Hole to China

Church Picnic

So on Friday night we had a girly salon night and Marissa did mine and Cortney's hair. Hee hee, the middle section of my hair is now bright red, but only the ends peek out most of the time. It's very fun.





So today was our church picnic. Great fun, there was sunshine, there was yummy food (mmmmm greasy bulk burgers how I love you), there was fun hanging out, there was a water fight (which I avoided, I spend enough time dripping wet thanks all the same). There was cotten candy. Good times all round.

Emma is one of my aquafit ladies, and some crazy person let her use a water gun! The madness!



Karl the master cotton candier. It was blowing everywhere like little bits of pollen fluff:

Friday Five

hmmm, I'm rewatching season one of Nikita...forgot how much I love this show!

Oh yeah, Friday Five.

1)Tay Lighting. If I could have all the lights that I love...well my house would be way too bright.


2)Lusia Side Tables
. Um, just cute...I want the red one of course :P.


3)Powerbrick Foot Warmer. Heated slippers that plug into your USB drive. I need me some of these!


4)Binth. Not everything on the site is my style, but I love these cards, and the baby posters.



5)Rain Drop necklace by Mixko

Tee hee

Blog Tour: The Sword Review, Day 3

Thanks for all the comments on my last post guys! It's nice to know I'm not throwing things out into a vacuum here :P.

Today I'm just going to post real quick about the content of The Sword Review.

I did read all the poems in the current issue. I enjoyed them all but especially Wings by Jaime Lee Moyer which has some beautiful imagery in it. I also read About Leviathan by David C. Kopaska-Merkel. It was interesting but me being...me, I would love a longer essay on the subject of the myths and history of the Leviathan which I've always found fascinating. I only read one of the short stories ME Control by G. K. Werner. I have to admit I was a little "meh" about it. It was kind of interesting but I guess I don't get that into short stories that are that short. Unless they are funny. Or connected to books and characters I already know. Even then I prefer a longer story. Maybe it's because I read so fast, 2 minutes of reading isn't very satisfiying to me. Give me a novella over a short story anyway.

Anyhow, there's a lot of variety in the submissions, so it's definatly worth the effort to poke about and see if there's anything you're in the mood for!

Blog Tour: The Sword Review, Day 2

Okay so here's the thing. I try not to judge by appearances. I really do. I talk nicely to strange looking people everyday. I am willing to eat things just because someone else tells me it's edible. But when it comes to graphic design I just can't help myself because I'm an artist/designer and it's just how I'm wired. Thus I feel the need to critique layouts and designs of pretty much everything that crosses my eyes (ask anyone who's gone book shopping with me!), and thus I am going to do a critique of The Sword Review's site design. It's all in love I promise, because I love what the site is doing and want it to be as effective as possible.

Also I did a complete redesign yesterday to illustrate my points. Because I'm crazy that way.

First off: Cover page

Now I'm not a huge fan of splash pages in the first place, it's just one more click for the lazy internet clicker. But for an Ezine I can see the apeal of having a cover page. Plus it's a nice place to slap that arkwork up.

What I like:
-It ties in with the rest of the site well.

What I have trouble with:
-First off, it was hard to find the enter link. I know, there are two, but neither stand out. I had to stare too long to figure it out.
-There is too much information on the front page. Remember the lazy internet clicker? He's not going to read all that anyway so it just clutters the place up.
-The text over the cover image makes the text hard to read and the cover hard to admire. It's a lose lose situation.

What I did instead:
(have a look)
-First off I made the entire cover image a link to inside. Big links are nice and people will be trying to click the picture anyway. No seriously they will, so it might as well be a link.
-Next I took the majority of the text and put it beside. Beside is nice because it minimizes scrolling (lazy people again...just accept that people don't feel like scrolling).
-Also I used a pretty font, made it green and added some swirlies. But I'll get into that inside.

The cover page should entice people in...not overload them with info.


Secondly: Inside the zine!

What I like:
-It's well coded. Everything is working, the tables are spaced and padded properly.
-The links aren't underlined (I hate underlined links on pages, it's just a thing)
-The font is readable and the colours all match(ish) and are again, readable.

What I have trouble with:
-There is simply too much going on. To much writing. I know I know, it is a writing type thing, but still...makes it messy and hard for the eyes to focus. Too many other things as well.
-Doubles: there are 3 donation buttons and 2 places to buy archived issues. Clutter makes it hard to find things. So by putting up doubles you actually decrease the chance of things being found just because the eyes tune out the clutter.
-The right sidebar goes way further than the others, making it unlikely that people will bother scrolling all the way down.
-The colours/banner. Straight black is not your friend. Most artists don't even use straight black in paintings because it simply is not a natural colour. It's flat. I'm not a huge fan of brown and grey either. It just doesn't say anything other than "I'm a serious dark page". I'm actually not going to comment on the banner, not everyone is an artist, A for effort. The text is hard to read though.

What I did: (have a look)
-First off I made it green. Green is a nice neutral colour (but it's still a colour!). I kept it fairly dark, because I believe they were going for a mysterious and mature mood. I'm not that good at doing mysterious and mature...but I did put an effort in.
-I made a pretty header/footer. Pretty things make people happy. No artistic skill needed here, it was a quick and dirty photo manip using free stock from Stock.XCHNG. I love that site. Same swirlies and pretty font. Oh and I scattered swords about (don't step on any!) for general swordiness.
-I put the navigation up at the top where you can find it, and simplified it down. Again, less is more, people are more likely to click to figure things out than to sit and read about the link options for a while.
-I put the article big and in front, because that gives you something to do right when you arrive. Instant gratification. Plus I found it interesting. I put the cover info below, because the spot needed an image to keep it interesting.
-I put all the current features to the right. They are still right there and easy to find. Also, I organized them by type as it was driving me crazy hunting around when I only wanted to read the poetry. I also cut the descriptions out to avoid visual clutter. That's a personal choice and I'm not sure if you'd agree, but I didn't find that a couple lines of intro made me more likely to read the piece.

As a side not, the comments in forum thing seems a little overkill to me. I would just set it up with wordpress so that people could comment under the article. Again, less clicks.

The Moral of the story is:
Keep it clean, keep it simple...make it easy for lazy people to get about. Also, colour is your friend...it makes a site cozy and comfy to hang about in.

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Please discuss!

PS Yes I know my links have underlines. I know! I can't figure out how to turn it off and it's making me nutty.

PPS Karl fixed it! We love you Karl!

Blog Tour: The Sword Review, Day 1

The Sword Review is an Ezine for Christian Fantasy/Scifi short stories and poetry. I'm not so into short stories unless I'm insomnic (not that they're boring and make me sleep, because they're about the right length to keep me occupied while my sleeping pills kick in :P), and poetry...well not so much either, although I did write some meaningful stuff back in my angsty teenage days. So anyway, I'll try and read a bit and give you an update for the last day.

What am I into? Graphic design of course. Come back tomorrow to get my opinion on where the current design succeeds and fails, and what I would change. And...um how I changed it. What can I say? It was a long weekend. Anyway, it will be fun times and I promise to be nice, so come back tomorrow for aaall the excitement.

In the meantime:

Russell Griffith
Jason Waguespac
Holly
Jim Black
Amy Browning
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Frank Creed
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
April Erwin
Kameron M. Franklin
Linda Gilmore
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Dawn King
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Terri Main
Rachel Marks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Robin Parrish
Cheryl Russel
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
Mirtika Schultz
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Daniel I. Weaver

?

Hanna Rose Sandvig -- [adjective]: Fuzzy to the touch 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

New Layout!

Check it out! I was in a springy mood. What do you think?

Friday Five

Today was a pretty mellow day. The only tragedy was a two year old girl with a unibrow. That's just not fair.

1) Coe & Waito: These are some of the most beautiful ceramics I've ever seen,





Also, here is an interview from poppytalk about these amazing ceramic jellyfish:



2)Origami! Go and check these out, it's craziness!


3)The Virtual Shoe Museum




4)Mushroom Cottage by FantasticToys on Etsy


5)Animal Humidifiers! I need a humidifier (due to the constant colds) and I really want one of these...


edit: oops, apparently blogger didn't want to allow comments? Weird but I fixed it.

Padme Amidala

Huzzah for Star Wars!

Happy Mommy's Day

My mommy loves me, supports me, and is one of my best friends.

How lucky am I?

Friday Five

Well, I'm in the kootenays today running amuck, but just because I love you all, I found these earlier this week:

1) EcoSphere...it's hard to explain, so here's the official blurb "Hold a world in the palm of your hand. Developed by NASA, the EcoSphere is a complete, closed bio-regenerative ecological system, sealed in hand blown glass. Contains earth, water, air, and life (algae, shrimp, and microbes that provide each other with nutrients). All it needs to sustain itself is indirect sunlight."


2)Another growy thing is the Greenlight, it's a combination chandelier, air purifier and terrarium. And it's preeeetty glowy and green!


3)Because I am apparently obessed with cakes...I want these pans! By Williams-Sonoma , they have a beehive, a train, and a sandcastle pan!




4)GUITOU THE CAT, is a vinyl decal with a variety of...kitty adventures. I should have got this...it's a rental friendly kitty.



5)The Ecobook by Asus. It's all eco-friendly, and modular so you can replace bits easily..I want a bamboo laptop!

8 Things

Because I've been triple tagged by my mom, Christopher Hopper and the Galactic Overlord-In-Chief...I will also count Paperback Writer...even though she tagged everyone.
________________________________________________________________________________

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.
________________________________________________________________________________

Hard to come up with 8 things no one knows because really? I already overshare.

1. I have the same middle name as my mom. (Rose)

2. When I backpack I take neither deoderant nor a toothbrush. After a week, you stink just the same, and I like to keep the pack light.

3. I read an average of two novels a week. I predict four this week.

4. I can make bread and pasta from scratch (mmmmm...pasta)

5. When I was in Junior High I wanted to be an astronaut. I was pretty serious about it actually...then the artist part of my brain started taking over the science part and it was all downhill from there. At least astronaut-wise.

6. I'm a girly girly drinker...no yucky beer or liquer for me. My drinks of choice are bailey's with milk and white zimphandel blush wine.

7. I'm scared of large fish. I don't like their eyes. Or their creepy creepy ugliness. When I swim in kootenay lake I'm always afraid that a 10 foot long sturgeon will eat me.

8. When I teach too many swimming lessons (over 20 hours a week) all my arm hair falls off and grows in blond. People say that I should like that but it's FREAKY! I mean, what is the chlorine doing to the rest of me?

I would like to tag: Jen, Kait, Amanda, Amethyst, Karl, Tanya, Tom aaaand Karen...no wait, crap she already tagged me! Aha!Bookwyrm!

Ahahaha!

Especially for Mom and Kait

April Snow Brings May Flowers?

I love this time of year, I miss BC in the fall when all the leaves just kinda turn brown and die instead of pretty colours...but I think I will miss my neighbourhood here next spring. Every other house has a blooming tree, it just makes me smile all the way home.

The Golden Compass

So the movie comes out in December next year and I'm pretty excited about it. It looks like a good cast and if you go to the site you can see some behind the scenes teasers. Looks like their finished shooting and into the massive amount of postproduction. The book is very philisophical and part of the idea is that it takes place in a parellel world where your soul lives outside of your body in the form of an animal (so you can see what kind of person someone is by their soul which is called a Daemon [not a demon!])...on the site you can take a test to find out what your Daemon would be....so I'd like to introduce you to mine:

Friday 10!

I have internet! And a phone! It's simply magical. And in celebration I have a friday 10 for you, partly because I was so sad to have missed last week...and the week before? I don't remember, but I'm back.

1)Tree Bookcase by Casaidea



2)Topoware Dinnerware made like topomaps. I cannot express how cool I find this. please buy me topoware for my birthday!


3)Cool Kids Funiture look how cute!


4)Wooden Place Mats by Sarah Finn


5)David Wiseman, this guy is so cool, love this stuff


6)Soapylove. I dunno, I'd be afraid I'd try and eat it!


7)Monkeycake! Oh Martha, what can't you do?


8)Keyboard Waffles! So delightfully nerdy.


9)Look look, the bench is a hedge! Aw, I'd totally kill that


10)It's a cake! Eeeeew.

Gah! *flails*

So we've had crappy internet service for about a month. It just up and quits for an hour or so every now and then. Then last week it decide to reverse that and now it only comes on every now and then. And then yesterday the phone line went dead. Yep, if you call our house it will ring and ring and then go to voice mail, but we can't here it. No dial tone. No nothing. The messages are still stored and I can check them at work. So, sorry Kait, I was home when you called...and I did want to talk, and Yes Matthew, you can use me as a refernce for your passport...as long as they don't need to call me in the next couple days.

The service guys are coming tomorrow (the phone guys...the internet guys can't come till saturday...they were sposed to come on monday but...that's a whole nother story). But they need access to the basement...so I need to track down my landlady...without a phone. Her number is unlisted.

Suggestions anyone? Not that I can read them until tomorrow....