Callaloo Soup

Giveaway Alert!

I'm giving away this awesome kit today at Craft Gossip, compliments of Shabby Chic Crafts. If, like me, you make a December Daily album to record the holidays, this is a great kit! Hop on over there to find out how to enter!

Happy Birthday Callaloo Soup!!

This week marks three years that I have been blogging. I am amazed. I jumped into blogging without really thinking it through, and honestly thought that like most of my other efforts at keeping some sort of journal, it would eventually fall by the wayside.

I've gone from having one blog, to having three and back to one again (well actually two if you count Tuesday To-Do, but that's kinda specialised). I've moved from the Blogger platform to Typepad - a move I don't regret for second. If my counter is to be believed I've had over 40,000 visits. Although I am sure a fair portion of those was me checking on myself!

I like to think that my blogging, and writing has improved from that first shaky start. Granted I treat blogging as more as a hobby than a vocation, but I do try to put some effort in! And since taking the blog design class last month, I'm determined to put even more thought into this whole deal. The truth is, I really enjoy this. But I need your help. If you have a couple minutes to spare please consider answering one or more of the following questions in the comments field

1. How did you find this blog?
2. Which of the topics I write about are of interest to you? Would you like to see more, or less of a particular topic? (A list of categories is to the right in the sidebar)
3. Does the step to fill out the CAPTCHA form when submitting a comment annoy you or stop you from leaving a comment? Or doesn't it matter?
4. Do you find the overall blog layout and design pleasing?
5. Do I update too often? Not often enough?
6. If English is not your first language do you find the translate gadget useful?
7. Any other input?

To show my thanks I will select one random comment to receive some papercrafting and other goodies from me (coughchocolatecough). I'll draw a name on Monday November 3rd. A heartfelt thank you to all of you who drop by here to visit. I really appreciate your comments and input.

Sprucing things up

The Blog

Thanks to the lovely Kimberly Brimhall and her class "Bling Out Your Blog", I was able to do a bit of sprucing up around here. I finally learned the answer to mysteries such as "how on earth do you get custom images in place for sidebar headings" and "which overall layout is better for the kind of blog I am going for?". I'm sure I will be tweaking some details over the next few days, so do bear with me! Do tell me though, what do you think of the new look? Please leave a comment below!

The Pregnancy

I am feeling better and better every day, so it seems like my life will get somewhat back to normal. According to my mum "Oh the second three months are wonderful!" (I'm not sure how she remembers this after over 30 years?) Just as I was feeling reassured she went on to say "But the last three aren't and the last month feels like nine months all over again!" Thanks mum! For now I'll just enjoy feeling alive again! So this means more blogging, more scrapping and crafting and more photography! I've really been missing that.

The Weekend

As I mentioned above ....... more blogging, more scrapping and crafting and more photography! Happy Friday!

August at Work in Progress

I've been having a wonderful time working with the August Work in Progress kit! So far I have made five layouts and one card, and I've barely made a dent in the kit! I love that I can get so my different looks from the kit. My pages range from very feminine, to masculine and grungy!

The last one was made for my post on the WIP blog today. I definitely recommend adding the blog to your favourites! It's updated almost daily and is bursting with inspiration!

So that's my Monday eye candy. I also need to thank Elizabeth and Lynne for both awarding me the Brilliante Blog Award! I'm extremely flattered!

PSA

As I am finding my way through Typepad, I'll ask you to bear with me! It's possible that there might be some wonky things happening for the first couple weeks as I get this running fully. For example I just realised that I was only allowing comments from TypeKey members and not from everyone. That is fixed now, so please, comment away!

Also some of my links will point back to the old blogs. I am going through and changing those, but with over 700 posts total it will take a while! So if you come upon any of those, feel free to leave a comment on the specific post and I will fix it immediately.

I have to say I am already feeling much lighter now that I've done this!!!

My new patch

Welcome to my new piece of the web! I've wanted to change to a Typepad blog for a while, and when I found out I could do that and import my content from my Blogger blogs it was a go! I've always loved the clean look of Typepad blogs, something I never seemed able to achieve with Blogger. Mind you I was very pleased with my previous blogs, especially the non-paying part, but lately I have felt the need to down size and simplify and maintaining more than one blog was becoming ridiculous.

I also felt in the mood for a complete change, something new, yet not entirely. To date I have imported all the posts from my original Callaloo Soup Blog as well as my photo blog. I plan to move over the Designs blog by the end of June. So this blog will combine all my interests: travel, photography, scrapbooking, crafting, food and drink, life in France and whatever other random things I want to share.

I hope that you will continue to visit and update your links and feeds.

Some changes

In an effort to post more to my blog I am going to make some changes. As you may know I also have a Photography Blog and a Scrapbooking Blog

It's turning out to be too difficult to maintain three blogs (what was I thinking?), along with all of my other committments, so starting from today I will use this blog for usual posts about life in France as well as my photography, and also for crafty posts that aren't hardcore scrapbooking. The hardcore stuff will stay on the designs blog, so if you want to keep up with my work, as well as get tips, tricks and step by step projects, make sure to check it out often, or add it to your feed reader.

Speaking of photography, I totally fell of the 365 wagon! I do take photos most days, but I've pretty much lost track. Luckily with this kind of challenge you can start over anytime, so that's my plan. Look for photo 1/365 later today.

So that's that. I'm hoping that this will get me back on the blogging track!!

10 sites that inspire

I spend probably way too much time online, and in my website and blog hopping I have come across a number of sites that never fail to inspire. Here are 10 of my favourite.

Design*Sponge
Oh Joy!
Tuttifruiti
Funky Finds
Urban Debris Artlog
Sew, Mama Sew
Ace Jet 170
3191
Trash The Dress
Making It Lovely

Are there any sites you visit that set your mind whirling with ideas? Please share!

Labels: blogs, inspiration