Girlish Garb: My New Favorite Place

GUYS! I know I whine all the time about hating where I live but this makes it just a little bit better. While driving around one day, I found this awesome little pond buried in the coolest neighborhood. It is now my favorite place and is only a mile and a half from my house!! I will definitely be using this as my special get away place. And on the other side it has a trail and a park for Eliza to play. Perfect. 
It's been quite rainy around these parts but I don't mind. I love rain and have been taking advantage of the cooler weather. Today we wondered down to our new favorite pond between storms just to get out of the house. Next time, we'll have to bring bread for the ducks!  Outfit Details: Dress- c/o Sugarlips Belt- c/o SheinsideShoes- TargetNecklace- Thrifted Bracelets- Thrifted
Isn't this dress GORGEOUS?! It makes me feel like a greek goddess. And I love the little details on the skirt, makes it perfect for summer!  (this is what Eliza picked out to wear today)

Mingle Monday: A. W. Photography

It's Monday again, boy does time fly! Today I have a really cool gal named Alexandra doing a guest post. She runs a photography blog called A.W. Photography, check it out it's pretty sweet!

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1.       What got you into blogging and how long have you been at it?

I think a combination of things sparked my blog; I had been admiring and following a few other blogs by photographers, and it got to a point where I just had to jump on the bandwagon! Also, in the past year my amount of photo shoots [both commissioned and self-produced] has just grown so much - it got to a point where I needed something bigger than Facebook or Twitter to share current work.

2.       What does blogging mean to you? Business or pleasure?

Honestly, I think I can answer this question the same way I would if it were regarding photography; both are business, in the sense that I need them to fuel my personal projects. But both I enjoy quite a bit - I mean, why do something you don't love? But I suppose in the simplest terms, blogging is just a way for me to outreach to both people following my work, and other artists. I've met some very talented people since starting the site!

3.       What do you mostly blog about?

Most posts are visual updates of current shoots; I like giving behind-the-scenes looks at all of the pre-production that goes into my work. I have an amazing team of girls that I work with for hair and makeup, and I want all of those pieces documented along with the final product! I also slip some personal bits into posts; it's important to me that people recognize me as a real person.
4.       What do you besides blogging? What’s a normal day like in the life of Alexandra Wallace?Well, I suppose photography would be naming the obvious, but that consumes a decent amount of my time. When I'm not out shooting, I'm usually feeding my Border Collie Bonny graham crackers or singing along to the Beach Boys with my boyfriend Christopher. I am also pursuing a college education, and spend my semester mornings learning about art history and debating sociology.

5.       Do you plan out your posts or just kind of wing it? Strict schedule blogger or go with the flow blogger?

Gosh, I suppose a bit of both. I plan some things to a fault, but when things start to get especially hectic, I've been known to do some pretty extreme winging. 

6.       Are you a daytime blogger or night owl blogger?

I don't think I'm particularly one or the other; as with anything, I just do it when inspiration strikes. I do try and have a day's post ready the night before it gets published, so that all my East Coast followers are able to read it during their mornings.

7.       Name a few of your favorite blogs and why?

I've found so many in recent months that I don't know where to start. For starters, Rosie Hardy's blog; she's one of the first photographers I really started following online, and she blows me away every time she posts new work.  I also read Blog Milk's posts daily; Ana designed the layout of my blog for me, and she has a crazy good eye for design. And lastly, my friend Michelle's blog ModFox is always a favorite to read. She's got an amazing eye for color, and I secretly wish she was my wardrobe stylist every day. 

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Thanks so much Alexandra! (: 

DIY: Clothes Rack (cheap version)

For my last pop-up show, I decided I wanted to make a cute clothes rack! So I searched and searched and finally came up with a clothes rack that would only cost me about $40. Now, it's not the sturdiest thing ever but it holds up pretty darn well. I don't know the exact measurements but I think mine ended up being 20 inches wide and about 5 ft tall. 
Here's what you'll need: EMT piping (I think I spent like $8 on it all) 3/4 inch EMT elbow ($6 each-I'm pretty sure this is the right one, just make sure it fits on your EMT and will screw into your flange)3/4 inch EMT Set-screw connector (3/bag for $3)3/4 inch floor flanges ($8 each)Some wood for the bottom (I already had this)- You can design this multiple different ways, see the pictures for how I designed my base. Screws for the wood base/flangesOptional- paint for the wood. I used little paint samples that I bought from Wal-mart. You could probably just use acrylic paint though, it doesn't take very much to get the job done.   I decided I wanted a bunch of little pieces side by side rather than one long piece of wood. So I cut a bunch of spare wood I had down to the same size. Then, I cut two pieces that would fit across all of the boards to hold them all together.  Next, I painted them. And when they were dry, I lined them up (making sure they were even) and screwed these boards on the bottom. P.S. Make sure you use screws that are long enough to go through both layers but short enough that they don't stick out the top!!!!  Then, I took my little floor flanges ^^ and screwed them onto the top of my base, making sure they were both right in the middle! Now, comes the fun part. I decided to cut my own EMT because my dad has every tool known to man. You could probably go the easier route and ask the hardware store to cut it for you though.... 
Anyways, if you have this cool cutty tool thing, here's how ya do it.   You take your EMT and place it between the blade and roller, tighten.  Then, you twist around your EMT so that it cuts a little groove. Then you tighten a little more, and twist a little more until....  BAM! Cut!  You will need two pieces that around 5 ft tall (or whatever height you choose) and then one piece at about 20 inches (or whatever width you decide on). Now, take your set-screw connectors and screw them into the flanges. Your 5 ft pieces will now slide into those little guys. Then, take your elbows and put them on the top of the 5 ft. pieces. And last, your 20 inch piece slides into the elbows! Tighten everything real fast with a screw driver and you've got yourself a beautiful clothes rack!! 
I just love how it all came out. And it's so easy to take apart and transport to shows. Just what I needed! 

Ads/Buttons/Banners

Whatever you want to call them! I just signed up for Passionfruit ads and LOVE it! So I wanted to let you guys know the lo-down. 
I have two ads available. A large which is $5 and is up for 30 days. And then a regular which is $2 and is up for 365 days. The regular button is available for button swaps. You can enter the code 'SWAP' for a free button. But if you want to do a swap, please contact me first so I know what's goin' down.
I have imported all the old buttons so they will all be up for the next year. 
Sponsors Please Read: If you guys would like to update your button, just shoot me an email (samwish3@gmail.com). The regular/swap buttons will be automatically sized to 250 x140 so it must be that size or it will be distorted. **Also, the ads are ordered by which ones I imported first (totally random). I realize this is not fair to the ones on the bottom so I was wondering if it would be better if they were shuffled around for every page load. Would you prefer that?**
You can visit my sponsor page here. And Passionfruit ads here. 

FPSF

Hey folks, a couple of weekends ago we went to a music festival in Houston called Free Press Summer Fest. It's quite an experience, let me tell you and quite possibly the best music thing going on in Houston right now. It's miserably hot but totally worth seeing all the awesome bands. Some of the best we saw were: Snooooooooop Dog, Flaming Lips performing the Dark Side of the Moon (soo, so good), Major Lazer, and Mr. Willie Nelson. Now, I'm not even a big fan of Snoop Dog but it was crazy to actually see him in person. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 
We took 4 disposable cameras with us (2 per day) and here are some goodies from the first day.   Silly boys... Camelbak's (or a cheaper/off brand like ours) saved our lives! The heat index was 105!!!  One of the bands came out and laid out this rope before their next song. They declared tug of war and started playing like crazy. Of course, Brandon and my brother joined in.  Brandon in the white shirt ^^Brother also in white shirt ^^  Here's Snoop! You can kind of see him on stage but you can see him better on the screen to the right.  Some guy standing next to us. These mustached things were supposed to be fans? Brandon getting friendly with some band membersA marching band that came through the crowd in between sets?   A break dancer Brandon (and his cute little mustache) and our friend Dillan H-town!! They had this huge water slide that they threw paint down. It's kind of a tradition.  And I'll leave you with this beaute. Totally didn't mean to get that guy in the picture... ha!

I really liked how these pictures turned out. I only wish I would have gotten more! I can't believe it's Friday already. It seems like my week was just starting to get normal and it's already the weekend! Welp, no complaining over here. I'm ready for it!!! 

My Bizarre Last Two Days

So it all started out Tuesday. Usually Brandon sleeps from 10 am to 3 pm (he works from 3 am to 9 am) and I go to work after that. But we decided we wanted to travel north that afternoon to see some friends so I went straight to work when he got home at 10. Brandon and Eliza joined me at work which was kind of nice, they were some great company. Then once I finished, we packed up and headed north for the evening. Now keep in mind, when we left it was bright and sunny and at least 95 degrees with no clouds in the sky
My brother also came along (he works with Brandon in the morning). So both of the boys fell asleep and after much fussing, so did Eliza. It takes an hour to drive up to our home town so it was just me and the music. After we got about halfway I noticed some serious rain clouds. The kind where there's a line in the sky and everything after that is just dark. Yup, and I was driving right into the beast! I was kind of excited though. We hadn't gotten rain in a while because it usually doesn't make it all the way to where we live. 
Eventually the traffic started to slow down and I though, "Here we go". It started to sprinkle a bit but after about 5 minutes it tapered off. And I'm not going to lie, I was a little disappointed. But a few minutes later the traffic slowed to about 10 miles per hour. I looked ahead at the trees along side the road and could see so much rain. I braced myself and kept driving. And before I knew it, it started pouring down rain. And the wind was incredible. The trees next to us were whipping back and forth and the rain seemed to be spitting at us. All the cars around us had their emergency lights on as we drove as slowly and carefully as we could through the mess of rain we were stuck in. The visibility was next to none and then all the sudden my gas light went on! We were about 20 minutes from our destination and I started to freak out. "Brandon! We're going to run out of gas right here!" Haha, yes I said that. I woke him up and we decided to exit as soon as possible to find some gas. 
So we get off the high way and make it to the first gas station. Lo and behold, all the power is off and we can't get gas!!! So we decided to take some back roads and hopefully make it all the way to my mom's house. The first street we turned on had TERRIBLE flooding. And this has never been an issue before because I've always had taller cars but I was definitely nervous about flooding my car. And the next street had a tree all the way across the road! Seriously guys, it was all the way across. The only way to get through was under it, thank god for my tiny little car! We finally made it to my mom's house and let me tell you, it was like a flashback from hurricane Ike. No electricity, trees down everywhere (we're talking tall pine trees, taller than two story houses), the streets where littered with branches and leaves and no joke, the temperature was 70 degrees. That's like a 25 degree temperature drop! I was shocked. And the thing that got me was that if we didn't get power back, we wouldn't be able to get gas and go home. So we were stuck. Without power. At my mom's house. An hour away from home. I wasn't complaining though, I like to rough it every now and then ;) And I was certainly enjoying a break from our 95-100 degree weather!
After a couple hours the power came back on (right before dark too!). We were lucky though, most neighborhoods spent the night without any. Some friend of ours came over and enjoyed the electricity before they had to go back to their own power-less homes and we watched some important basketball game (not a sports fan..). We were able to find gas and got home around midnight. We barely made it inside before we all crashed on our bed.
Brandon got up at 3 (in the morning) and left for work. It must have been soon after he left but I woke up feeling sick. I felt so nauseous. I tried to sleep but could only lay awake trying to think of something besides puking. I finally just gave in and threw up. Ahhhh, I felt better. I thought that was going to be it and fell back asleep. And then I woke up again probably an hour later with the same sick feeling.... eventually puking and then falling back asleep. This lasted all the way until about 8 in the morning when Brandon got home. 
Brandon was so awesome though. He went out and bought me some Sonic ice, you know the little cubies that are so good to chew on and gave me a massage when my back was hurting like crazy. He stayed up and took care of Eliza for me so that I could try and get some sleep. I feel so bad, he was probably so tired since he didn't get a nap the day before and we were up so late that night but I was so sick and could definitely not take care of Eliza. I napped on and off and eventually dragged myself to the living room around 1 to give Brandon a break. I made a pallet on the floor and laid down with Eliza and we watched some movies on Netflix while Brandon slept. My body ached all over and it hurt to stand up, the worst thing ever when you have a kid. Eliza was really good though and was mostly entertained by the movies. After a while, Brandon got up and we all kind of laid around for the rest of the day. Eliza fell asleep on her own and Brandon and I watched a movie before he eventually fell asleep. Then I forced myself to stay up and finish some homework I needed to do before midnight. And miraculously by the time I finished my homework, I didn't feel sick and achy any more! We were still all on our pallet in the living room so I woke Brandon up and carried Eliza to the bed. And we all had a great night's sleep!
This morning, I feel great. I guess it was only a one day thing? So bizarre, the last two days. Everything just kind of happened out of no where? Just completely unexpected. And now it's all back to normal..... so weird.
Anyways, I'll be back later with a regular post. I just had to share my weird experience. Hope you guys are having a great week so far. It's almost friiiiday! 

P.S. The store is back open if you want to check it out *wink wink*

Top 5 Blogging Tips

Hey guys, I know most of you are new bloggers. And it's kind of tough getting your name out there and perfecting your blog so I thought I'd give you some tips that I've learned a long the way. Now, I'm no where near perfect! Heck, 200 followers is nothing compared to the thousands other bloggers have! But I do follow a LOT of blogs and there are some things in particular I've picked up and like about the blogs that I read. I try to implement these things I like about other blogs (not copying though) into my own blog to create something I, myself would like to read everyday (let alone everybody else). In the end, I want to be proud of my blog and love my blog, I want it to be an extension of myself. And I do love it. But it's taken a lot of work to get to that point. I may still want to change things around here and there but overall, I want it to be something I'm not afraid to show people/talk about. Soooo, here are my tips: 

1. LAYOUT: Ok, how many times do you visit a blog, take one glance at it, and then exit out? I know I do that a lot. The MOST important thing to me is a blog layout. It should be appealing. It should be easy to read. And it should be you. You should have a font that is easily read, clear pictures (and ones that are big enough to see!), and a well organized layout. Also, it should represent you and what your blog is all about. For all you readers that have been around for a while, you know I like to change my layout. I'm very fickle and like to "improve" it! Ya, I could probably go longer spans without changing it up a bit but I think change is healthy. I'm continuously growing and I think my blog should represent that. Also, with each new layout, I'd like to think I'm improving my blog (you should have seen my first layout!!!). Starting a blog is pretty easy, especially with blogger. But you have to customize it to really stand out. 


2. GRAPHICS: I divide blogs I read into two basic categories. Picture blogs and reading blogs. I'm more of a... creative/visual person than an intellectual/brainy person. So I prefer blogs with lots of pictures and most of the time creative/beautiful things. Now, this is just me! So whenever I go to blogs, I'm looking for good pictures, good graphics, basically a nice visual appeal. And if I see something I like, I may read whatever there is to read. Once the layout draws me in, the pictures basically are the deciding point on whether I want to add them to my blogroll or not. Of course, there are a few blogs I read just for that, reading. But those are exceptions ;) 


3. CONTENT: Once I've decided I want to keep reading a certain blog, I'm continually draw in by good content. Of course, I like the crafty/DIY blogs but I also like just lifestyle/inspiration blogs. Just make sure it's interesting and something YOU'D like to read about. If you don't want to read it then someone else probably wouldn't either. 


4. GETTING OUT THERE: So once you have a blog and have built up content, you've decided it's time for some more readers. Sooo get your name out there! Do button swaps, talk to other bloggers, contact fellow bloggers for things like features/guest posts/sponsoring. For christmas, brandon bought me an advertising spot on A Beautiful Mess. It was EXPENSIVE but it really got my name out there. Sometimes you have to do that. If you have the money, I would definitely suggest buying some sponsor spots on big blogs like that but just make sure you and your blog are ready. Because people will be coming to your blog but it's your job to make them want to stay. And to continue reading for however long. Also, kind of an obvious part, make sure your blog would appeal to those readers. Otherwise, it's just a waste of money. 


5. BE YOU: It's so hard to get lost in the world of blogging. You want to be a great blogger but the most important thing is, you have to be you. It's easy to be influenced. But at the end of the day you will only be happy doing what YOU love doing. And be proud of it. I've got a lot of support from friends and family but I've also got a lot of people that scoff whenever I try to tell them what I do (my work and blog). It's a very real thing to me and I'm so grateful for the happiness I've found in it. So I just ignore those people's remarks and remind myself of why I love this so much. I don't get paid for this, I do it because it's like my bowl of ice cream at the end of a hard day. I look forward to blogging everyday. I look forward to reading other blogs every day. I'm constantly inspired by the blogging world and it really helps me from going insane in the little dumb suburb I live in. I've found my own little niche and love sharing it with the world. I don't pretend, I don't push myself too much. I just do what I can. And do what I'm comfortable with. And I just try to be as real as I possibly can. 

I hope these little tips will help you guys out. I'm so happy with this little blog of mine. And I can't thank you guys enough for the love and support you show me. (: