Flamora – Full Glory
As I mentioned before, I will be posting here whenever I blog at Flamora. This will be my way of connecting my more personal side with my more “business” side.
“I vlogged. Yes, me, Gabi, the girl who hates cameras and speaking, vlogged. After school yesterday I mentally slammed my imaginary fist on an imaginary table and resolved to finally try it.”
New Month, New Contests
My first icon contest just finished up. Here are the winners!
1st – Chandler |
2nd – Caleb |
3rd – Jenny |
I want to give a shout out to Aashni as well for placing fourth. To keep on schedule, my next icon contest has started! The link with all the details is at the top of the blog.
Also at the top of the blog are links to the voting for the September 2010 photography contest and Atomic Affliction’s newest contest, the Site of the Month competition.
It’s a lot, but it’s easier for me to take care of all this at once and on set dates.
Crossover
I’ve been doing a lot of work to transform this site over the past few months, and lemme tell ya, it’s been no easy task. The jump from being a Myspace site to being a resource and graphic site is a big one. The problem I’m facing right now is my blog. My blogs typically just concern updates. People who have stayed with me for awhile or have talked to me outside of the site have a feel of who I am, but what about random visitors? I feel as if I’m a robot to them.
Flamora, on the other hand, is all Gabi. My latest blogs have pretty much given you a front row seat to “My Brain – The Musical.” I wish I could transfer everything on that site to here, but then this site would be too schizophrenic (although, that would pay great homage to my beginnings as “schizo” on Myspace and CB).
My solution? Post excerpts from my Flamora blog on here and redirect you all to the full post. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads, affiliates. I do not expect you to comment there as well as here. I just want to make it more well known that this site and Flamora are indeed connected…in a way. I run both of them so I guess that makes them fairly connected, right?
I’d start right now with the post I wrote earlier today, but I want to go to bed. Sleep tight my little chickadees. :)
Blog Challenges
Ever since I started blogging at Flamora again roughly a month ago, I’ve noticed many of you little bloggers are doing those thirty-day challenges. I’m not going to lie, I thought they were a bit silly at first. After some pondering, however, I decided they’re pretty darn awesome. It’s great way to keep bloggers motivated when they start feeling lazy. “B-But Gabi, does this mean you’re calling me lazy!?” Yes, yes it does.
So what is a blog challenge, exactly? Every day for thirty (or fifteen, or a hundred…whatever you want) days, you have to blog. Most people follow a list that tells them what to blog about on each day. Where do you get said lists? LOOK NO FARTHER. I created a few lists that you’re free to use if they tickle your fancy.
So far I only have three, and they’re all for thirty days. Thirty days seems to be the best length to me. Not too long, not too short. I’ve created lists geared specifically towards photography blogs and resource/graphic sites and one that can be followed by anyone. If you decide to try one, I’d love to know. You don’t have to credit or anything ridiculous like that…It would just be nice to know so I could decide whether to write more.
Birthday Week – My Growth
It’s a strange experience to look back at old graphics. When I first started on Xanga, I thought I was the cat’s pajamas. To me, my graphics and layouts were incredible and anyone who thought otherwise was obviously on crack (and my immature, eleven-year-old self made sure to tell them that). The craziest part of it all is that as my skills improve, I actually become less confident in what I make. My friend’s mom told me I’m a tortured artist. I personally think that title is too poetic and extreme for me. I like to think I’ve just become more realistic.
No matter what I think of my art right now, it’s no question that I’ve improved drastically. Very drastically. These examples of past work begin in 2005 when I was roughly ten or eleven. Click on the thumbnail to see a live preview of the layout.
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2005 |
2006 |
2006 |
2007 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
It was difficult to pick just a couple layouts out of the hundreds (perhaps even over a thousand) I have made since I first started designing. The biggest transition probably occurred between 2006-2008, so I included multiple layouts from that period. It’s shocking to think that I actually thought those early layouts looked good. It makes me wonder what I’m going to say about my current work five years from now.
