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MINI NOTEBOOK COVER TEMPLATE DOWNLOAD

Okay, this may be a tad advanced, you will need to cut the inside paper to fit, hopefully scrap paper to make your mini notebook.  The Notebook cover is 5" x 7", so your inside paper should run you about a .25" smaller. For those like me that need help with math, that would be about 4.75" x 6.75". Of course you can always eyeball...

Here's a horrible step by step:

• Cut your covers out
• Cut your inside paper to size
• make a pile of blank scrap paper on top of each other 10-15 sheets should suffice
• fold in half
• Fold your cover in half
• Slip your paper inside the cover
• While the notebook is open put two or three staples through the fold/spine (you can do this through the front or inside of the notebook)
• If you are feeling particularly crafty just sew on the fold with your sewing machine

I feel like this should be self evident and please don't make too much fun of me if the step by step isn't accurate.  Enjoy!

Have a great weekend!

Kisses,

Miss B.

{mini notebook download}

 

FREE CHERRY BLOSSOM WRAP LABELS

I am going to be busy the next few days with work projects, geez, don't they understand I have procrastinating commitments? Sheesh.  Instead of senseless banter I thought I might ply you with goodies. Today's bribe, gifty poo is a wrap label.  For whatever reason these darn labels are really popular on the Bella Bella co. site.  We have been having them printed profssionally, they are a lot of work and well honestly not a whole lot of profit.  I have wrestled with what to do? So this evening I decided I'd give one design away on a sheet as a pdf (there's four labels on a sheet), you can figure out how to print via your printer or hand address, either way I want you to enjoy!

{CHERRY BLOSSOM_WRAP LABEL}

FOUR ON LINE PHOTO EDITORS

Better late than never, right?  We will have a guest photographer giving some awesome tips next Tuesday, but for now it's just me lil' ol Miss B.  I really don't want to go through all the in's and outs of photography 101, because there's plenty of much better sites that can help you, one of them being the Pioneer Woman which is one of the very best I have come across (she's on my blogroll in case you lose the link).

Today I wanted to mention some on line photo editors, from the very, very basic to the more feature rich versions.  Some of theses are the grand 'ol price of FREE!!! Photo editors are programs such as Photoshop which if you are like me and need to use something like this for work it will run you almost one thousand bucks! My first car was less than my Adobe Creative Suite investment.  Lucky for you, if you are just a photo enthusiast and want to get some images ready to show to your pals, relatives, add to your blog or website then you can use these below programs to great results!

First up Photoshop Express. As far as I can tell this bad boy is FREE, I signed up and started editing. My favorite feature being the white balance tool which gives you several visual options with the photo your editing to choose what you like best.

Here's a screen shot of the white balance options on Photoshop Express that I adore (click on image to see a larger version):

Next up is FotoFlexer.  This is probably the most aesthetically disturbing to me. Sorry, I like to work in pretty environs and although this does have a ton of positives, FREE, no sign up, effortlessly save to your desk top and some very fun filters, it may not be pretty enough for me to spend any serious amount of time there.  You may feel differently so this is what I was able to do take the above photo and turn it into an old photo with one click of the 'old photo' effect.  Here's my photo and screen shot click the screen shot photo to enlarge):

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Picnik, at $25 it is more expensive than the previous mentions but a heck of a lot less than traditional photo editor software. Jules told me about this one after I asked her how she got rounded corners on her blog images. In my very expensive Photoshop version I don't have the luxury of one click photo corners so I thought she was a genius.  A lot of Flickr users swear by Picnik, I am not in love but I do heart quite a few of its features like the faux snow (it tickles me to no end). Here's a Picnik faux snow effect :

Here I layered a bunch of effects, I used the rounded corner frame, the cross processed and 1960's effect which I later found out gives you a rounded corner effect automatically but hey you live and learn (please note this is the same photo as in the very first screen shot, pretty cool, eh?:

I also found a company called Aviary that is way advanced (although you can still do the basics like crop and resize, etc), but you can also do vector artwork such as invites and other printed goods that I thought you might want to know about. It's put together very well and there's some great tutorials.

I hope this helps point you in the basic direction to editing your images and adding a little artistic flair. Just imagine how cute your holiday photo cards are going to look! You will blow your cousin Tina's photo cards right out of the water....

OH MAEMAE!

Flattery gets you everywhere with me, looks like it worked on my new friend Megan (Mae Mae) as well, remember I gave her blog the unofficial cutest banner award last week? Well, we got to talkin', you know in that typing kinda email 'talk' sort of way and I mentioned the 'on the download' series I did here and you know I am always angling for a contributor for this because then I can participate too, so not only is she nice, creative and gorgeous (uhm, I inadvertently identified her wrong in my gushing post about her, so this here link is the correction) she's generous as well...

 

If you like these you may be thrilled to know that Megan designs ridiculously creative custom wedding invites as well, here's one recent one so perfect right?  I love the attention to detail while still keeping it clean. Thank you Megan! Be sure to show Megan some love by stopping by her site...

Just click below to start your download:

{maemae_A7 flat download}

{maemae_labels download}

A GIRL CAN DREAM...

Here's a pic of me at work today, don't I look cute? I just had a feeling about the violet fishnets, gold lame peep toes and tweed plaid skirt.  I am good like that.

 

When I get home I will throw on my striped car coat and let my naughty Frenchie walk me:

And of course I need to get gussied up again for dinner:

One day I will be able to actually become a Kate Spade ad, until then a girl can dream, right? And I think Kate was channeling me on this one, dontcha think, the whole sunny bit and all?:

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DICTIONARY A.K.A. COOLEST IDEA EVER...

The Fancy had a photo assignment in class the other day where the teacher gave each of his students a word and sent them off into the world (okay within a 2 mile radius) to snap shots that represented that word. The Fancy's word was 'thoughtful'. I LOVED this assignment and the cogs in my brain started whirling and whizzing about what a great project this could be for us (yes me and you) to do on a weekly basis to help us sharpen our photo skills and keep the inspiration coming. Sometimes I do get 'photo block' for lack of a better term.  Sometimes inspiration comes a knockin' on the door, like today I found the coolest concept ever (okay in a long while) a photographic dictionary! It's a collaboration of artists that donate their work to build this dictionary,  here's a sample that I thought was clever:

 

Well what are you waiting for?  Here's the keys go let yourself in...

JEN 11

When I was in junior high I tried to change my name to Jennifer so I could be called 'Jen' or 'Jenny'  and instantly turn blond become popular, cheerful and what the boys considered 'smokin' hot all in one fell swoop. No one went for it. Alas, I was stuck with Tristan, and was called 'Dristan' (yes like the nasal decongestant, pretty right?) and what's the worse anyone can tease Jenny with? Penny? At least I will always know I tried.

When I read about this very creatively dubbed project called Jen 11 I knew it was going to be blog fodder.  It's just so darn clever, eleven artists all named Jen and three of my fave Jen's to boot? What's not to love?

I do hope you have a chance to swing by curator Jen Khoshbin's site and take a peek around, you'll find lovelies such as Jen Renniger's always delightful work:

{visit the Jen11}

and there's a book!

{buy the book here}

If I tried to put together anything with Tristan's how far do you think I'd get? 

I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT.....

Which of the photo's above was taken at night in a dark room without flash? Hmmm?  Give up? ALL OF THEM! That's right pretties NO FLASH + DARK ROOM.  This may be a tad advanced but bear with me as I spout off my tips here. I had been super frustrated because all the images I loved looked as though they were shot in oodles of beautiful natural light. Most of the photographers I followed that I appreciated their images kept saying, "Oh I only shoot in natural light..." I was dejected because I work an 8 a.m. to the cows come home shift at work and often the sun is no where near my world when I return home and have time to shoot.  I could wait for the weekends but by the time the weekend rolls around I am usually comatose and the only inspiration I have is to roll up into the fetal position and wake up on Monday morn (my job is TOUGH).  What's a girl that needs/wants to take photo's to do? I didn't know, I just knew I didn't want to give up that easily.

I stumbled across a post on a food blog about  how she too had to take images in the dark but her photo's looked very much like they were shot in broad day light.  I was thrilled and you can see for yourself her images here (I didn't want to post her photo's because she mentioned that it makes her go coo coo when people don't ask and who has that kinda time?) Well, the Smitten kitchen uses a flash that looks like a heck of a lot of goodness called a Speedlite I was two secs from giving my credit card a work out when something else shiny caught my eye, yet another food blog (btw, that's another tip if you want to improve your product shots cruise the food blogs they have the process down).  I found my "natural light" nirvana via one of my fave food blogs AND food photographers Bakerella, she mentioned these lights called Lowel Ego that have changed my life. I know a secret about Bakerella that will make you giddy, you see these are some of her magnificent images:

{photo's via bakerella}

They are gorge right? Well this is the giddy inducing part, even though Bakerella has a fancy DSLR like moi (the Canon Rebel) which you can shoot in manual mode (you know that confusing mode like adjusting shutter speed and aperture?) and all kinds of other fancy buttons, well Miss Bakerella shoots these amazing shots almost exclusively in auto mode. Wha? That's right the green box, the 'look Ma no hands' mode.  I figured out why they came out so great while my auto images looked like crap, it's the light lovelies!  I shot a couple of the 'merci' cards above in auto and I can't tell which is auto and which was manual, they all look pretty swank to me.

 So, I hope this was helpful and you have a chance to click around some of the highlighted links and delve more into this lighting phenomena and if you do get some Lowel lights or a Speedlite (or have an alternate suggestion) I'd love to see some before and afters's.  If you have any questions about this post or want me to address another photo topic next Tuesday just let me know in the comments.  I have a few 'real' photographers lined up in the near future to give you some tips & tricks and it would help them with their guest posts if you let them know what you wanna learn.

MY OH MAI...

Monday. Need I say more? Busy, busy weekend and I will be sharing the fruits of my labor this week for now I wanted to show off two of the sweetest little packages I received in the post the other day.  I LOVE good mail,  the other kind bills and solicitations I could do without.  Anyway, I met a lovely young shop owner online named My, she runs Spring Cart and she is uber creative, if you don't believe me you will just have to swing by and see for yourself, she makes ceramics, jewelry, designs websites, stationery, candles and best of all she makes tea!  She sent me a sample and I nearly fell over with delight because the packaging is so up my alley:

{visit Spring Cart here}

My also writes a blog called, Tha Hotness, (it's always real purty over there). I have some how connived her, convinced her to write a guest post  for you pretties on the 'How to blog like a rockstar' series, so you will have someone other than myself blabbing your eyes off, won't that be a treat?

The other package was sent by Mai of the Sparrows Nest, I didn't take a photo of the gift because I promptly opened it and stuck it in my hair.  Mai made me and Jules a pair of the bronze twig hair pins, they are so much  prettier in person (and I already thought they were darling from the photo's), it just blows my mind that they aren't real bronze and they are made from clay, Mai is magic I tell ya.  After I had my over grown bangs sufficiently away from my eyeball I was able to get a snap of the cutest thank you note I ever did see:

It was Ace's idea to add the penny next to it so you could really grasp the lilliputian-ness of it. I promptly returned the kindness by making Mai a little care package as well:

The gift tag was made from a stationery flat that didn't pass muster. I hate to waste paper so I am always trying to figure out how to re-purpose. I used this hand held punch  to make the gift tag which has turned out to be a great investment.  Since I am in testing mode with the new Besotted designs and seeing what will work I made this little grab bag for her:

I think it turned out so sweet!  Wouldn't this be perf for a wedding favor with the wedding date printed on the banner? You could do homebaked cookies/brownies or other treats or...?  I guess we will have to see what all the other craftista's out there come up with.  We can't wait to get the rest of our protoypes in to play with, I am sure I will be showing more in the months to come because you know I can't keep anything to myself and I will implode if I don't share.  Hopefully soon we will have some extra's and can do a giveaway so we can see what y'all come up with...

xx,

Miss B.

P.S. Tomorrow is more photo nonsense so stop on by!

CHARTREUSE::THE BRIGHT SIDE PROJECT III

{visit chartreuse::the bright side project 3 here}

Okay first off totally can't believe I am on my 3rd month of doing a daily giveaway, it's completely and utterly insane it is (but in the best way possible).  Luckily for me I have a rock star business partner that also happens to be a prolific writer and has come in and helped me on the project like the studette she is.  The third project we have dubbed 'Chartreuse' all eco-luxe offerings (it is the earth's b-day and all this month).  You seriously will not believe the kick butt design that will be on display (and up for the taking), it's gorgeous on it's own but it's phenomenal knowing that it is green as well!  I am in awe by the continued generosity of the contributors and the prizes keep getting better and better.

We have slated Bergdorf worthy beauty products, a hoodie that was named by Lucky magazine as the sexiest hooodie EVER (eco or not, just plain EVER), we have a super models very talented sister and her jewelry line, some of the the sa-weetest eco duds on the market, home stereo equipment, shoes, shoes and more shoes (I am a shoe fiend). I am so excited to be able to feature so many amazing eco shoe designers. I think you will be more than suprised as well. We have eco stationery that is worthy of art gallery staus and bedding, yes we have bedding!  AND get this we have money to giveaway--yes, moola, dinero, cold hard cash.  One of our sposnors will be giving away one hundred U.S. bucks for a winning answer!  If you go out and tell all your friends, family members and complete strangers maybe we will be able to make out goal of getting more money donated as prizes for the project.  I would love to do some debt consolidation for a lucky reader (or two or three or...), send someone off on a holiday or even just pick up a grocery or rent tab.  We totally depend on you pretties to spread the word so I am not too proud too beg, pretty please let more lovelies in on the fun...