Sunday, May 12, 2019

The Mother's Day Box 2019

Hey friends!

A big shout out to all the beautiful mothers out there on Mother's Day!  I hope you are having a wonderful day.

I wanted to share with you the Mother's Day boxes I put together this year.



This collection included some of my favorite items, such as an 8 oz. Wildflowers candle by Antique Candle Co.  Wildflowers smells like a freshly picked bouquet of lilacs, pansies, sunflowers and lilies, with soft notes of sweet orange musk.  


There was a full size Grapefruit & Blood Orange Hand & Body Lotion by The Cottage Greenhouse.  This lotion is bursting with orchard-ripe plant & herb essences, which is loaded with Vitamin C & B5.  I love that this enriched lotion is light and absorbs quickly.  It's also Paraben Free / Gluten Free / Vegan / Never Animal Tested  



A farmhouse style tea towel with a Fresh Flower Market Graphic by Returning Grace Designs.  This towel is 28" x 28" and makes such a pretty Mother's Day gift.



Everything was hand packed in a pink box.  A lovely curated collection to gift to someone special.


Also, included in a few of the boxes was a faux Rosemary plant in a vintage-style galvanized pot by Lemon Leaf Market.  Love the garden marker signs!   

  
However you celebrate your Mother's Day, I hope you cherish the time spent together with family and create some wonderful memories.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

Decisions ... Decisions

Hey friends!

I labeled this post decisions because I am such an indecisive person.  Several weeks ago, I was reading some blogs and thought these are "so pretty and I like the layouts."  Well, they were WordPress blogs - it got me thinking, perhaps I should switch platforms.  After doing my research I decided I would stay on Blogger.  I really didn't want to pay for hosting and wasn't familiar enough with WordPress to be able to switch over my feeds and so forth.

Since I had "blogs" on my mind I thought maybe I would create a new blog design and switch over to a 2-column format.  The ultimate goal was to be able to post larger images.  My mind was immediately swirling with so many ideas.  As I started to create a new blog header, I found myself constantly changing the design.  My first thought was a clean modern look with a minimalist design.  Soon I had three different designs, but none of them "spoke to me", but it was finally time to start the testing process.  Once I had my new template installed with all my gadgets & widgets set up I exported the data from my old blog, then uploaded it to the new one.  I then had an OMG moment!  All the posts imported fine, but every photo was so blurry you couldn't even make out the images.  I knew this could possibly happen since my left sidebar would be larger in the new template.  I played around with it for a while ... long while, but the only fix would have been to delete the images from 900+ posts and re-insert them  :-(


Ok, so I put that issue aside and forged ahead.  Within a few minutes I realized some of the coding from my original blog was also pulled over to the new template.  At this point, I realized I can't import any information.  I would literally have to start a new blog from scratch with no content.  Among all this design stuff, my husband asked me again, "Why are you creating a new blog?"  My response was "I want my images to look a little bigger."  I knew I had to take a step back - I was becoming too frustrated.  Just the thought of having to create all new social media icons and banners was weighing on me.  I couldn't even settle on a color!  I know - design is supposed to be fun, right?


Saturday morning I woke up, made a cup of coffee and sat in front of my desktop.  As soon as I opened my blog I immediately thought "I really do love this design."  I could never re-create the feeling I get when I see this.  It was at that moment I decided to abandon the idea of a new blog.  I sipped my coffee and thought all I need to do is make a few changes.  I went to work creating a navigation bar, updating some coding, cleaning up the sidebars and adding a few new designs.  It's a work in progress.  If you had any suggestions, please let me know.


Although my images may not be as large as I would like them to be, I have "fallen in love" again with my blog.  Over time everything comes back in style so perhaps one day 3-column blogs will make a comeback ... LOL!

Blessings,