Blogging:

• Change the layout of my blog to something I actually like – I’m all for minimalism and white space and stuff like that, I just feel like this layout lacks character. I’m going to design something with more depth, maybe it won’t be a big change but it will liven up this a little bit more.
• Concentrate on  improving my photography – This doesn’t mean that outfit pictures are going to show up here more or anything like that. I just want to make better quality images, whether they are product shots, random tourist-y pics or just silly self-portraits for my 365. I just ordered some filters and I’m reading up on photography blogs. I want to produce better images for my blog.
• Post regularly - I made 22 posts in 2011. 22 out of 365 days. That has to change, if I want my blog to be noticed and read I need to post and post and post as much as I can. You can call me out on it as much as you want.
• Comment on other blogs more - I have my favourite blogs and I comment regularly on them. I rarely get new blogs to read and I don’t comment a lot. I’m going to work on my commenting skills and just add something to someone’s article or to the conversation.
• Keep up with my social media outlets, specially Tumblr - I run 4 Tumblr blogs, I keep Shoes Galore and Type Addict updated almost all the time (thank goodness for Tumblr queues) but I keep my personal and my web dev Tumblrs neglected. It’s time to change that.My Facebook fan page has now a direct connection to my RSS vía Bloglovin’s My Posts Facebook app and Twitter is updated way too much. I apologize for tweeting mostly in Spanish :(.

Style & beauty

• Learn to make the perfect cat eyeliner - I need patience with this, so much patience.
• Invest in my skin care routine - I don’t have terrible skin but it could be better, I’m going to invest more in skin care products and maybe get a Clarisonic, everyone seems amazed with it and it’s available here thanks to Sephora Mexico!
• Wear more skirts and dresses – I live in jeans, but there are so many cute dresses and skirts and other clothing options that I just want to get out of my comfort zone.
• Dress like a fashion blogger on a budget - Style direction post coming before the end of the week.

These goals were inspired by many bloggers who I admire and follow almost religiously. I just added a bunch of blogs on my Bloglovin’ and I’m discovering a lot of new (old) things. I’m very excited about this year.

What are your goals?

Kisses!

I was toying with the idea of buying a LOMO camera, this one, but I realized that I might not even get that much use of the camera and the film. Therefore, I decided to get a bunch of LOMO effect apps for my phone (Samsung Galaxy S) and get snapping. If I use them a lot until the end of the year, I will get a proper LOMO camera during 2012.

This brings me to this new section on the blog. Every Sunday (or early Monday morning), I will post the snapshots I took during the week :D. This is just to keep me motivated and get myself cracking on taking pictures everywhere. I hope you enjoy them n_n.

Today’s sunset

Have you ever done LOMOgraphy, digital or film?

Kisses!

Desde que supe que me voy a quedar en México por otro rato más, decidí que voy a hacer muchas cosas que no había podido hacer por estar con la incertidumbre de si me iba a la maestría o no. Unas de esas cosas son: regresar a clases de Alemán, ir a clase de Pole Fitness, ahorrar para irme a vivir sola. Una de esas muchas cosas que quiero hacer es dedicarme a la LOMOgrafía.

Realmente se me vino a la mente la idea de comprar una verdadera cámara LOMO, ésta, pero me di cuenta de que tal vez no la usaría tanto. Comprar la cámara, los rollos y luego revelar las fotos es un proceso algo cansado y seguro me iba a hartar e iba a dejar el hobby. Así que en lugar de gastar en cámaras y rollos, me puse a bajar aplicaciones de fotografía con efectos LOMO a mi teléfono (Samsung Galaxy S) y ponerme a sacar fotos. Si saco muchas de aquí a que acabe el año, me voy a comprar mi cámara y mis rollos en 2012.

Todo esto, me lleva a abrir una nueva sección en este blog. Cada domingo (o lunes en la madrugada), publicaré las fotitos que tome durante la semana con las apps de LOMO. Estoy haciendo esto para mantenerme motivada con este proyecto y quitarme el miedo de tomar fotos en todos lados. Espero que las disfruten tanto como yo :D.

El atardecer de hoy desde el parabrisas sucio de mi carro.

¿Alguna vez has tomado fotos con una LOMO?

¡Besos!

I’ve tried blogging in two languages at the same time, but that is very messy for me. I’d rather make separate posts in English or Spanish to keep things tidy around here. That’s why I decided to install qTranslate on my blog and make a Spanish website out of this one.

The two sites will be completely separate and sometimes I will post something in English and not in Spanish and vice versa. Don’t worry, it won’t happen a lot, I promise.

So, I want to thank you for starting this new chapter in juliettemaxwell.com with me.

Kisses!Ya era hora, ¿no?

Llevo ya 4 años escribiendo este blog en inglés y al fin tomé la decisión de escribir también en español. La verdad es que estoy empezando esta nueva etapa en español principalmente para mejorar mi ortografía y redacción. Soy muy mala escribiendo así que por favor tengan mucha paciencia conmigo.

Las entradas que ya estaban publicadas en inglés, se quedarán en el sitio en inglés salvo por unas que estaré traduciendo estos días.

Para hacer mi sitio multi lenguaje, instalé un plugin de WordPress llamado qTranslate. Este plugin hace un buen de cambios en la interfaz de administración para hacer el proceso de publicación muy sencillo en inglés y español.

De verdad estoy muy emocionada por empezar esta nueva etapa y les agradezco mucho que se queden conmigo en este camino.

¡Besos!

I got the little itch to change my blog since I started helping Maria and Anna with little bits and pieces of their blogs (drop down menus, backgrounds and faux slices). So I spent all day today with my Illustrator, TextWrangler, FileZilla and Firefox open, working on what you see here.

I still have details to work on like a new About page and improve my Contact form’s look (it works like a charm, but it is ugly as hell :/). I also added links to follow my three Tumblr accounts and made my Twitter and Facebook gadgets smaller (to keep my blog from looking like a Nascar car XD). I made a few adjustments to the look of the Archives/Categories drop down and the Search form.

Please let me know what you think in the comments :D.

Kisses!

A new look.

I decided to get my portfolio away from my blog. After all, they are completely different projects and I did want them separate from each other.

For years now, I’ve made a habit to build my own WordPress Themes. They might not be über amazing design wise but they are entirely coded by myself :D. I decided to go back to the classic blog look this time. Content and a sidebar. A colour palette of pinks, grey, black and white because those are my favourite colours.

I’m still deciding on the background and the header image. I’m not entirely convinced yet, but I’m sure that I’ll pull something out of my sleeve soon enough.

For fonts, I decided on Georgia and Century Gothic. I’ve always loved Century Gothic, I think that is very easy to read and I’ve always used it for everything. I chose Georgia because I think that it’s very feminine looking. I wanted a script font but they all looked terrible!

As for functionality, this theme presents:

• Custom menu using the WordPress 3+ menu functionality. This means that I can add and remove menu items at will.
• 100% widgetized sidebar – A given nowadays in WordPress themes. I remember that two years ago there were still themed with a hard coded sidebar and no widgets! Can you imagine?
• DISQUS comment system – The Narcissus theme that comes with this comment system looks amazing with my theme, so I decided to give it another go and it allows me MAJOR control over everything that happens with the comments.
• Custom everything – From bullets, to how italic, bold and underlined text looks. I love toying with CSS and this is the proof of that.

Navigation is made super simple by having the controls right at the top of the page. I like my navigation menu, I’m thinking of incorporating some jQuery to it, but I’m not sure how I would do it. I need to figure some things out first.

There are still some kinks and details to work out, but I hope you like this new look. I’m not a 100% happy with it yet, but over the next few weeks I’m sure that I will be.

Kisses!