I’ve got a bit of a decorating situation: what to hang above my couch? Ever since we got our new couch cover (which Wallace and I both ADORE, can’t you tell?) my painted sea green mirror no longer meshes. I’ve got great plans for this mirror (it will look divine  above my dining room table). But as it is, I am stuck trying to figure out a solution for what to replace it with! With the help of Photoshop, I’ve narrowed down some alternatives:

Option 1: Picture Grouping

 This option would allow me to use a lot of existing prints that I have around the house. I can hit up the salvation army for inexpensive frames, and paint them all the same color for a nice cohesive effect. I love the way that Sherry and John from Young House Love pulled this off in their daughter’s nursery.

I just don’t want too much clutter, ya know? Is the scale large enough? Moving onto option #2:

Option 2: Record Frames as Art

This is another inexpensive alternative. These frames are from Urban Outfitters, and are 2 for $15 (score!). I could put fabric inside of them, original art, large colorful photographs to pull in the colors from the rest of the room, who knows!

Yet do they fill the space well enough? I know that I did not scale these to size, so I believe that they will be much smaller in real life. Onto Option #3:


Option 3: Affordable Suzani Textile (In My Dreams)

I have a wonderful, reoccurring dream: I go to a local antique store, rummage through an old barrel filled with yellowed sheets and scraps of fabric, and suddenly find a GORGEOUS Suzani textile for $15! Of course this is only a dream. And real suzani costs an arm and a leg.

But if I could afford Suzani, I would want it to be as close to the one Photoshopped above my couch. I love the deep fuchsia’s and oranges! Of course this Suzani is over 100 years old and belongs to someone else, but I can still close my eyes and dream. Finally Option #4


Option 4: 6 Square Frames from IKEA

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Hi! As you may have noticed (or maybe you haven’t clicked on my blog in a while if you read my blog in a reader) but the GingiberSnap blog has been getting a wee bit fancy, and I thought that I would share with you some great resources and tutorials that have been quite helpful during this transformation! Maybe you will decide to try out a tutorial or two on your own blog! Here are some of my favorite new elements on the blog:

1. Comment Quote Bubble 

I used this great tutorial over at BloggerStop to learn how to add my own customized comment quote bubble in my blog post title header. They give extremely clear step by step directions on how to go into your blogger design, select the HTML code, and add 2 sections of code in order to achieve a custom comment bubble. I designed my own custom thought bubble using Adobe Illustrator and used it instead of the stock thought bubbles that are available at BloggerStop.

I think the greatest advantage of having a comment bubble at the top of each blog post is that it encourages readers to leave a comment if they see that other people have already left a comment. As the comment bubble is in the Post Title, people may decide to keep on reading just because they see the number of comments first thing (Just a theory, but ever since I added this element, my comments have increased a wee bit!).

2. Highlight Author Comments

Have you ever left a comment on someone’s blog, and then check back periodically to see if the blog author has responded yet? Maybe it is just me, but I am always anxious to see what the author has to say in the comments section. Using the Highlight Author Comments tutorial from BloggerBuster, I learned how to customize my HTML code so that anytime I reply to a reader’s comment, it is has a blue box surrounding it! I really love this element! And I color coordinated it with my custom thought bubble! 5 points for color coding!

This is a simple, clean design element that adds a bit of professional touch to any blog. And it makes having a conversation within a blog post a heck of a lot easier to keep track of!

3. Adding a Stacked Sidebar on top of 2 Smaller Sidebars

 

I have seen a lot of blogs using what appears to be a large sidebar on top of 2 sidebars. This can be useful if you plan on displaying advertisements, blog buttons, or other page elements, such as blog archives or a tabbed navigation sidebar box (the latter which I will explain soon). I followed this quick and easy tutorial from Things We Love to Hate.

This tutorial is AMAZING because it shows you how to go from having a single sidebar, to a double side bar, to having 3 sidebars! It also is helpful in explaining the some simple HTML words, like margins, padding, width attribute, etc. 


4. Adding a Multi Tabbed Widget for Blogger Sidebar

 One of my biggest struggle with blog design is keeping things clean and organized visually. I tend to want to add too many elements, thus making it hard for readers to navigate! So I have long been a fan of the Multi Tabbed Widget that I have seen on many WordPress blogs. This element comes built in to certain WordPress templates, but alas, Blogger has not yet integrated this widget into their blog layout options.

So I began searching for tutorials, and settled on this Advanced Multi Tabbed Widget Tutorial from My Blogger Tricks.

Please note that this tutorial involves a bit of JavaScript (something I am not all that familiar with) but it is explained beautifully! This widget allows you to to put widgets that would normally be located on your sidebar, such as archives (which normally take up loads of space) topics, blog search, etc. and place them in an organized box. When you click on each tab, the size of that particular tab changes in height depending on the amount of content.

This is quite possibly my favorite new blogger element! I think that for a reader, most of the pertinent information about the blog is front and center.

So there you have it! Do you dabble in blog design? What are your favorite blogger tips and tricks? Please let me know what you think of this list, and share your favorite blogger hacks as well!

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Be still my rapidly beating heart! My 2011 Owl Calendar is still going strong, especially after an appearance on Etsy’s front page this morning!

Thank you all for your continued support of my blog and art!

Stacie

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(photo of my pregnant sister and I, and the only full body shot of my dress)

I love pretty dresses. But I really don’t like trying them on (who’s with me, ladies?). I have 3 favorite dresses (2 of which are pictured here) that I wear practically every time I see someone and want to look dynamite. All 3 are cut very similarly with an empire waist and a skirt that falls just to my knees.

So it hit me that perhaps I should try to use one of these dresses as a pattern and simply make my own! Wouldn’t that be lovely? I am no professional seamstress, but I think I will give it a shot, just to say that I tried (and possibly add to my wardrobe). Plus I could use pretty fabrics and feel uber posh. You know, because French Posh Chic is very in this season, no? (kidding)

Have you ever thought about starting from scratch and making a garment?

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For my birthday I was given a gift card to ANTHROPOLOGIE! I am a little bit excited, and cannot wait to drive up to Tulsa and peruse the pretty store! Here are some of my favorite items right now (although I highly doubt that I can afford any of them, gulp!):

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This is a picture of Nathan and I on the day we bought our first home. We were newlyweds, excited to enter home ownership. It was a small house, not even 800 square feet. 2 bedrooms, one bath, adorable dining nook, and a quaint back porch under a canopy of mature shade trees. I was quite happy to have place to call home.

Yet, often with home ownership, there were some unexpected hiccups along the way. Like on the morning of our 6 month wedding anniversary, the ceiling in our guest bedroom literally collapsed! The house had plaster walls and ceilings, so you can imagine our horror when 200+ lbs of ceiling came falling from the sky. As it turns out, the previous owners had tried to do some shady repairs on the old home (built in 1946) and we got to witness the fallout. Nathan and I were in college at the time, and of course the ceiling fiasco was the same week as our finals. And the same week Nathan was a groomsman in his best friend’s wedding. And the week before Christmas. Oh, good memories….

The next year, Nathan and I decided to have Central Air and Heat installed in the little home. We called around, got our quotes, saved our money, and were so excited when our HVAC specialist showed up to our home in late September to begin installation. Let’s just say that our HVAC guy started work, ripped a big dirty hole in our floor, and then never showed up again to finish the job! We called and called to get the job done, but it was not until we had a November snow storm (and a mighty cold house) that someone from the HVAC company came and finished the job.

Today, living in an entirely different home in Arkansas, we began to smell a strange odor coming out from our heating unit. What could it be? Mold or Mildew? A Leak? Is this why Violet has been coughing so much? I am wondering if the trials of home ownership are going to rear their ugly head, once again.

First thing in the morning an HVAC specialist is going to examine the home. They’ve never heard of a sweet smell coming from a heating vent. I hope we get this resolved soon! We’ve turned the heat off for the night (the smell only occurs when the heat comes on).

Tonight we will snuggle under blankets (Violet loves to cuddle on the couch). We will watch way too much Netflix. And we will quietly remember that sometimes home ownership is not all it is cracked up to be.

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If you were browsing Apartment Therapy today, you probably saw this AMAZING handmade doily lamp by the talented Shannon South.

Be sure to check out her blog, Remade USA, for more inspiration!

Stacie

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What did you do over the weekend? Well I was so lucky as to spend a day with my sweet friend, Laura. She showed up with the loveliest flowers to brighten my house.

We spent a few hours wondering the few good antique stores in Tontitown. I was so excited to see that they had lots of adorable milk glass bud vases. 

I’ve been wanting a small collection of them for a while (they photograph so pretty) so I bought 5 and happily brought them home!

Do you have any small collections?

Stacie

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