Blog Tutorial – How to Centre your Header and Footer on Blogger

OK, today I am showing you something else on Blogger which I had promised to do but I will be back to my normal blogs tomorrow.  So this is for anyone who is new to Blogger or hadn't figured out how to do this yet. 

My banners had always been stuck over to the left ever since I started my blog but I had no idea how to change them until recently.  I had managed to get the words on my header more or less central but only by juggling them around with the space bar etc. so that they looked better.  Now my Header and Footer are both central on the page and look so much betterJ

After searching for ages I found out how to do it so I thought I would do another tutorial to show you how to do this if, like me, you didn’t know how, or even if, you could change it.

Click Design at the top right of your blog.

Down the left hand side click Template.

Click the Customise sign in the orange box in the middle left of the page under Live On Blog.  

This brings up a new page with a dark part along the top and your blog underneath.  

This is the dark box that you originally used when you set up your blog initially.

Click the Advanced tab at the bottom of the left hand row.  

This brings up a new dark top part.

Slide the blue bit down to the bottom and click Add CSS.

This brings up 3 options:

.foot .Image {text-align:center}

.header .Image {text-align:center;}

#Header1_headerimg {margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto}

They will all centre a heading but depending upon which blog type you use, I presume.

I found the middle one worked for me -     .header .Image {text-align:center;}

If one doesn’t work then try one of the others as they will either work with your layout of not. 

When you are happy with the result click Apply to Blog in the orange box at the top right corner of the original one you were working on.

Click Back to Blogger (in the top row) and you are done.

So all you need to remember is to click these:

Design, Customise, Advanced, Add CSS

I hope I have made this clear and easy to understand.

For more tutorials check the side panel for the list.  

I Must Be Crazy!

Now some things have made me think…

It’s funny – some people were saying they like to see a photo of the person they talk to on Google+ or Facebook and I caught sight of my friends list earlier on Facebook and all the ones I could see at the time were pictures of  bears instead of my bear collecting friends faces.  Does that mean my only friends on Facebook are bears? – LOL.  Now I know I am potty + the fact that my husband and I were standing outside with our heads craned up looking at the stars the other night at 3 a.m.  I have said before that we are owls and the sky that night was absolutely clear so the stars were absolutely amazing.

 When I was walking round the supermarket the other day things kept falling off the shelves in front of me.  Now I am not sure what that is meant to mean spiritually or what, but I almost expected someone to pop up with a television camera or something.  I was nowhere near these items when they were falling off (well quite near but certainly not moving anything that would cause them to fall off) but it happened about 8 or 10 times.  Every time I stopped to get anything something fell off the shelf about a foot away on to the floor and my poor hubbie had to keep picking them up (due to my bad back, well and his chivalrous nature).  Because he had to keep picking them up I kept apologising and saying things like “well you could see I was nowhere near that”.  It was funny but strange.

  

When we went for our Indian meal the other night I was telling them how much I love the Mint Sauce that they make and how annoying it is not to be able to buy it in the shops – you can buy just about every other Indian item but not that.  Anyway he gave me a big carton of it to take home and I can thoroughly recommend it for dipping in your fish fingers and chips, and also for pouring over your pork chops.  He did tell me how it was made so I may try to make it sometime. 

 I think I should just rename my blog “My Off-The-Cuff Blog” as I never seem to have time to write down any ideas ahead of time to write the blog about.  I know I have a couple of recipes I promised to put on here but I haven’t actually made them recently so I haven’t got any photos.  I think I should have a photo of what the finished product should look like as that is what most people do, however I may just put a couple of the recipes people have been asking for on here without photos, as the photo is rather superfluous in some cases.  I also have another Blog Tutorial in the pipeline but I just need to double check everything before I post it.

If you follow me on Google+ or Facebook I posted an interesting item today about the new Facebook  “are talking about this” for Pages.

Todays wonderful snippet of trivia:

Why is it that when someone tells you that there are one billion stars in the universe, you believe them but, if they tell you there is wet paint, you have to touch it to check?

  

And the chuckle for today:

A married couple went to the hospital to have their baby delivered.

Upon their arrival, the doctor said he had invented a new machine that would transfer a portion of the mother's labour pain to the baby's father.

He asked if they were willing to try it out. They were both very much in favour of it.

The doctor set the pain transfer to 10% for starters, explaining that even 10% was probably more pain than the father had ever experienced before.

However, as the labour progressed, the husband felt fine and asked the doctor to go ahead and kick it up a notch.

The doctor then adjusted the machine to 20% pain transfer.

The husband was still feeling fine.

The doctor checked the husband's blood pressure and was amazed at how well he was doing. At this point, they decided to try for 50%.

The husband continued to feel quite well.

Since the pain transfer was obviously helping out the wife considerably, the husband encouraged the doctor to transfer ALL the pain to him.

The wife delivered a healthy baby with virtually no pain.

She and her husband were ecstatic.

When they got home, the mailman was dead on the porch.

What They SHOULD Learn in School

I know I will have all the teachers shouting at me that there is not enough time in the busy curriculum these days but I am not getting at you, only the system.  With the current work (or lack of) situation my thoughts about what they don’t learn in school is even more important.  I know you will also be shouting that parents should teach their kids these things but not all of these basic things occur when the child is around to show them how to do it.

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How many children who have left school (and indeed a lot of young adults) know how to do the basic things that are required to live a normal lifestyle.  I think all children should learn the things they need to run a house, a car, their finances etc.  Everyone male and female should be able to do all the household jobs around the house:

Cook basic meals using fresh ingredients, i.e. how to prepare and cook fresh meat / fish and vegetables - rather than just being able to put a frozen dinner in the oven or microwave.

Do a healthy supermarket shop buying all the essentials and budgeting for them.

Thoroughly clean the house and know how to do it and with what products.

Wash clothes at the right temperature, put them out properly on the line, fold them neatly, iron any that require it.  Change the bedclothes and towels regularly.

Change a light bulb, change a fuse, unblock the sink, put up shelves and know how to use tools to make / repair things, clean out the gutters etc. and all the basic household maintenance jobs.

Decorate a room using wallpaper, emulsion and gloss paint, plus paint the outside of the house if needed.

Do all the necessary gardening jobs, cutting the lawn, weeding the flower beds, planting and growing flowers and vegetables, painting the fence etc.

Wash the car, change the oil, change a tyre, check the tyre pressure etc.

Be able to administer First Aid and CPR.  Know how to look after someone who is ill and when to call a doctor.

Look after household pets – what they need and what they should be fed, how much water and exercise they need.

How to handle money by only spending what is coming in and not borrowing, the financial cost of borrowing, how to use credit cards by paying the total at the end of each month and to budget for extra expense without going into credit.  How much to put aside each month for household bills.

I am sure there are some other things that I haven’t thought of here in my usual “off-the-cuff” blog.

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I know you will be saying that parents should teach their children these things and the school curriculum is for academic things but what is the point of our children leaving school with good grades but not be able to even live on their own if they did manage to get a job, as they have no idea how to run their own flat / house.  These skills would be so useful to them in everyday life and yet most leave school with no knowledge whatsoever of how to do most of these things. 

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Children are not always around when the parent is doing these things to even notice how they are done – parents who both work may well hire someone to do these things because they can afford it, and if one parent is at home then a lot of these things are done while the child is at school.  As for things like changing a tyre, unless the child happens to be in the car and they are on a safe road to let the child be out of the car, then it is unlikely the child will be shown how to do it.  Similarly household shopping etc. are now so automatic to the parents that they neglect to show the child how to do it as well as the fact that the child is often very reluctant to take any notice of the parent showing them, whereas if it is taught in schools they will learn these things in a proper way.  Hopefully it would be an interesting subject for them as well because they could see how these things will apply in real life as opposed to some of the other subjects they are learning.  LOL – whether they bother to do them at home then is irrelevant because at least they will know how to do them when the necessity arises. 

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I know a lot of us gave the children “jobs” to do as they got older but they rarely learnt more than a few basic jobs.  Also how many of us just finished the jobs the child had started or not done at all as it was easier.  It wouldn’t help at all if they are in their newly rented flat and the light blub blew which fused the electricity.  If they don’t know how to put the power back on, how to replace the bulb or even have bought a spare bulb to have in stock, then it wont help at all if they have 16 “A” levels, they will still be on the phone asking what to do (LOL - as long as they have a mobile and don’t rely on the power for the phone to work) and if you are 160 miles away all you can do is give them verbal instructions as you can’t pop round to sort it out and give them a light bulb.

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I would love to hear your views so please do let me know (LOL – and I will know you are bothering to read my blog as I often feel I am talking to myself) so even an “I agree” or “I disagree” will be fine as at least I know someone is out there reading this as my Following List doesn’t seem to increase.

Todays trivia snippet:

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven:
£ 10,120.00 

(Another fact all our children should probably know before they rush out and buy their own as soon as they leave home).

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The chuckle for today:

Why Am I So Unfit?

Well it’s another “off the cuff” blog today as I have been out all day.  I seem to have spent all day on my feet after saying yesterday about spending all day on my bum.  I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be back on my bum and writing this!  My husband had a dental appointment just after lunch (well after everyone else’s lunchtime but not long after breakfast for us as we are owls) so off we trekked back to the town I grew up as that is where we both go to the dentist.  I had some pendants to post so I took them with me to post while he was in the dentist.  It made me realise how lucky I am to live in a village and use a village post office.  The dentist is in one of those towns where they closed the main post office (which was huge) and put it in the back of a mini supermarket type place at the furthest end of town to where everything else is, and from where the main post office used to be. 

No problem I thought as it is just round the corner from the dentist surgery.  So off I toddled while he went into the dentist 15 minutes early for his appointment at 2.15 p.m.  Well the queue was so long in the small post office part of the shop and everyone took SO LONG that is was ridiculous.  What on earth were they doing at the counter – some were getting their car tax (bearing in mind we are now on 4^th October and as far as I recall when I got mine a couple of months ago, you can’t even get your new tax that starts at the end of this month until after the 5^th of the month.  So I presume the people who were getting it today were either late or had bought new cars.  Anyway that was only a couple of them so what on earth were the others doing taking so long – we were dozing off in the back of the queue in the warm shop in the warm again “summer in autumn” weather.  When I finally reached the front of the queue I must have been the quickest by far as all I needed was proof of posting for my packages. 

I finally got back round to the dentist surgery at 2.50 p.m.!  He was still in with the dentist though so it just meant I had less magazine reading time than I had expected.  They seemed to just have the radio on in the waiting room today (must be a local station as the presenters were absolute rubbish) but normally they have a video running as well about how to clean your teeth and what your mouth will end up looking like if you don’t – a very good way of getting you to clean your teeth properly and regularly I would think – but not so good for the dentist’s bank balance if you did exactly what they showed you to do to keep sparkling clean teeth.

What I noticed most though was how unfit I have become over this last year since my Achilles tendonitis.  We used to dance all night doing some really fast dances and my brain was active as we had to learn 2 or 3 new dance routines a week.  I had no problem with fitness or learning the routines.  But as I could hardly even walk around the house last year and have only gradually been able to walk further and over slightly bumpier ground I just hadn’t realised how unfit I had become!  But today when I went round to the post office which wasn’t that far at all I was puffing like a steam train. 

The stupid thing was that I had never been to the post office since it had been in the shop and someone had told me it was in the back of the newsagents.  Well off I marched in my usual fashion of not taking notice of anything around me and as I get up to where I knew a newsagents used to be I realised it wasn’t there any more so I walked a bit further (definitely a slow puffing steam train by now as it was uphill and against a strong wind – that’s my excuse anyway) and then I realised I was way past where I was told it was so was just trying to see if there was a sign up when I heard 2 ladies going down the hill saying “I didn’t think it was this far” so I guessed they may also be going to the post office.  So I turned round and headed back down again looking for anywhere that the stupid post office could be.  Well there was a little clue in the form of one of those A shaped boards outside (that people complain get in the way of their 60 mile an hour mobility scooter) advertising they sell lottery tickets and the oval Post Office sign on the wall outside the shop but more importantly there was this whacking great huge red round postbox outside the shop and I had totally missed them all as I had walked past on my mission to get further up the road.  Just goes to prove my point I have mentioned before that I am just so unobservant!!!  I could have saved my puffing lungs – although really it was very good for me and also brought up the point very clearly to me that I am now totally totally unfit which I hate as I have always been fit.  Today proved that a year without dancing (or any form of exercise at all) has proved so bad for me.  I will be so pleased when the consultant allows me to go dancing again.

We went to the supermarket after that and fought our way round the doddery OAP’s and the mums with prams and screaming toddlers.  We normally go in the evening but had thought we would do the shopping as we were out anyway.  We only go about once every 3 weeks when we find we have completely run out of fresh vegetables.  But the only trouble is with shopping so infrequently is the amount you have to put away when you get home!  So I have not been on the computer all day and decided I must write my blog before I even look at Google+ or Facebook as I may get waylaid.  Ok then, signing off for today.

Anyway, here is todays wonderful snippet of trivia:

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

The chuckle for today:

My Monday Ramblings After the Hot Weekend

I hope everyone has had a good weekend.  It has been so incredibly warm here in my part of England – sunbathing weather and it’s October!!!  Having been out for 2 meals in 2 nights with friends though (extremely unusual for us) and the days being so nice it seemed a shame to waste them indoors, so I haven’t got too much done.  Oh and then I discovered yesterday that it was a free listing weekend on ebay (I don’t know how I nearly missed it this time – I am sure they didn’t send me the usual email!) so had to get my finger out quick and list 100 items so all in all I didn’t have time to blog yesterday and hadn’t really got one prepared for today either so, as 50% of my blogs are, this is an off-the-cuff write as I go along blog.  I have been having problems with Word as well – I have somehow lost by margins so can’t move them.  So I spent some time trying to get them back, which I still haven’t managed to do, but what I have done now is lost my toolbar at the top that lets me change the font, size, colour etc. so will have to spent some more wasted time sorting that out later or tomorrow.  The more we use these things the more time we waste trying to sort them out when they go wrong!

As I have been away from the computer a bit I found I was desperately trying to catch up with all the posts in my stream / newsfeed which takes ages when you haven’t been on for a while.  It made my wonder who sees my posts when I list a new item or Networked Blogs publishes my blogs on my Facebook page.  Do people see them at all if they have a busy stream I wonder?  Do we all feel compelled to catch up on everything we have missed or do we just skim over the most recent activity.  We do so much on the computer these days for everything and not just the media sites that we are totally lost if we lose our internet connection or have a problem with the computer.  Everything we do is so based on technology that we are totally lost without the computer/internet and our mobile phone.  Could you go for a week without them???  If I wasn’t on holiday and just at home I think I would be tearing my hair out.  It’s like having a power cut or your boiler breaking down in winter.  My bum sits on this chair for so long each day I am not surprised it is chair shaped!  When I was working in an office all day I got up to do other things so much more than I do now.  If I am not on the computer I am sitting making jewellery.  Now and again I think I ought to fit in a bit of housework – LOL – usually the minimal amount unless I know someone is coming round.

Now the nights are drawing in we have to take the dogs for a walk earlier so we tend to see a lot of other dog walkers out as well because everyone is cramming their evening walks into a smaller space of time.  Tonight was a bit of a pain though as we had to double back on our walk due to seeing other dogs that we try to avoid.  One is a great big Alsatian who just gets our 2 (especially one of them) on the ground and wont let them up.  The owner seems to think her dog is being friendly even though her dog has his mouth round the neck of the one laying on her back on the ground!  Just because her dog doesn’t actually close her mouth and rip the throat out of one of ours is not the point.  The others that we try to avoid are a pack of about 8 black Labradors that the owner has no control over who are never on leads and they tend to gang up on other dogs.  In fact they set upon and attacked our last dog (that has passed over now) while he was on the lead and really hurt him.  After that he was never the same easy-going placid dog again with other dogs and was  wary of them and he always growled at any black Labradors.  Tonight when we out walking we saw the Alsatian in the distance so hung back and diverted a different way only to see the Labs a bit further along that route so we had to double back the way we came.

Time for my useless snippet of Trivia today: 

Why do banks charge a fee due to insufficient funds when they already know you're broke?

-------o)(o-OOO-o)(o-------

And todays chuckle:

Saturdays Ramblings and Handmade Presents

Well I am pleased to report that my handmade birthday card I spoke about yesterday went down a storm and was really appreciated.  He was really impressed (LOL – possibly not with the quality) as I had gone to a lot of trouble with it - I had made a pop-up card and also searched for pictures of his favourite things to put on the front of the card.  I was so relieved by his reaction as I was dreading him opening it.  Isn’t that silly but then I suppose I have inbuilt conditioning that if I haven’t paid for something then it is worthless.  Just goes to show that money isn’t everything. 

<<<<<<<<<<III>>>>>>>>>>

I am sure that if we all went back to buying or making small thought-out presents for birthdays and Christmas then they would be appreciated much more than buying the really expensive presents we all feel compelled to buy these days.  Actually I think we in England should think of buying unique handmade items for presents a lot more, as they make such better presents than something we buy from a shop that the receiver either already has or doesn’t really want otherwise they would have already bought it themselves.

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I must hold my hands up and admit that I have never really thought of buying unique handmade presents before either.  I think I have just followed the trend and trailed the shops like everyone else.  Although I have always made jewellery and I know people buy it for presents as well as themselves I just hadn’t thought of trying to find handmade items for sale for presents myself.  Most probably this is because here in England we just don’t know about websites that sell handmade items.  It is much more popular in the US but I think we definitely need to hope it catches on here too.  We have craft markets but that is about all really.  So this year I will definitely buy handmade – LOL, then the receiver can’t take it back to the shop and change it for what they prefer.

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We have another lovely sunny day here in England so I am sure we will be breaking all the October records.  I heard yesterday that we had had the warmest September temperatures for 100 years.  I wouldn’t mind but I can’t say we actually had any summer weather in the summer as it was more like a permanent spring.  In April we had some hot weather and now in September but not much in the actual summer itself.  I would think it was getting warmer here to become more moderate all year round as the winters have been a lot milder too.  But then last years winter blew that idea out of the window as it was really cold and snowy which broke other records for being the coldest since the 1960’s I think it was.  England always has really strange weather which is why the English talk about the weather so much but over the last few years it has been stranger than ever.  It’s only about a month until Guy Fawkes night and when I was young, and even when my children were young, we used to have to dress up in really warm clothes – hats, gloves, scarve and, mulit-layers as well as thick coats and fur lined boots etc. just to be able to endure standing around watching the fireworks.  Nowadays it is just a case of putting a thick jacket on.  The way this year is going at the moment no-one will even be bothering wearing a coat at all.

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We went out for a lovely Indian meal with some great friends last night at a restaurant we like which isn’t too far away.  We came back feeling so bloated that we couldn’t even have a cup of coffee when we got home.  We caught up on a couple of pre-recorded television programmes (Law and Order Special Victims Unit and Cold Case) and I came on the computer for a while and I still felt full by the time I went to bed after all that time.  But I did feel tired and didn’t even risk listing yesterdays pendant in case I did it wrong so had to list it this afternoon.  I try to keep my listing to one each and every day so I will end up with 2 today – never mind.  I am sure some people probably miss the days listing if they have lots of posts in their newsfeed/stream or however they normally see each days listing.  I don’t like to appear spam-like by posting the same thing twice a day as I figure they will look for it if they are that interested in seeing each listing and presumably visit my website regularly anyway.  It is easy enough for people to just check my profile page on whatever site they use to see my tweets or posts that day.

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Well as it is so lovely outside again today I think I may well sit outside for a while and catch up on some magazines that I have been stockpiling as I never get round to reading them since I started doing so much on the computer.  That is the problem isn’t it, once we start Facebook, Twitter or Google+ we feel we need to check in regularly as we just don’t want to miss anything – FOMO they call it (Fear Of Missing Out).  Before we were on any of these sites we didn’t think about missing anything but now we are on them we just don’t want to miss a thing.  I only look on the computer and not on my phone but some peoples phones must be zinging all the time with new messages and updates.

Here’s todays trivia snippet:

Polar bears are left-handed.

<<<<<<<<<<III>>>>>>>>>>

And todays chuckle:

DRIVING
Two elderly women were out driving in a large car - both could barely see over the dashboard. 

As they were cruising along, they came to major crossroads. 

The stop light was red, but they just went on through.
The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself "I must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light."

After a few more minutes, they came to another major junction and the light was red again. 

Again, they went right through.

The woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been red but was really concerned that she was losing it.

She was getting nervous.
At the next junction, sure enough, the light was red and they went on through.

So, she turned to the other woman and said, "Mildred, did you know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us both!"

Mildred turned to her and said, "Oh! Am I driving?"

I Made a Birthday Card – so why do I feel so bad about it?

Wow it’s been warm today – our summer has arrived at last – just when we are well into Autumn!  I have been sitting in the garden today and it has been like a Summers day.  If it is still as warm tomorrow I wonder if it will break October records as I certainly don’t ever remember it being this warm in October.

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I made a birthday card which I must say looked really quite good for my first attempt at making a pop-up card. I should have thought to have taken a photo of it to show you  before I put it in the envelope!   I saw the instructions on StumbleUpon a little while ago and thought I would have a go.  Now why is it that I feel a bit of a cheapskate to send a handmade birthday card – will they think I am too tight to buy one I wonder.  I am sure some people will appreciate that a lot of effort has gone into making it rather than just popping one in the supermarket trolley but then I am sure some others will think I don’t think enough of them to pay for one and just made one instead.  It’s hard to know what people think about this isn’t it.  It’s funny really but somehow I feel that if I make one it is a bit like making one for Mothers Day at school.  It’s a sort of Blue Peter / school / Sunday school project rather than a personal thought-out and spend time doing thing for adults.  I think my card looks quite good, although a tad on the amateur side.  Oh well it is done now and I am certainly not going to just dump it after all that work and buy a cheap one down the shop.  I will try to judge by the reaction when they open it but then it is just the same when you buy someone a present – you can sometimes go to a lot of trouble to choose something you think is particularly suitable for that person and yet they don’t seem particularly enthralled when you give it to them and you wonder if you would have been better to have just bought them a bottle of plonk like nearly everyone had done.  So does it seem like I am being “cheap” if I make a card?

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It’s a bit like my pendants – I try to keep my prices to supermarket / clothes shop type prices, as money is so tight for everyone at the moment, and yet would people think “that is expensive for something handmade” or would they think “that must be rubbish to be that cheap for a handmade item”.  Would people rather buy a pendant that they think is better because it is manufactured and sold in a supermarket or clothes shop, even though there may be thousands of others wearing the same pendant, or would they prefer to buy one that they know is unique and that no-one else will ever have?  I would rather make a little on a few sales than a bit more on just one sale and I also want to get my Pendant-Heaven name known so I do like to keep my prices low.   Somehow though, it always seems easier for people to pop a pendant in the supermarket trolley with the groceries than buy something online.  I am sure the crystal lovers and people more into new age type things, Healing, Reiki, Tarot, Angels etc., are likely to appreciate them more as they know about crystals and know they are all unique, each and every one. 

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I am sure everyone who makes and sells their items have similar problems.  Why buy a handmade card and pay the postage twice to send a card to someone?  Why buy a scarf that has been made by hand when you have the choice of hundreds in shops where you can actually see them?  Why buy a handmade candle when you could probably conjure one up yourself if you had the time?  So many reasons as to why should anyone buy handmade?  Would you appreciate it more knowing the effort that someone has put in to make it?  Would you like it better as it is individually unique?  Which some aren’t of course, as some artisans make loads of identical items or use very slightly different materials, although they are still handmade.  I buy one-of-a-kind bears as you know and although they are all a bit different each artist has their own style and whereas some will say a bear is a limited edition and make 5 of them another artist will make one but if other people also wanted one like it they will make 5 others but all slightly different so they are all one-off.  Other bear artists will only ever make one like that and once it has sold they will never make another similar one.  I can only ever make one of all my pendants as they all look different because they are all made by nature.  They can be cut in the same shape but the natural patterning is always different.  There are a few exceptions of course as it would be hard to tell the difference between Rose Quartz gemstones for instance – they do have different patterning of course but it is not so obvious to the naked eye.

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Then of course there is the debate as to whether your handmade item will be well made or a load of rubbish but just look good in the photo.  There again some photos can make a bad thing look good or a good thing look bad or not do it any justice.  Personally I find continuous comments in my ebay feedback that my pendants looked even better than the photograph – LOL now is that just a complement about my pendants or does it prove I am useless as a photographer?  I know I have improved a lot as a photographer as time has gone on.  We as a family rarely took photos and indeed I had to buy a new camera when I started selling my pendants online as the old one was nowhere near good enough.  I have now learnt to brighten them using a photo editor which I think has brought them up more or less back to how they really look but I need to try different ways and different places to take the photos as the bathroom windowsill in definitely not ideal (especially for my bad back, to have to lean over the sink to take them).  It also restricts what time of day I can take them as I only really have about a 2 hour interval when the sun has moved round but it is still bright enough to take the photos, and yet I still have to be careful not to get the reflection of the window opener on the gemstone.

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I suppose a buyer takes a risk buying a handmade item online as they only have a photograph of the item which can be deceiving as to what the buyer will eventually end up with.  You could buy a handmade bag, for example, that looked great in the photo but when you receive it the stitching is messy and the material is frayed which gives way after 3 weeks of using it.  You are really out on a limb when buying something from a photo when you don’t know how well made it is or how good the quality is of the materials used and the workmanship.  I suppose reading feedback on the seller is the only way to make sure you are buying something that you will be really wanting for yourself or as a present.  I am lucky as I have excellent feedback on ebay and have some wonderful complementary comments rather than just “great item and fast delivery” or something similar.  My customers have made great statements in the few keystrokes they are allocated in the feedback section on ebay.  But on ArtFire you can only comment if you are a member, so all the items you sell to non-members (which I presume will be the majority) will not get any feedback which seems silly to me and I hope they change that.  It is early days for me on ArtFire but I did want to have my own little online shop rather than keep selling on ebay.  I hope to eventually just use ArtFire but until sales pick up on there I have to use ebay too as I do sell a lot on there.  I think here in the UK we are not really “into” handmade items and don’t really know of online sites such as ArtFire and Etsy etc.   They do seem to be more popular in the US but hopefully they will get more of a foothold here in the UK soon.

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Although yesterdays blog had a little bit in about deleting a wrong entry on Google Chrome it was mainly about my life so I probably wrongly titled it so please do give it a read if you like just reading my “normal” stuff.

LOL – and after my long post today, here is my usual snippet of trivia:

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

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And here is todays chuckle:

SENIOR DRIVING
As a senior citizen was driving down the motorway, his car phone rang.
Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him,

"Vernon, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on the M25. Please be careful!"

"Hell," said Vernon, "It's not just one car. It's hundreds of them!"