Good Vibes in Blogland

I'm thrilled and thankful to share that I was given the Liebster Award by my friend Ildi, of Ildi's Papier Mache today! Vă mulţumim, Ildi!!

The Liebster Award is given by bloggers to their fellow bloggers who inspire them and have under 200 followers. The Liebster Award takes it’s name from the German word meaning Beloved, Dearest or Favorite.

Here's my award!

The tradition includes passing the award along to 5 bloggers who have motivated and inspired you. To accept the award you must:
1. Link back to the person who gave it to you and thank them
2. Post the award to your blog
3. Give the award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers that you appreciate and value.
4. Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know that they have been offered this award.

Here are my chosen honorees:

1. Tracy, at One Brown Crafter, who inspires me endlessly with her wonderful art and ideas. She frequently adds amazing content to her blog and facebook page!

2. Cassandra, of Creations by CC, who is a talented photographer who also shares her home, garden, and craft projects, plus yummy recipes.
3. Tisa, at Mochatographer, another super talented photographer, who shares her adventures with clients, equipment, techniques, and her inpirations.

4. Aimee, of Made in the Fold, who creates beautiful handwritten invitations, custom stamps, and more.

5. Dana, of Tumblestone Handmakery, who makes whimsical jewelry, frames, and more, and shares her inspiration in blogland.

I invite you to check out all these talented people- you will not be disappointed!

Thanks all, for your contribution to the creative universe!!!

un{LUCKY} Friday

So I'm thumbing my nose at Friday the 13th. It's been a pretty uneventful day. Possibly because I got all my mishaps in earlier in the week. I did all kinds of slipping, fumbling, dropping, etc. and topped it off by being sick and slow to finish my tasks. I also found out my laptop likes dark roast. :o(. The sight of me grabbing it up, flipping it upside down to try to keep hot coffee from seeping into the works, then cleaning, whining and praying really hard must have been HIlarious. Funny thing, once the coffee dried, the pages seemed to load faster, lol. Caffeine is king. So I guess by the time today rolled around I was just done. The quota had been met.

I'm feeling better now, and I even made some progress on a project that's been on the backburner for a while. It's still in its infancy, but will become a part of my website very soon. I invite you to take a look at my new goods shop, which consists of all kinds of great items that have my art and designs on them!

http://www.cafepress.com/embellishedbyrenee

You'll find wall decor, home goods, accessories, and soon apparel, with lots of my paintings, drawings, photography and digital art, old and new, emblazoned on it. Hope you take a look and enjoy what you find!

New Frontier

What's been on my mind the past couple of weeks (at least in the marketing section of my brain)? Among other things, QR codes. I've been hearing about them and seeing them pop up everywhere, but until recently, have kept the idea of getting one for lil' ol' moi on the back burner. What is a QR code, you ask? It is a series of pixels arranged in a design, which, when scanned with a smart phone or tablet, takes you to a specific website.

scan me!

Odds are, you're seeing them pop up everywhere as well. Anyway, just like every other new social media/ networking/ marketing           "you need to do this today" thing that I come across everyday, when I first heard about regular folks like myself getting them, I said, yeah, that sounds good, but it'll just have to go on the bottom of the pages long to-do list. Well, in the same spirit that has moved me to finally find time to update my website, get the mobile version functional, and make other progress, I, Renée Parker, am finally going to generate a QR code for myself! Humor me, I'm taking baby steps to bigger things :o).

Just by googling "QR code generator", you'll find a slew of websites where you can plug in a website and instantly download a custom QR code to use as a direct link. I plan to create one to use on stickers, which I will then slap on my business cards, my packaging, my forehead, etc.

This is the back of my business card with a sample QR code sticker

 These are the days where one must make their work easy access, and cater to the world of plugged-in folks with short attention spans, lol. Edited to add: Scan applications used on smartphones, tablets, and other devices can easily be downloaded free of charge. There are numerous different scan apps available, and they can be found on itunes, the android marketplace, or by googling "scanner application". Many of these applications are primarily used by consumers for comparison shopping by scanning traditional barcodes in stores, but also work for QR codes!

So that's my latest scheme. Stay tuned-- who can say what else is brewing, lol.