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It’s international picnic day. Hope you’re planning on having a good time outside! Just a reminder, Nikki and I are hosting a meet-up in Draper. Come if you can make it. Everyone (bloggers and non-bloggers, moms and non-moms) is welcome. Zupas and Sweet Tooth Fairy are taking care of the desserts for us.
Even if you’re not planning on coming to the event, you should check out Nikki’s picnic guest series.
I won’t be able to attend Utah’s Breathing Space Retreat this year, so I’m sending Celeste in my place. Celeste is my uber-extraordinary intern who helps out behind the scenes with ads and sponsorships. Contact her at info@melissaesplin.com if you’re interested in advertising in this space.
I’m back from Stepford. I mean, Daybreak. Seriously, what a fun weekend! I learned lots at Breathing Space about hair and makeup, interior design, sewing and, my favorite, cooking.
But before I get to that, I wanted to share with you the simple gift I made for my roommate (roommate gifts are standard at most overnight blogging events).
Since I was strapped on time, I mostly used what I had on-hand, and I was really lucky with what we had. Thursday, my man Branden baked his favorite ginger snaps. The Amish friendship bread starter Melissa gave me was ready to bake, so I made that as well.
I ran over to Target and found this cute box in the $1 section at the front of the store. It was the perfect size for the bread. I also picked up some tissue paper to line the box.
Speaking of homemade: you guys, the Food Nanny might have changed my life. She is so smart! I love her approach to eating whole foods. Basically, plan your dinner schedule and stick to it. She has a cuisine associated with every day, so she always has some structure from which to start when making her plan.
Her recipes seem to be simple, too. She shared this fabulous French baguette recipe that only takes an hour to make. Seriously, who can’t do that? I think I’m going to give her cookbook to my mom for Mother’s Day with a loaf of this bread.
by the Food Nanny
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 T. active dry yeast, (2 packets)
2 tsp sugar
3 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp salt
melted butter
In a small bowl combine 1/2 cup of the warm water, the yeast and 1 tsp of the sugar. Stir to combine and let mixture stand for about 5 minutes or until foamy.
In a large mixing bowl blend the flour, salt, the remaining teaspoon of sugar and the yeast mixture. Gradually add remaining water and mix until the dough forms a smooth ball that is not too sticky to handle (if it is too sticky add a little more flour). Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead briefly until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Cut the dough in half and shape the halves into baguettes. Grease a baguette pan (or a cookie sheet) and place the loaves in the pan. Score the loaves down the middle, cover with a dish towel and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and place a shallow pan of water in the bottom of the oven to create steam. Bake the baguettes for 15 minutes. If desired, brush the tops with melted butter halfway through the baking. For a softer crust, brush with butter when they have finished baking.
Click here to download the printable 4×6 recipe card.
For photos of the event, check out this Flickr stream from Jenny K Photography.
I can’t tell you how excited I am about this design. Chris keeps telling me that this is possibly the best site design I’ve done to date. Chris is great at boosting my ego.
Fellow blog friend, Tiffany, approached me a few months ago to see if I could rebrand her site for her. Her previous branding wasn’t bad, but it didn’t really say anything about her personality or her style.
I modified her color scheme slightly by adding warm grey tones and a couple of pinker maroons in the mix. There’s a lot more dimension than a typical monochromatic scheme. I had fun lettering items for her and I love how the lettering combines with the slab serif font used in her titles. I couldn’t be more thrilled about how it all turned out. Check out Simply Modern Mom to see all of the little details. I’m not taking on any new freelance projects at the moment, but please check out the designers featured in the ad section of the sidebar. They’re all incredibly talented and available for work.
Most sites these days allow for Google Web Fonts or TypeKit. If you’re unsure what these options are, you need to head over and check them out. Stat. It’s nice having lots of options, but PLEASE choose wisely. Just because it’s available to you, doesn’t mean you have to use it in every instance. It’s great to have custom fonts, but try to avoid using more than two (three MAX) on your blog. Having multiple fonts keeps your readers from understanding hierarchy of information and it’s hard to read!
Pick one font and stick to that. If you are going with one font, make sure it’s readable. DO NOT USE SCRIPT OR HANDWRITTEN FONTS FOR PARAGRAPH TEXT. Can I emphasize that any more? Sans serif and serif fonts are the best for one font choice. If you’re going with two different fonts, choose one font that will be your title font (this can be more ornate, but don’t go crazy!) and one for your main text. Google Web Fonts allows for multiple views when looking for the right font, so you can see how readable your font is in a title instance and in a paragraph instance. Take advantage of that tool.
Also, with web font accessibility, there’s no reason to image your text. For wordpress users, get rid of your TTF titles plugin you downloaded 3 years ago and use web fonts! Your site will load faster and your site’s SEO will thank you.
During Chris’s two and a half weeks of Christmas vacation, we spent our time redesigning a few blogs. We had a grand time working together & making the interwebs a tiny bit prettier. I’ll be sharing a finished project each week along with a design tip (or two) for a better blog.
Working with Farra of Daydreams and Things way back in December was a real pleasure. She was looking for a design that related to her chic aesthetic, but read differently than a regular magazine-style fashion blog.
It was fun to stretch myself in more of an editorial direction and I’m really happy with the result. The soft coral breaks up the black and white space nicely and the light blue accents add more dimension than a light grey. Farra is an aggregator of pretty inspiration, so I wanted the design to play more of a supporting role in her blog.
We kept it simple, and I love how it turned out.
It’s been a while since I’ve shared a blog/design tip! Here’s one that Chris and I have been talking a lot about recently:
When I work on a design for someone, I encourage them to keep posting while I’m working on the design. I can’t always see the new direction by old content or no content. As a designer, it’s easier to see if I need to make in-post graphics for the client (i.e. before & after graphics, numbers for round ups, etc), if they already have content rolling. So my advice if you’re just starting in the blogging world, get some posts up! Get at least a month’s worth of posts completed, before seeking out a designer. If you don’t want it to be out there in cyberspace just yet, at least write those posts out in word documents so you have something concrete to show your designer.
What kind of tips would you like to read about here? Next week we will be talking Pinterest, FYI.
As I mentioned yesterday, Chris lost his job last week. I would be lying if I said it was a surprise, because it’s not. The company that he worked for (and was warned about before working there) is totally falling apart. It’s one of those start ups that’s doomed to fail for lack of good management.
While it sucks that Chris is out of work, we’re feeling very peaceful about our situation. Chris can now spend all of his time working on developing my calligraphy site and I can spend more time catching up on life, design and the kiddos. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to finish up the tutorials and projects I’ve had in the works, and I’m going to blame that on the weather and something that’s going on in my ears. I haven’t been able to go without a 3 hour nap (kids jumping on me or no) any day this week. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better soon.
We’ve done the super cheap thing before and I’m prepared for us to do it again. I’m just so grateful for all of the support we have had from family, friends and all of you. Thank you!
With our current budget, we’re still throwing Felix a little birthday party this weekend (really? how is he already ONE!?). I’ll be keeping it low-key, but making a few fun little decorations for the festivities. I can’t wait to share with you his big milestone.
I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!
FYI – if you’re in the Orem/Provo/Utah area next week, there’s going to be a big get-together for bloggers, blog readers, pinterest, twitter and instagram lovers. It’s hosted by Soel Boutique and See Jane Blog. It’s sure to be awesome! I’ll be there hanging out with friends and hopefully meeting new ones. Be sure to come up and say hi! The first 50 people through the door get a goodie bag from the following sponsors. You don’t want to miss. See you there!
soel • see jane blog • milkglass and honey • becky kimball • armelle • freshly picked • elsa bags • cotton & curls • modern palm • annily green • fifth and hazel • sycamore street press • zupas • {collected} • gatehouse no.1 • mer mag • the Alison show • the house of Smith’s • Studio 5
