In preparation for moving…

back to WP, that is… I have shut down comments on all posts, eliminated the registration & login links (cuz the only people signing up were spammers anyway), and deleted all spammy comments and spammy user registrations.

I’ll post again under WP when the change is complete, since it will be seen from the homepage, about the most one may notice is the change of template.

toodles.

Vacation - there and back again

The three of us just got back from vacation yesterday.  We went to Disneyland, for our daughter it was her first time.  She did really well with all of the walking we did (we figure we averaged about five miles a day), all of the waiting in line and the boredom that ensues with the waiting.

Cast of characters:

• My husband - J
• My daughter - Z
• me
• Grandma

On the drive out, she asked probably about seven or eight times “are we there yet?”, half of which was asked before we had even crossed the state line, and the first being barely an hour into the drive.  Overall she did really good on the drive out.  We’ve been lucky with her being a good traveller.

We arrived in the early afternoon on Friday and got checked in to our hotel, slathered on the sunscreen, grabbed our cameras and tickets and headed over to the park.  Some of the rides we did that day - Jungle Boat cruise (Z liked), Haunted Mansion (Z did not like, too scary), Pirates of the Caribbean (Z was undecided on this one, kinda scary, but she liked the short drops the boat does), Star Tours (she liked this one), and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (she liked, as long as I held onto her).

We were there until after the first showing of Fantasmic, so probably about eight hours, and then crashed out back at the hotel.

We slept in a little bit the second day, had breakfast at the hotel, and went back to the park for some more rides, including Autopia and probably some others that I don’t recall.  But, this is the day we did Splash Mountain and were pretty much soaked from head to toe.  We made sure to buy the picture for this ride.

We left early enough to have dinner out at a restaurant, then early to bed, since we would be waking early for the Magic Morning entrance into the park an hour before it officially opened.

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Spiffy Title decoration

I think I got the spiffy fonts in the post titles to work in IE finally.  I can see it in IE on my PC, so I think most everyone else should be able to as well.

I think I like this one better than the other though.  It looks more similar to how I write.

Reinventing the Wheel

Remember not long ago, I mentioned wanting to update the look of my blog?  And that it would probably not be a very speedy process, yeah?

I still haven’t really gotten past the “wanting to” stage, but I have been rethinking whether I should stick with this CMS, ExpressionEngine (EE), or change back to….

WordPress.

Yes, I know.  That program frustrated me with the two times my site got hacked, and was the reason I switched over to EE.

But designing in EE was challenging, mainly because if one cannot find free plugins to do what one wants, or is not willing to cough up the dough to pay for a plugin that does do what one wants… One needs to be a software developer to make ones own plugins.  And I am not that, nor am I willing to cough up the money to pay for plugins that will do what I need or want them to do.  The free ones are somewhat lacking.

So between WP’s recent updates… and coming across some external tools that may help prevent the scenarios that led me to leave it in the first place, I’m reconsidering WP.  It has loads of shiny plugins & widgets, most for free.  From what I’m learning, using those that are kept up to date, is key.  Not only because there could be conflicts between an out of date plugin and WP when it does update, but also for potential security holes that a plugin developer may discover and patch.

I suspect I had a few plugins installed that were a little on the old side, which could have contributed to the issues I had.  I’m willing to try it again, being careful with the plugins, although I am not sure whether I should try moving everything from EE, into a fresh install of WP, or just play around in a test version.  Still contemplating everything, really.  But leaning toward moving it all back.

Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

On a completely unrelated note.. I think I want a stick vacuum for sweeping up the bits of cat litter that my cats seem to trail from the laundry room down the hallway.  Much easier to use than my huge vacuum, and quicker than using a stupid broom. 

I was kind of looking for something fairly cheap, probably this from Shark:  Shark VX1.  What do you think?  Any recommendations?

Really? And on months old posts, even

Wanna see how fast I block a spammer from posting anymore?

Done.

I like how they try to fake things by trying to make the comments look related in some way.

The lastest one even carried the same topic of their comment into a different post, like it was a continuation of their thought but they didn’t want to leave it on one post, they had to spread it around.

Psh.

You spam, you banned.
Enjoy reading all you want, Mr./Ms. Spammer, but you won’t be able to comment anymore!  :p

Polymer Clay Smooshers - Christmas in July sales

I created a collection of items from a mix of fellow guild members who are participating in the “Christmas in July” sale & promo going on over at ArtFire.

Alas I am not having a sale myself, but I figure I would promote some of my fellow guild members who are!  Check them out:

*tap*tap* Is this thing on?

Too busy to blog, too busy to craft…. Oh who am I kidding.  I just haven’t had the gumption to do either lately.  I’m kind of in a crafting purgatory - can’t really make up my mind what I want to do on any given day, if anything at all but sit and veg to t.v. or facebook/blog surfing.

One day I decided I wanted to try making my own vectors, and downloaded a trial version of Illustrator.  Worked for several hours relearning it (been a while since I took classes), then maybe played around with it one or two more days, and haven’t touched it since.

Got some inspiration to try some techniques with polymer clay, but once I got to a certain point, inspiration went *poof*, so I set that aside for now.

Then I joined deviantART, and spent hours looking at various things - digital drawings (horses, dragons, etc), traditional drawings… found my fave watercolor artist and other new ones… then got inspired to start sketching again, decided I want to learn how to draw people (without tracing like I mostly did for my daughter’s still unfinished watercolor painting from last summer).  Hands trip me up - they’re HARD to draw!  Feet will be too, I imagine.

I couldn’t find any stock hand poses in dA that i liked, so I took some of my own hand, and when I have some free moments I’ll try sketching those.  That is my latest interest as of late.

Then…. THEN, I stumbled across a couple of mom bloggers, who have been doing organizing and even renovating/remodeling of their homes… and wouldn’t you know it, I started getting the itch to get crap organized around here.  But time - where’s the time?!  And I even started thinking… well, if the housing market is so awful around here that we’re upside down on our mortgage, we probably won’t be going anywhere any time soon, so we may as well start thinking about updating this place… But really, that is long term stuff and not likely to be happening any time soon.  I’ll be the first to admit, we’re not exactly handy-manny’s around here.  Can’t hurt to start getting ideas though.

Maybe this weekend I’ll find where my gumption went and have a go at some organizing.  Maybe. 

Do you see what I see?

If it is working for everyone…. You may see something nifty-neato on my blog here that I figured out how to do tonight.

You’ll need to be seeing my blog in a browser to see the spiffyness, so if you’re peeking at this via a reader or FB or something, please click through and have a closer look!

Besides… I need for people to let me know if it worked! I know *I* can see it, but can you? 

Happy Accident?

So I made some flower beads, not for the Smoosher’s challenge as they were a couple days late, but intended to be included on some handmade Mother’s Day gifts.  I created them late on Friday night, and baked them on Saturday morning after getting back from the car dealership (oil change, tire balance and coolant flush).

I use a toaster oven to bake small stuff like beads, and so far it has been a pretty good little machine.  It only runs 30 minutes at a time, the first 30 which is to warm it up.  So after it was heated up, I put my beads in the oven and set it for 30 minutes.

At the ding, I went and checked them, and they were fine, but 30 minutes isn’t quite enough time for polymer clay most of the time.  So I added another 20 minutes on the timer and went back to my office to do some web surfing while I waited.

Ding again 20 minutes later, and I go out to get an ice bath ready (helps hardening and with translucent blends, can help them appear more translucent) in a small bowl, and open the oven…

and discover I’ve burned my beads. 

They’re not trash worthy, however.  They do look rather nice with their toasty color, it gives them a rustic look, kind of vintage and aged.  But, the colors are way off from their intended purpose, which is birthstone colors in pastel.  Here is a picture (poor quality, sorry took it with my phone) to show them next to the clay colors as they started out:

So, I made another batch, and am trying again, correcting the mistake I made before, which was NOT covering them with something.  I usually use corn starch, so this time I covered the newly made beads liberally with it.  Hopefully this batch will turn out without being toasted so I can use them as I imagined. 

(Posting delayed so as not to give hints to those who may read here and are the intended recipients of said gifts!  By the time this posts, hopefully if all goes as planned and these beads turn out, the recipients will have their gifts in hand.)

(pssst! after the break, pics of the second batch - better for the gift idea I have in mind, the colors stayed true!)

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Smoosher’s Challenge - Buds and Blossoms

I was a slacker again, and didn’t come up with anything for this month’s Polymer Clay Smoosher’s theme, which was Buds and Blossoms.  Not until after the fact, anyway… that will be in a forthcoming post tomorrow.

Anyway, if you’d like to check out some of the work of those guild members who DID participate, please go check out our guild’s blog at Polymer Clay Smooshers.

Also, if you visit soon you can vote on what we will be doing for our next challenge theme!  I voted for the “Beach” theme, but it’s way behind right now.  Front runners are “Science Fiction” and “Fusion” (of materials or techniques).  Go check them out!