As Pinterest has become more popular, bloggers are adding Pinterest social media icons to their sites as well as the Pin it buttons.
I found it a bit hard to find Pinterest and Google Plus icons to match the common glossy ones which have been around for a few years, so have adapted some to suit and already found use for them on a few blogs we work on:
Last week I was interviewed by Monica Magnetti for her radio show on VoiceAmerica on blogging for business and blog design. You can listen to the show here. I had a lot of fun talking with her.
One funny thing is that Monica did not realise I was based in New Zealand as most of our clients are in the US. The interview was live on air at 8AM PT, or 3AM New Zealand time! I don’t think you could tell…. 
I’ve been doing quite a bit of sitting at this wee desk with my lovely three and a half year old son coloring in with felts and colored pencils. Before doing this with Eli, I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed the simple pleasure of using colored pencils to color in a picture. There’s something very relaxing and rewarding about the process. Despite the constraints of having the picture there for you, there’s a lot of creativity involved too. The last picture I colored in was of a basketball playing monkey !
Ever since our seven year old neighbor told him off for “scribbling” and going outside the lines, he’s been working hard at improving his drawing and writing skills. I love that he’s wanting to create something even in his pajamas right before bed. I took this shot to remind me of one of these many moments in his life right now.
I remember winning a number of coloring in competitions as a kid and took a lot of pride in doing them. Once I was awarded a prize in the middle of the local shopping mall (?) and once was a prize for a family’s dinner at Pizza Hutt. I also remember crying and being heartbroken when one of my coloring in pieces got wet and the felt colors ran. Even during high school I’d take great pleasure in coloring in maps for geography class using colored pencils, or elaborate artwork for school projects.
(I’m secretly pleased he appears to be a left hander like I am. We’ve wondered if he would be since he was quite young, but haven’t encouraged either handedness.)
Do you have memories of coloring in as a child?
As more and more bloggers put out ebooks and I end up working on more ebooks, I thought I’d add a few more resources to my list of sites for finding cover design inspiration.
Ebook covers are like most book covers: they need to grab your attention, be easily read and, for novels, it’s helpful if they give an idea of the book genre.
Ebook covers are also unique in that they need to work really well at small sizes for the icons in ebook stores, i.e as small as 100px wide and look OK in greyscale for Kindle.
Why is it that I find it so hard to recommend generic WordPress themes to people who are just wanting to get going blogging? They’re not looking for a business site, or an image-heavy-dependent magazine theme, they’re just wanting to write. Am I just too picky when I look at someone else’s design, or code behind the design, or is there something really missing in all the thousands of themes out there?
Further, why is it that no-one seems to want to use the default WordPress theme on their site when they’re starting out? What is it lacking that gets people hunting elsewhere?
We recently worked with Gareth Furber to put together a 144 page print and electronic workbook for psychologists who are continuing their professional development:
Click to enlarge:
See more details on the workbook or purchase a copy here.
The book is typeset using the Cassia font family and Titling Gothic FB Skyline.
Over Easter I found a Kodak Zi8 camera left behind at a skate park in Victor Harbor, South Australia (Map):
The camera looks like this:
I completely forgot that it was in my handbag until I was going through it last night and I really would love to find its rightful owner and return the camera, photos and videos. There’s a tonne of photos and videos from all over the world in it, and I know that I would be really upset to lose something like this.
Here’s one photo of people who appear in the photos a lot, so I’m hoping someone out there can help me find the owner!
(Note: Victor Harbor Police have my details but do not have any reports of it being missing.)
Elsewhere: 
