Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

I Have a New Altitude

January 31st, 2012
16 Comments

Altitude Summit this year was insane. There were nearly 500 in attendance! Nearly 500 insanely talented, gorgeous, fashionable, down-to-earth men and women all there to improve upon what they’re already awesome at. To be completely honest, I felt completely unworthy to be in the crowd. So unworthy, in fact, the first day felt like a giant kick in the pants.

(image by Uppercase Magazine)

I had a fantastic time socializing with friends and making new ones! The panels were all fantastic, but a big wake up call at the same time. To sum up my experience at Alt; here are a few things I learned, some good times that I had and the cool people I met.

• THINGS I LEARNED •

  • Break out the good stuff (but not too much). Keep posts simple, unique & attention-grabbing.
  • Include personal narrative & personality, but make and keep boundaries of what I’m willing to share.
  • Be more aware of news (I should probably read drudge, but I never do) and current trends
  • DON’T SIT ON IDEAS – I can always improve on them later
  • Facebook is something I need to embrace, not avoid
  • I need to figure out what I want to achieve from this blog (I’m a little aimless sometimes)
  • I need to fix my about page
  • Re-writing my media packet is a must
  • I need to talk more with my brother (I don’t call him nearly enough & he’s a patent attorney)

While attending the various panels, I started a little to do list of the things I should change & improve on my blog & for you, my dear readers. The list is 3 miles long now. After the first day of sessions I felt completely broken: My blog sucks. My life is a mess. I’m not stylish enough. I’m not creative enough. I don’t have enough time to do any of this.

The second day was a whole new world. Each session was more inspiring than the last. That second day helped me build more confidence that I can do this, and many bloggers that I look up to are also in the same I’m-not-good-enough boat.

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Redesigned: The Salty Pineapple

January 11th, 2012
8 Comments

During Chris’s two and a half weeks of Christmas vacation, we spent our time redesigning a few blogs. We had a grand time working together & making the interwebs a tiny bit prettier. I’ll be sharing a finished project each week along with a design tip (or two) for a better blog.

Nikki is another girl who I knew before designing for her. We met when she took one of my calligraphy classes a while back & gave me the most adorable bow necklace ever (here’s her tutorial). She’s creative, sweet, unique & fun (in fact, I can’t wait to be her roommate for Alt next weekend!). I wanted her blog to reflect just that.

After seeing Nikki’s Neon Christmas post, I knew that I wanted to go for a grown-up dayglo theme. I also went for a more untraditional rendering of the pineapple: a circle. I kept the white space, unified graphics & justified the sidebar items. Her blog was so fun to work on! Head over to thesaltypineapple.com to see the design in action & check out all of Nikki’s fantastic ideas!

• Design tip #2: BE CONSISTENT! •

It’s a great idea to hire a professional designer to work on your branding, but you can make your blog look instantly more professional by just staying consistent in your content (and by doing that you make the designer’s job even easier)! Here are some great ways to achieve visual consistency:

  • take & use photos of similar quality (avoid photoshop effects)
  • take as many photos as possible in natural light
  • edit all of your photos to be the same width as your content (it will look nice & your blog will load faster, too)
  • justify all of your post text the same way: I prever left justified, but center is fine if you write more poetically
  • use bold, italics, ALL CAPS and large text sparingly

See the video below on how to make your images consistent width with your post content (for blogger, but applies for other platforms).

What would you add to this list of being visually consistent? For me, that means taking photos in roughly the same place (which has changed every time we’ve moved) at roughly the same time of day.

Thrifty & Chic: Swapping Clothes

June 30th, 2011
7 Comments

Saturday, I packed all of my ill-fitting clothes in the back of the car & headed for a bloggy swap meet & pool party. I actually spent zero time in my swimsuit (the water was a bit cold), but I did show it off to everyone there (seriously, I love my suit this year).

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Here I am unpacking my goodies. I’m the most under dressed there!

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Here are all the lovely ladies who attended.

I met some really lovely women & I’m so excited to see how they end up wearing & styling my old clothes!! I found some great stuff there and I’m so excited to refashion a few things. If you want to see how I end up wearing those finds, be sure to subscribe to my fashion blog.

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all of the above photos can be found here, taken by Jessica.

I had a great time eating delicious treats, getting some new duds & getting to know bloggers I’ve never met in real life. Truly, all of the things I did last weekend were a testimony of why I blog: friends & crafting.

This halter wrap dress was one of the items I scored at the swap. I love the print & the skirt part. I’m tempted to refashion it into a skirt. Sorry the photo is blurry & gross. The lighting the last couple of days has been less than desirable in the studio. You get the idea, though. I found this wrap skirt (that I wore on Sunday) there, too. I love both of these pieces, but I know for sure I would’ve completely walked past both of them in a thrift store or any store for that matter. I don’t do wraps. Well, not until now anyway.

Here’s a list of bloggers that were there:

Cotton and Curls • Wearing It On My Sleeves • Sweet Serendipity • Meet Virginia Design • Frills & Bils • Feather’s Flights • the stationery place • Life of a Passeri • Living on the Chic • Crowley Party • yours, mine & ours • Livy Love • madison avenue • brooke passion • A Day in The Life • Exhibit 221 • Harley & Jane • Snarky Drea • My Nutshell • The Sisters 4 say MORE is more…

It’s so fun to have a bunch of new pieces to brighten up my wardrobe that didn’t cost a thing! Have you participated in a swap before? I definitely want to do it again.

BlogHer Recap

August 12th, 2010
14 Comments

BlogHer was a whirlwind of a trip. I’ve realized I’m not as young as I used to be; parties, prepping for parties, fab suites & the bustling of the big apple just WORE.ME.OUT. If you’re not familiar with BlogHer, it’s a crazy pants blogging conference. I just bought the expo hall & parties pass, so I didn’t attend any sessions. I didn’t even have time for sessions, it was SO crazy busy.

The first two days were spent being crazy, crazy; prepping for the SocialLuxe party. We all worked so hard to get everything perfect for the big event. Can you believe these swag bags?! They were completely stuffed with the most amazing things. Chris was pretty happy to find out that I was coming home with another pair of skull candy headphones.

{Survival kit photos courtesy of She Posts}

The Avery survival kits were a big hit at the party. I had the privilege to work with Avery & design the labels for the kit. I can’t tell you how handy these kits were & how wonderful Avery is. The bandaids, hand sanitizer & Starbucks gift card definitely saved me!

Friday I spent half the day touring private designer showrooms with 31 other bloggers with Shop At Home. Thanks to them, I went home with some fabulous shoes & a yummy scarf that’s getting me all excited for fall(I’ll share pics later). After my little shopping spree I got pampered yet again at the Getting Gorgeous party & met up with some really fantastic bloggers & sweet brands.

Friday evening I helped out with the Kirtsy Gala by painting inspiring words on people. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of what I did. If anyone has any, would you send them my way? Pretty Please? I’d like that. In addition to the body art, I participated in the art gala by donating a piece to the show. I’ve been dying to share it with you & now that the party is over, I can! I was assigned to read & create something in reaction to this epic post. You better believe I was sobbing after reading it.

I wasn’t quite sure how I could do any justice to this post. It was a pretty tough assignment. I finally took inspiration from an ad on the sidebar & made a little piece about that. I’m not sure I’ve done any justice to the author or her story, but it was an honor to work on this project & so great to have an excuse to break out my watercolors.

This trip was exhausting, but absolutely worth it. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to survive the big apple without my friends & family looking out for me!! My mother-in-law drove 11 hours up to SLC to spend time with Penelope & Chris. My mom met me in New York & helped me survive by making sure I had enough food!! Moms are the best.

Did you go to BlogHer? I’m not sure where to find all the BlogHer recap posts, so if you’ve written one, please include the link in the comments! I’d love to read all about your experience.

BlogHer Business Cards

August 6th, 2010
12 Comments

I made the epically long trek from Salt Lake City to New York Wednesday. All went really well: I got randomly chosen to be pat-searched just minutes before my plane departed and I got terribly ill on the plane and upon getting out of the cab. A brave little topiary outside of the Hilton entrance fell victim to my illness. Sorry little guy! I couldn’t be happier to be visiting this fabulous city! I’ve never been here before!

I’ve been looking forward to passing out my business cards at BlogHer for a while now. Now that I have everything all in one place, I’m so excited to share with you what I’m handing out to the fabulous folks I meet here!

Mrs. Fields generously provided me with 11 dozen logo cookies (they’re as delicious as they are adorable). Uprinting provided me with business cards (still love them!). I made & cut vinyl “i still love you” stickers with my silhouette SD and stuffed them & my business cards in the envelopes I ordered through the fabulous Action Envelope. To polish the whole presentation off, I hand-calligraphed “<3 Melissa” on the front of each envelope. Call me crazy pants.

If you find yourself in New York/BlogHer, come find me! I have some goodies to give you!!

Well, this is my peace out until Monday when I hope to have my act together enough to share more NYC/BlogHer details. Hope you have a great weekend!!

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