I have something I need to get off my chest. They say confession is good for the soul. So, here goes.
My lovely, supportive sister had to build this site for me. She kept telling me I should do a blog and got all the usual vacillation and dithering in reply. Then one day she just rang me and said it was done and talked me through how to do my first post. Actually she got me into card making as well. Apparently she saw how long I take to wrap a present (30 minutes is fine!) and decided I needed a creative outlet.
There is a chance I might have got around to starting a blog myself, at some point, but it was about as likely as Johnson, Cameron and Gove going out together tonight for a curry. Or many a continental breakfast?!
Everything since has been all my own mistakes work. I think my sister (with amazing tecchie skills) has deliberately left me to find it out for myself – she knows me too well!! I have been let loose to do what damage I may since March of this year. Yep, four whole months. When I tell you my confession, bear this time period in mind. It only makes it worse.
(Big intake of breath) So, fellow WordPressers, you know the ‘manage your notifications’ button in the top right had corner of your screen? The one with the little red spot? Well this week, yes, yes THIS WEEK, I actually clicked on it to see what it did. I believe I mentioned in a previous post that I am not a random button pusher by nature, so some pluck was called for. No guts, no glory, right? Then I saw what I had been missing. Majorly mortified at my own ignorance I explored further. ‘This is marvellous’ I thought. ‘This will save me replying to everyone through my email, or going back to their site, and save me going back into my site to ‘like’ and so on‘, because that is what I had been doing. Nuts, I know.
Sadly though my happiness was a little premature. The same day as I discovered it I managed to delete at least one lovely comment, and I have nearly done it again since! I won’t bore you with the details, my keyboard is doing strange things at times which does not help (doubling up on letters, adding loads of spaces when I haven’t touched the space bar etc), but I’ll just have to try and work it through so it doesn’t happen again.
Now the case for the defence. I work for the NHS, and in our appointment and patient records software we have a silent panic button we can click on, providing we can reach it whilst being strangled or punched. It is a little red button in the top right hand of the screen. See where I am going here? Hit that button at work and everyone in the building descends on you, like the stretcher-bearing vultures at the football match in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. They then troop back disappointedly for a false alarm (which it almost always is, by the way). So I had some natural reluctance to overcome. It looked like it was saying ‘don’t touch this’! The completely hilarious thing is, where I work, my IT skills are considered pretty darn good! Are you allowed to laugh at me? Hell, yes!
Anyway, today I also managed to change my profile picture! I just changed it to a card I had made, rather than those mosaic shapes you get given. Although on some sites I was a pink one-eyed monster which I was quite fond of! So that was more button pushing, which I think is why I was drawn to making a couple more quick cards with spots. Black and cream is a classic combination and suits clean and simple designs well. These both took hardly any time to make.
Supplies: Anna Griffin cake and sentiment stamps; Creative Expressions card in ‘milk’; Altenew ink in Jet Black; spotted paper I made myself using Serif CraftArtist; ribbon and pearls from stash
Lol! Oh dear! I’m laughing with you not at you because my son set my blog up…I have had similar problems too, so you are not alone! Lovely card as well!
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Good to know I am not the only one! Thanks for commenting!
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Beautiful elegant cards again Gillian! It took me nearly a year to finally change the mosaic box on my blog to my picture and just as long to suss out how to change what was on the sidebar of my blog! I was so pleased with myself when I had finally worked it out – to be honest it wasn’t really hard – it was just me! I am not ‘at one’ with anything vaguely technical!
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Oh, that makes me feel a bit better. You are right, once you try, it is actually pretty easy and there were really good ‘help’ instructions. They were so detailed even I could fast forward though them a bit!
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Oh my word!!! I laughed hard at this post. My daughter-in-law (web guru) did the same thing to me by setting up my blog and sat me down and said “write something”. Also about the same time frame as you. I AM a button pusher and did not check out the little bell with the red dot till last week! So do not be too hard on yourself. I have a feeling the daughter in law did a lot of laughing when I would message or call her and ask “how do I fix what I did?”
Your cards are beautiful!
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Goodness, I feel so much better for knowing it is not just me. Thanks for sharing and restoring my self-esteem a bit!
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I forgot to say, what a lovely daughter in law you clearly have!
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I have two daughter in laws who are definitely keepers!
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Gorgeous card! What a lovely story about your sister helping you and encouraging your creative talents.
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Thanks! She is a super sister. Happy independence Day for tomorrow!
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Haha! I love your confession, and your cards. It took me ages to discover how to find blogs I wanted to follow. It was only 5 weeks after I started it all off that I finally realised why no one was reading my blog.
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I’m not sure I am doing anything right, really. I definitely found it tricky to discover other blogs to follow too, and I still worry about being unintentionally ‘rude’ somehow. Every day is a school day!
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Ahh – so nice to be called ‘lovely and supportive’ instead of all the usual things! You’re doing a great job and ALL your cards are gorgeous. Xx
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Ta hon! I have plenty more words up my sleeve anyway!!
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Love the Cards!!! Love how you’ve been doing your Blog as well! Who cares how long it takes any of us to learn something new….the thing is you’ve done it! 😀
Pat yourself on the back, you certainly deserve it.
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You have a point, but I still feel like a bit of a numpty!
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You’re allowed to. 🙂
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2 very classic cards, and a very funny confession post! Keep going, you are doing just fine, Gillian!
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Thanks for the support!
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Really beautiful cards! I love the simplicity of them. That dotted paper is gorgeous.
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Oh, and reading your title got the Hairy Maclarey story stuck in my head… One of the boys I take care of adores that book, so I’ve been reading it a lot lately!
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Thank you. I was so ridiculously proud of myself for producing the paper, even though it was super-easy! Sometimes it’s the little things!
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I love your posts! I know enough about WP to be annoyed with features in some of the free themes, but I don’t want to pay $ for the freedom to do what I want. Plus I’d probably get in over my head and have to call a techie friend for help – not the end of the world, but I like being self-sufficient. You’re brave!
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You’re kind! I am called chicken46 for a reason! I didn’t even know there were different themes?! A bit of moral support is always good though, so thanks.
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I must admit I am a sucker for a spot, and this looks beautiful! Kim x
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Thanks Kim. I love the way you phrased that!
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Gillian, these are very elegant cards! I Love black and white cards, and the spots add a touch of fun!
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Thanks so much, and thanks for commenting!
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Love your spotty cards, they’re so elegant! It took me awhile to create my blog too. I was depending on my engineer hubby to help me but he never did… but I needed a space to show my cards so I dived in and it wasn’t as difficult as I thought… once I stopped thinking widgets were some kind of midgets…!
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LOL! I had no idea what they were at all until last week, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be quizzed on them yet!
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You have given me a little chuckle this morning reading this post. Good on you for having a go. Continue to go forth and blog more. 🙂 You can’t do too much harm anyway.
Thanks for visiting my blog and your ‘likes’
Jenny
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Likewise! Thanks. Am off to see if I can break something else….
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Cute cards! Yay for bloggin 🙂
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When it goes right, yay indeed!!
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Stunning…
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That is a big compliment, coming from you! Thanks so much!
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Wow, what a ‘ride’ you are on, with the buttons in your world. Yikes! and how funny!
Thanx for sharing and I enjoy your creativity. ren
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Hi Ren! Thanks for following and for your lovely comment.
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Another lovely card that wordpress has givene as a similar post! I could end up bouncing back and forth for ages! Lots of inspiration!
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Lots of posts, and spots, anyway!
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