Why hello there…

POSTED ON September 3, 2015 IN Behind-the-Scenes

Oh man, this summer has been crazy. In May, we said goodbye to our life as an Army family, packed up all our belongings and made the cross-country trek from Texas back to our home state of California.

After a month of job hunting (for Adam), another month spent house/rental hunting and another month waiting for our stuff to arrive, we are finally now getting settled in our new place in the Bay Area. Well, if by settled you mean buried under piles of boxes. But hey, at least we aren’t sleeping on an air mattress anymore!

When I last wrote back in May, I mentioned I wasn’t sure what our big move would mean for the future of Nettio Designs & Kickass Scrapbooking. Well, the awesome thing about having three and half months to let things percolate is it becomes clear where your heart lies and where you need to let go.

So with that, here are a few changes you can expect:

1) It’s time to say goodbye to Kickass Scrapbooking

I’m in the process of moving my website to a speedier server and as part of that, I’ve made the decision to shut down Kickass Scrapbooking. As much as I loved the idea behind the site, the logistics of running two sites/social media accounts quickly turned into more trouble than it was worth. With limited time these days, I’m looking for areas where I can simplify and this feels like the right move.

If you started following me specifically for scrapbooking, fear not. This does not mean I’m saying goodbye to scrapbooking, just that it will just be happening here at Nettio Designs instead.

Which brings me to item number two…

2) A rebrand is in the works

This summer I’ve been working my way through the Braid Creative Braid Method branding ecourse (which is awesome by the way) and while I’m going to hold off on all the juicy details for now, one thing I will share is I’m leaning towards doing away with the Nettio Designs name.

Blasphemy, I know!

But the reality is it’s based on a nickname that started in college and considering I’m not 22 anymore, it feels like it might be time to grow up. Of course, I’m reserving the right to change my mind but just in case, consider yourself warned, haha.

No timeline for this yet, other than I’m hoping to share more of the process this fall.

And now for something exciting and new!

3) A new email newsletter is coming

Ok, so maybe email isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but I promise it’ll be fun (and useful)!

Next week I will be launching a new email newsletter for creatives called Creative Kickstart. As part of this, I’ll be doing some digital house cleaning and asking everyone who would like to continue receiving emails from me to resubscribe to a new email list.

In the next week, I’ll be sending out an email with more details about this so if you see an email from me titled “ACTION REQUESTED” be sure to open it!

If you aren’t already on my email list, that’s ok! I’ll be sharing details next week about how you can sign up to the new list.

And finally, I wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU for coming along with me on this crazy creative journey. I feel like it’s never as neat and tidy as I would like, but I’ve learned to embrace that as part of the adventure and I hope you do too because I appreciate every one of your emails or likes more than you know. So thank you for being so awesome and hanging out virtually with little ol’ me. : )

And with that I’m going to wrap up this not-so-little peek into what’s going on around here. What about you, how was your summer? Have anything fun planned for fall?

5 Faves For Friday || 01

POSTED ON April 3, 2015 IN 5 Faves for Friday

Woohoo, it’s Friday, my favorite day of the week! And to celebrate I thought it’d be fun to share a few of my current favorite things…

1) Stroller Strides | Ryan and I first started going to this mom & baby workout back in January and my only regret is we didn’t start sooner! It’s been so fun meeting other mamas and babies all while getting a great workout outdoors. They have them all over the U.S. so if you’ve got a little one and are struggling to fit in time to workout (I most definitely was!) check them out.

2) Being Boss podcast | If you’re a fellow creative entrepreneur or creative business owner, you need to check out the Being Boss podcast. Not only are Kathleen & Emily kicking-ass in their respective fields but their no-nonsense with a touch of woo-woo approach to business is refreshing.

3) Sunny spring days | Even though the winters here in Texas are fairly mild, I’m so excited for spring to finally be here! The trees are blooming and everything is turning green. Now to take advantage of it before it gets freakishly hot again!

4) The return of the Texas bluebonnets | If you’ve never seen a field of bluebonnets, you are missing out. I totally thought it was just a weird Texas thing when I first moved here but after our first bluebonnet season, I totally got it. Not only are these flowers gorgeous and unique but the fact that they’re only around for a short period of time makes them that much more special. I love keeping an eye out for them popping up around town and if you want to get hardcore about it, there’s even websites that post bluebonnet sightings. It’s hardcore y’all.

5) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt | I started watching this original Netflix series on a whim and by episode one I was hooked. In a few days I’d binged watched the entire first season (isn’t binge watching the best?) and I can’t wait for season two. This show totally fills that quirk meets charm void left behind when 30 Rock went off the air. Thank you Tina Fey.

And that’s a peek at five of my current faves! What’s one of your faves right now? Let me know in the comments below.

And…if you’re looking for a fun & easy way to kickstart your creative and get more of your story into your digital scrapbooking albums, join me in The 2015 Monthly Faves Project, a year-long scrapbooking project designed to celebrate your top ten favorite things every month.

For just $29 for the year, you’ll receive 12 exclusive digital scrapbooking templates, a monthly email with tips from yours truly and a private Facebook group where you can connect and share your work.

Join the creative adventure here.

Happy 2015 & Our Holiday Photo Card

POSTED ON January 9, 2015 IN Behind-the-Scenes, Design

Happy 2015!

The day after I wrapped up the Holiday Faves Mini Class, Ryan and I hopped on a plane for his first ever trip to California. Not going to lie, I was a bit nervous about flying with him by myself for his first flight but he handled it like a champ, much to the delight of his fellow passengers. I’d say his cute smiling at everyone definitely earned him some points, as well as paying for him to have his own seat and carseat so both mom and baby were comfy.

Right before I left for California, I finally got around to designing our holiday/baby announcement card. Adam was kind enough to address and mail all of them while I was away and since we’re hearing from family and friends that they’re arriving in their mailboxes, I thought I’d share what I came up with here as well.

I’d originally planned for them to be Christmas cards but when it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, I decided to opt for New Years cards instead – and I actually like them much better! I may just decide to be a New Years card family from now on because I’m a procrastinating rebel like that.

Because I’d been trying to get the cards printed and sent before I left on Dec 30th (which didn’t happen), I had them printed locally at Staples, which I don’t recommend. The quality of the cards themselves is actually nice – they’re slightly glossy on the front and then cardstock on the back.

But the actual printing of the images is hit or miss.

I ordered two sets of 25 cards within maybe 10 minutes of each other because there was no way for me to add more cards to my original order and the one set of cards came out WAY more red than the other even though I uploaded the exact same file. There were also some cards where it seemed pretty clear their printer was running out of ink but they didn’t bother to reprint them or anything.

I should have probably complained but I was in a hurry and there was a long line and only one guy who didn’t seem to really care so I figured we could make them work. But I kind of wish I would have just ordered them through someone online and paid the rush shipping instead.

The design itself was inspired by a couple of different holiday/baby cards I found on Pinterest. I knew I wanted something clean and graphic rather than scrapbook-y but I did end up adding a striped glitter paper from Kristin Cronin-Barrow as the background to add some pizazz to the back.

All of the photos were taken by Amy of Captured Simplicity and I can’t even tell you how fun it is to have photos of us that don’t involve a timer or a long-armed selfie shot. This one of Ryan grabbing at the sock is one of my favorite because the grin and the look on his face is just so him.

I admit, part of me felt a bit lame sending out a birth announcement six months after the fact but I actually think it turned out pretty cute in the end. And I felt rather smart using the wording to tie everything together, almost seems like it was intentional and not just a result of my procrastinating on getting it done.

2014 was definitely an amazing year around here and I’m eager to see what 2015 has in store for our little family of three!

Why I Retired As a Template Designer & What’s Next for Nettio Designs

POSTED ON March 3, 2014 IN Announcements, Behind-the-Scenes

And now for the post I know you’ve been waiting for…

Back in December I made the decision to step down as a designer at Sweet Shoppe Designs and retire as a digital scrapbooking template designer. Because of the rushed end-of-the-year holiday timeline, I’m sure it seemed like a bit of an out of the blue decision to a lot of you. But the reality is, this was something I’d been mulling over for a good six months to a year before I actually took the plunge.

As many of you have guessed, yes, my decision to step down as a template designer was related to the little boy we have coming our way in June. But I’d say the baby was much less the reason and much more the catalyst for me to actually take action on a long pushed aside dream.

You see, I never set out to be a template designer or even a digital product designer. In fact, for many years as a scrapbooker I swore I would never be a designer. My passion for scrapbooking has always been telling stories in a creative way and as anyone who’s followed any designer knows, scrapbooking tends to be one of the first things that goes when you become a designer (the irony, right?).

But as I shared more of my layouts as a Sweet Shoppe SugarBabe, along with an occasional freebie template here and there, I started to get more and more requests from digital scrapbookers for templates using my designs. And since I’d always wanted to own my own business and having a mobile, online business as a military wife seemed like a smart idea, I decided to take the plunge.

What a lot of people don’t know, is that prior to launching Nettio Designs in February 2011, I sketched out a plan for another website.

A place where creative tech-lovin memory keepers could go to be inspired, connect, and fully embrace a spirit of creativity and adventure in their lives.

And I called it, KICKASS SCRAPBOOKING.

But for many reasons, the timing didn’t feel right. If I’m being honest, I didn’t feel ready.

So in the meantime I took what I felt was the “safe” route and opened up Nettio Designs selling digital scrapbooking templates, eventually became a designer at Sweet Shoppe Designs and spent the last 3 years learning, growing. All the while knowing in the back of my head that one day this would be the direction I would want to go. One day I would be ready.

And I’m beyond thrilled to say that today is that day.

KickAss Scrapbooking is live!

Now some would probably say that starting a new business venture with a baby on the way isn’t the smartest move. That it would have been safer to stay the course and grow what I had already built with my template business.

But the way I see it, if come June, my life is going to get crazy and my time turned upside down, then I want to make sure the time I do have available is being used for something I am truly passionate about and for me, that extends WAY beyond designing templates on a weekly basis.

What I most want to do is empower digital, hybrid & paper scrapbookers alike to step outside their comfort zone, embrace creative adventure and capture their story in a kickass way.

Which is exactly what KickAss Scrapbooking is all about.

So if you’ve ever felt bored with the stories you tell, felt like all your layouts look the same, or are just ready to take your scrapbooking to a whole new level beyond templates, go check out KickAss Scrapbooking.

Over there you’ll learn much more about my vision for the site as well as details on how you can get your very own copy of the KickAss Scrapbooking + Lifestyle Manifesto which will give you a much clearer (and prettier!) picture on what kickass scrapbooking is all about than I can squeeze into here.

What This Means for Nettio Designs

Now before I go, I know there are some of you who are probably wondering what the launch of KickAss Scrapbooking means for Nettio Designs, so here’s a few answers to what I suspect will be common questions:

1) What does the launch of KickAss Scrapbooking mean for Nettio Designs?

All good things I hope! Moving forward my main scrapbooking-related focus will be at KickAss Scrapbooking, but I will be keeping the Nettio Designs site as a personal playground for my own creative & life adventures. So if you want my best scrapbooking tips & tricks, you’ll now find those at KickAss Scrapbooking, but if you’re curious about my behind-the-scenes adventures, you’ll find those here.

2) Does this mean we won’t see digital scrapbooking templates from you anymore?

Yes and no. I will no longer be offering digital scrapbooking templates on a regular basis or as individual products. But you may occasionally see templates from me as part of a larger product when it makes sense.

3) If I previously subscribed to Nettio Designs News, do I have to sign up again at KickAss Scrapbooking?

Nope! The previous Nettio Designs News email list has been merged with KickAss Scrapbooking which means if you are a Nettio Designs subscriber excited to join me on this kickass adventure, you’re all set.

In fact, you should have received an email from me this morning letting you know about KickAss Scrapbooking. If you didn’t, it means you aren’t currently subscribed to the Nettio Designs list and you’ll need to sign up again over at KickAss Scrapbooking.

Not interested in KickAss Scrapbooking? No worries! Simply click the unsubscribe link in your email and you’ll be removed from the list.

4) Will I still be able to receive Nettio Designs blog posts through email?

No, I will no longer be sending Nettio Designs blog posts out via email. So if you want to keep up with what I have going on here at Nettio Designs in addition to KickAss Scrapbooking, you’ll need to subscribe directly to the Nettio Designs RSS feed using a feed reader. I personally recommend Feedly.

Now, what are you waiting for? Head on over to KickAss Scrapbooking and check it out! I can’t wait to have you join me on this new kickass scrapbooking adventure!

A New Look For Nettio Designs

POSTED ON February 7, 2014 IN Announcements, Behind-the-Scenes

If you happened to stop by Nettio Designs of late, you may have noticed the site’s been in maintenance mode all week. That’s because the web-coding elves, aka me, have been busily working behind the scenes on a fresh new look for Nettio Designs!

Like most web design projects this one took on a life of it’s own, but considering how long it’s been on my to-do list it feels good to finally check this baby off as done.

For reference, here’s what the site looked like before:

And here’s what it looks like now:

A moment of silence for the loss of our beloved woodgrain…

My goal for this redesign was two part: a) to give the site a fresh modern new look that feels more me and b) to make the site easier to navigate for you.

If you’re reading this post in a feed reader or email, I highly recommend popping over to Nettio Designs to check it out! There’s a bunch of new features you won’t see from the screenshot alone. And if you aren’t seeing the new design, you may have to clear out your browser cache so that it serves up the new images instead of the previously saved ones.

With that, there’s a couple of new features I’m excited about that I wanted to point out:

1) A Responsive Design: The site has been rebuilt from the ground up on a new framework and child theme (Genesis Framework with the Dynamik Website Builder child-theme for those of you who like to know those things) which means it’s now fully mobile responsive. What this means in the real world: the design will adapt to display for whatever size device you happen to be browsing on whether it’s a laptop, tablet or smartphone. As a Mac/iPad/iPhone lover who does the majority of her browsing these days on mobile devices this was really important to me and well worth the extra time and effort to make it happen.

2) Updated Sidebar Links: The blog sidebar not only has a new look but has been updated to make it easier for you to find all my best content including: links to my main blog categories, my top 5 most popular projects and a list of must-read posts, chosen by yours truly.

I’m also really proud of the new Archives page which not only made me realize I blogged more last year than I thought, but should also make it much easier for you to find that specific post you know exists but aren’t sure where to find.

3) A New Project Page: In addition to the popular project links in the sidebar, there’s now a dedicated projects page where you can find images and links to ALL of my projects included Week In the Life, Holiday Faves and much more. Check it out here.

4) The Nettio Designs Shoppe is Officially No More: Yes after three years, the Nettio Designs shoppe is officially closed for business. A few of you had discovered you could buy really really old products through the store and while I appreciate the support, it was time for the templates to go. All product links now redirect to the shoppe homepage where there’s a friendly note about my retirement as a product designer and to stay tuned for what’s next.

Of course there’s still a few tweaks I’d like to make (aren’t there always?), like an updated About page, a Work with Me page, a project category with all my digital layouts and some more category customization, but for the most part I’m super happy with how it turned out. It feels fresh and new and makes me excited to share in this space once again.

And finally, if you’re wondering how the Nettio Designs redesign fits into my plans for 2014, just consider this phase 2 of my three-step plan for 2014:

Phase 1: Retiring as a template designer

Phase 2: Redesigning Nettio Designs

Phase 3: The launch of something completely new which I promise I will spill the details on very soon.

For now I’m going to take a break from the world of web coding and try to remember what it’s like to speak in a language that doesn’t involve CSS, PHP or HTML…and maybe take a shower, haha. If you happen to stumble upon anything wonky with the design, feel free to leave me a note below to let me know.

Behind the Scenes | The Making of My Featured Designer Video

POSTED ON August 21, 2013 IN Behind-the-Scenes

If you happened to stop by Sweet Shoppe Designs or read my new release email/blog post over the weekend, you may have seen that I am the Sweet Shoppe Designs Featured Designer for the second half of August, which means thru the end of August, you can snag my brand-new Block Party Vol. 2 Templates for FREE with any $10 purchase at Sweet Shoppe Designs. Pretty sweet deal, right?

In addition to designing a new product, one of my responsibilities as the SSD Featured Designer was to put together a video featuring a top ten list about anything I wanted. Since I’m no stranger to lists, I decided to use my video as a chance to do a little in-person sneak peek of my August Faves 2013 list.

I know, me doing a Faves list? Try not to die of shock now. But I figured since I don’t usually explain much about my Faves on my Monthly Faves layouts, I thought it would be fun to share a little bit more about why my faves are well, faves.

I’m not going to lie, I was WAY nervous about recording the video. To the point that I basically left it until the very last minute I reasonably could after nervously agonizing over it for several days.

But in the end, once I got going, it was really fun…and surprisingly easy! And since I had such a good time, I thought it might be fun to share a little behind the scenes peek at the making of the video. So here ya go!

First, if you haven’t seen my Top Ten video yet, you can check it out below or hop over the Sweet Shoppe blog and check out my complete Featured Designer feature.

I shall worn, if you don’t want the Nettio Designs magic ruined, you may want to avert your eyes as you’re about to see me in all my dork-tastic glory. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, haha.

Video Fun Fact #1: The “outtakes” at the beginning and end of the video were from my pre-recording test runs, usually about 30 seconds of me saying “test test testing” to make sure the sound worked and the video was zoomed to where I wanted it to be. As you can see I got a bit more creative after awhile – and I know you’re all jealous of my awesome dance moves, haha.

Video Fun Fact #2: The main meat of the video was all done in a single take on the first try. Adam asked me if I’d written down talking points or notes or anything and nope, I didn’t, other than my August Faves list seen below. Clearly I get chatty when talking about stuff I love, haha.

Video Fun Fact #3: This seems to be the most surprising thing to people who’ve watched the video, but yes, this is pretty much how I am in real life! To give you an idea, whenever I watch the video back, I can’t help but laugh. At myself. Which I’m pretty sure is just about the dorkiest thing you can do, ever.

Video Fun Fact #4: Weirdest moment for me while watching the video back? (Well, besides the fact that my voice sounds higher than it does in my head.) Recognizing facial expressions and hand motions as things my sisters totally do. I knew this to be true but somehow seeing it makes it that much more hilarious to me. And now it makes sense why a) we still occasionally get asked if we’re twins and/or triplets, even as adults and b) Adam says the three of us together can be a little crazy.

Video Fun Fact #5: The Technical Details

This was very much a low-budget production but for anyone curious, here’s the tools I used for creating my video:

my iPhone 4s
a “tripod”
a chair borrowed from the living room
iMovie

What I always find fun about photography or video, is you can pretty much make anything look good with the right crop. For example, here’s the view you see throughout the video. Just me sitting in a chair against a cream-colored wall.

But if we zoom out, here’s what the scene actually looked like:

Before making my video, I went on a hunt in search of good light and a blank wall and this was the only space I found in our 1200 sq ft apartment that fit the bill at 4pm in the afternoon. So I dragged a chair from our living room into the master bedroom and squeezed it in between the bed, bathroom door and the ugly electrical grey box on our wall. You can’t tell from this picture but if you open the master bedroom door to the right of the chair, it’ll run firmly into the side of said chair.

On a side note: Can I just take a moment to say, as a designer, the grey electrical box being front and center in the master bedroom drives me crazy. Even more so when you consider on the other side of that wall is the master walk-in closet which means they could have simply put it inside the closet and avoided a hideously ugly eye sore in the room. #designfail

Here’s a bigger picture of my awesome tripod setup. Let’s ignore for a moment the fact that my camera is technically facing the wrong direction in all of these photos. Clearly I don’t have the re-enactment skills of South Beach Tow down just yet, haha.

I keep trying to convince myself to splurge on a legit tripod, but really why spend the money when an old side table, an upside-down pot and some books will do? Other items I’ve used as tripods: a ladder, an ironing board and a dresser piled with books.

Who said the life of a digital designer wasn’t glamorous, right?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little behind the scenes peek at the making of my featured designer video! Be sure to check out the rest of my Featured Designer: In the Spotlight post over at Sweet Shoppe Designs and don’t miss out on picking up my Block Party Vol. 2 Templates for free with any $10 purchase before the end of the month.