Can you believe December is already half over with!? That means it’s time to introduce my lovely sponsors for the month of December. Please take a second to check out their blogs and shops. They’re truly a lovely group!
I have sponsorship opportunities (free-swap and paid) open for January as well! Check out my sponsorship page to reserve your spot!
We are Alex and Meg from Guppyandwhaleshark! These are our kitties B.M.O and Lumpy space princess. If you have ever watched the Cartoon Network TV show Adventure time, you will understand the silly names. If not you should check it out!
We are a fun, loving couple that enjoys thrifting, vintage, gaming, cats, cooking, and adventures.
We met in high school and after years of being best friends, decided to date. What a great idea that was! We have so much fun together and love sharing our stories!
Blog | Meg’s Twitter | Alex’s Twitter
Hi there! I’m Alycia and I live in California with my husband and dog Monty. I’m a huge bookworm and I love patio gardening. I like to blog about life, crafts, and inspirations from around the web and everyday life. Come by and say hi!
Blog | Twitter | GoodReads | Pinterest | Flickr
Hey, I am Chrissy from Whimsical Poppysmic the blog and the shop. I write about my life, my hobbies and crafts - I love creating something felted, knitted or embroidered. My family and I just moved back to Germany after living in the suburbs of Chicago for 3 years, we are very homesick and might just go back! Come on over – I would love to have you!
Blog | Shop | Twitter
For my freelance work, I do all design and development on a MacBook Pro. Through trial and error, I’ve come up with a workflow that is pretty smooth, though always evolving. I thought I’d share my top 3 applications that help with that workflow and ultimately make my life simpler both for work and home:
Sparrow
(Free ad-supported version, $9.99 in the Mac App Store)
Don’t get me wrong, I like the pre-installed Mail client for Mac. But it doesn’t seem to like me. Every time I tried to use it hooked via IMAP to my Gmail, it would make a mess of all my labels/folders.
Sparrow was developed to work perfectly with Gmail — and it does. If you’re a Gmail addict like I am, this is the mail client for you when you don’t want to use the web interface. Plus, it hooks in with Growl for notifications and DropBox for file attachments. At $10, I think it’s a great low-cost upgrade from the default Mac Mail client.
1Password
(30-day free trial, $49.99 at AgileBits.com)
At first, I didn’t get it with this program. If my browser can store all my login info, why do I care about having a separate app for it? Well, once I started accumulating tons of login info for all my freelance clients, I realized I really needed a way to organize it all and keep it safe (e.g. not written in a notebook I could accidentally leave behind at Starbucks).
I downloaded the trial version of 1Password and I’ve become totally reliant on it. It tracks and organizes all your passwords, but it also does much more: it can track your bank account information, credit card numbers (you’ll never have to run for your purse while shopping online ever again!), and even all those serial numbers and product keys for software you purchase online! Even better, 1Password is available for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad and Android devices! With a $50 price tag, it is a bit of an investment, but if you have a lot of login information to keep track of, this is the way to do it.
Wunderlist
(Free for OSX, Windows, iPad, iPhone, Android and through their web interface)
I’ve tried a lot of “to-do” apps because I’m obsessive list-maker. I’ve used several I liked, but Wunderlist has won me over in the end because: (1) the price is unbeatable, and (2) no matter where I am, Wunderlist is available and synced across all my devices.
Wunderlist is very simple to use — create task list(s), then add tasks (with optional due date, notes and priority flag) and you’re done. I keep separate lists for to-do’s around the house, client development work, and my personal projects and hobbies. I wouldn’t know if I was coming or going if I didn’t have access to these lists!
What apps are your favorites? What are the ones you can’t live without?
Hooray! It’s Insta-Friday! If you’re reading this that means I’m likely in the passenger of my mom’s car, somewhere in mid-Ohio, on my way to Nashville for the weekend! I hope you all have as great of a weekend as I plan to have!
1. Fun weekend with Benny (and yes, he wanted to play inside that hamper).
2. Christmas nails!
3. New silicon tunnels.
4. Hue & Hum‘s Christmas album = LOVE!
5. My much-abused aloe plant.
6. What happens in our house when you leave the linen closet open!
By the way — have y’all seen Followgram? I discovered it earlier this week thanks to Leigh-Ann’s post, and I love the interface!
This faux porcelain tutorial at Crafted Love
(You are going to be SO surprised at how this is done! — At least, I was.)
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Alycia‘s posted about tips to organize your sponsorships and create a nice PayPal payment form for them
(I am just embarking into the world of sponsorships and link exchanges, and am quickly finding that organization is key — Alycia’s posts are a great help to get started!)
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Leigh-Ann and Kyla announced the all-new Indie Business “Compass” e-course which will launch in January
(I signed up — did you!?)
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Finally … Kim guest-posted the recipe for Nutella Rolls on Lisa‘s blog
(Nutella + banana + crescent rolls? Can you get any better than that!?)
