Filed under: Fabulous Links, Look what I've got..., Nerdy Stuff, Shopping, fashion
Isn’t it simply divine? I found it in Plastique’s Etsy Shop, and now I never want to take it off. It’s made of a hard, transparent plastic and is just the right size:
Big enough to show clearly from a slight distance, but not so big it’ll be a hassle to wear. The chain is just the right length, too (I’ll show you sometime in an outfit post). It is very fragile, though – I managed to break mine in the middle of the “v” while pressing it to my body (I was stupid and thought I’d see if I could make it say “helvetica” on my skin – I blame a temporary moment of insanity). Boyfriend managed to glue it together perfectly, though, to my great relief, and now I have a (slightly embarrassing) story to go with it. The break was definitely my fault, though, and not because of bad construction. It’s just a fragile little thing, that’s all, and I’ll take proper care of it from now on.
I suppose it should be called a statement necklace, defining the wearer as a font nerd for those in the know – and confusing the people who don’t know that helvetica is simply an iconic font. The confusions here are endless, especially when considering that the Norwegian word for hell is helvete. Oh, well, I’ll brave their ignorance any day for such a beauty. At least my wonderful readers will know the true meaning behind it.
I received my brand new GelaSkin a couple of days ago, and yesterday (at 2am) Boyfriend and I decided to make a video of the application. What do you think? Oh, and the GelaSkin is perfect, by the way. I’ve had one before so I knew I liked the GelaSkins in general, but this motif is incredible (it’s “Crows” by Nicoletta Ceccoli). And no, I’m not being sponsored by GelaSkins – I’m just a little bit in love.
Filed under: Christmas Calendar, Look what I've got..., My Life, Nerdy Stuff
When it comes to the present part of Christmas, I had my Christmas Eve yesterday. You see, ever since I borrowed an SLR camera a while ago I’ve been planning to buy one for myself, and after much research and pro & con-lists with Boyfriend and Cookie, I decided I wanted a Canon EOS 500d. I planned to buy it in January when I’ll have more money, but after a while I started thinking about working out a way to buy it ASAP. This way, I could experiment and learn how to use the camera when I have no school or other things keeping me busy, and I could take lots and lots of Christmas photos.
Yesterday I went with my mother to town to do some errands, and we decided to stop by a place where I could buy the camera. Now, I knew I wanted a tripod and a better lense than the one that comes with the camera, but I’d decided to buy them in January and probably online. But… well, what was I supposed to do when the shop had a rather sturdy tripod I could afford and the exact same lense I’d been drooling over online (which was a Canon 50mm f/1.8, for you nerdy darlings)? So, yeah, my Christmas came a little early, and I’m practically melting with joy every time I see him – yes, my camera is a “him”, and he hasn’t got a name – yet (any suggestions?).
I am determined to fill the blog with better photos from now on, as they really do make all the difference. Just to let you see how much of a difference, I shot pretty much the same photo with the two old and the new camera. None of these photos have been changed in any way, except for me writing on them, that is.
When the image gets this lovely from just using the automatic settings on my EOS, can you imagine what one could do when one understands more about the manual settings? I’m in love!
Filed under: Christmas Calendar, DIY, Fabulous Links, How-to-Guides, Lists, Metablogging, Nerdy Stuff, Other blogs
First of all: I do not claim to be an expert on the subject. All the tips in this post are simply based on my personal opinions and experience, but I do think a fair few people out there will agree with me … do you?
A black background with white text will always be more difficult to read than the opposite. I should know – my very first blog had a black background, because I wanted it to stand out – but I realized rather quickly it was rather tiresome if you looked at it for more than two minutes. Don’t get me started on bright pink or yellow backgrounds, which is like an instant migraine. I always think justified text (that reaches both the left and right margin) looks better than text that’s aligned to the left or center. And while fancy fonts for the body text can seem like a good idea, they are only interesting for the first five seconds. After that they simply make it hard for the reader to figure out the actual content of your blog, and we don’t want that, right?
I think a header should be like a shop window: it should make a lasting impression on the visitor, and should display what can be found inside. This means that the header is the place for fancy fonts (and it’s a better idea to go to Dafont for something special, than to end up with something like Comic Sans, which should have been killed a long time ago) and pictures with proper resolution. Also, if a header is more than about 400 pixels high, most of us people on tiny screens won’t be able to see any of your content, which means we have to scroll to see if you have written anything new. And repeat after me: enforced scrolling is bad.
I prefer the clean and structured ones, but no matter if you like lots of glitter in your sidebar, make sure it doesn’t distract the readers from the actual content – which means blinking stuff is distracting and, for some, annoying. Sparkles might work for diamonds and vampires, but not for your sidebar. Oh, and make sure you keep the useful things, such as the search function, your archive and your Bloglovin’-link close to the top, so readers can find them easily.
Forcing people to listen to your music without warning is bad manners. I’m sorry, but automatically playing music should be illegal. If you’d like to share your taste in music, keep the player, but turn off the autoplay. Just turn it off, you can do it!
Learning basic html can be compared to learning to do a basic makeup. It makes your “face” (read: blog) more presentable when you want to make a good impression. You don’t need much, but it’s very useful for putting images/linked images in your sidebar, for instance, or for creating a link that can be used for sending you mail (which means spam is not very likely). I actually started learning html when I was still at Blogger, and half my posts would look weird or things would turn our wrong without me doing it (no, I don’t like Blogger, sorry). When I understood what the html told my posts to do, it was much easier to fix it.
While a typo once in a blue moon is almost unavoidable, not using the spellcheck that most of post editors have these days is a serious crime. It takes perhaps one extra minute to click the button and correct your errors, but a whole lot of bloggers out there seem not to care. Trust me, your readers care.
“I’m-sorry-it’s-been-so-long-since-my-last-post-I-feel-really-bad-but-I’m-just-soooo-busy”- posts are becoming a cliché. The best way to avoid them is to decide how often you realistically will have time to post, then stick to it. When I started out I posted mostly once a week, then twice. The past months I’ve been trying to keep it maximum four days between each post, and in December I’m giving daily blogging a go. The point is to keep it regular – this way, your readers will know when to expect a new post, and you won’t have to feel guilty for not blogging every second you have available.
It might be a specific theme (shoes) or sub-theme (Louboutins), a design element (such as my handwritten things), or a style of writing (such as the Queens of Kingdom of Style – just read one post, you’ll see what I mean), but if you can manage to find something that’s you, it will make your blog stand out from the zillions of others out there.
Copycats, or people-who-steal-content-from-others-without-giving-credit, are actually doing something illegal. Not to mention that it’s incredibly bad manners, and makes me question the blogger immediately. We’ve all saved something on our computer and forgot to save the source, but at least make an effort to locate it before posting. Weheartit.com can be helpful in keeping your sources organized (read how here).
When the news that Topshop was coming to Norway was released, I saw at least thirty bloggers proudly spreading the news. The sad thing is, they all said exactly the same. Being number 24 to report something simply makes you look uninformed. Mentioning it in a post is okay, but dedicating a whole post to old news is a waste of time, both yours and your readers’. The same goes for those catwalk pics that everyone seem to post when they’re feeling uninspired – darlings, if you can’t say anything new or unique, why post them at all? We’ve seen them at style.com anyway.
♮
If you’re looking for more tips on the subject you should drop by Shini’s DIY Blog Design Crime Investigation-post at the blog Park & Cube, which is rather brilliant (both the post and the blog itself).
