dear foreigners,

especially Brazil, London, Delft Zuid-Holland Netherlands, Germany, Dueville Veneto Italy, Burnie Tasmania Australia, or Auckland New Zealand, but really any of you little dots...

want to be my daughter's postcard pen pal?

she is exceptional at writing her name, drawing roller coasters and playgrounds and sticker selection and placement. we have a big map that we want to start putting pins in and a postcard from somewhere is going to happen a lot faster than a trip.

yes, my six month old is wearing a tie

and glasses in a cell phone photo with my sister

can you guess which side of the family my kids' cheeks come from?

secret note to michelle

in the form of a fabulous scrapbook page from like 10 years ago even though she isn't actually in it.


enjoy. I am quite the scrapbooking-designer-mastermind.

your assignment should you choose to accept it

can you tell I'm on a photo editing/organizing kick?

dear self, please remember this:

-lily loves hair balls. she is extra jumpy those days to be sure they get lots of bouncing.

-one of the last days of max being a binky boy. sigh.

-lily wrote the WHOLE alphabet completely by herself. she'd sing up the the point she was at each time. i love the E.

-i think lily is up to 5 bandaid-required injuries at the same time this summer.

-max only did bubble-blowing for a couple of weeks too. maybe teething is changing it all for him.

-"mom, now that I'm 4 I'm going to watch SpongeBob"

bigger blogger photos

I hardly know what I'm doing...but what I did worked, so here it is.

first you'll have to make your blog big enough to handle bigger pictures

1. in your html find the section titled Outer Wrapper

2. change 3 values: outer wrapper (the width of your whole blog), main wrapper (where you post), sidebar wrapper (sidebar....if you only have one that is)

these can be anything but keep in mind that other computer screens may be different than yours and that the main wrapper and sidebar wrapper need to fit inside the outer wrapper

*fyi to give you an idea: MY outer is 820, main is 510 and sidebar is 220 (that's why there's the 90 pixel or so gap in between)

3. get it how you like it and save it. you won't have to repeat this part ever

then you just have to start posting huge pictures (with a couple easy changes)

4. upload a picture (just to blogger) before I do this I change the dpi from 300 to 72 in photoshop. this just saves space and makes uploading quicker. that high of quality won't show online...save it for printing. it depends how they come from your camera though.

here's one from 2006



5. edit the photo's html by clicking that tab next to compose

you will be changing the width and height. on my blog I want the width to always be 500. since this one is a square, height is also 500. then search through all the garbage slashes and AAAAAA's and find the s400. or s240. whatever s number you have (depends on if you chose small, medium or large upload). try doubling it. this is what bumps the quality back up. s800 has been working for me though one site said just to do s1600. I can't see the difference. I don't think it matters.

*algebra time! so you'll need to figure out what you usually need to change your pictures to. a picture out of my camera at 300 dpi is 2592 pixels by 3872. when I change the dpi to 72 for web viewing the dimensions become 622 by 929. (still big enough to post big you see) when I do post it I know I want the 622 side to become 500. so 500 times 929 divided by 622 = about 747. I'm going to want to change my numbers to 500 width and 747 height. if I do the same thing for a horizontal picture it will be 500 width by 335 height. figure out what size comes out of your camera and write it down. you'll rarely have to use anything else. also if you use photoshop or something, in the image size dialog box you can enter in one of the dimensions and the other one just automatically changes. that's easy too.

mess up the proportions and you'll get something like this:



neglect the s number and this will happen (see the blur? not good):



time for a little more practice for me






p.s. sometimes when you change the html on a photo and click back over to compose it takes just a s e c o n d to pop up. wait for the little red x box to go away before you get yourself in a tizzy

big photo fun

heeeeeey little brother (buster, anyone?....anyone?....J?)

if you're not giggling you should probably come over for an Arrested Development marathon

check it

friend lillie is guiding me through bigger blog pictures minus the flickr hosting (bit of a pain). time to try out a tall one and a small one. see you on the other side.

hypothetically

let's say it was last sunday, and a big mean dude from the craft police stormed into my house and bellowed WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SHOW FOR YOURSELF?



and while you're here let me show you why I'm so pleased to be using an old computer desk as a new sewing table





there are probably a couple other things he'd ask me during our visit



and if he came back today inquiring on the quilt top I'd say it was completed Monday and dropped off to the quilt shop for my first ever have-someone-else-quilt-it experience and I'm expecting it in a few days. wish me luck!

somewhere you should go

the new children's museum in san diego

loved it loved it wanted to turn my house into it loved it

go see the pictures big at flickr

dreamland

gave up the binky completely + nursing less often for twice as long + not as easily lulled by the swing now that he is a big boy= time for maxbaby to learn a little self soothing



it has not been bad at all (proof is that i'd even risk entering the room to snap a picture). downside to a boy who loves his crib (or momma's bed) is a boy that only loves his crib (or momma's bed). not grandma's. not a carseat on the floor at a restaurant. not a picnic blanket.

ahhhh babies.

p.s. lily the previously kind-of-badsleeper who only slept away from mom so far the day her little brother was born and who's mom has even recently had to employ this



to keep her from joining the mommy-daddy-bed in the wee hours had an actual sleepover outside under the stars with bwampa and aunt hanna (just across town in their backyard). she told me she'd be ok and not miss me too much if she could a) have smores b) go in the hot tub and c) bring pinkie pie and pandy the panda and some transformers bandaids just in case because grandma only had regular bandaids and that just wouldn't do

my heart is stored away in my hard drive

apparently i'm still searching for my ideal photo-to-blogger posting method. what do you like?

peace cookie

really, it's just that. a peace cookie. see?


shown on my newly painted white wood floors (which are really only about 14% completed. anyone want to come for a painting visit?

another sister's home

my loves:

the penny tile countertop and painted cupboards


the perfect blue upstairs beachy bedroom with attached reading room looking out on all the beautiful Sugar House trees


the arches....the fat moldings....the high ceilings


AND pet chickens in the backyard.

when you don't think the ups guy is going to make it in time

and you have a baby shower to go to and the cutest gift coming in the mail but you don't want to show up with nothing but promises of a future gift....

...snag the images from the website and print them out and make them cute.

{Print Screen on your keyboard (by F12) > new document > paste > crop and move to your liking}

also I cannot wait to see those mini bike shorts on this baby girl's bum.

check

I made a public list a little while ago of some things to do before I jumped back into blogging. Maybe I've been puttering along because the list still needs work.

garage sale? check. like 6 weeks ago.

new blog? check. minus the moved files and things.

playhouse? check. many a princess has been rescued and mud pie carefully assembled.

emails? sorry.

me on my blog

my secret desire to become more like Lemony Snicket has proven successful, since at least a few people thought that blue-eyed beauty a post or two back was me. nope.

this is me: the older sister brown-eyed momma never far from her children (the way it should be)

how I did my horizontal menu bar tabs

really exciting, I know, but several cool people asked.

go to Layout>Edit HTML

find the Header section and make it look like this (don't delete anything that will follow this text, just add it in starting at #newnavbar):

don't want to type all that? I couldn't put it in a blog post without blogger actually trying to apply it, go here and scroll down to Text Link Menu Navigation Bars under number 1: Simple Navigation Bar to copy and paste

then find this (way down near the bottom):





in the last line, change the 1 to 3 and the no to yes


then look for this (just under that):

change that no to a yes

Save your Template

Now go back to Page Elements (still under the Layout tab)

you'll have two new Add a Gadget bars (over and under your header). pick one and choose the HTML/Javascript type. now it's decision time. you can either just have easy word links that will be your blog's font or your own homemade word links. that is what I did. I designed word tabs in photoshop, cropped them all uniform and hosted them at flickr. so they look like this (click that link to see):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3353/3620673575_f6c06db799_o.jpg

wow, I bet that was thrilling

if you just want word tabs in the font your blog uses, use this (again, use this link and find it. sorry it's a slight pain but I'm not advanced like that guy):

but if you want to design your own image tabs or do the font work in photoshop and use that image, you'll need this:

just copy whichever big chunk you need (the text or the images) into the content and Save. now you just have some customization to do.

*tip for making your own word tabs (or using images)=type all the words you'll want in one horizontal line. this keeps them the same size and spacing on the bottom and top. then crop your image down to a long strip.

you will have to separate each word, but before you do that, duplicate the image. use that duplicate to crop out the first word. when you do crop stay to the very top and bottom of the image. even if there is extra white space. just try to stay close to the borders of the first and last letter. this will keep your words even. save it. then repeat. put all these images into flickr or photobucket or something where they are each given their own url and put onto a page like this:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3353/3620673575_f6c06db799_o.jpg


The next stuff I'm showing is just what my html currently looks like. I'm into figuring things out that way so if it helps you, super. Don't actually use the text from this part or your tabs will basically be my tabs, they'll look the same and point people to my links.







I've gone through and changed all the links in that big blob of html. You can change the order of links. You can make them whatever you want. You can have twenty or two. It's pretty much just filling in the blanks, only the blanks already have generic info sitting in them to show you how to do it.



once all of your own info is there, you might need some slight adjustments so things look right. that first Header section that we added to the template lets you. The font size can be changed by altering the 100% that's there (not images of fonts, just fonts if you used the simpler way). I had to go in and play with the padding until my words were spaced how I wanted them. I think I ended up with 11px or something.


if you add these, let me know. I'd love to see and really love to know if my instructions worked.


I found everything I used for my blog edits in this article at Tips for New Bloggers.
There were also several other links (that led me to the helpful one I used) at Just Bloggled

chances are

if you come round these parts (my backyard, specifically the part where I strung up Christmas lights on our side of the neighbor's shed)

at just about the right time (8 minutes before the sun goes down on a partly cloudly evening)
you are going to get your picture taken.

your sparkly sparkly picture.





*choosing your accessories to match your eyes (ala Dorothy...remember that part?) is a bonus