Online Photo Editing and Projects Made Easy with Fotor

One of my favorite hobbies is photography.  Whether I’m snapping photos for my blog or taking family photos, it is fun to capture moments and then transform my photos into something more professional and creative.  Fotor is a free service that puts online photo editing right at your finger tips.  It makes it easy for you not only to edit your photos but to create graphics for your website and create other virtual and printable projects like greeting cards, posters, and other media.

As a blogger, I often need to make a photo collage or design a printable or a graphic for my social media pages, and Fotor makes these types of projects very simple. If you are a more experienced designer, you can start from scratch with a blank canvas or for a quick job, use one of their templates to get started. [Read more…]

Friday Favorites – Week 209 – Featuring Our Great Sponsors

friday favorites

Hey guys! Last week there was a problem with the linky.  I’m not sure what happened; after I posted, it appeared to be working perfectly.  It wasn’t until Saturday that I realized there were NO links! Eek!  Sorry about that!  Anyway, since there we didn’t really get to have a proper party I decided to use this week’s party as an opportunity to give thanks to my wonderful sponsors and affiliates! [Read more…]

Vintage Printage Giveaway

Have you signed up for Online BlogCon yet?  It’s your chance to “attend” a blog conference from your own home.  And the cost is just $15!

Leading up to the conference there having some great giveaways, including this great one from Vintage Printage. [Read more…]

Moving to WordPress

I’ve been planning to post about my move to WordPress.   It’s hard to believe that it’s been a month already since my move! (Yeah, I get a little sidetracked sometimes!)

Anyway, I wanted to post about it because (1) it is something that I’ve thought about doing for a long time and I’m really excited about it and (2) I know there are a lot of people that are curious about it (as I was for the longest time).  In fact, I’ve already gotten a couple of emails inquiring about my move, so today I just want to take a few minutes to talk about that for anyone who may be interested in swapping themselves.

[Read more…]

Free Printable Gift Bags and a Blog Header Tutorial from My Memories

Hello all!  Well, I got ready to do this week’s giveaway and I ran in to a slight snag, so hopefully I have that up later today or in the next day or two!

In the meantime, I’ve got some My Memories  Freebies and a tutorial for you today! And as always, you can save $10 on their Suite v3 Software by using my coupon code: STMMMS63042.

Previously when I’ve posted about my memories I’ve said that the software is not just for scrapbooking. You can, in fact, use it for a variety of crafting projects, including printables, gift tags, party favors, greeting cards, and basically any paper crafting or digital project. And today we’ve got two great examples of that.

[Read more…]

My New Blog Makeover

sshdesignedbybutton

I am thrilled to announce the launch of Simply Sweet Home’s new look. I loved the design I had before; it had become like an old friend, and I was actually sort of sad to see it go.  But I was ready for a little change of scenery. And I hope you guys like it!
And what’s even cooler is that I designed and installed everything myself. Me! (Yeah! I’m still a little surprised myself!)  This was my very first time to do a full redesign by myself. (Up till now, I’d only made a couple of buttons and basic graphics.)  Anyway, I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and I hope to do a lot more design stuff in the future. (Maybe even do some design work for other bloggers!!)

While I’m here talking about the new look, I wanted to mention a couple of changes and additions I made. First off, I added a section in the sidebar for my Top Blog Referrals.  Each month I’ll be sharing a little linky love by listing the blogs that I got the most referrals from.

And I also tried to clean up the sidebars a bit, particularly the section with the blog feature buttons. And by the way, if I’ve been featured on your blog and I don’t have your button, please let me know.  I always try to grab featured buttons to show my appreciation to fellow bloggers, but if I’m not notified about the feature, I often miss it, so if you’re button is missing, just drop me a line!
Also, speaking of buttons, I should tell you that if you have my Friday Favorites button or Featured button on your site, these should update without you having to do anything.  But if you have the Simply Sweet Home button, you’ll have to grab the new code.  The reason for this is that I didn’t make the previous SSH button, and I wasn’t aware (or I forgot) that the button code was still “pulling” from the photobucket account of my previous designer and not mine. (oops!) So anyway, I had no choice but to change the code on that.

Okay. Woo! Sorry to blab, just wanted to mention those few changes.  And I’ve also some other things in the works to tell you about, but I’ll save those for another day!

Hope you all have a nice week!

Photobucket

I’m linking up at Tidy Mom and these parties.

The New Simply Sweet Home

Welcome to the new Simply Sweet Home! Hope you guys like the new look! As many of you know, I’ve been looking around for blog designs for several months, and last week I finally purchased one.

It’s still not completely finished; I have to customize and install all the sidebar graphics, which I’m having a little technical difficulties with right now, but hopefully in the next day or two I’ll have all the kinks worked out and the new design will be complete.

I want to say a big, HUGE thank you to Emily over at Polka Dot Pixels for this awesome design! I found her shop on etsy and decided to inquire about one of her listings. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy she was to work with. For someone like me, who loves blogging but is totally clueless about the aspects of graphic designing, she made it a very pleasant experience and her communication was very prompt and easy to understand. I had a lot of questions, and she was very patient during the process and was a BIG help.

She did an excellent job customizing her design and making it into exactly what I wanted, including all the elements I wanted, and creating graphics that, I think, go perfectly with the image, ideas, and concept of Simply Sweet Home.

If you are currently in the market to purchase some graphics, a new blog design, or etsy banner, I highly recommend Polka Dot Pixels. Her work is of a high quality. The prices are very reasonable. And Emily is a real pleasure to work with. And I would gladly do business with her again in the future!

Thank You So Much Emily For Your Great Work!


-Jerri

The Simply Sweet Home Christmas Festival

Hello everyone! As mentioned in a previous post, this week I’m launching the Simply Sweet Home Christmas Festival. For the next few weeks, I’ll be featuring nothing but Christmas posts (with the exception of MPM). I’ve got plans to feature crafts, decor, gift ideas, recipes, and more! And I also have a few ideas floating around in my head that will make the Christmas Festival more interactive. This has always been my favorite time of year, but sometimes with all the hustle and bustle, we barely get a chance to enjoy it, so that’s why I’m doing this. So sit back, relax, and get ready for some interesting, fun-filled content that will get you in the spirit of the season.

To kick the festival off, I’ve created a collection of buttons here. Keep in mind, I’m not a graphic designer! (as if I had to tell you that!) However, these aren’t too shabby! I’ve placed the codes here for you, if you’d like to put them on your site for a little Christmas decoration, and of course, they link back to my site, so that all your friends can come and join in on all the fun as well. (Note: This is my first time to try putting text boxes on the blog. All the codes should be correct, but just in case something is wrong, please leave me a comment on the post or send an email to jhrivers@hotmail.com. Thanks.)

Also, here’s a year-round button that I made.


-Jerri