The Bloglovin’ Hop

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Bloglovin' Hop!

Woo hoo! What a great way to find some great blogs and connect with each other. Ever since I got the unexpected news that Google Reader was going away, I’d heard murmurs about where people would go next. BlogLovin’ was an alternative that came up and I had been using it for just about a week at that time, so I was still pretty new. It seems quite promising though and I love the clean layout! Gotta say, it’s my new reader of choice and I’m glad I stumbled upon this blog hop over at My Beautiful Crazy Life.

I’ll slowly work through all the blogs in the linkup and I’m sure I’ll come away with a few more daily reads. Maybe I’ll even make a friend or two! (Hello if you’re here from the linkup! Please do say hi.) 🙂

365great Day 36: plasma balls

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Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 36: plasma ballsThese are such fun toys! I mean, how trippy is it to put your finger on there and watch as it responds to your touch? Even without touching the plasma ball, the constantly moving “lightning bolts” extending out is pretty cool to watch. If you’ve never played with one of these, you’re definitely missing out. It’s like having a magic ball that follows your every move in beautiful hues of pinks, purple, blue, and white. It’s a fun scientific gadget that is sure to please! I’ve got one as a desk toy that actually operates as a USB splitter – practical and pretty in one! A cool gizmo that brings science alive in such a fun way is truly great.

Blissmobox: Fair Trade Favorites II

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Another belated review, but Blissmo sometimes offers old boxes up so hopefully this will come in useful! The options were Pantry Picks, Fair Trade Favorites II, or Skin ‘n’ Hair Care (which I had gotten in a previous month).

blissmobox is just under $25 per month with shipping (or as discounted as just under $120 for 6 months) and comes with eco-friendly products in themes like beauty, snacks, home, pets, and more. Each month you choose from two or three themes, or skip if none of them appeal to you. They do not offer a referral program.

the choices for september's blissmobox: pantry picks, fair trade favorites ii, or skin 'n' hair care

The three choices for the September blissmobox.

This was my September 2012 box and I chose the Fair Trade Favorites option since their original Fair Trade box seemed to have been well-received, plus I totally wanted to discover more Fair Trade products!

collage of september fair trade favorites ii blissmobox contents including green mountain coffee, eli's earth bar, hand in hand soap, two larabars, ecolips lip balm, and akoma shea butter

collage of hand in hand soap orange blossom soap barHand in Hand shea butter soap, Orange Blossom – I thought this was totally adorable and amazing! The packaging is really nice and I’d never heard of shea butter soap before, so that was intriguing. These are made in Vermont from vegetable-based ingredients – they’re biodegradable and cruelty-free! This is one of those brands that gives a product each time one is sold (like Tom’s shoes or other similar buy a soap give a soap brands). The orange blossom scent sounded amazing, but I found that it was too light for my liking. It almost felt like a scentless soap, so this is being used in the kitchen since I like fresher smells when washing my hands there.

collage of eli's earth bars dream big barEli’s Earth bars, Dream Big – This lovely bar was just fasntastic. Yummy, yummy! I gobbled it right up and wanted more, which is funny because I’m not really a fan of peanuts or peanut butter. Yet, the way they made this was very tasty without being overly “peanuty” so it’s an excellent treat to have in lieu of Snickers/Milky Way/Mars Bars sort of junk food. Plus, they support children in need and who doesn’t want to help children?

collage of akoma skincare shea million soft shea butterAkoma Skincare raw shea butter, Shea Million – I was pretty excited when I saw this. I hear shea butter and I think all kinds of wonderful things. However, since this is a raw shea butter with no scent, I got to really smell shea and I found I don’t really like it. I love how it melts with your body heat, which is pretty fun. I’m saving this to either gift to someone or use for when my hands need some extra loving.

collage of green mountain coffee signature vermont country blendGreen Mountain Coffee grinds, Signature Vermont Country Blend – I personally do not drink coffee, but I was still glad to see this because my future brother-in-law is pretty obsessed and I knew he could appreciate a nice blend. I gave it to him for his birthday and heard back not long after that it was very tasty! If his discerning taste buds give the stamp of approval, I’m sure most coffee-lovers out there would enjoy it too.

collage of ecolips hemp lip balm vanillaEcoLips Organic Hemp lip balm, Vanilla – I’ve gotta say, I’m not sure how I feel about hemp. In middle school it was like a buzz word for drugs or something, but then by college I saw getting those hemp bracelets without qualms. Why is there a bit of a negative connotation around that word? I mean hemp itself isn’t anything bad, right? I was a little hesitant to try this since I didn’t want to numb my lips or something (no idea why I would think that). It’s really just like any other lip balm though, with a nice sweet vanilla scent and it glides on quite well.

collage of larabar chocolate chip brownie & chocolate chip cookie dough barsLÄRABAR fruit & nut bar, Chocolate Chip Brownie & Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough – Oh my, these are dense! I thought the small size would not be enough, but just one piece and I was feeling full. They sure to pack it in there! Both flavors were quite good and if I worked out, I’d totally be stocking up on these to eat after a workout. For now my life is too sedentary to need a “power bar” sort of thing like this.

If you’d like more info on these brands, you can click below to enlarge the photo and read more.
blissmobox fair trade favorites info sheet

365great Day 35: LUSH

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Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 35: lushI first came across LUSH when I was studying abroad in England. It was love at first smell! I mean, so many of their amazing products look so good you just want to eat them. Plus, they smell lovely and they’re made from natural ingredients. Add to that the fresh and handmade factor and I was totally sold (in theory – I was still to cheap to actually buy anything, much as I wanted). After returning to the US, I sorely regretted not getting that charcoal face soap I’d been eyeing.

A few years later, I was thrilled when they finally opened up shop in the LA area! This time I finally got to use some of their products and it’s always so fun since it feels like something you could just cook up in your own kitchen. Lately I got into solid shampoos and of course, LUSH has those too. I’ve got a lovely bar of that at home that I’ve been using and it’s perfect for travel. LUSH is one of the earlier eco-friendly, socially responsible brands I’d heard of and it still retains a special place in my memories. Their products are pretty great!

Fire swirls

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This was a really cool “torch” in Hawaii! I love how the flame swirled and twists.

(I can’t seem to make it right-side up so you’ll just have to play it sideways!)

twirling fire from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

 

365great Day 34: spring

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Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 34: springThis year, spring has been elusive. When flowers should have been budding and people should have been admiring the lovely cherry blossoms of our capitol, we were stuck with mini snow/slush/rain storm after storm. Cold front this, wacky pressure that, and no temperatures over 60-something. Over here on the west coast, at least the LA area, high winds have briskly whisked away our hopes for a nice warm day. What’s going on?!

I think just about everyone looks forward to spring – the renewal, the budding flowers, the warm air, the change of wardrobe, maybe even some cleaning! The world around us becomes more active and the weather gets warmer so we can shed those layers. Colors come back and beauty is everywhere – check out how amazing this flower in my yard looks! Playing outside becomes more accessible and everything just seems so alive. What a great feeling that is!

FMSPhotoADay March 2013

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FMS PhotoADay is a photo challenge hosted/led by Chantelle of FatMumSlim. She posts a prompt for each day of the month and you can interpret them however you like! It’s a fun way to look at the world around you in a different light (and actually look at it more). I joined partway through March and have been having fun with it. It’s quite rewarding! I liked how Chantelle summarized and looked back on her month’s worth of photo a day images on her blog, so I’m going to do that too!

I started on March 10th; here’s what I did through the month. 🙂

365great Day 33: dry erase boards

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Learn more about 365great here.

Dry erase boards are such a useful tool! It’s a great way to keep an ongoing list of things to do, groceries to buy, and other items that recur. Or, it’s just a fun way to doodle on a cool medium, then wipe it all away. Whatever you choose to do with it, they can be immensely useful since they’re reusable time and time again, unlike writing on paper. Plus, they wipe easily so you can truly start with a clean slate each time.

365great challenge day 33: dry erase boardsI found this awesome little Crayola board at Best Buy right when I was in need of a small dry erase board I could use at my desk! It was on sale and we had free money to use too, so I just had to get it. I love that this one uses crayons – how completely different from the markers I’m used to! These babies don’t smell and won’t wipe off accidentally, which are the two downsides to dry erase markers… which means they’re basically all pros, no cons! I love that the board is two-sided and in black or white. A black “white board” now that’s funny. 🙂 And for the practical purposes it serves in addition to the fun/cool/interesting factor, what isn’t great about a dry erase board?

How to: Make and Use A Favicon

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[You can skip to the step-by-step if you’re in a hurry.]

One of my mini-obsessions when it comes building and maintaining your own website (including a blog, e-commerce store, or what have you) is having a personalized favicon. If you don’t know what a favicon is, it’s that little square image that you see on the tabs of your browser, as shown below.

line of open tabs showing various favicons in browser

The first three are my sites, which you can see each have their unique image. While they may not be the best, at least it separates me from the crowd and I don’t get the ugly paper shown on the far right. That’s what many browsers use as a placeholder for sites with no favicon. Some look better, some look worse, but you get the idea – it says nothing about YOUR site.

I tend to have a ton of tabs open at a time, so that the only thing I can see about a tab is the favicon. This becomes an important way for me to identify which tab I want to go to. I can easily spot, say Facebook, and open up that tab without guessing which one is the right one. It’s a simple step for branding that many smaller sites don’t take advantage of.

So here’s what you do:

1. Choose an image (or images) you want to use. You might want to test a few images to see which you like best. The image has to be cropped to a square and it can be your logo, your profile pic, or whatever you feel best represents your brand/website at a glance. Bloggers, it’s probably best for this to also be your avatar image when you post comments on other sites. The consistency in visual branding can only help.

2. Use a tool like HTML -Kit’s FavIcon Generator. You can upload the picture from your computer or even pull from your Twitter account’s profile pic. Then click Generate FavIcon.ico and be patient! It may take up to a minute to upload your picture and process it. If you do not upload a square image, the tool will automatically crop your picture.

non-square image gets cropped into square to generate favicon on htmlkit.com

My picture got cropped to a square and my feet were cut off in this example.

3. Download your favicon package if you’re satisfied. If not, you can upload another image until you find one you like. The HTML -Kit FavIcon Generator shows you the still and animated versions of your favicon in a browser image. You can actually click on those images to get a live preview in your own browser.

4. Open the .zip file and unzip or extract the files. You can choose to use the still or animated file. The animated  file is a .gif and the still file is a .ico. There’s also a ReadMe.txt included, with instructions on how to install your new favicon of choice. You can read that or continue with this post!

5. Now log in to your web provider (I use JustHost, many of you probably use GoDaddy, HostGator, BlueHost, etc.) and open up the File Manager. You want to go to the Root Directory of your site. If you have multiple sites, make sure you to go the correct one!

6. Upload your favicon to the Root Directory. Choose whichever one tickles your fancy, but I’d recommend the static .ico one since animated ones can appear unprofessional.

7. Add the following code to the header section of your HTML code (in between the <head> and </head> tags):

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” >

For the animated favicon, you’re going to add some extra code:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” >
<link rel=”icon” type=”image/gif” href=”animated_favicon1.gif” >

8. That’s it! Refresh your page (sometimes you need a “hard” refresh by pressing Ctrl+F5 or sometimes you need to clear your cookies, maybe even close your browser or try a different one) and voila, your favicon has been updated and now represents you. 🙂

365great Day 32: body pillows

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Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 32: body pillowsHave you ever tried one of these? THEY ARE AMAZING. I first got a blue one at Costco back in my 2nd year of college and I kid you not, I did not get out of bed for a week. It was sooo soft, sooo comfortable, sooo warm and wonderful… my roommate probably thought I’d lost it when she came back from class to find me still snoozing away. I used this to keep me warm at night many a time when the blanket just didn’t suffice. It’s also great on road trips in the back of the car, wrapped around your waist when you’re working in bed/on the couch, or even laying on top of when the ground’s too hard. My blue body pillow is very well-loved!

For years I tried to find it again, but Costco only carried ones with weird designs that didn’t feel as good. I then finally found some listed at Kohl’s! I quickly got the beige one pictured and was more gentle with this one. One thing about the lovely fuzzy material that it’s made with is that it gets rougher the more you use it (you know like that stuffed animal that you lug around with you everywhere… the one that’s got the weird clumpy fur now). So with this one I wanted to preserve the lush, soft feeling for as long as possible. For whatever reason, they’re not that easy to find! In fact, I can’t even find a single listing online for these Hollander Home Fashions ones. Perhaps I should stock up… they’re really that great.

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