Last New Year’s Eve my husband & I took some time to compose and share our goals for 2015, (mine: 8-10 bullet points on my phone, his: an Excel spreadsheet with dependencies. deliverable dates, and probably a few pivot tables). Some of the goals were carried over from our 2014 lists, and we noticed a trend in our rationale for not making headway on those things: in an effort to make educated decisions, we do our homework, then revise our homework, then learn something new and revise it again…but, uhm… never turn it in. So many details researched, avenues explored, questions asked, but no final action taken. We decided to cook up a motto to get us out of that endless learning curve loop and what we came up with was: Action over Analysis. Of course keeping this motto in mind certainly doesn’t mean jumping into things without any analysis, it just means that once we understand the basics, we’ll move forward instead of hemming and hawing or indulging our perfectionist tendencies.

One of the goals that carried over from my 2014 list was for Tristan and I to officially launch Foto Rx which we had been working on for some time. As luck would have it, Tristan was mulling over a theme for the new year herself: Progress over Perfection. With our new symbiotic mantras in mind, we decided to dive (hearts full and heads strong) into launching Foto Rx. We are learning something new every day and fine-tuning the business as we go, which, it turns out, has been far more productive than trying to nail down every single detail before making our first move. There are still days filled with research and decision making, but whenever we get stuck, we remember our mantras and make the choice to favor momentum over inertia.

It’s amazing how a few simple words can help break habits that are holding you back. Do you have a motto or mantra? If not, you are welcome to ours – so far they are working wonders. Is there something you’d like to accomplish and have done your homework for, but haven’t actually made a move toward?

P.S. Tristan here, if you want to know how well this has worked for us, we created our first set of Photoshop actions over 3 years ago for a class we taught. A year late a huge blogger said we should sell them (we did nothing). We had about a zillion ideas in between that time (we believe most were good if not for us), but the moment we chose our mantras and decided to focus–again action/progress, we actually created something we are bonkers about, this works!

I know, seemingly odd way to start a Monday right? An immersion blender? When I first started the ‘tools of the trade’ section on the site I had visions of asking many different creatives about their ‘secret-have to have’ tools, because whenever I found out about one that would work in my life I knew I wanted to share. This here immersion blender was one of those awesome ‘tools of the trade’ secrets from a professional chef friend who swore by it for soup puree’s. I kept meaning to write about it but it never felt like a good fit, or I’d see something shiny and forget. Last night when I made a batch of the silkiest  hummus this side of the Mississippi I knew that enough was enough, I had to share.Read More

Firstly, thank you  for engaging in the conversation on ‘Is blogging dying? All of your input was valuable and of course we always appreciate the visits! I do want to speak more to the subject about blogging, or more specifically a social media presence for  your brand/service and yes, even monetizing your blog! We have interviewed a few bloggers that have done so without a huge following…

And now on to our ‘Font Finder’ okay, this is not a universal font finder and probably misleading since it doesn’t have a search capability, it’s more like our ‘featured fonts’ organized (finally). We have been doing some Spring cleaning around here and we started to tackle this little font project. The images are now much larger and the titles are descriptive of the type of font instead of the name of the font, which makes more sense since you are most likely looking for say ‘an organic script font’ over ‘Margarita’ (a font name). All the fonts should now link directly to where you can purchase them so you won’t have to scroll through a font post full of my babble to find the font you were looking for! We added a few new fonts we haven’t featured that are brand spanking new and total lookers. This one here is low whistle beauty!

I am going to be honest and let you know aesthetic wise I am having trouble with it looking so ‘patchwork-y’, maybe you know of some other WP gallery-plugins that would create an overlay over the images so we won’t have to go back and do it for every graphic? Speaking of widgets and plug-ins, we lost our ‘recent pins’ widget, it was a single, rotating latest pins and we can’t find a substitute anyone out there have any ideas?

I am sure you are dead sick of me saying how much I hate the word blogger, which means I most likely can’t stand the word blog either–correct. In our recent on-line marketing foray for Foto Rx I have found that many of my once beloved blogs have abandoned ship, some have left without even a good bye? For shame. Even though I understand with some blogs why they may have closed shop (the inspiration blogs without original content have been taken over by Pinterest for sure) on others I am perplexed? I see a lot of successful blogs leaving to work on opportunities that their blogs afforded them, it almost feels like a virtual slap in the face to blog readers to just quit without even an explanation. Am  I wrong to think that you’ll need/want your blog when your project finally launches?

You see, I believe in the blog, I think there’s opportunity here, room for you to finally have your shining moment in the blogosphere. How?  Well, it’s really very simple, without information the internet doesn’t exist, we have become dependent on Google for answers, we need this information and you my friend as a business will give the people what they need, right?  Does the world need another DIY post?  Probably not (but they are very pinnable). What is missing then from blogs?  It’s so obvious to me it makes me cringe when I don’t see it–perspective. What the what?  I’ll give you an example; if you are an interior designer I want to know more about the who, what, where, when, why and how! I don’t want to see inspiration pics from Elle decor’s site, I want to know about how you got into your business, what your day looks like, the intricacies of your business, the things you take for granted would be tasty gems for a design-a-phile! Speaking of gems, my friend Sofia was asking about what she should write about on her new blog and I was excited because there is so much she could write about, she’s getting her masters in gemology that alone is interesting, but she is also an excellent treasure hunter and finds the best vintage jewelry.

My unsolicited suggestion? Write about your experiences, your adventures, the how’s and why’s. I believe everyone has within them a wealth of information, things they take for granted that others might find wildly interesting, things people are Googling. I am a native Californian, born and raised in Los Angeles basically an anomaly, if I was smarter I would have written more about my City of Angels, because it is such a special place, these are the types of things that make you different and unique, mine your personal knowledge and experiences it’s the one thing that will set you apart from everyone else.  I love the pretty pics and the DIY’s but what I really want to know is more about how so and so got to where they are (and yes, pretty pics are super important). I want details, nitty gritty, show me, tell me, explain how, ask questions, start a dialogue! I don’t think blogs are dying, I think certain types of blogs are and I do think that the ‘celebrity’ blogger is a dying breed, but if you have valuable information (and I 99.9% guarantee you do) there is a chance that your specialized information could be what drives people to your blog and in turn your business. So tell me your thoughts, if you have stopped reading blogs is there a reason why? Do you believe me when I tell you that we all have something interesting to share?  Have you noticed the max exodus of big bloggers abandoning their blogs? How do you feel about that? I am very curious to know where you are going (and why) if you have stopped reading blogs. Myself?  I have never read blogs like most people, I have always been a Googling fool, if I am going to take time away from my ‘real’ life I want to feel like I have accomplished something, that I have walked away from my computer a little bit richer (in knowledge), truly inspired and not dejected (easy to feel that way in the blogosphere, comparison the thief of joy and all), I want my time spent in the cyber world to effect my reality positively and enhance it, never take away from what I cherish most.

P.S. I just looked up Alt Summit (the blogger conference mecca) and it doesn’t look like they are slowing down anytime soon, at an almost 1K investment per attendee I would say that blogging isn’t going away anytime soon…