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geeky WordPress stuff

Wednesday, February 6, 2008 @ 11:29 am
Filed under blogging, lovely links, site updates, stuff n nonsense, tutorial

Hi! Are you a new or recent visitor to my blog? I hope you stick around and have a bit of a read. To make it easier to keep up to date with new content, please subscribe to my RSS feed. Of course, feedback is always appreciated and leaving a comment is a great way for me to come and check out your site.

I have been installing a few new WordPress plug-ins to my blog and doing a bit of behind the scenes fixing up around here:

I sorted through all the plug-ins on my blog and upgraded to newer versions and got rid of some useless ones. You can now see a listing of all the plugins I use on this site (in case you want to use any of them too) and you can use Viper’s Plugins Used plugin to make your own list.

I installed the very handy OneClick Installer plugin - this genious bit of code installs any plugin or theme without having to download, unzip then upload via FTP. Sometimes if the folder structure of the plugin is different to normal, this autoinstaller doesn’t do the job properly (in which case you just download, unzip, upload and install as before) but it works for the majority of plugins and is a real time and hassle saver.

I have done up a new people-friendly Site Map, that displays all the previous posts sorted into categories, using the Site Map Generator plugin.

I did a very quick upgrade of WordPress 2.3.2 to 2.3.3 just to be tidy. If you have multiple posters on your WordPress blog, you need this! Just for info, if you haven’t got yourself the Automatic Upgrade plugin then you are crazy. I used to dread upgrading my blog as I have customised it quite a lot but this tool takes care of everything for you, even ensuring you do all the necessary backups before you begin.

I improved my Contact Form. I used Contact Form with Spam Protection plugin so that it now blocks pesky robot spam.

I changed the Permalinks on my site so that for instance, www.jenleheny.com/archives/158 is now www.jenleheny.com/pillowcase-dress-instructions and I used a Permalink Migration plugin to ensure that no bookmarks or links from other sites were disrupted. This means that if you have a post of mine linked in the old format then you don’t need to update it - the magic of the plugin will still send people to the right place.

I added the fun CommentLuv plugin to show a link to the last post from the commenter’s blog just below their comment here on my blog.

I used the Dashboard Editor plugin to give myself a much more useful first page on the Admin side of things.

I set up a cool StumbleUpon-like random post link using the Random Redirect plugin - you can try it out here.

Can’t have a post without a picture!

Phew! I have been busy.

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I’m just warming up…

Saturday, November 3, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
Filed under blogging, lovely links, stuff n nonsense

At last Tuesday’s Brindabella session, we had the opportunity to listen to a great talk on climate change given by someone from the Australian Conservation Foundation. It was really helpful to have someone to answer all our questions too! As you probably know, the Australian Federal Election is on November 24th so it’s time to make some noise, huh?

Here are a few links that you might find useful if you are interested in this kind of stuff, and you ought to be - we all have to live here:

Australian Conservation Foundation is committed to inspiring people to achieve a healthy environment for all Australians.

Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative which involves participants in a whole-of-school approach, to explore through real-life learning experiences, improvements in a school’s management of resources and facilities including energy, waste, water, biodiversity, landscape design, products and materials. It also addresses associated social and financial issues. The Initiative’s vision is for all Australian schools and their communities to be sustainable.

Climate Movement - Connecting Communities active on Climate Change

Walk against Warming (as in Global Warming) which takes place next Sunday 11th November

Who on Earth Cares - If you care about Climate Change, put yourself on the map. You can also optionally fill out some info and the site will generate a letter to your local politician for you. I sent mine to Annette Ellis last week!

Australian Election Scorecard on climate change and our future environment. The scores are based on an analysis of party policy commitments against ACF’s National Agenda for a Sustainable Australia. (more info on the site)

Here it is as it stands right now:

		Democrats		Family First		Greens		Labor		Liberal and National
SCORECARD TOTAL		90 / 100		31 / 100		94 / 100		56 / 100		21 / 100

And two links that I’ve mentioned in older posts - these are not related to climate change but are worth checking out:

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence.

Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry - Fast fashion provides the marketplace with affordable apparel aimed mostly at young women. Fueling the demand are fashion magazines that help create the desire for new “must-haves” for each season.

When we buy our distressed jeans here in the West, do we stop to think about the person on the other side of the world who is sanding them all night?

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vintage wallpaper packs!

Monday, October 29, 2007 @ 5:23 pm
Filed under blogging, collage, papercraft, thrifting, wardrobe refashion

Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a comment for my blogiversay giveaway - I’m so sorry it took me this long to get organised! I would like to announce that the winner of the vintage wallpaper pack is… Vicki from Turkey Feathers. Please send me your address Vicki so I can mail your pack out to you.

Here are the “Pretty Paper Packs” that I made up - of course, one is off to Vicki and the others will be going to my market stall. If you would like one, please let me know in the comments. They are US$10. They may also appear at my online store soon too.

Look at what my friend Jess made, after hearing some ideas at my recent Brindabella session on op shop refashioning:

She took an op shop singlet top and sewed up the bottom, then added trim and decorations and now she has a shopping bag! The bag even folds up into the denim pocket! Go Jess!

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painting fun

Saturday, October 20, 2007 @ 7:02 pm
Filed under art, blogging, clothes I have made, painting, those crazy kids, tutorial

On Tuesday, there was a session at Brindabella on Bush Painting. Kristy did a great job of taking the class and we all went home with a great piece of art.

Kristy originally learnt this technique from Garry Holmes in her hometown of Lismore and she’s been painting ever since! I took photos of each step so here is a visual guide in case you would like to follow along.

First, we applied a line of blue along the top followed by a line of pink - both applied in turn with a wet brush to create a blended effect:

Next we put some yellow paint on one corner of the brush and black on the other corner and “splodged” some trees along the horizon, followed by a line underneath the trees:

Then we added some fields:

Below the fields, some pink followed by blue - again with a wet brush:

Some more “splodging” for bushes at the bottom of the (yellow) fields and some larger trees along the very bottom:

Nearly finished! A gnarled old tree on the banks of the river was next, done freehand with a thin brush:

Now we need to fill in the middle ground, so we added a few trees using white for the trunk and pink and yellow splodges for the leaves:

Using a thin brush and some white, we added a fence (mine is on the far left) and used a dark grey for some shading. One last thing - a bird on the foreground branch completes the scene:

And we’re all done! A not-too-bad bush painting. It seems a lot easier when it’s broken down like that, huh?

Still with painting, I found an AWESOME paint easel for the kids for just $5 from the local recycling centre. Of course, I then had to make art smocks for the kids - I just bought a couple of op shop shirts for $6 each and sewed them to fit, added a bit of trim and the kids are all ready to paint a masterpiece for themselves:

They were pretty happy!

Lots of concentrating, and then a big cheesy smile for the camera:

Great work, you two!

Oh yes, and I made a hat for Jack the other day too:

I still have to make him another one in school colours (plain navy blue) but I thought this would be good for weekend wear. He loved the tape measure fabric - I knew he would!

Oh, and in case you are wondering about the vintage wallpaper pack competition, I haven’t forgotten. I hope to get to it tomorrow, so until then feel free to leave a comment to enter.