Remember how I told you that I was taking a Photoshop for bloggers course?  I did. It is called BlogShop. And it is fabulous.  You can see details from the days on Design Love Fest including all the goodies we were gifted and a lovely photo of our beautiful group of blogging creatives that gathered for the day to connect and learn and inspire each other.  I met some very talented ladies and learned a plethora of Photoshop tips and tricks (though I’m sure were still only scratching the surface of what it can actually do — and yet, I’m finding that what I can do impresses me the more I use it).  Also, immediately following BlogShop, I purchased a Bamboo Wacom tablet (after painstakingly obsessing over which model to get because the Intuos one for pros seemed like the way to go but I wasn’t sure if I’d love it so I actually opted for the most affordable one) which is a mouse replacement tablet and pen.  Life changing.  Seriously.  I love it and now using a mouse definitely feels like scratching with a claw.  Not fun.

All of this is to say that I’ve been very behind on blogging and writing lately and I’ve actually run out of posts because I have been so distracted playing around with photos.  So I thought it might be good to explain what I’ve been up to.  And now I need to get back to writing.  But, then again, this is all part of my “get better at things I like” plan, and a few days ago I even took an online Alt Summit class called “Growing Your Blog With Photography” led by the uber-talented Justin Hackworth.  You see, after delving into the world of Photoshop, I realized in order to get the most out of that, I need to be taking better photos.  It’s a vicious cycle, I tell ya.  However, I was reassured in the class that my iPhone can take perfectly fine photos, I simply need to get better at taking multiple shots from different angles to try to make the most of lighting and removing distractions from the background.  All good, practical tips.

So now all of that is to say that while I want to keep blogging as much as possible, I also want to keep getting better.  So, thanks for reading and commenting and tweeting and emailing.  I am so inspired and driven by your lovely notes of encouragement and I love hearing from you.  I am thankful for The Bachelor, as it gives me a reason to get together with my friends every Monday night and is a great writing exercise to keep me moving typing away. I love it.  Also, I have been obsessed with mood boards lately and will continue working on those because they are super fun and I’m pretty awesome at finding things online if I do say so myself (though, you can also ask around…I’m good).  If there’s anything you’d like to see in a roundup, do let me know!  And, in the meantime, enjoy this fun little montage I put together (in Photoshop — look at me!) using a photo from the day I first tried that awesome red lip stain:

P.S. That little happy dance from last week?  That’s all thanks to BlogShop LA too.  Yay!