2009 June | the pixel boutique | blog, web & print design

Archive for June 2009

Be Right Back…

By Nicole · Comments (2)

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Kids, I’m going on vacation. Day after tomorrow we’ll be heading to my hometown to celebrate 4th of July and a retirement party for my dad. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. Oh, and there’s the small little issue of closing escrow on our new house. There’s more drama there than I can bear to utter right now, but if you hear a scream of absolute joy sometime tomorrow coming from the South Western region of the United States, you’ll know that we successfully closed escrow!

So I’ll be offline for a week or so, as I sign my life away, vacate, move, unpack, so on and etc.

Have you entered my TypePad giveaway? If no, you must! Hurry on over now.

Happy 4th. Be right back.

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Design Focus: Inside the Shell

By Nicole · Comments (0)

Friday, June 26th, 2009

“Turtle” blogs at Inside the Shell about life, her love for all things turtle and her winning fight with cancer. She has a fun, lighthearted outlook on life and you’d be amazed at all the turtle things she finds! Inside the Shell is a TypePad blog. So mosey on over and say hi!

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Blogging with TypePad: Giveaway

By Nicole

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

UPDATE: The winner of the TypePad giveaway is #26, ItsJayRabBaby! Congratulations! And thank you to all who entered!

So its been just over a year that I started offering blog design services as part of my web design business. 30+ blog designs later, it comprises 90% of my work. I love what I do.

As a young, wet behind the ears, blog designer, there was so much to learn at first. I pity…and thank from the bottom of my heart…the first, brave soles who took a chance on me. There is always something new to learn, but at least now I know the difference between a widget and a gadget and a hatchet.

What I love about blogging is that you have choices. There are several platforms out there for every type of blogger. Want my 2 cent synopsis of each? Great.

WordPress: Great for computer savvy people who want a lot of control over every feature of blogging.
Blogger: Great for people who want a “plug and play” blog so they can concentrate on the blogging.
TypePad: A combination of the two…full featured without the hassle.

I’ve become a huge fan of TypePad, a Six-Apart company. Let me tell you why…

Easy to use: As I mentioned before, TypePad is super user friendly and easy to use. If you dont want to deal with self-hosting, CSS, plugins or updates, TypePad is a perfect solution for you. They take care of it all. You pay one monthly fee for hosting and maintenance. No need to install updates.

Full Featured: There are plenty of widgets to add functionality and features to your blog. You still have full control over your blog. Want to add a Twitter feed to your sidebar? Easy as pie. Display a search box or Feedburner subscribe button…its all very easy to add with widgets. And I love that they are constantly adding new widgets to keep up with blogging trends.

Advertising: If you plan on displaying ads on your blog, you have that freedom and capability with TypePad.

SEO & Backup: All done for you…no need to install extra plugins or download backup files.

Excellent customer service: Every time I have ever contacted customer service on behalf of a client, I have always had wonderful service. The folks at TypePad are there to help you 7 days a week, 365 days a year (though, I do feel sorry for the poor guy stuck working on Christmas day…).

So if you are in the market for a blog platform, you will not go wrong with TypePad. They offer four plans, starting at only $4.95 per month.

Win it! The folks at TypePad were kind enough to offer a free one year Pro membership for one lucky winner (including current TypePad clients). That’s a $180 value! Simply comment on this post to enter. For extra entries you can (1) subscribe to this blog and (2) tweet about this giveaway up to once a day. Giveaway ends Tuesday, July 7. Remember the rules and good luck!

Video Tutorial Poll

By Nicole · Comments (7)

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Ah, life.

So I’ve been a little preoccupied lately. At the moment, I’m officially homeless. Over the past three weeks we’ve moved everything we own into two storage units, very scary thought, actually. And yesterday, we closed escrow on our house of seven years and we’re currently living with my dear ol’ mother-in-law (luckily, we get along swimmingly). Our new house will be ready in a few weeks, and just to add a little measure of fun, we’ll close escrow and promptly turn around and leave for vacation to California, moving in when we return.

Good times.

But even as I wait to occupy my sweet new home office, work continues. I’m busy with lots of great blog projects and will be hosting a very cool giveaway right here in the next week or so! So be sure to check back.

But today I need your help, my wonderful 10s of readers. I have tons of ideas swimming around in my head about tutorials for bloggers…of the video sort. However, I want to offer information that would actually be helpful to bloggers, like you. So how about taking my simple little poll below and telling me what you think would be helpful to learn…pretty please?

Thanks…you’ll make a temporarily displaced designer’s day.

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

Comments (7)

Design Focus: Liz Monroe Photography

By Nicole · Comments (0)

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

lizmonroe.wordpress.com

Liz is a professional photographer in Tucson, Arizona. She is on the WordPress.com plaform and uses the Cutline theme. We tweeked the theme to just one column to better feature her incredible work.

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A Perfect Gift For Dad

By Nicole · Comments (2)

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

I love technology. I also love the arts. And where the two meet is simply divine.

I get my passion for both from my dad. He was a photographer in the Navy, then a wedding photographer. Shortly after i was born, he moved into the printing industry and owned a successful business for over 30 years (which is still going strong today).

Dad always saw the potential and importance of personal computers. I remember the big unveiling of the Apple II at his office and being the only person in high school history class to write my term paper with a word processor. In the early 90s, I was the only person in my college dorm to have a computer. Granted, it took up 75% of my allotted desk space…but I was pretty cool!

So for Father’s Day this year, I was excited to come up with the perfect give for dear ol’ dad. Check it out:

Now I know digital photo frames have been around for a while but it just dawned on my what a perfect gift this would be for my dad this year. Shortly after Father’s Day, we will be celebrating his retirement as a family. I’ve asked my brothers and sister to send me old and new family photos to fill up the frame.

Seriously, this is the coolest frame ever. It holds up to 8,000 photos, plays videos, music, and photo slideshows. It also features a clock, calendar, and alarm, as well as a programmable on/off timer. I know dad will get a hoot out of it.

Snapfish is now offering 20% off Father’s Day gifts. Simply enter DADSDAY09 at checkout to receive a discount. There is also a great discount for $10 off any order of $30 or more with the SAVETODAY promo code (can not be combined). And, if that wasnt enough, Snapfish is offering 50 free prints for new customers. Simply go to www.snapfish.com/joinus to sign up.

So now its your turn. How are you going to honor your dad this Father’s Day?

Comments (2)

Premade Design Shoppe is Open!

By Nicole · Comments (3)

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

Update: Premade blog graphics, among other goodies, are available in my Etsy shop!

I’m so excited to announce a new feature at The Pixel Boutique. Over the last few weeks I’ve been designing up a storm and working on some premade templates and graphics. Today I’m launching my Premade Design Shoppe with three template designs for Blogger:

Branches

Pink & Black

Scrolls

Each template is priced at $50 and comes with the image files, the template code to upload to your current Blogger theme, and instructions on how to install everything correctly.

If you’re looking for a fresh look at a discounted price, check out the Shoppe. More designs are in the works so check back often!

The Shoppe also features background patterns. If you are looking for a quick and easy way to change the look of your website or blog, check out the seamless background patterns. What is a seamless background, you ask? Well, let me tell you (since non-seamless backgrounds are one of my biggest pet peeves ever to be).

So lets say you found the following image, you though it was so cool and you wanted to use it as a background on your blog.

You put it into your code and set it to repeat itself so that it fills the whole screen, behind your blog. It would probably look something like this:

Mmmm…not so pretty. This is an exaggerated example of course, but the idea is you want to find a small image that when repeated, creates a seamless connection like so:

Going from this:

To this:

Tricky PhotoShoppers know how to make that happen. So when you’re looking for a nice background pattern, make sure its a seamless background pattern. The internets will thank you. And please, browse the Shoppe for some fun options! Each comes with instructions on how to add it to your blog or website.