Happy new year and back up your blog!

Happy new year, friends.  It's a good day to back up your blog, if you have one.  If you use Blogger like I do, it's so easy:

• From your Dashboard, click on Settings
• Under Settings, click on Other
• At the top of that page, you will see three choices -- one of them is Export your blog.  Click on that.
• You will see a window with an orange Download Blog button; when you click on that you will download your whole blog in Blogger Atom export format.  Keep that file and you will be able to restore your blog if something awful were to happen to it.

I'm sure there's an easy way to do it using other providers, too.  You should do it right now. 

It's a good time to back up all the rest of your important stuff, too.  'Most especially photos.  I always feel terrible when I hear about people losing their hard drives and all of their photos were on it.  If you don't already back up your photos to the web, then take a few minutes to burn them onto a CD (or two) now!

If you have time, look over your past year's photos and choose the best ones to print out for your paper scrapbooks, too.

I can't tell you how much I loved having you all visit and read my blog in 2012.  I enjoy the conversation and community so much.  It's great to be able to connect with people who "get" me, my art, my obsession with vintage-everything, etc.  You have all become so important to me!

You are always so supportive and often say nice things about my projects.  Sometimes some of you say things like, "You're so talented" or, "Everything you make is wonderful" but, of course, it's not always true.  I have as many false starts as finished products -- I just don't usually put photos of them on my blog.

 Just for fun, I thought I would show you something I made the other day that just didn't work out.

It was supposed to look like this: a project from Christmas Ideas magazine (above). 

Instead, it came out like this.  I didn't have any fawn-colored felt so I used a brick red color.  Not a good substitution -- what was I thinking?  My blanket stitches look so sloppy.  And somehow, the little deer came out fat.  It took forever, too. I was so disappointed!

I hope my little lopsided deer failure makes you smile today!  I'll be sending it to live on to the Island of Misfit Toys.

Now, don't forget to back up and, happy new year!