Let's sit and have a cup of tea

Hello again, how nice to see you, do come in and close the gate behind you.

I can't believe another month has flown by and you are with me again for our monthly catch up. It was so good of you to stop by. If you were with me now I would greet you at the gate with a tray of mugs, the big blue teapot and those cakes I shared a sneak peek of on Thursday.

You would pull up one of the creaking chairs and I would position myself under the umbrella. As has become a tradition I would mention the weather as we poured the first cup. It's overcast but muggy today. After several weeks of the most glorious hot weather, the news is that we are soon to return to form with more rain and more grey days. Still, we can't complain. It's not often that Britain has a heatwave.

If you were sitting with me now I would point out the different things in our garden. The passion flower which has grown at a phenomenal rate, the fig tree that is threatening to overtake the wall and the beautiful roses along our border. I am not a gardener I would tell you but I have enjoyed watching my mum in her first year of tending this beautiful walled garden. I enjoy seeing her in her element pottering about pruning and in her words "titivating".

I would offer you the tin of cakes and laugh because since they were baked they seem to be going rather quickly. You can't beat vanilla and chocolate chip muffins. I would tell you that I am settling into holiday mode. That I am establishing a nice pattern for my days. I would tell you though that I really miss university. I miss having my friends down my corridor and going for long evening strolls and laughing till the early hours over a cup of tea. With a smile though I would recite that Pooh Bear quote which reminds me "how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
I would sit back, mug in hand and listen to your wise words on friendship and family and nod that yes, this time in all its guises needs to be savoured.

I would lean forward and confide, trying not to laugh, that as of next month I am going to be a "national trust lady". If you weren't British you would probably look at me quizzically. The National trust is a huge organisation that works with restoring land and preserving stately homes across the country. I am going to be working at an old abbey with the children. Organising activities for their families. It is volunteer work but I need to be kept busy. Looking deep into my tea I would quietly mention that the job hunt was and still is unsuccessful. I would tell you how disheartening it is to receive not a "no thank you" but no response at all from everywhere I applied. Still, I am one of the lucky ones. Volunteer work will be fun and always looks good on the old cv.

Gosh, I can waffle on. How rude of me to not ask about how you are getting on with your summer. Are you working, holidaying, relaxing? I would tell you as I bit into my second muffin that I am heading off tomorrow with the boy to France. I cannot wait for some time away with him and his family. I have him to myself for ten days and I am so excited.

The door is open to our house and out of it comes the cacophony of sounds that greet the hour. The grandfather clock chiming, the cuckoo cock calling and the clock in the lounge dinging away. You smile at all this noise and it reminds me that soon the lunch needs to be started. We drain the dregs from our mugs and I finish up our chat by telling you the big news here that my Granny has come to stay. That she has made the brave move to relocating next door to my parents. I would tell you that she is such a character and is in turn exhausting and hilarious. "next time" I tell you, "next time" you can hear all the Granny stories.

On that note you pick up your bag and I walk you to the gate. We embrace and I thank you for spending the time with me today, for reading my blog and for being a genuine friend.

If you were meeting with me now, what would you tell me? 

If you would like to write a "tea" post please add it to the linky at the bottom so we can all sit and share with you! The linky will be open for a week so you have plenty of time! 

The kettle is on

The tea is brewing, the cakes are freshly baked and the sun will hopefully be shining. 

Here is a little invite to join me on Saturday 27th for a drink and a catch up. 

I use this time to share my heart, to welcome you into my world and virtually share life with you over a spot of tea. 

Anyone can join in. You can just sit and listen, you can respond in the comments or you can go the full hog and write your own "tea" post. There will be a link on here so we can all join in and chat to you over a cuppa. 

A "Tea post doesn't need to be long. If you are stuck on what to say how about five things you would tell me if I was sitting in your garden with you now. Trivial, deep, funny or serious it doesn't matter. We will enjoy catching up with friends. 

See you then!

If you want to know more about "Time for tea" click on the link on the sidebar to the right. 

Lessons learnt from blog designing

Blog designing is in turn frustrating and rewarding and whilst I am happy with the end results, five years of tinkering with blogs and particularly tinkering this time around has taught me a few things.

This is what I have learnt:

Have a big picture.

I don’t necessarily plan in detail what I want to do but I do work out what I like and what sort of feel the blog will have. That meant working out that I wanted a clean and uncluttered feel which led to decisions on minimal colour and capitalization throughout.

Take it step by step.

I think blog design can be totally overwhelming. Break it down and start simple. Take your header for example. The whole look of your blog can be determined by the header and background. I made these in photoshop before touching anything on the blog. Concentrate on one thing at a time.

Google is your best friend:

I type everything and anything into google regarding blog design. At one point I wanted to work out how to add that dashed line under the post title so I typed just that into google. Two seconds later I had found a code and copy and pasted it. It really didn’t require any understanding!

Be prepared to be totally fussy.

Your blog design will only be as good as you are prepared to make it. I knew that for my own piece of mind I had to be prepared to be incredibly picky. All of the greys for instance had to be two precise shades.

Maybe this is just me but I know that if I did it by half measures I would spend a year or so unsatisfied with the design. (reading back that is probably just me!) 

At the same time let it go.

There were a few things I wanted to do with CPD which just weren’t feasible. I googled and the instructions just looked too complicated. I wasn’t prepared to spend the time to get them right. The risk of getting them wrong was too great. I therefore let it go. Be picky on what you know you can do and be selective in what you choose to do.

I figure its better to do a few things well than try everything and be scrappy.

It takes time and practice

Each time I redesign I get more adventurous. I think this is the biggest redesign I have done but that is because it is the third or fourth time around.

Start small. There is nothing wrong with just changing your header or the font of your posts. As I said before it has to be done in small steps.

I still don’t tackle the HTML. I think it will be a few more blog redesigns before I get to that stage.

There is no right or wrong.

Change your design or don’t change your design. Blogging is about a lot more than what your blog looks like. I find this process satisfying but I totally know that it is not for everyone.

The best thing about blogging is that it can be what you want it to be. For me that means playing with how my blog looks. 

From reading through the comments the vibe I was getting was that lots of us lack confidence in blog design. I am in the process of putting together some form of electronic guide which will be more step by step. I am no expert though but I think that is key. Blog designing is something very accessible and with a bigger document I hope to share some of my story, tips and how I gained confidence in blog design. 

Welcome to a new design

Maybe it's an annual thing but I have been playing around with blog design again. After a year I guess I get bored and I itch (perhaps inadvisedly) to get playing with code again.

Five minutes in and I want to kill both the blogger system and the person who invented code because it just does not make sense to me.

That said the joy and feeling of accomplishment I feel on getting the blog to look like how I want is worth everything.

There are a few new things this time around. First up, "making the ordinary glorious" has gone. That is not to say I am no longer trying to keep this as my mantra but I felt CPD was lacking a real link to me and my name. Both my instagram account and my pinterest page have "abibeach" as the username and I wanted to extend this to my blog header.

I have gone back to a sidebar but I wanted to keep it really simple. There are therefore links to my "tea" posts, tutorials, about page and Project Life. I really like social media icons but just couldn't find a place for them in the blog design therefore there is a new "Connect" page.

I have spruced up both the "About" and the "Tutorials" page. Both were looking a tad out of date. I really liked an idea I had seen a lot which was to include photo links to my favourite posts. I have done this on my "about" page.

Basically the whole blog has gone a lot cleaner and simpler. The boy looked at it and called it "Swedish". I took that to mean minimalist rather than Ikea-esque!

So I would love some opinions. Are there any areas that are difficult to read, not opening or looking funny? Anything else you would like to see? I so value your opinions as long time blog friends.

I will be back tomorrow with a few things I have learnt this time around from redesigning. Mostly to help me remember for this time next year when I am ringing my hands again! 

BLOG SURGERY

Blogger and I are not getting on at the moment.
I only want to make some minor changes to my blog but apparently I have caused too much fuss already and none of my changes are working.

So it's on with the surgeons gloves, scalpel in hand to tackle the blog head on.
I am going to try and remove all customisations, go back to a blank slate and work from there on in.
I'm scared.
I'm pretty sure this dear old blog is scared too.

I figure there is going to be a lot of mess.
Please excuse this while I try and get my little slice of the web to look like I want it too.
I may be gone for some time.. ( or perhaps a few days)!

Project life week 28

Thank you so much for all of your suggestions for iphone apps. I am going to spend a happy weekend downloading and playing around. 

I'm late (again) with project life this week. Things ran away with me. As always though, I am so happy once I start creating this weeks spread and I am always pleased I make the time to finish it.

Photos:
The quality of my phone photographs has totally improved and it is really changing my project life. This spread is entirely instagram and phone photography. I have also used photos on this layout that never made it to instagram. It excites me that my phone photography is a good enough quality to be able to upload photos as they are. My poor SLR is going to need a workout soon.

The photos this week are mostly from an outing the boy and I took to a National Trust property and then small moments through the rest of the week.

Journalling: 
I am really enjoying the midnight edition PL journalling cards and used a few on this layout. I recorded details of our day trip and our walk to the beautiful reservoir. I also wrote a short letter to the boy. I think it's fun sometimes to change up the journalling style and write in a different format.

Techniques: 
The big photos are back! The photo of the grand house was just asking to be blown up big as was the picture of the lake. I find it interesting to see how including a big photo can totally change the imapct of the spread.

As usual some wrap around tags and sentiments on most of the photos. Also quite a bit of handwriting this week, around the roses and as a filler card on the first spread.

Anything else: 
I still like this project and am itching to get the book underway!

What i-phone apps do you use?

So a few weeks back I got an i-phone.
I am such a convert. I love the camera, I love the design and I love all the apps.

But there is the problem. I am totally overwhelmed by the choice of apps.
I have downloaded a few photography ones and some I love some not so much.
My favourite is "afterlight" for editing photos. I didn't really like "over" when I first started using it but its growing on me.

If you have an iphone, what apps do you use? Both creative and everyday and games.
Which apps would you not like to be without?
Which apps are worth spending money on?

Thanking you in advance from a rather overwhelmed iphone user!