Blogging resources, tools, widgets, html etc. you should check out!

If you can believe it, this post has been sitting in my drafts folder for at least a month.  It’s a good thing I checked it!  I’d hate to deprive you all of the adorableness!  I love these pictures of Livi in her room.  I took them the same day I photographed her BIG girl bed.  If you missed this post, feel free to check it out!

5 Free customizable photo bookmark for print!

Have you, by chance, seen my post on 4 customizable photo bookmarks?  If you liked it, than you are in for a treat.  I created another FREE set of 5 customizable photo bookmarks to print in five assorted colors.  The template is an 8.5 x 11 inch .psd file that can be opened in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.  The template is super easy.  Once opened, all you have to do is click on the layer that reads ‘PLACE PHOTO HERE’ (highlighted in red) and go to FILE / PLACE to insert an image from your computer files.  Lastly, you would resize your image to fit the frame I created.  That’s it, you’re done! 

HTML to insert images into your posts!

You know when my bloggy life changed?  The day I realized I should be using html to insert my images into posts. 

I was having some major issues with the insertion of images into my posts.  Whether I used my hosting server (Blogger) or blogging tool (Windows Live Writer), the image quality always suffered.  It used to drive me absolutely bonkers!  There is nothing worse than spending the time to process a beautiful image just to have it be compressed during insertion.  The scary thing?  I was even resizing my images and saving them as maximum quality .jpgs thinking it would make a difference!  You would think resizing them would negate the servers necessity to decrease the image file.  Unfortunately this is not the case and they were still being compressed.  Do you know what happens to an image during compression?  Pixellization (I promise, it’s a word).  In a larger image, the pixels are difficult to see since there are more of them and they are smaller.  With compression, you start to lose pixels and they become larger (and more visible).  This usually results in a block type appearance which can be confused as an out of focus image.  And let’s face it, there is nothing worse than a blurry/fuzzy image especially when your subject is a person.  Is it too much to ask that my blog readers see the beautiful, crisp, un-pixelated (okay, I’m not sure if this one’s a word) images I see in my photo editing software?  I don’t think so.

Free storyboard template with 6 photos!

I’m on a roll I guess!  I’ve been feeling creative, hence the new storyboard!  Not sure what I’m going to call it but the bottom layer reminds me of cork board which is kind of cool.  Feel free to grab it HERE!  Hope you guys like it!  It is a .psd Photoshop file and is 850 px wide.  As long as you are even a little familiar with Photoshop you should have no problem using the template.  Just click on the layers that read “PLACE YOUR PHOTO HERE” then go to File / Place and choose the image you’d like to insert.  If you have any problems downloading, feel free to leave me a comment.

The Big E Fair!

Sorry I haven’t been posting as much!  There have been BIG things happening over here!  Hopefully I can share some of them with you after the dust settles a little!

In the meantime, I thought I’d share a few pictures.  The hubby and I took Alivia to the fair this past weekend!  Despite the horrific stand still traffic, 3 1/2 hour car ride, crowded fair grounds, and cranky over tired children (Alivia and her friend Mackenzie), we had a good time!  It’s amazing how expensive one day out can be!  They really soak you at these fairs.  Between admission tickets, carnival ride tickets, parking, food, etc., we have barely anything left in our pockets!  The poor hubby’s going to have to do an overtime just to make up for the money we spent!  No, I’m just kiddin’ sort of.

Let’s try this again shall we?

Guess what?  I’ll be having a guest blogger posting this Friday from Two Shades of Lovely and I’m so excited!  She’s going to be sharing some great links with you!  If you don’t already know Jeni, I’d recommend hopping over to her site!  Take a load off and have a look around!  Oh, and in case you have been following my The Missing Link posts (on Fridays), I’ll be posting Week 22 over at Two Shades of Lovely so I hope to see you there!