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I'm back quick with a link to a reader survey that I would love for you to take! It's only 10 quick questions, and I promise it's not too painful. I would love to get a better sense of my readers and what I can do to make my blog even better for you. You will even get a surprise for taking it!

Gratitude Journal // 05

Some weeks are just blah, and they just seem to pass by without any significance at all, which is weird to admit because shouldn’t every day be significant? I’m torn between feeling like only the things that feel important and grand are significant and feeling like even the most ordinary of days are significant because they’re part of a bigger picture. Taking a day out of your life would be like pulling a row of string out of a shirt- it’s incomplete and imperfect.

So I’m not sure how I feel because this whole week seemed unimportant, really. The only interesting thing that happened to me was that I received my At Home Try On from Warby Parker, which was fun. So maybe that was the significance of my week because now I’ll finally order some glasses and finally be able to read without squinting and drive without fearing for my life.

So, while there are probably a few small things that I could be grateful this week, I’m really just grateful that it’s Friday, which means that I might get to sleep in once this weekend (much needed) and that I might get to work on some design work for myself (I need new business cards!!).

I’m pretty proud that I’ve blogged every day this week, and I hope that next week will be just as productive here! I’m finding that some of my best and most thoughtful posts come from a whim or something I see that sparks my mind. Then before I know it I’ve written for a half hour on something that was inspired by a Tweet from a friend. I just love to write!

So, have a great weekend! Do something significant!

Developing Your Brand: Photography Styles

Something that I’ve been really vigilant of lately is the photography styles that belong to my favorite bloggers or designers. It’s funny how sometimes you can scroll through Pinterest and look at a picture and instantly know whose blog it came from. There are tons of people out there that are amazing at this, and it’s really a huge part of creating your brand identity. It’s something that usually develops over a span of time and doesn’t happen overnight. You might not even realize that you have a style or that your pictures are different than anyone else’s because that’s just what you like to look at personally.

I’ve been trying to develop my photography style lately by playing around with angles and paying a lot more attention to what’s in the backdrop- white, wood, fabric, grass, trees, people, darkness, shadows, ect. It’s so important to find your style of backgrounds and stick to it, or stick to a few different ones and that’s it.

I want to show you some examples of blogs/brands that come to mind when I think “specific photography styles” and highlight what makes them unique.

Hey Natalie Jean

Natalie’s pictures stand out to me because they are always really unified and consistent. They have this muted quality that plays along with a lot of other elements of her style. What she wears, what her home looks like, and the angles of her pictures all follow a similar, artsy style that is even carried over to her style of writing. You can tell she knows what she likes and she shows that in every aspect of her blog/life. The filters she probably uses reminds me of some of the filters that you can use on VSCO Cam, which I always love experimenting with!

A Beautiful Mess

How could I not talk about how unique their pictures are? When you see an “ABM” picture on Pinterest you know who is behind that camera! I love that all of their images are original, even on obscure posts that it would be sort of hard to find a relevant picture for. The backgrounds of their food posts are usually varied but they sort of follow one theme- neutral textures- which is definitely a compliment to the subject because it shoes off colors and shapes really well.

Another thing that I like about ABM is that even when they have home tours or guests on their blog, they stay with the style that they have developed. The homes they feature are similar to theirs in that they’re funky and quirky but still have that sense of classic traditional style mixed in. Another thing you are sure to see in every picture they post is color! I think that’s what sets their images apart. If I had to pick a filter that is ABM-esque it would be “Chrome” on the iPhone. Warm, vibrant, contrasting.

Breanna Rose

Minimalist design is very “in” right now and a ton of designers are carrying that graphic design style over into their home design and subsequently, their photographs. The photos that Breanna has on her portfolio website are all really crisp and involve bright whites, luscious greens, subtle hints of colors like yellows, oranges, reds, and wood tones. Her photos are really “clean” looking. (Yes, photos can look clean!)

Two Twenty One

Chelsea at Two Twenty One does a really great job of creating “Pinnable” images. When you have a lot of posts that are tutorials or “how tos” it’s definitely important to write the title on the image, otherwise people will just think it’s a pretty picture of a pretty kitchen. I like Chelsea’s pictures because they’re all really bright and crisp, but they’re different because of the color schemes she has chosen for her home and her blog. Rather than have the earthy tones like Breanna, Chelsea’s color schemes are a little ore preppy- gray, pink, green, white, some blues.

Ok, one last one that’s worth mentioning.

And Kathleen

Kathleen talks about a ton of different stuff on her blog, from her new baby boy, Fox, to building a brand for yourself, but he images all feel like they belong to her. It’s not only because of the style of the photos but because she has the tendency to add a yellow overlay to her pictures. I have never seen anyone do that before to their pictures and I think it’s an amazing way to make oardinary pictures. Love it!

So now that you’ve seen a bunch of different styles of photography that other people use for their sites, have you started to think about your images as well? It means a lot more than you think it does!

**All of the pictures featured in this post belong to their original owners, are used for examples only, and I take no credit for them whatsoever.**

Where Art Thou Spring?

Late last week and through this weekend we had beautiful weather here in Central New York, and it was such a huge tease. I even bought Julian a bunch of spring/sumer clothes and shoes from Old Navy because I cannot wait to be rid of snow. At this point it feels like snow will never go away and flip flops will never be an option ever again. But spring will come eventually!

So, I wanted to put together a little moodboard which gives you a taste of what I'm craving this spring!

Clockwise from top left: (links are in the numbers)

1. Love this little outfit for Julian.

2. This color looks great on everyone.

3. Katie Daisy's prints uplift my mood 100%!

4. Spring makes me want to start eating lighter and healthier. These tacos sound amazing!

5. I ordered these shoes for Julian and I can't wait for him to wear them!

6. I love these DIY lanterns as a fun permanent decoration for somewhere in our house.

7. Ahh tulips. I want to find a place to plant some this spring.

8. This outfit looks so cute and could be worn ona casual day or at work!

9. Pointy scallop flats in white? Screams spring and summer to me!

10. This would be a cute Easter treat to bring to the office or to use as little placecard holders at Easter dinner.

What things remind you of spring? Are you as sick of the cold as I am?

A little bit about education vs. no education.

A friend of mine tweeted that he is not ashamed to have dropped out of college after only four days of attendance because he has accomplished so much since then without a degree and has no debt. It’s something that a lot of young people can identify with because there is so much pressure to go to school and then worry about the money after. But for some people, school isn’t for them, isn’t an option for them, or they just can’t shake the image of paycheck after paycheck being handed over to some loan lender when they haven’t even landed a job in their field of study yet.

College is hard. But so is life.

I’m among those people that will probably never go to college, and I’m trying to be ok with it. It’s hard to be proud of not going to college when all of your friends are graduating and struggling through finals weeks and trying to make friends. It’s hard to relate to them because they think their life is hard, but you think your life is just as hard as or harder than theirs. I was away at college for two semesters (I was pregnant for one of them) and it was hard. I don’t know about how hard it gets after freshman year, but I can imagine that it is. Let’s agree that whether you go to college or not, finding success is hard.

I’m trying to convince myself that not going to school will work for me, and I think so far 95% of me believes it. The other 5% believes that I won’t be as successful (in my case, in graphic design) as someone who went to college to study it.

You can still be educated without an education.

For those of us who have either chosen not to go to college or didn’t have the option, it doesn’t mean that you can’t learn and be just as intelligent as someone who did. It might take a little extra effort on your part to find good sources of information. You might have to seek out someone to have an intelligent conversation about something your passionate about, maybe through a chat room or a blog.

Take advantage of the world around you.

Our generation is lucky to have the world at our fingertips and the ability to reach out to pretty much anyone to learn, grow, and experience. Take advantage of all of the resources out there, and that means social media! If you admire a famous director, give him a stout out on Twitter, because you never know what could happen. If you are so inspired by an up-and-coming calligraphy artist, sign up for her Skillshare class and mention her in an Instagram comment below a picture of your own work.

Be proud of who and what you've become regardless.

Whatever you do, don’t feel sorry that you didn’t get a college education, and do not belittle yourself around those who have. If you have honestly put in effort to make a better life for yourself or have just as much knowledge and experience then you are equals. Your paths have been different, your destinations probably aren’t the same, but if you have reached your own personal goals (or are on the right track, like I am) then you have something to be proud of.

If you really can’t live with yourself any longer because you don’t have that degree that supposedly gives you an occupation, then you should do what you can to go back to school and satisfy that void. I tried it because I thought it would make me better or make me feel better. All it did was make me even more dissatisfied and anxious to jump-start my career. So Iquit. I felt like I knew what I was doing already, and what I didn’t know wasn’t going to be learned through an online classroom full of “students” who didn’t have a clue about art or design.

I'm proud of you!

Everyone is different, and my message to you is to embrace it. If you don’t have a college education and you don’t want one, then I applaud you and wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. (And also ask you for some tips on staying successful!) If you do have a college education… oh my god I applaud you, too. I have no words for the amount of work you must have done to receive your degree. But please, applaud us who haven’t gone to school and are still achieving our dreams. Give us a helping hand when we are struggling with something that you were able to master under the instruction of a professor.

If you opted out of college, what is something that you have struggled with because of it? If you are in college or have graduated, are you glad you stuck with it, or would you have gone a different route if you could? And anyone, please feel free to share your advice for those of us who didn’t go to school!

Thanks for reading- I promise tomorrow’s post won’t be so lengthy!

PS- Thank you to Ben for the inspiration on this subject!

Top 6 Favorite Phone and Chrome Apps

This image was made with one of the apps!

Every time another blogger writes about their favorite apps, programs, or websites I find something new that becomes my favorite too, so I thought I would tell you guys what my favorite ones are! Allyssa Barnes has posted some great lists on her blog that have been such great finds, so if you're looking for some more great dowloads, definitely check over there.

I spend a lot of time on my phone refreshing my social media apps, but there are some other apps that I will never, ever delete from my iPhone. So here they are:

1. VSCO Cam is my favorite picture editing app and if you haven't downloaded it yet, you have no idea what you're missing. I rarely use Instagram filters anymore because the filters and editing options you have with VSCO Cam take my pictures to the next level without another filter. It also has its own little community built into it where you can see the pictures that other people have added to their grid, which is pretty cool. It's fun to see what others can do with their pictures.

2. A Beautiful Mess is a really fun app that I use to add text and little objects to my pictures with. I have even used it to create some quick pictures with text on them to include with blog posts. (Including the picture at the top of this post!) I also tend to use this app when I want to put a white frame around the edge of a vertical or horizontal picture so that I can post it on Instagram without cropping parts of the picture out. I love supporting the ladies over at A Beautiful Mess. I can't wait to see what updates they come out with for this app in the future!

3. One Second Everyday is something I just added to my phone this week and it's already a favorite. Basically you take a video every day and are able to crop it down to one second, and then save it into the app's calendar. Once you have a video for several days, you can export your clips into one video that puts all your seconds into a collection of clips. I only have a few days so far, but once I get a month of clips I want to make my video and see what my month looked like! I'll be sure to share it with you guys!

Those are my favorite iPhone apps, and i believe they're all availible for Android devices, too.

For internet browsing, I've been using Google Chrome for awhile now, and I've found that it's really the only way to go, especially if you use Google already for email, blogging, or document storage. I love having everything so easily accessable. The other thing that I love about Chrome is that I can log into any computer and have access to all of my bookmarks and extensions as if it were the same computer. So my internet browser looks the same on my desktop at work as it does on my laptop at home.

I really love the extensions that you can download to Google Chrome, and right now I have four, just because I don't like things getting too crowded up on the navigation bar. One of them is a gmail extension which refreshes itself often and shows when I have a new email, so I don't have to look at my phone if I'm already on my computer. These are the other three extensions that I use:

1. Pinterest. This extension is the most used one by far. I can go to any website and if I click the Pinterest icon that is up in my browser navigation bar (next to the address bar) it will grab all of the Pinnable images on that page and create a new Pin that goes right to that web address. It makes saving things that I want to Pin that much easier!

2. Bloglovin'. This extension is great because it shows when you have new unread posts in your Bloglovin' feed. When you click on it it opens your bloglivin feed in a new tab so you can read the new posts from your favorite bloggers! If you have a Bloglivin' account, I highly recommend getting this extension. Although, it doesn't do much for my productivity at work when I see an unread post pop up!

3. Evernote Web Clipper. I don't use this one as often as the others, but it's awesome for saving notes for new blog posts and saving articles I want to use a jump-off for a blog post of my own. There are tons of options for writing notes on articles/pages, including highliters, arrows, a type tool, and a drawing tool. It's a really great productivity extension that works great for capturing your thoughts while you're browsing the internet.

So, those are six of my favorite apps/browser extensions. Do you use any of them? Are there any that I might not be using that I need to add to this list? I hope you download at least one of these and love it as much as I do!

Gratitude Journal // 04 and some Bloggy Ideas

I didn’t do a gratitude journal post last week, so I’m back today with a whole bunch of things I’m grateful for! This will include some things that I would have written last Friday, but it was Valentine’s Day and I helped my mom at her flower shop (crazyyy!!).

• I’m grateful for Valentine’s Day because it really helps my mom’s business a lot

• I’m grateful for my creativity because without it Dom would have really gotten no gift for Valentine’s Day. Thanks to creativity I wrote out 20 things I love about him and hid them all around our house for him to find.

• I’m grateful for Julian’s morning screams for me, without which would make me so late to work.

• I’m grateful for whatever tax laws allowed me to get a return that will pay for my car to get fixed (and pay off a credit card!). Fingers crossed for some time next week!!

• I’m grateful for the relatively healthy relationship Dom and I have. In my hometown this week, tragedy struck when an ex-husband tried to break into his ex-wife’s house. I’m glad that Dom and I feel safe around one another, and I hope it always stays that way.

• I’m grateful for Snapchat and Facetime because they allowed me to see my sister while she’s been vacationing in Cancun for the last week.

So, yeah those are some of the things that come to mind when I think about what I’m grateful for. Do you keep a gratitude journal? If you have one on your blog, I would love to see it!

Here are my other gratitude journal posts.

In some other news, I’ve been thinking about some other things I could add to my blog to make it more interesting (I’m talking about content here). I would love to have someone write as a guest here once in a while, so if there is anyone who has a good idea for something that would fit well on my blog, I would love for you to contact me! It’s practically free advertising if you have a blog yourself! I also want to think of a way to really get to know another blogger and make an actual “blogger friend”, so if anyone wants to be my friend that would be so cool! (That sounded like so first grade of me- “will you be my friend?”)

Happy Friday everyone! I’m happy to say that I wrote something here pretty much every day this week, and it felt so good! I think I’m finally starting to gain confidence and really getting comfortable with what I like to talk about. Thanks to everyone who stops by frequently!