3, 2, 1 action!

Finally! I can't believe this day is finally here. I've been working so SO hard this past couple of weeks that I thought they where never going to end. Hello beauty sleep, I've never missed you so much, please don't ever leave me again. 

When I decided to close my shop a month ago I did so honestly because I was bored. Bored to death with my job and in desperate need of some reconnecting with myself and what I love. And yes, I did a lot of that. but at the same time I felt the urge to do something that even in a tiny bit, still resembled work. I got to study designers and their styles and techniques made me even more aware of my own style and technique. I was flooded with ideas and I now NEEDED to work. 

I had the greatest time designing and testing my memory skills. Honestly I can't keep a CSS code on my mind for longer than 4 seconds and that kills me. Thank God for cheat sheets! Even if mine is one big fat mess of something that used to be CSS. I learned so much along the way and felt inspired every single second that it amazes me how much my brain grows -in knowledge- when I'm creating. Yes, even last night when I was rushing to finish a million things with a back ache and 100% sure I wanted to give up.

I feel so proud of everything that I've accomplished! I so hope that you feel the same way about what I'm doing. So please feel free to ignore my 3am ramblings and take a look around my blog's new design! Let me know how you feel. Its always nice to hear feedback from the things that you work so hard on. Also remember to click on the Premade and Custom tags on top to see more of what's been keeping me so far away from my bed late at night for the past month. I miss sleep! and my bed! and cuddling with my man. 

Lastly, don't miss the 10% discount we are offering to people buying directly from this website instead of Etsy (sorry Etsy buyers!). Discounts are applied over all marked prices and no code is necessary.

I think that's it! So if you'll excuse me I'm going to go rekindle my love affair with my bed. Ah, bliss!

I finally caved in!

I don't know what is it with me and the google friend connect widget to tell you the truth. I've never liked it and just the thought of using it makes me cringe. I don't know what makes me so uncomfortable about that teeny empty box but I can tell you one thing for sure. It really REALLY feels awkward. I kind of feel like it's some popularity contest I don't want to be involved with. I don't want to start feeling insecure about my blog, or my content or my traffic, which is decent for the most part and waaay more than I expected it to be, or the bits of life I share here or anything else for that matter.

BUT. Since the last couple of weeks have been all about stepping out of my comfort zone (in my personal life) why not apply it to my "online" life as well right? I think I can live with it without being constantly bummed out by the lack of followers (some faith I have in myself huh?) and want to be a little more mature about it. After all the one thing I've learned so far by blogging is that amount of people reading my blog is not reflected in the amount of followers I have.

So that is that.

From now on you'll be able to follow my blog on Bloglovin', GFC over there on the sidebar and additionally you can now follow me by email, where besides blog updates you'll be receiving a heads up when I have freebies, printables and any other fun stuff for you guys. And believe me those are coming and they're going to be good!

That's it for now. Have a nice weekend!

*Totally unrelated picture from  Stylabl via Pinterest

I've been working... *HARD*!

So, a lot of things happened during this last few months. A lot of hard, heart breaking things seemed to happen all the time. In the mean time I had work, and lots of it. I had the honor of being contacted by Hannah of Fancy, Fun & Free Me. She wanted a blog make over and I was trying to get things behind and focus on work. We hit it off real fast and had the type of communication that you have with people you already know. I felt really really comfortable during this entire process and was pleased to know that she was really supportive, understanding and encouraging of everything that was going on.

I decided to work EXTRA on a special design for Hannah and I think we accomplished something great here. We created something intimate and feminine that I actually loved. I'm over the top happy with this project.

Thank you Hannah for being such an amazing customer and all around great person!

Ps. Please visit Hannah's etsy shop Hanmade for some shabby chic fabulousness and drop by her blog because she has a lot of things in store for all of you. 

I've been working

I've been working on this lovely design for Diana from Our love feast for the las couple of months and it's been great! I've had so much fun coming and going through all of our ideas and concepts and finding out what worked and what didn't. I loved working with Diana and it's such a pleasure to work with people that are into taking their time, developing a concept and won't constantly try to rush things. 

We ended up with such a pretty simple design but at the same time so so fancy and elegant looking. I am really happy about it. So THANK YOU Diana for being such an amazing customer and for being so patient and straight forward. I hope you're happy with your design and I'm looking forward to following your beautiful family over at Our love feast!

The online alt summit crowd

Well yes, it's me, one of the people who didn't get the chance to go to Alt summit this time. One of those people that live very far away, and don't really have the time to travel for a long weekend to a gorgeous hotel on a gorgeous snowy city. I didn't have to go through outfit selection (that knowing me would've been a week long affair), didn't get to meet some cool bloggers (i'm probably too shy for that anyways), and didn't get to meet Jessica Alba but guess what? I had an awesome time at Alt Summit this past weekend.

'But you just said that you didn't go!'

 I didn't. But thanks to the magic of the internet I was kind of there and most importantly I learned a whole lot. This year I was determined to get the most out of the opportunities presented by this cool group of people and I did. I signed up for 3 of the 4 free online classes and just went at it.

I got to learn about advertising and sponsorship on blogs, for brands and for individuals from the amazing and talented creator of Passionfruit ads. That class was so interesting! So much stuff I didn't think of.

The next day sadly I was late to a class due to some scheduling problems but I got to review the notes and talk to people that where there and I still got what I wanted.

Later that day I attended "Please like me". A class about social media and blogging. The teacher? The amazing Natalie Bowman from Bing.com. This was by far my favorite class. I actually didn't expect much because I use mainly Instagram, Pinterest and this blog as tools for my business and keep my twitter personal and just for friends and family. I learned so so much from what she said. She really knows her stuff. I started applying most of what she said a brand should do and try to read the notes I took as much as possible and I already see the positive results.

But the single most important thing I learned this weekend si that creating community really does matter and I got to witness and be a part of it. Seriously, I went to that first class super shy and conscious about not knowing a lot of people in the bloggy world but I left with a ton of new friends and an inbox full of kind words. I got to meet so many great people, explore and follow some great blogs and will continue to do so for a long time. 

I've already stablished great relations with some of the attendees and even email back and forward with some girls several times a day. I've helped a couple of people and received help from others too!

All in all I'm really grateful for what I got to experience this past weekend and for all the people I met.

If you want for me to share my notes with you please leave a comment below of email me at foxarrowdesign {at} gmail dot com

Also, a big THANK YOU to every single person that has helped me out by reading, sharing and emailing me about my last post. THANK YOU so so much to every single person that purchased something, donated money and sent prayers. I urge to to continue doing so and helping them in any way you can.

elements of design part. i

For the first part of this series and before we start designing, sketching, and coding I thought I would share with you a little something I learned in school and how to apply it to your design: There is nothing more important for you to be able to get the most out of your blog, shop, book, magazine, business than to know and understand the basic elements of design. Don't get intimidated, i'll take you step by step, break it down for you and offer practical tips that you can apply!

Without getting too technical on you, you must know that the most important elements (but not the only ones) of composition and aesthetics are rhythm, balance, color, texture, line, shape, space and value. But what are those you ask? Lets see..

Blog design: the series

For this new year I decided that I want to do a mini series about blog design. Since I pretty much taught myself I know how intimidating it can be sometimes. And then when you decide to tackle the issue it turns out to be harder and more intimidating that you could ever think it would be. That's why I want to help others going through the same thing as much as I can. 

In this series I'll be discussing everything from the most basic stuff like simple aesthetic, composition, color and design rules for people who doesn't have any clue about where to start, to full-on css coding for people who need more specific issues resolved.

I'll be taking in questions, comments, doubts, cries for help from anyone with a concern about blog design. I will also write posts about things that from my personal experience learning about design and web developing, turned to be hard and tricky and made me pull out my hair more than once.

I hope that I can help at least one person with this. So bring on your questions!

Ps. please Follow my blog with Bloglovin to keep up with my work, freebies and much more.

I've been working...

I had the pleasure of working with the lovely Jess Judkins from My Little Mustache this past week in re doing her entire blog design and I had so much fun! 

Jess was the first person to reach out to me when I opened my Etsy shop and definitely one of the nicest people I've met online. We came back and forth a couple of weeks before we actually got to work and after that it was a breeze! She definitely knew what she wanted as a general concept but I was so excited that she left the rest up to me. It is really rare when a person does that (especially if they're paying for it) but I'm so glad she did. We exchanged a couple of emails that left me super inspired and I actually developed the concept and worked my way through more half of the design in just one day! I think this was the first time that I've donde that. 

I'm so so pleased with the end result that I actually wish it was for my blog.

Thank you for trusting me with your blog design Jess!

Do you like giveaways? Us too!

Today I'm excited to announce Fox and Arrow is hosting a giveaway over at Sara Montana Says. We are going holiday crazy and giving one lucky reader a custom blog design to start the new year with. Everyone has up to thirteen entry options. THIRTEEN! So your chances at winning are higher than ever. The giveaway will be open for six more days so be sure to enter!

On top of that and since we're going at it, we are offering 20% discount on the shop with the code MONTANA20 so if you see something you like, you know what to do. This code will be good for the rest of 2012 so hurry!

And if you want to make me even happier (if that's even possible) go show some love to our Hostess with the mostess. She's been such a good sport about this and I'm super happy that we crossed paths and did this together!

Remember that you have six more days to enter for a chance to win a one of a kind blog design done by me and me alone.

Happy Monday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway