Edit: Whaa! I had this scheduled to go live on Nov 30th and I just noticed it still wasn't up... stupid Blogger! ;_;
Hello, everyone! I'm starting a new way to to end each month here on Princessly Polished. I'm expanding the collective haul post to include other topics such as projects I'm working on, my favorites of the month, blogging goals, etc... I hope you enjoy it!
Hello, everyone! I'm starting a new way to to end each month here on Princessly Polished. I'm expanding the collective haul post to include other topics such as projects I'm working on, my favorites of the month, blogging goals, etc... I hope you enjoy it!
To start things off, this just happened:
75 Zoya Polishes. No, this isn't my collection. These are, or were, my Mom's. (She collected more Zoya than me - I had just under 50!) While some of these colors will end up being adopted my me, others are going to end up being sold. Keep an eye out for that update.
As I mentioned earlier this month, my Mom had a heart attack and ended up in the hospital. It was a freak thing, as she had no heart attack risk factors, so it really threw our entire family for a loop. Then on Saturday she ended up in the hospital again because she still wasn't feeling right. I ended up watching my (much) younger brothers until she came home this week. Fortunately she seems to be doing better, but she really needs to rest and recuperate. Thus my lack of blog posts this month.
November Projects
While I didn't do a whole lot of posting, I actually did get quite a bit of "behind-the-scenes" work done (which I tried to keep showing peeks of on Instagram to keep it interesting around here!) both Online and at home.
Princessly Polished is getting a makeover... The above screenshot is what the site used to look like. I was honestly considering hiring a professional to create a custom blog layout for me, but I really like to do things myself, and I didn't want to spend the money. So, I read a few tutorials around the web, and here we are. It's extremely close to what I would have paid $30+ for, so I'm happy. I still have to get some work done in the graphics department, but I think my new look is so much better!
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| All of my China Glaze shades in swatch stick form - yay! |
My other big project for November has been total redoing & reorganization of my polish swatches and taking a proper inventory of the polishes in my collection. Now has been a great time to get this done because I can't paint my nails very often while having to change a diaper every 2-4 hours... And I've never done a proper Inventory of my polishes. Spreadsheets baffled me the first few times I tried creating them, but this time I'm getting it! By the time I'm done I'll be able to easily find the colors I have.
Going through each and every bottle of polish I have is also helping me to weed things out of my collection. I'm spotting dupes that I didn't know I had or things that I'm never wearing, so they'll be put up for sale some time in December. Expect a very massive destash around here!
November Haul
How are you holding up against all the sales this weekend? I restrained myself and didn't buy any polish at all! Which is sort of amazing... I did pick these up from I♥NP earlier in the month, though.
The colors are Sweet Serenade, Washing Ashore, Bottle Service, Absolute Zero (which was a preorder bonus), and Pt 78. Pt 78 has been reboxed because it ended up not being the color I was hoping for. Oh well! You'll being seeing more I♥NP swatches next month!
December Goals
Next month I'll look back at this post and see what I can check off!
- Get all my 2013 swatches, manicures and nail art posted. I have a bunch of content sitting on my camera's SD card that was supposed to help me get through November and December. I didn't get as many posts written this month as I had planned to, so I have some cramming to do! I want to get everything Online before I forget about it...
- Finish the polish swatching and organizing. I'm so close to getting this one done!
- Get all my destash sales posted.
- Put the finishing touches on PrincesslyPolished.com. I have a few more graphics that need to be made up.
I think that's everything. If it isn't... I guess I'll get to it next month! Oh wait, that's tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Good luck with your mom (BTW, her Zoya collection is stunning! If P&P costs weren't so damn high for me I would buy them all, LOL).
ReplyI love this new layout, I wish you'll be able to do everything you've planned for Dec. :)
Thank-you!
ReplyHi, I came here from Will Paints Nails for Food feedback form. I love your blog, first off, and am now following you! I also appreciate that you have disqus for commenting. You have such lovely photos. :) Two suggestions/comments: can you put your follow buttons up under your banner if they're going to be in a row, or else put them two by two on the side? I do love that they are right up top so I don't have to search for them. (I hate doing that. LOL) Second, your blog is really wide on my screen, I have to scroll left/right quite a bit.
ReplyHi Jessica, thanks so much! ♥
ReplyDisqus all the way, right? I wish everybody used it, haha.
I really appreciate your feedback about the width of things. My laptop has a huuuge screen, so when I first set my blog up the layout was even wider! (Scary, huh?) Wasn't until I visited my blog on another computer that I said "oh hey, can't even see the right sidebar... not good." I do try to check my site from as many devices as possible. May I ask what you're visiting on: computer, phone, tablet? Thanks!
Also, would you like it if width was taken away from the sidebar, the post column, or both? Thanks!
Right now I am working on some new graphics and further rearranging of my layout. Having some feedback before I make these changes is great! There will be adjustments to my header. I definitely want some navigation links along the top, so I'll consider sticking my social media buttons up there, too! (I definitely agree that they should be at the top for people!) Again, thank-you!
Oh my gosh, disqus FTW! :D I think I'll be installing it on my blog soon. I'm on a laptop (but the screen is broken so I'm using an external monitor). I love your post width, so I think the sidebar. It's so hard to get it balanced though (something I'm struggling with on my blog right now). I'm so glad I found you through the link-up! :)
ReplyLol, I almost wrote "Disqus FTW!" but told myself not to in case you didn't know what it meant. Ha! You should totally put it on your blog!
ReplyI'll go check your blog out after I make dinner... thanks! =)
Hello Rochelle! I'm stopping by your blog for the Will Paint Nails for Food beginning blogger's bootcamp group critique.
ReplyThings I really love about your blog:
- Love the new organized layout and the header really stands out now
- Sidebar is well set up & makes finding things easy
- Love the top black social media icons
- Writing style is nice, easy to follow and conversational. Your reviews are also easy to read and informative.
- Photography is nice, cropped well, and I could totally see your photo evolution from when you started to recent.
Suggestions:
- Show only excerpts of each post on the home pages, instead of the full post. I like this because it lets me browse through more posts quickly, finding things I like. Of course, it's also good for increasing pageviews
- Have links open in a new tab (such as to other websites or for the social media icons) so that readers don't lose your blog page
- I wasn't sure what the "+" was for Bloglovin', but this might be because it's new to me
- Twitter link has some extra letters in it (/#%21) so it doesn't go to your profile (I was already following you!).
- Last two links on your sidebar menu go to blank pages (Coupons & Cashback, Giveaways)
- Photo pages take a little time to load, maybe the resolution being uploaded is too high?
I am visiting on my MacBook Pro laptop with my HUGE ass monitors, lol, so I didn't have any issues with the width. I am using Google Chrome for Mac as my browser. I hope this helps!
I came here from Will Paints Nails for Food feedback form.Thanks for the feedback on mine :) I am really thankful for pointing out the silly mistakes.
ReplyFor you blog I only want to say that, I Love your new blog layout. I think that instead of a whole post you can only keep excerpts on the home page. It makes difficult to search a particular post. One more thing, your Twitter icon does not lead to your profile, the url is wrong or something.
Just these few things. Love your swatches :)
Thank you so much for the compliments! And also for your suggestions.
Reply- I think you're definitely right about going back to the page break/excerpt method. I did that in the past and got away from it for some reason.
- I've also been meaning to have external links open in a new tab - THANK YOU for the reminder!! =D
- I don't like that stupid nondescript "+", either! Bloglovin' shows up in social media icon form as either a "+" "♥" or "b" - none of those are very insightful... I'll see if I can find something better for it.
---In conjunction with the above two points, I'm thinking of adding mouseover text for those social media icons. Good idea?
- Fixed my Twitter link! I've have to pull those stupid characters out of there before, guess I missed them during cleanup last month. =P
- I'm not seeing blank pages when I click on the Coupons or Giveaway links..?
- By photo pages do you mean clicking an image to view it larger? In the past I didn't resize images before uploading at all, this year I started resizing them to 1200x1200 or smaller. They load okay for me (super fast Internet), but I can see that a lower resolution might be good. Or do you mean something else?
Again, thank you for your detailed comments! I'm following you back on Twitter, and following your blog with Bloglovin'! =)
Hi Pearl! Thanks for visiting me back with some critique!
ReplyGlad you like the new layout. I'm going to start doing the post excerpts again, I think that is a good idea. I also fixed my Twitter link.
I'm happy to hear that! Your nail art is amazing. ♥
Thank you Rochelle :) Coming that from you is really a compliment.
ReplyNo problem, so glad to help out!
Reply- Some people like the hover/mouse-over text, it's probably a good idea especially for the rss type buttons.
- I looked at the two pages Coupons and Giveaways and they load just fine today.
- Photo pages I just meant pages with lots of photos - but now I think I must have been having an internet problem related to the above. Your pages are now loading just as quickly as my site, so doesn't seem to be an issue.
Yay!