Sep 1st 2010 11:24:03 am

In an attempt to improve my personal blog and try to increase my blogging enthusiasm, I signed up for IndieBizChicks.com’s September Blogging Special. It is a month-long “eClass” that includes daily emails with blogging tips and prompts. I may not be able to do all of the blogging prompts, but I am going to try to do many of them – starting today!

Today’s Challenge: Get out of your blog reading rut! Crissy challenged us to visit our three favorite blogs and then visit three totally new-to-us blogs that are outside of our comfort zone.

First, 3 of my favorite blogs:

ljcfyi – a daily blog with lots of photos

[i]LoveLife- an artist’s blog on creativity

Oh joy! – a premier design blog

Now, 3 new (and cool) blogs:

100 Layer Cake – This is a very popular blog about weddings. I got married seven years ago, so I don’t really read wedding blogs, but this one is so beautiful! Lots of design and party inspiration.

This Girl is Losing It – A weight loss and running blog (found via). The author has had a lot of success (lost 38 lbs!) and is training to run a 5k, which is very interesting to me right now as I train for a marathon!

Conversion Rater – So this is actually my friend, Pat’s, blog, but it is a bit outside my comfort zone. It is a tech blog with a focus on online advertising and internet startups and Pat really knows his stuff!

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So, I didn’t move outside of my comfort zone too far, but I have added these three new blogs to my reader and hope to gain a fresh perspective by expanding my blog circle. What are a few other new-to-me blogs I should check out?

5 Comments » Categories: Favorites, Just for Fun, Website, design

Aug 10th 2010 11:37:28 am

I know, I know… you are most likely sick of hearing about the lady blogging conference. I apologize for being so single-minded lately, but I feel like I need to write down all of the good info I picked up at BlogHer before it slips out of my mind and is lost forever! Wow. That sounds dramatic! I better get to it.

Today, I have a list of all my favorite new websites that I learned about over the weekend. Hopefully, you will like some of them as well…

Crafty Blogs & Sites:

• Handmade Detroit – If you are in Michigan, this site is for you. And even if you’re not, the blog has lots of great crafty content.
• Tonya Staab – This and That – Tonya was on the Etsy blogging panel with me and she is fantastic. Her blog covers just about everything – including cupcakes!
• DIY Buiness Association – A new blog and organization from Amy Schroeder, Founder of Venus Zine and venuszine.com.
• Teen Angster – The personal blog of Allison, one of the authors of the amazing Etsy blog.
• The Creative Empire – You already know about Tara Gentile from ScoutieGirl and Megan Auman from Crafting an MBA because I link to their great sites all of the time. The Creative Empire is their new project – a community built to help web entrepreneurs.
• The Honey Pie Tree – A hand-crafted toy designer’s blog.
• The Studio Creations – A very pretty art blog by Thais, a Brazilian living in NY.
• Louise Gale – An artist who hosts the The Creative Color Challenge.
• Kipiboo – A blog of art and inspiration from a Brooklyn artist.
• Design Mom – Gabrielle is one of the founders of Kirtsy, a designer, and a mom of six.

Other Blogs:

• The Token Fat Girl – Lorrie writes about her weight loss adventures, plus lots of other stuff like fashion and recipes. I hung out with her a bit at the conference and she is really sweet and multi-talented.
• The Bloggess – This is a “famous” blog that I had read in the past, but somehow lost track of. It is super-funny.
• Pine Creek Cottage – Marcy’s sweet blog.
• Zipbag of Bones – Funny. And a little inappropriate. But mostly funny.
• Mama’s Keeper – A work at home caregiver’s journey.
• Just a Girl in the World – Adventures of a southern girl, sometimes traveling the world.
• One Bored Mommy – A mom of four blogs daily.
• Little Tech Girl – A tech geek blog written by a mom of two set of twins!
• You Can’t Call It “It” – A hip baby names blog.
• Things of Random Coolness – A blog of very cool design-y things.

Other Cool Websites:

• Indie Biz Chicks – I’ve already linked to this site a couple times, but Crissy’s website is an excellent resource for small business owners.
• Reware Vintage – a vintage clothing shop and blog.
• Food on the Table – A meal planning tool. Amanda, the rep, was super-sweet!
• Cake Lab – The most beautiful and delicious mini cupcakes. I had them at Etsy.
• Girlfriend Circles – A community that matches up online friends for real world get togethers.
• Graph Jam – A funny graph builder.

Whew! That is a long list of websites… and the thing is, I am sure I left off some good ones. Please add more of your favorite links from the conference (or just in general) in the comments…

10 Comments » Categories: Crafts, Friends, New York, Website, Work, design

Aug 9th 2010 11:04:19 am

Even after 48 hours, my brain is still filled with BlogHer thoughts. Here are my notes from the sessions I attended…

Gen Y Passionistas: Making Your Passion Work for You – Jenn and Jill from Pursuing Our Passion spoke about about having the courage to do what you love. Some of their ideas:

• Figure out what type of work brings you energy instead of leaving you feeling drained.
• Do what you love, but make sure you are solving a problem that people need solved.
• Show the readers of your blog that you are “listening” to them.
• Keep doing what you love and the opportunities will come, but also know that pursuing your passion does not necessarily mean quitting your day job.
• TGIMonday – enjoy seven days of your week, not just two.
• Check out the book, “Making a Living without a Job” by Barbara Winter
• Own your full name as a domain!

Mastering Intellectual Property Law – this sessions was hosted by two lawyers. It felt a bit dry and studious, but it included information that every small business owner needs to know to protect their work. A few tips from the session:

• Learn about your online rights on ChillingEffects.org.
• Register your logo, business name, and slogan as trademarks. Now.
• Protect your brand and act quickly on any trademark infringement you find.
• All public tweets are being archived by the Library of Congress.
• Make sure you have clear privacy policies and disclosures on your site.
• Basically, having a lawyer is a VERY good idea!

Good Blog Design: The Role of Layout in an Online Medium – this is the session I discussed yesterday that included Grace from Design*Sponge. They discussed general design principles and best practices when working with a designer. They did not delve into talking about code. Their design tips:

• Originality is very important because it translates into instant brand recognition.
• Never let design trump site function.
• Carry your design style across all of your online presences, like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Don’t go overboard with texture – one or two 3D-style items are enough.
• Map out your past, present, and future content ideas before starting a re-design so that you will have room to grow within the new design.
• Use CSS Type Set to create CSS code for your site.
• The Bold Italic is an awesome website.

Creating (or Massively Altering) a WordPress Theme – This session had a few technical problems at the beginning, but it managed to delve deeply into the code-side of working with WordPress. I self-selected and placed myself in the more advanced group and the presentation was just slightly above my head, but it set me on the path to trying out some of the newer themes and options for WordPress 3.0. The main general tip that I picked up was that if you are comfortable working in the code, use a framework theme like Thematic that you can fully customize.

Closing Keynote: How to Use Your Voice, Your Platform, Your Power – I already talked a little bit about this inspirational keynote yesterday, but I wanted to share some of my more specific notes…

• We all need to use our blogging voices to have important conversations.
• Nobody has to do everything. All of us just have to do something. That is how we make progress.
• More women in politics will make better policy and diversity of opinion = better decisions. Ask your blog readers to talk about one woman that they would like to see run for public office.
• The more “deep” writing we all put out there, the more legitimacy blogging will have.

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For more perspectives on the conference, here are some links to other descriptive blog posts about BlogHer:

• Jenny Cisney of ljcfyi shares tips she picked up at her sessions.
• Megan of Crafting an MBA asks where all the crafters were.
• Tara of ScoutieGirl thought is was a little weird.
• Marcy of Pine Creek Cottage had a great experience.
• A full wrap-up of the entire weekend on IndieBizChicks.com.
• Nichelle Stephens has a quick, but telling post about her BlogHer experience.

I am still digesting my experience. For me, the conference was a very positive two days, but I probably will not make the investment in traveling to next year’s BlogHer conference in San Diego. I had a lot of fun (I mean, where else do you get to eat a unicorn cake?!) and took home some good info, but I think the sessions were mostly geared toward beginning bloggers. I certainly know that we can all learn from each other no matter what, but as someone who has been blogging for nearly seven years and running my own small business for five, I may not have been the target attendee. I also got a little bummed out when I learned a bit about how much the corporate sponsors paid to be there (think hundreds of thousands of dollars) and how much profit the BlogHer organization took home. I definitely think the conference should be profitable, but I felt a bit naive when I truly realized that the conference was mainly a money-making venture and not necessarily only about empowering women… hmmmm… we DO all need to make money, though.

Were you at BlogHer? Have you attended in the past? What are your thoughts?

11 Comments » Categories: New York, Thinking, Website, Work

Aug 8th 2010 07:16:57 pm

I am sure you are already aware (especially if you follow my Twitter account – hello, too many tweets!), but I attended my first BlogHer conference this weekend. Since it was held in NYC this year and I didn’t need to buy plane tickets, I thought I should give it a try. Man, was it a packed two days of sensory overload! I am still processing the experience and am really not prepared to write a comprehensive post with all of the links and blogging info that I picked up, but I wanted to get down some of my preliminary impressions on my favorite experiences from the weekend…

Unfortunately, I neglected to take any great photos, so I am stuck sharing the few iffy ones I did snap. Above is a photo of the final keynote on Saturday, which was one of the most inspiring parts of the entire conference. It consisted of four amazing women (“Need to Know PBS anchor Alison Stewart moderates a powerhouse panel: Marie Wilson, Founder and President of The White House Project and creator of Take Our Daughters to Work Day, author and activist Gloria Feldt from Heartfeldt Politics and P. Simran Sethi, Emmy Award-winning journalist, blogger and environmentalist.”) pretty much just having a conversation about how women can use their blogging voice to make change in the world. They inspired me to take myself more seriously and make a commitment to talking about more “important’ issues, both online and in real life.

I went to four different “sessions” or classes over the course of the two days: one on using your passion, one on intellectual property law, one on WordPress theme creation, and one on good blog design. The blurry photo above is from the design session, and you can see Grace Bonney from Design*Sponge on the far left of the three-woman panel. I was excited to hear her speak and she did an excellent job. She showed us a lot of examples of great blog design and even shared a sneak peek of the new re-design of her own site that will be released soon. All three panelists were very informative and realistic about what it takes to create a well-designed blog. They stressed the importance of being extremely descriptive and clear when working with a designer, and that it can cost many $1,000s of dollars for a truly professionally designed site.

What was my favorite part of the whole conference? Definitely the Etsy Crafty Blogging panel that I participated in on Thursday. I guess technically it wasn’t a part of BlogHer, but it was hosted to line up with the conference. I am so excited that Crissy from IndieBizChicks.com invited me to participate. I immensely enjoyed meeting her and the other speakers (Tonya Staab, Amy Schroeder – creator of Venus Zine, and the Handmade Detroit girls, Lish Dorset and Bethany Nixon). We had great questions from the audience and I think/hope we all gave some good suggestions and tips. Danielle and all of Etsy were such great hosts. They provided awesome snacks and drinks, and there was even a DJ! I had so much fun with the other panelists that I basically forced myself upon them and hung out with them throughout the conference. Above is a photo of me and Lish late last night… Thanks for adopting me, Michigan girls!

To end out the conference last night, I attended the Sparklecorn party hosted by MamaPop. I had no idea what to expect from an “official” BlogHer party, but I was blown away by the craziness that was Sparklecorn! My original twitter description: “So great. It’s like a mom rave with a unicorn cake and poprocks.” Exactly. There were glow sticks and lollipops and giant pretzels and Chex Mix and random movie posters from the 80s and the amazing unicorn cake. It was all extremely silly, but totally cool. I only stayed for a short time and did NOT hit the dance floor, but if I ever host a massive party, I hope that it is exactly like Sparklecorn.

So… overall, BlogHer was a pretty awesome experience. …and I haven’t even given you any of the good blogging info I picked up or talked about the MOUNDS of swag that I took home. I’ll have to get to that tomorrow. Two days of lady blogging hoopla wiped me out! Gotta go watch some tv and veg out…

3 Comments » Categories: Friends, New York, Website, Work

Aug 6th 2010 11:14:07 pm

Just wanted to quickly check in to say how much I enjoyed the BlogHer conference today. I’ve met many great women and learned a lot already. I’ll be sharing many, many links in the days to come, I promise! For now, you can check out my Twitter page for the latest BlogHer updates (probably more than you really need).

Also, I wanted to add that the “crafty blogging” panel at Etsy on Thursday was fantastic. You can read a little bit about it on the Handmade Detroit blog. And you can see some photos from the event over on Lish Dorset’s Flickr page. We basically chatted with the audience about making great blogs, and I hope we gave some helpful tips. I had fun!

I have another day of bloggy goodness tomorrow! I better get my rest…

1 Comment » Categories: Crafts, New York, Website, Work

Aug 3rd 2010 05:10:44 pm

There has been a lot of blogging going on around here lately… and there is more to come! On Thursday night, I am participating in an Etsy.com panel about Crafty Blogging. It should be a fun evening of helpful blogging info. If you are in NY, you can attend the event in person at the Etsy HQ in Brooklyn. You need a ticket, but they are free – get them here. If you aren’t in NY, you can still attend the event via the Etsy Virtual Labs. The panel was organized by Crissy from Indie Biz Chicks – a fabulous blog with helpful info for running your own business. I am excited to meet her and the other panelists. There are some amazing female web entrepreneurs out there!

Speaking of which…

The Etsy blogging panel was organized to align with the BlogHer10 conference happening in NY on Friday and Saturday. I am attending BlogHer for the first time this year and am really looking forward to learning new things and meeting new friends! You already know that I will be blogging all about the experience right here…

1 Comment » Categories: New York, Swap-bot, Website, Work

Jun 10th 2010 02:41:05 pm

So… I am not really sure I want to tell you about this lovely website that I recently found. You see, it is a giveaway site that has really fantastic daily giveaways that you can enter just by leaving a comment. If I tell you about it, then you will enter all the giveaways and it will reduce my already miniscule chances of winning… But, I’m a nice gal, so I’ll spread the love…

You must check out TheBrightSideProject.com! It has really pretty posts featuring the best in style and design, and every day they give something nice away. Sadly, I haven’t won anything yet, but the site has turned me on to lots of lovely things, like the stuff seen above:

• Toy Watch, in white like Chanel
• By Boe reminder bow ring
• Chan Luu wrap bracelet
• Ayofemi Jewelry necklace
• Tarte’s new glam gams bronzing leg stick
• Prismera Design Fiona necklace
• Seychelles sandals
• and… Banter Banners

The daily posts are a quick read and I almost always leave a comment to enter the giveaway… It doesn’t hurt!

No Comments » Categories: Fashion, Just for Fun, Lovely Things, Website, design

Jan 31st 2010 07:50:49 pm

I went a little crazy and signed up for a big blog challenge for next month: Thing-a-Day 2010. The rules are simple, you create one new thing per day in the month of February and post about it on your blog and the group Thing-a-Day blog. It is supposed to be an exercise in creativity and I think it is geared toward artists, but I am going to be really lenient with myself when it comes to what counts as a new creation. I am going to count home-cooked meals, Swap-bot graphics, crafts for swaps, and hopefully also some “real” art as my new daily creations. So, check back each day this month to see what I am creating! Better yet, go sign up for Thing-a-Day yourself and join in on the fun!

If Thing-a-Day started today, I would have posted about these chocolate-covered pretzels that I made for Etsy Labs Craft Night tomorrow.

4 Comments » Categories: Food, Just for Fun, Website

Dec 13th 2009 10:13:32 pm

So… I think my blog is finally back up thanks to Travis and his tireless work trying to get everything fixed after our blog “emergency.” Travis is amazing and he will probably need to correct me on some of the details, but basically Media Temple – the supposedly big time, awesome hosting company where we store all of our blogs – was hacked. Some jerk stole some of their passwords and started overwriting important files. It affected all of the “Lamble Family” blogs (including this one, obviously), Roundrock Journal, and the Swap-bot blog. Ugh. The Swap-bot blog is the worst because now our users think that the actual site was compromised – which it was NOT. The actual Swap-bot.com site is hosted at a completely different company which has nothing to do with the current blog mess, but it is hard to convince people of that when they see “hacksor” on our official blog page. Anyway, we are slowly getting back to normal, but this situation was a huge setback, both personally and for Swap-bot. I already feel like I can barely keep my head above water and unexpected problems like this really cause me to feel completely overwhelmed.

It also didn’t help that last week, right after our big Swap-bot press in the NY Daily News, one of our ad networks (which we use to publish ads on Swap-bot) started serving up a horrible, bogus ad that made it appear that the viewer had contracted a computer virus. The ad didn’t actually spread a virus (it just sold anti-virus software), but it really frightened our users. We shut it down quickly and are no long using that ad network, but it is just another thing that is out of our control and yet causes huge problems. It also hurts to shut down an ad network because it means we could potentially be shutting off an opportunity to increase our extremely miniscule profits. Swap-bot has gotten to be so much work that it is very difficult to justify continuing to do it basically for free. We have to figure out a way to make it support at least one full time person (me) or we are going to have to let it go. Sad. Pay accounts and more direct advertising sales are both options, but both require a lot of work and it is hard for me to stay on top of things as it is. Basically, I am feeling overwhelmed and need to re-evaluate how I am spending my time…

This weekend was packed with holiday shopping and computer work. Next week, it is work, work, work (with a bit of holiday partying in the mix) – I have a tremendous amount to accomplish before Christmas!

11 Comments » Categories: Feeling Sad, Swap-bot, Travis, Website

Nov 30th 2009 11:13:06 pm

Thirty days! woohoo! I successfully completed National Blog Posting Month (and only had to post-date a few entries). I had planned to end the month with a bang, but posting every day is more difficult than it appears! I was hoping NaBloPoMo and blogging in general would help me improve my writing, but I don’t think it has. I never feel like I have enough time to devote to quality posts and usually just throw something together late in the evening. My quality writing goes to writing Swap-bot emails! Maybe that will change in the future… I still want to write a review of my Thanksgiving meal, write a preview of all the holiday craft shows I am attending in December, write about my recent design work, etc… I hope to continue posting frequently in December, so stay tuned!

1 Comment » Categories: Thinking, Website