Inspiration

Sometimes inspiration comes in the most random-est of places. I know it's so odd, but I am completely in love with the colors and design of our latest kleenex box...it actually helped with the latest blog revamping.

P.S. yes, this is on the upstairs toilet

It's Official!

It's official! I am so excited to share that I have created a new blog!

Currently the title is "Laura Shaleen...a Loose Leash Photographer". I'm still running it through my Type-A head to decide if I should keep it. I do love it and think it's descriptive without being silly. But like I said my Type-A personality always says that I could be doing something better, so time will tell.

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE it if you popped on over to that site and poked around and let me know what you think. Seriously, I would welcome any and all constructive feedback!

Feel free to share the new blog! Enjoy!

Hank is excited too!

Blog Re-Vamping

On Wednesday, my dear friend S let me know that she had received a "warning" when she attempted to check out that day's blog post. My response: "a warning?!? what kind of 'warning'?!?" This kind of warning:

Apparently the company I had used is somehow been mixed up in distributing malware and "by proceeding you may get a virus on your computer". Eeek!

Well after a minor freak out (because I would hate for anyone who came here thinking they were going to get a Wordless Wednesday message to be startled with this news) I decided to just deal with it. And honestly I have been considering making some changes again, but just haven't made the time for it. So to draw on my "silver lining" perspective, this was a blessing in disguise because it forced me to address it.

A reminder of what it looked like before:

And now:

What was changed:
~ background went from white and gray bricks (from Shabby Blogs) to yellow and white geometric type pattern (by The Cutest Blog on the Block). I know it's a lot brighter, but I'm kinda liking it for this summery mood I've been in :)
~ centered-aligned the page tabs (it's all in the details)
~ created a cute new "favicon" (the little symbol in the tab that's next to the title of the blog...way at the top of your screen) from the hot pink, cursive "L" to a cutey little black camera
~ changed the font type from a cursive-handwriting style to simple Arial (I think) and left the post headings a little "funky"
~ narrowed the whole thing so that it shows up better on all monitor sizes
~ added the very cool "follow by email" feature (hint hint!)

Next step:
~ creating a whole new header with the help of the lovely Miss S (I'm thinking something that's less, cutey, shabby, scrapbooky and something with cleaner lines and simplified).

So there you have a whole "new" blog :) Check it out, let me know you thoughts because every girl loves a comment...or two!

Ta-Da!

So after a little putzing around (ok maybe like 2 hours) I figured out how to use some of the SUPER adorable frames over at Shabby Blogs with some of my pics. Ta-Da!!!

And of course, it's of the puppies :)  I had a few of these pics I took when it was really really nice here in MN a couple weeks ago and thought, hey why not try them out here. And I personally think it looks kinda cute, your thoughts???

In Need of Some Change

For the most part I am content with how my blog looks and the features I've figured out. No, I don't have all the fancy aspects that a lot of other people do (for example buttons - theirs and blogs they follow) but I'm ok with that. I've always been a simple/stream-lined kind of girl; for example that leopard sweater I wore was very daring for me, I maybe paint my fingernails twice a year, and I shy away from patterns and oversized-swingy earrings (like those examples???)

And as much as I liked the pink background of my blog (I may be a simple girl, but I'm still a girl who loves pink!) I just wasn't feeling it anymore. So on a whim, I headed back over to Shabby Blogs to see if there were any new backgrounds that caught my attention. The reasons I chose to stay with Shabby Blogs are: their website is so so so organized, everything they have is adorable, AND their tutorials are so so so helpful! I would highly recommend their site to anyone interested in sprucing up their blog.

Well after scrolling thru the tons of options for backgrounds, I decided on one that has less color. I felt like the pink background was competing with a lot of the pictures I posted. So hopefully the less colorful background will let my pictures be more of the focus.

Also, Shabby Blogs has some super adorable frames (for free) to add to photos that I couldn't resist downloading and will be trying out in the future.

So for anyone who doesn't know what it looked like before (and to help me remember this background), here's the BEFORE:

 And the AFTER:

I changed out the background, removed the border around the title-header and photos, and altered some of the font colors. Thoughts???

I'm Baaaaack

"I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday" 

~Eleanor Roosevelt

Well to say I've taken a little vacation would be an understatement. It has been almost 4 months since my last post with many reasons for this: boredom with the blog, busy-ness in life, summer sun...you get the point. To say that this blog took a back seat to everything else would also be an understatement. I spent a while wondering if I should just go ahead and delete it. Seriously, that was a thought.

But I decided to try to get back to it. Not quit it.

Today I spent time revamping the layout, which is something I said I was going to try to learn about waaay back when. But, today I decided to just do it. Mainly because I really want to post some of the pretty cool photos I've been creating and the little 1" x 2" pictures that I could get to fit were just NOT cutting it for me.

So I buckled down and forced myself to figure it out...with this guy's help. So if anyone out there is also struggling...I highly recommend this article :)

So although I am about 99.999% confident that no one has read this blog, I am going to keep going and figure out where it takes me, but I do know that my photo-taking skills have improved vastly since this thing started. So for your viewing pleasure, whoever you are, one of my favorite pictures from this summer. Hubs and I took a dinner, boat cruise on the St. Croix with his family.