Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sew many giveaways! (And a no-reply blogger problem)

I had never heard about this before, but thanks to one of those Twitter suggestions, I happened to click on the link for Sew, Mama, Sew.

Well, they’ve organized a crafty blogger giveaway-palooza!

Head over to their blog, http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/ and click the category you’re most interested in, and then follow the links for your chance (alongside me!) to win beautiful things by crafty bloggers! You might just find another amazing crafty blog to follow… (I sure have!)

I’ve used my WordPress login to enter – but I don’t know  if it shares my email address/contact information with the login… if you’ve followed a link from one of those participating blogs – could you let me know in the comments below?

No Reply bloggers

There’s a tutorial to see if your email shows up in comments if you log in with a Blogger ‘open ID’ - http://mummyquilts.blogspot.ca/2013/01/are-you-no-reply-blogger.html but I have yet to find a similar check for those of us using WordPress.

Here’s another one, again for Blogger users: http://www.flusterbuster.com/2013/02/are-you-no-reply-blogger.html .. and another: http://www.newlywedmoments.com/2013/02/are-bloggers-ignoring-you.html (wow, who knew this was such a big problem?)

Update

Ok… well, it looks like I probably am a no-reply blogger – not by choice, but because I’m not a Blogger-blogger! Since I’m on WordPress, it looks like the two systems don’t play nice together, and there’s nothing I can do, if I want to use my WordPress ‘open ID’ to comment on Blogger blogs… it’s either sign up for a Blogger account (um, not going to happen! I don’t need yet another login somewhere..) or leave my email address in the comments. Ouch! Also not cool!

Piece Meal Quilts has something to say about this:

“Only Blogger users face this issue. See, Google doesn’t want to share the
sandbox, so they’re making it difficult for people using other platforms
to play. Anyone who blogs on a platform other than Blogger will
always show up as a no reply blogger, as will anyone who leaves
a reply using the Name/URL option. There’s nothing we can do
about it. While Blogger allows us to comment using a WordPress,
TypePad or OpenID profile, it does not share the email information
with you (even though it’s available).”

Time Thief also adds:

“I could go on and on about Blogger commenting but I won’t. I’ll simply add this:
Open ID fails more often than it works.”

… so, I guess that’s what the problem is. How disappointing!

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Tattoo Much

It’s not really crafty, but I had some fun with the new(ish) nail polish strips not too long ago, and I thought I’d share it here…

I chose a HIGHLY patterned style- Tattoo Much – which was probably a good thing, as it seemed to disguise mistakes better than I think a more subdued pattern would.

Tattoo Much

Tattoo Much

The steps are included in the package – basically:

  1. clean your nails (start with unpolished nails) and prep your nails by filing and smoothing with the enclosed tool. They also recommend pushing back your cuticles.
  2. open the package, select the right sizes for each of your nails for one hand
  3. remove the clear top plastic, remove the backing paper, remove the tab
  4. align the strip on the nail, and slowly and gently pull and smooth the strip down the centre of the nail
  5. smooth down the strip, and wrap the tip, breaking off the excess polish strip
  6. smooth down the edges to better adhere them with the enclosed tool
  7. file off the excess polish
  8. I then used the buffing tool to further buff the nail polish (with the hopes it would adhere well) and added two coats of clear top coat.

The claim

The proposed benefits of these strips is that you ‘don’t have to wait for your polish to dry’  - which is accurate… but applying the strips is in NO way quick and easy.  It was a bit finicky to get started, and I still ended up putting on the clear coat – so still had to wait for drying time…

Another benefit is the chance to have highly decorated nails, without the time or skill to really paint. This is entirely accurate – there is no way I would spend the amount of time needed to actually draw hearts, flowers, stars, swallows, text, etc on my nails.

Tattoo Much

Tattoo Much

The result

The finished product was good – but there were a few areas where the polish chipped (or more accurately, peeled off) while trying to apply it. Most of these were on the edges, despite my attentiveness to these areas.

The polish was super shiny, which I liked, and the polish lasted for 5 days (including a LOT of hand-washing, and a few encounters with masking tape which would normally peel off regular polish). On the 5th day I could see a few of the edges starting to pull up, so I removed the polish.  There isn’t any way to ‘push’ the polish back down again.  Other than the pulling up – the polish was in exactly the same condition as when I applied it – there was no further chipping or peeling.

Tattoo Much

Tattoo Much

The pros

  • Getting the highly decorated look is a big pro – if you like decorated nails.
  • The result is super shiny, which is awesome!
  • Fairly long-lasting, and the tips didn’t seem to wear down as easily as regular polish.
  • I read a few comments online that packs of 16 seems wasteful – as someone with large hands, I appreciate the variety of sizes, and didn’t see this as a con at all.
  • The enclosed tools are useful.

The cons

  • The strips need to be used immediately or they’ll dry out before you can use them.  If you’re trying to do this in little sets of time – do one hand at a time.
  • Cost – For the price of one package, I could get a bottle of decent nail polish. With the package of Salon Effects, I get one application – but with a bottle of polish I get many applications. I wouldn’t bother getting the strips in a plain colour or simple pattern because if this – it just wouldn’t be cost-effective.
  • Touch-ups are impossible. If I get a small chip or my tips wear off when I wear polish, it’s reasonably easy to touch the polish up – with these strips that is impossible.  Another reason why a highly decorated pattern is good…
  • If the shape isn’t perfect, there are gaps – this doesn’t happen with regular polish, and is kind of annoying.

New blog layout – a work in progress

Well, after several weeks of the little banner being across the top of my editing window letting me know that my blog colour scheme/layout (aka a WordPress Theme)  had been updated and I could change from Quentin to Quintus, I finally updated it – largely to get the wider column for text and photos.

Of course this means anything I formatted before the change might be a little skewed.  Oh well.

It also means that I have a little work to do, selecting a great image for the title banner of the blog.  Until then, the black band will just have to do! (ooh.. and I have new formatting options too.  This one is an ‘aside’.)

Word art

I found these interesting instructions to make ‘word art’ – and although I just did this one up fairly quickly, I kind of like the effect, and think that I might try it again on a different source image.  I just cant decide if I like the black and white version better, or the colourized version.  What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below, or check out the original instructions on the Cant Stop Making Things blog!

Black and white version

Colour version

P.s. Yep, that’s the photo of Waterton National Park that I used for my Gavitar!

Thoughts on images

I’ve done a fair amount of professional (and unprofessional, haha) work in graphic design, photography, applied art, layout, writing and other creative pursuits, and one area that I continue to be perplexed by is the idea of giving credit online.  I wouldn’t think of publishing something in print that wasn’t properly sited or without getting permission to use it, but online this seems to be more flexible, and hence, more confusing.

I was reading a blog post (which made it to the Freshly Pressed page of WordPress.com) all about giving credit for images.  The end statement was basically to find out who took the original photo or created the original artwork, get permission, credit him or her, and link if appropriate.  However, just as the author of the post has found, blogs are fairly image-heavy, largely because blogs with photos or artwork are just more appealing to the reader.  Unless you are making a photography blog, it’s inevitable that you’ll be using someone else’s images to accentuate your point.  As I’m learning more about WordPress, I’ve also found that cross-promotion (using the publicize feature to post blurbs on Facebook for now) is all the better with a nice, vibrant, interesting photo.

Although I would love to have photos and sketches of everything I ponder in this blog, most of the time I am relying on linking to images.  Since often enough I am using other people’s images for inspiration or to focus my thoughts, it seems normal and natural to use the original inspiration (with a link back to the source of course).  Back in “the day” I would copy images to my computer and load them up to my own website, but with bandwidth issues being somewhat less of an issue than in the past, I generally consider this to be an acceptable practice, with the knowledge that if the owner moves the image, my link will be broken.

I’ve noticed on file-sharing websites like Flickr, that many photos allow sharing with link back, and the original creator gets to select how much sharing they’re willing to do, so perhaps that’s a good middle-ground, though often enough I’m finding things not on sites like Flickr (which I find actually quite hard to navigate) but on other places on the internet.

What are your thoughts?  I still don’t know entirely how I feel about this.  I feel confident knowing that I’m not claiming anything of my own, am driving traffic back to the original source, and am typically only putting things up with positive comments – but where do you think this line exists – between copyright infringement (or just plain bad karma) and the seemingly natural features of this medium?

New theme #fail

Well I tried to update my theme to the new “Choco” theme that came out today – it looks like stitched leather and has more options… but… all of my linked images exploded!

So.. back to the Quentin stand-by.  At some point I’m sure to figure this out better to have it work the way I would like to!

in celebration of Jules Verne…

check out Google today!

Jules Verne Google

And it’s interactive too!  The little joystick to the right will take you “into the depths” (lol) where there are  narwhales, jellyfish, starfish, those wacky lantern-fish things (I can’t remember what they are called…) corals, oysters with pearls, divers with lamps, an anchor, a treasure chest with a crown… I only didn’t see an octopus/squid.  Hmmm maybe I should look more.

 

Or, yaknow, get back to work!