While this is a scrapbook of my life and a way to share my passions, you have all been so sweet and supportive, so I’d also like to post things you actually want to read.

Are there any topics you love hearing about? More/less outfit posts, recipes, aerial shows, behind-the-scenes aerial stuff, Nerd Q & A, DIYs, make-up/nails/hair tutorials? Would you like me to write more about going after goals, tips on design, maybe some freebie graphics, or Pinterest round-up type stuff?

Or do you have any questions? I’ve never done a FAQ, so if you have any burning questions about me, my life, aerial, design, etc I’m happy to answer them :)

Time to de-lurk and tell me what you want ;) ;)

[ Morning Glow Template for Blogger + social media icons ]

[ Sunday Afternoon Theme for Tumblr - choose your own background color]

[ Hello Yellow Theme for Tumblr + social media icons]

Everyone deserves a good looking blog. You don’t have to be nutty like me and tweak your blog on the daily, but a once-over every couple months will make your blog easier to navigate and a pretty space for your readers to visit.

1. GIVE YOUR POSTS ROOM TO BREATHE
Increase the width of your blog to add a little white space between your sidebar(s) and main column.

2. BIGGER PHOTOS ARE BETTER
Try making all your photos (vertical or horizonal) one standard width that fills your main column. The photos on my blog are all 620 pixels wide and it helps make my posts look organized. You can use Picnik.com to crop and resize them if you don’t have Photoshop.

3. CLEAN UP & ORGANIZE YOUR SIDEBARS
Think about what can be deleted, moved into a page, or shuffled around to make content on your sidebar easier to find. Do you really need two sidebars or will everything fit into one?

4. BE SOCIAL
Is it easy to find your Twitter, Facebook, Email and RSS subscription links? I like having mine toward the top of my sidebar.

5. MAKE YOUR TITLES STAND OUT
Use the Google Font API to make your blog titles a little fancy, but play with the sizing to make sure they’re still easy to read!

6. PICK COLOR PALETTE
Keep it simple – choose a main color and an accent color and keep the rest black, gray and white.

7. EVERYBODY TO THE LEFT
Aligning your text to the left, instead of having it centered, will make it much easier to read and keep your columns nice and clean.

8. PRUNE YOUR TAGS
Don’t overwhelm your readers with a list of 200 tags, pick the top 10 or 20 you use the most and feature just those.

9. USE YOUR HEAD
If your header space is, say, 920 pixels wide, fill it up! Make your photos, graphics and text stretch across the entire space. On the height side, I wouldn’t go taller that 250 pixels or you risk pushing all your content too far down on smaller monitors.

10. GET OUT OF THE SHADOWS [ instructions ]
This one is for Blogger users…I recommend turning off the automatic shadows on your photos so graphics and text looks like…

There…now doesn’t that look better?

P.S. If you follow my blogging tips I’d love to see before and after screenshots, post them in the comments!

If you’re interested in purchasing ad space, please email me at xosillygrrl@gmail.com! I’m also up for ad-for-ad trading too :)

After spending yesterday putting the finishing touches on the templates I was giddy all night. Filling my Etsy shop again puts me another step closer to leaving the 9 to 5 behind. I keep calculating how much I have made and how much I could make and how much I need to make  (seriously, I recalculate all the time) and it leaves me feeling really hopeful for where my career could take me in a year or two.

Lots of thanks and <3 <3 <3′s go out to all of my clients over the past seven months who have let me make over their sites. I truly enjoy desiging and love spending hours and hours crafting and coding the perfect layout.

So, without further ado…

Click to check out my shop!

P.S. If you have suggestions for future templates feel free to leave them in the comments :)

• Vanilla and Lace Abi had pink hair…who doesn’t want to follow someone with the balls to rock pink hair!? In addition to being adorable, she post beautiful photos of her life in the Pacific northwest.

• Cute and Delicious Alix found her way to my blog and I’m so glad she did because I hopped over to see what she was all about and was treated to gorgeous photos of her wedding at the Natural History Museum in LA.

• Black Metal Stravinsky Hello inspiration! Black Metal Stravinsky is the blog of Seattle-based art director and designer Jordan Butcher. One of the few dudes blogs I follow, Jordan makes post after post of beautiful interiors and stylish people.

• Tenpenny Splendid Grad student and graphic designer, Jess, write about bits of her daily life, personal style, and a DIY here and there.

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Last Friday my laptop decided to die.  [ Insert sadest smiley ever ] Having to put projects on hold and not being able to work at home has been making me very antsy and crabby. I never realized how much I work from home, but anytime I have a night in and I’m hanging out watching TV I’ve got my laptop in front of me, working on a design or blog post.

So now I’m trying to decide between a MacBook Pro or an iMac. The iMac is definitely more affordable, but most of the time I like to work in on the couch in front of the TV. Thoughts? (Especially you designers out there!)

Friday I met up with Lauryn, Megan and Mae at one of my favorite sushi spots to celebrate Lauryn and Mae’s birthdays. Ronin is this little gem of a restaurant in Royal Oak. With the low lighting and cozy corners it can only be described as dark and sexy haha. It was great to see Megan and Lauryn since we haven’t had a blogger hangout in a couple months. And Mae…well I see her all the time ;) Lauryn learned the art of the handroll and Mae ate a giant block of tuna while I had veggie rolls and miso soup.

P.S. The winners of last week’s giveaway from Se7en Deadly are…

Congrats to all of you – I will be sending information on your gift codes shortly!

PP.S. Giveaways will be sporadic from now on, but I have some cool ones coming soon ;)

I’ve finally joined everyone in 2011 and got my hands on an iPhone :) So I’ll be spending every ounce of free time figuring out how the heck to work this thing (aka bugging Jess and Pants with questions every 5 seconds) and downloading every app in sight. Did you know SillyGrrl.com looks pretty fancy on an iPhone??

You can read posts much quicker than loading the whole site  and it’s super easy to comment. Pretty cool, huh? (Pants gets credit for helping me out with this one)

So…what apps sound I be downloading?? I’ve already got Words, Hipstamatic, FB & Twitter, Instagram, Groupon and Pandora….

Friday was the 2nd Annual Michigan Blogger Meet-up. Last year there were just seven of us, so I was really excited that 19 bloggers showed up this time! Some of the girls don’t live too far and a few came all the way from the other side of the state. It was so cool to meet everyone in real life that I’ve been following online and find some new people to add to my reader.

Our table took up pretty much the whole restaurant!

Dorothy of Dash Dot Dotty, me, Mae, and Anna of Sparkplug Minuet

My fave girls <3 B3

Yes, I photo bombed Suze and Katie’s adorable picture

Thank you to everyone who made it out!! Don’t worry if you weren’t able to attend, I’m already brainstorming a summer hangout :)

[ Pics by Suze and Amanda because they were smart and remembered to get out their cameras ]

]]> http://sillygrrl.com/2011/02/14/2nd-michigan-blogger-meet-up/feed/ 11 http://sillygrrl.com/2011/02/04/michigan-blogger-meet-up-is-just-a-week-away/ http://sillygrrl.com/2011/02/04/michigan-blogger-meet-up-is-just-a-week-away/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 22:43:34 +0000 sillygrrl http://sillygrrl.com/?p=4646

The 2nd Annual Michigan Blogger Meet-up is coming up quick! Next Friday to be exact!!

Friday February 11, 2011 @ 8pm
Arbor Brewing Company Pub & Eatery
114 East Washington Street Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Feel free to pass along the into to other bloggers that might be interested. Click here to add your link to the list of attendees. If you get lost on the way there or have any questions feel free to email xosillygrrl(at)gmail.com or send me a tweet @sillygrrl.

Hope to see you all there and fingers crossed for good weather!!