I purchased my first font today! Normally I just gaze longingly at them, as they’re usually too expensive to justify buying for personal use – but this one was on sale for $9! Take a gander at Thirsty Rough:
I love the old-school, retro style of it. I can see this used in many a project.
I am just dying over the most perfect bag. If you know me, you know I have a bag obsession. Especially leather satchels. Mmm.
This is actually an ONA camera bag (which is wonderful, because it’s not always a good idea to dump your fancy camera in your purse!) but I’d put all my other stuff in there, too. Oh, and a knitting project!
At $309, it’s far from within my budget, but a girl can dream, right?
Christmas is coming up, too! *wink*
I’ve always thought of Norwegian Mittens as the traditional, stranded-colorwork mittens with a pointy tip, featuring an image on the back of the hand and a simple repeating pattern on the palm. I wanted to make sure I actually knew what I was talking about, though before I posted. Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn’t have a page devoted to Norwegian mittens, so you’ll all have to wait a bit before I can get some more information.
In the meantime, I’ve scoured Ravelry for the most beautiful examples of these mittens. (If you don’t have a Ravelry account, you might not be able to access the links. But – why don’t you?? Sign up! It’s awesome!)
JaneMumbles Mitten Swap Mittens
David’s Squirrel Sampler Mittens
ItalianDishKnit’s Northman Mittens
TheLittleRedHen’s Paper Doll Mittens
FrazzledKnitter’s Fiesta Mittens
Fern1Knits’ Skulls and Flowers
1. Roxy, the super-sweet girl behind Society Social, was featured in Southern Living magazine! That’s so cool!
2. Round-up of some aesthetically pleasing inspirational quotes over on Miss Indie. (My favorite: “If you’re making mistakes, it means you’re out there doing something.” -Neil Gaiman)
3. Bobbi shares photos of Zurich – “I kind of felt like I was at Disney World, except nobody was running around in mouse ears.”
4. Ez of Creature Comforts shares some free inky Photoshop brushes. She never disappoints!
5. Kristin shares a great quote and graphic: “An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.”
I discovered a Dutch word for my favorite color: appelblauwzeegroen. It means, literally, apple blue sea green.
I haven’t talked about it much, but I set a big goal for myself this August: to be able to design and write a WordPress theme from scratch.
There’s only another day left in August, and I think I’m pretty close to achieving it! I’ll let you know for sure come September.
In my research, though, I’ve found some great resources for design inspiration that I’d like to share. Even if you’re merely an observer of good design, you can appreciate this!
1. CSSMania
CSS Mania is a gallery of web design that utilizes CSS (obviously). You can browse by hex code, which is pretty cool.
2. We Love WP
We Love WP is another, similar gallery, except that it focuses exclusively on sites that use WordPress. You can truly see how versatile the platform is.
3. Dribbble
Dribbble is maybe the obvious one, here. It’s billed as “Show and Tell For Designers” and is chock-full of droolicious design. I can lose (and have lost) hours here.
If you know of any other resources for inspiration, please share!
I resist holiday projects like the plague – then inevitably wishing at the last minute that I had jumped on the bandwagon. Here are my favorite Easter egg ideas – a roundup, if you will.
I think most of us started out believing (or still do) that if we put something awesome out on the Internet that people will just automatically find it, right? Or even after we learn about SEO and keywords that people will gently filter in via Google and end up becoming lifelong subscribers. ….Erm, unfortunately, that’s not usually good enough.
In fact, that was the tactic I used most regularly on my own blog until recently. Sure, there were a few blogs I commented on, and those bloggers became readers, but that was pretty much the extent of it. It wasn’t good for business.
I imagine the true formula for success goes something more like this:
1. Post something epic.
2. Tell everyone about it.
What kind of “epic” stuff am I talking about? Think about the qualities of the stuff you re-pin or link to -
It’s useful: It’s usually informative or inspirational or something you put on a “to-do” list, right? Maybe it even serves to be humorous or thought-provoking, but the bottom line is that it’s helpful.
It’s *pretty*: I myself put a huge emphasis on visual appeal when I’m mentally assessing something. I’ll bookmark or pin or link to lots of pretty things that might not have a ton of value otherwise.
It’s timely: This is just a nicer way of saying “popular”. Most of us aren’t blessed with the trendsetting gene (though if you are, by all means, take advantage!), so we’re stuck on the bandwagon. Be careful not to over-do it *or* do it too late, though. Best to get on the mason jar train while you still can and forget about moustaches for awhile.
Sometimes ugly, pointless stuff becomes popular. Buuuttttt it’s usually pretty and useful stuff.
I, myself, have been challenging myself to put my posts out in the world – more than just on Twitter or to my Facebook friends – and it’s really paying off. Seriously. I’m actually surprised. For example, since one of my tutorials was posted on CraftGawker, I’m averaging around 200 visits per day rather than the 15 I used to get.
Not gonna lie, I get shot down a lot. I’m disappointed that not everyone thinks I’m as awesome as I do (lols). But, I’m going to keep taking baby steps until I’m satisfied.
SO your challenge today is to find something awesome that you’ve posted to your blog – and share it with the world. Find a website that will feature you. Try to get it re-tweeted. Submit it somewhere. Keep trying until you get a lot of people to look at it. Then report back here with the results!
PS. In case you didn’t here, the giveaway prize for this challenge is a Hipstaprint notepad! The lucky winner can select a photo or send me one of theirs. It’s not too late to enter!. 
When Anthropologie undoubtedly calls me one day and says “Natalie, you’re so influential and stylish, and we want you to have anything you’d like from our store”, I’m going to be ready with this list. All of these beautiful knobs and pulls will go in my house. Which will, undoubtedly, be charming and adorable, just like me (snicker).
