards for my Etsy shop. I'm so excited with how these 'layered' cards are turning out. The Valentine's ones are so fun, and I'm hoping to have more listed soon!

What do you think?

Just for fun, here's a little peak at some pictures we had taken at Christmas. I can't believe how much my little lady is growing up!





Thanks again for sticking around! I look forward to spending more 'virtual' time with you in the weeks and months to come!

A good excuse for being a bad blogger...

Well...hello there, strangers! Thank you so much for your emails and inquiries as to my whereabouts. I appreciate your thoughts...and I have a good explanation!

But first...Maren wants to wish you a Happy Halloween! We're honestly not huge Halloween fans around here, but we do go trick-or-treating, and I did put a bit of effort into M's costume this year. The cheerleader outfit was a hand-me-down from a wonderful cousin, and I made the pom-poms out of an orange plastic tablecloth. They didn't turn out how I'd had them pictured in my mind, but Maren was so excited about them, which was all that mattered!

When does time ever start slowing down? It really feels like yesterday this girl was born...oh my, now look at her! She's turned into a little girl!
So...onto my other piece of business...I haven't been blogging {at all} because I've been incredibly sick...you know...tired, nauseated...

Yup! Baby #2 is on the way, and we've had a rough start. All of my energy, creativity, thoughts, and time have gone towards keeping my family fed, clothed, and clean {to some extent!}. I do have great intentions for some Christmas projects...I LOVE Christmas, and I'm hoping that I'll feel up to working on something other than laundry in the weeks to come.

In the meantime...please don't abandon ship! I do miss visiting with you all, and sharing bits of my life with you. For the time being, those bits might just be a little less-inspiring! {Unless you find yourself in my same situation, in which case, there's nothing better than empathy, right?}

You might actually win!

This giveaway is now closed.

Drum roll please..........

In celebration of reaching (and since exceeding!) 100 followers, I have decided to have a little giveaway. Since we're celebrating numbers here, I didn't want to just have one winner. SO, I decided to have five winners! The 'grand prize' (if you will...keep in mind I'm still a small operation here!) is a $20 credit to my Etsy store.

Four others of you will receive a package that looks like this:

With one of these inside:

BUT if you're lucky enough to win the big prize, you can pick up one of these too:

Sounds like fun, right?

Here's the rules....

1. Leave a comment for an entry.
2. Tell me you're a follower for another entry.
3.Place an order at my Etsy store for a third entry. (I do like to make a buck now and again!)

Easy, peasy. Technically, you can even win if you're still a lurker. Everyone can play! Be sure to include your email address so I know how to contact you if you win. I will post all FIVE winners here in a week. Next Thursday, October 14.

Have fun!

One Hundred!

Good morning friends!

Wahoo! This morning I woke up to find that this little blog has 100 followers. Wow! I am jumping out of my skin in excitement and I think we need to celebrate!

I had no idea what to expect when I started this blog last spring. I wanted a place to share my projects, and I hoped to meet a few creative friends along the way. Let me tell you...I've had so much fun throughout the process! I know I have a LOT to learn, and I look forward to continuing this little journey. Thanks so much for joining with me, and for all of your sweet comments.

Check back later today for an awesome giveaway!

Home

It's been busy around here lately! I feel so blessed to have had so many wonderful people drop in for a visit at oh write. If you're a recent follower, thank you! It really is an honor to share parts of my life with you.

You know what's funny? I haven't even been 'here' for an entire month. Maren and I have been in Michigan visiting family. I did spend a bit of time on my computer, but mostly we've been doing this:
And this:
And some of this:
We came back home to Colorado with plenty of treasured memories. Now I'm busy doing laundry, cleaning, working on some new things for my Etsy store, and putting together a few new tutorials and some fun decorating posts. I'm also working on some guest posts for a couple of lovely blogs.

Thank you again for joining me on this fun little endeavor, and happy summer!

Making a Blog Button (for dummies)

I recently ventured out on quite the journey...I created my very own blog button. In all honesty, upon completion I felt as though I'd run a virtual marathon! I am so not a technical person, but I am learning a great deal as I go. For those of you who are anything like me, I thought I'd document what I learned. Maybe this will spare you some of the hair-pulling I experienced. Or, maybe everyone else out there in blog land is smart enough to make it through this process with flying colors. Please don't tell me if the latter is true!

So, step by step, this is what I did:

1. I do not have Photoshop, and I do have Print Shop 2 for my Mac. Again, this could be very archaic, but it's what worked for me! Open a new blank document, and select File-Page Setup-Paper Size-Manage Custom Sizes, and set your paper size to 5 in. by 5 in. (Most buttons are a square or circle, and this just helped me with parameters for while I was designing...no great reason for this size!)

2. Design away! I chose to start with something simple that was true to the color and look of my blog. Someday I might get a fancy logo or more elaborate design, but for now this is what I came up with! Save your project as you go.

3. There are probably a million better ways to do this next step, but this is what I found to work for me! Select File-Print-PDF(this is a drop-down menu)-Save PDF to iPhoto. This miraculously turns your project into a .jpeg format that you can upload to Flickr.

4. Upload your photo to Flickr.

5. Once your .jpeg has been uploaded, select Edit-Resize, and set the dimensions to 150x150. This will make it so your image is the right size for a button. Next click OK, then Save.


6. Double check to be sure 'anyone' can see this photo. Now click on Share This-Grab the HTML. This is the special code you will need to link back to the picture, which is stored on Flickr. Be sure to copy the entire thing. At this point, I just kept clicking back and forth between windows, but you might want to just copy and paste it into a word document so you have easy access to it for the rest of the process.



7. For the remainder of the process, I accessed two other blogs that I found to be extremely helpful. You can find them here:

www.musingsofahousewife.com (How to design a blog button)
www.jenieshell.blogspot.com (How to make a blog button)
www.jenieshell.blogspot.com (How to make a scroll box)
www.jenieshell.blogspot.com (How to display unreadable html code)

Between these 4 pages, I was able to make my button work! I did change a couple of things from the scroll box tutorial. Here is the code as I found it to work for me. (I centered it, changed the outline and the size from the original tutorial):

<center><div style="border: 1px solid black; overflow: auto; height:
50px; width: 100px; color: black; background-color: white;">YOUR TEXT HERE</div></center>

Happy button-making! I'd love to see what you come up with if this works for you!

For some more great DIY inspiration, stop by: