…doing the Happy Dance!

My darling husband bought a new (AWESOME) computer for me.  I still have many programs to install but the main items, Poser, Photoshop, my graphics tablet and printers are installed and seem to work okay.  It came with Windows Vista and it’s a bit different from XP but hopefully I will get used to it quickly.  Glad to be back!

My hard drive crashed this morning.  Right now Michael is just trying to recover my files (praying!) then he’ll see if it can be fixed.  If it can’t it will be awhile until we’ll be able to replace it so I don’t know how long I’ll be offline.  Be good until I’m back and remember to back up those files!

My new ClipArt Store is now open…

 decided that I wanted to create an icon for my website.  As usual the web has a wealth of information on it…even when I wasn’t exactly sure what terminology to use to do the search (I started with “icons for a website”).  I quickly found out that what I was looking for was a…

Favicon (pronounced fav-eye-con) is short for ‘Favorites Icon.’ A Favicon is a multi-resolution image included on nearly all professional developed sites. Within Internet Explorer the Favicon is displayed on the Address line and in the Favorites menu. The Favicon allows the webmaster to further promote their site, and to create a more customized appearance within a visitor’s browser. Often, the Favicon reflects the look and feel of the web site or the organization’s logo.

Photoshop doesn’t have the capablities to create/recognize the icon format (.ico) on its own but there is a free plugin that will.  I downloaded, installed and quickly created one using my Spring Girl fairy image which is on my main website, Dani3D.com.  I then uploaded the icon into the root directory of my website.  Firefox recognized it instantly and Safari did as soon as I saved it as a bookmark.  I had a bit of trouble though with Internet Explorer and had to follow the steps on this page to make it show up.

If you don’t want to create one in PS, you can create one online or just use one from one of the free sites online.

The image that I used.

 My wee tiny, little icon.

A closeup of my favicon in different browsers…click image to view.

pdated my blog’s graphics and added a new little rain script that only seems to work in Internet Explorer.  It starts out a little sloppy but looks okay after the first rainfall.  *smile*   (update:  removed the script)  I always try to use my own artwork in my header graphic and so I used my “Truly He is Risen,” “The King of the Jews” and my Pysanka Egg…all of which can be found at CatholicGraphics.com.

I’m not experienced enough to deal with the font and sidebar colors so I’ll just leave them alone and hope that the sage-y greens don’t clash too much with the rich purples.

Easter comes so quickly this year.

 took out the “home” link from the title graphic a while ago.  (For those that don’t know…on most blogs if you go up in the header graphic and click on the blog’s text title it will take you back to the main page. )  It bothered me that I couldn’t quickly get back to my main page so I added my little Artful Thoughts button  in the “About” section on the right sidebar and also to the bottom of each page.  Clicking on that will take you to my blog’s home or main page.

I also added a new favorite to ”Places I Like to Visit,” DigiScrapDepot.

Since I woke up to temperatures in the upper 60’s this morning I decided to change over to my autumn look…refresh the page if the sailor girl is still in the header.

Just sitting here waiting for dawn to break, drinking a cup of coffee, listening to the crickets outside, people hurrying off to work and one of my easy listening cd’s entitled, “Autumn Leaves.”  Life is so good.  Thank you, dear Lord…for all of my very many blessings.

The twins have been helping out at Cub Scout Day Camp all this week and having a wonderful (but exhausting) time with the Cubbies and Webelos. They’ve even managed to make it into some of the photos (Connor a lot more than Cade) they’ve posted on the website. It does look like everyone is really enjoying themselves and that Mrs. Dawn did an outstanding job with this year’s Day Camp.

Quinn and I have been spending quiet days without them…visiting with Momma and swimming in the pool or just staying cool at home. It’s really hot and humid outside with daily thunderstorms.

(Not so) lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer around here. *smile*

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Susan Branch has a bunch of delicious sounding recipes up at her website. Old-Fashioned Potato Salad and Lemonade and Homemade Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream.

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I’ve posted three new images at Dani3D.com, “a soft summer night,” “I Love Faeries” and “I Spy.”

Sing a Song of Summer

When crickets sing
their evening song
and
fireflies turn
their lanterns on
and
spiders spin
at early dawn
and weave their cobwebs
on my lawn -
It’s summer.

~ Kay Winters ~

Kim suggested that I create a printable paper fairy doll…so I did and it’s now uploaded at All Things Fae (look for All Things Fae Printables). If you find this lens (or my lens on Nature Journaling) useful, please consider joining so you can vote for my lenses. It’s free and only takes a moment or two. Yes, I know, shameless self promotion but truthfully the way Squidoo works is the more votes, the closer you become to being in the top 100, which gets you more exposure…since I don’t sell anything it just means that more folks can find my really cute stuff. As of today Nature Journaling is at #708 and All Things Fae is #1,608 so I’ve got quite a ways to go yet. *smile*

 

Well, you knew it had to just be a matter of me having the time to put one together.  *smile*

Click to go to my gallery (Fae Folk Gallery) to view full sized image.

but I’m busy, busy, busy so I’m not here.  *smile*    I’m watching my two year old twin nephews (yesterday and today) while my sister works.  Tomorrow is our annual review for the boys’ schoolwork so I’ve been trying to gather together everything I need for that.  I’m also throwing a little review party at the same time.  Nothing fancy, just hamburgers, hot dogs, salads and homemade vanilla ice cream.  The boys drank all the whole milk (can’t make the ice cream without it) so I have to run to the store to pick that and a few other things up for tomorrow.

I do have new things to post, additions to Quinn’s Spring Lapbook, new nature journal pages and such…I just don’t have the time to get the information together and post it.  Friday I have to get Quinn’s lab work completed for his upcoming visit next week to his endocrinologist so it looks like Saturday will be my first free day and hopefully I’ll get the new stuff up.

Our pots are starting to sprout!!!