Argh, this situation on the Gulf Coast has me very upset. I can't physically stomach the pictures of those poor, helpless birds. I've created a few pieces in my shop to help out. A few dollars from each piece sold is going to the American Bird Conservancy.
I get a lot of questions regarding how I put Treasuries up on my blog, so I did a quick video tutorial to show you how. Feel free to ask questions!
Here are the steps in list form. Feel free to ask questions!
IMPORTANT NOTE: You'll see these stars * in the code below. They are there so that the code doesn't compile and you can view it. When using your own code, TAKE THEM OUT. They're not part of the correct code.
1. Have your treasury on screen and make sure you can see all that you want to capture.
2. Hit the 'PRT SCR' button on your keyboard. Usually up in top right of your keys. This takes a picture of whatever's on screen and copies it to your clipboard
3. Open your graphics program and paste the image. Usually, you can just hit ctrl+v and it will be there.
4. Crop the image and resize it to your specifications. If it's too huge (generally wider than 800 pixels) it will look wonky on your blog. This depends on your blog though.
5. Save the image to your hard drive as a .jpg or a .png.
6. Upload the image to your photo host of choice. I use photobucket, but you can use flickr or any of the million sites to pick from. Now, when you're posting it on your blog (in Blogger) you can choose just 'upload' from your PC, but I often get a weird compression on the image when I do this, so I opt to host it somewhere so that the pic of the treasury has an existing web link.
7. Create a new blogger post. Upload the picture and choose 'url.' Paste the url of the picture. (This is the link from photobucket or wherever you hosted it.)
8. View the HTML section of your post and alter the HTML... see below
Notice how the 2 links shown are the same? They are both: http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/oo259/riskybeads/VacationMay2010.jpg
If you leave them this way, then you won't link to the treasury; you'll just link to the image, so we need to change the 'a href' link to be the treasury link. See below:
Well, if you follow this blog you know that I love handmade and I LOVE soap and lotion. Seriously, good smelling soap/lotion can change my entire mood. I think I'm a poster child for the success of aromatherapy. I like fruity scents... the tangy and more tart the better. I'm partial to lime, cranberry, pomegranate, and orange. I burn lime oil when I'm in a bad mood because it always seems to pick me back up. So, imagine how happy I was (and a little confused at first) when I opened by mailbox the other day and saw a package from Soap that Makes Scents. Confused because I haunt tons of soap shops on Etsy every day, [I like soap!porn, I guess] but I try like hell to refrain from buying. Why? Because of this...
This is my soap stash. And I can promise you that there's more than this; I've probably stashed it somewhere else. So back to the story...
I saw the package and my first thought was, "Oh #$^%, I went sleep-shopping again! Dang it!" assuming that I'd been surfing the soap at 2 a.m. when my resistance is low. When I opened the package, I got even more confused because this is what was in it:
I knew I'd been lusting after this soap about a week prior. And there was only one other person who knew I was lusting after it...my friend, Paula, of Picard Creative:
Yes, it's true, sometimes I don't surf the soap!porn circuit alone. I blame Skype for that. So the soap was a surprise gift from my friend and I'm really enjoying it. Not only does it make me smell fabulous; it made the whole bathroom smell fabulous for the rest of the day! I keep wanting to get back in the shower, lol.
So, thumbs up for this soap! (And for Paula, lol.)
Here's a Treasury I made this week about the things we carry around. I have a strange fascination with cases...of all types. I think it's because they mean something when they're being used or abandoned, when they're empty or full. You can tell a lot about somebody by looking at what they do or don't tote...
I'm so excited because I woke up to an email letting me know that I'm the item of the day on Handmade News today! Leslie from Kooky Boutique wrote the article below. Click to see it live.
I went on Vacation over Memorial Day weekend and got to go see my adorable nieces. The youngest, Reese, had a ballet recital. If you follow my blog, you know that I love to shop handmade for my nieces, so in addition to going to the recital and swimming at the pool, we also played with the ribbon wands I bought for them a while ago. So here are some pics from my vacation...
The girls after the recital:
A close-up shot of little Reese...4 years old but still tiny:
Of Riley, who's 6...
And Addison, who's 7:
And here they are having lots of fun with the ribbon wands:
We played a game they had called Pictureka! which was a lot of fun, as was Twister Hopscotch. It's a variation of Twister that involves hopscotch, but you can make your own layouts and your own rules and our game ended up becoming, "Don't Get Eaten by the Alligator." I used to teach young children, so I always look forward to seeing my nieces and playing with them. I'm amazed by how smart they are, they're reading and math levels are amazing. Even little Reese tries to read and spell right along with the big girls. She can't STAND IT when they can do something she can't! We were playing at the pool and she dipped a paintbrush in the water and proceeded to spell her name for me upside down because we were facing each other. She didn't have a hard time picturing it that way, and I was pretty amazed that she could do that. She can swim like a champ, too.
I'm sure I'll see them again this summer. According to my sister, Reese is already asking when I'm coming back. "Tomorrow?" she wants to know...
