lazy days | why I won't be posting much this week

With all the planning I've been doing for our upcoming trip to Paris I'm running short on time for posting lately, so I owe you all an apology! Posting will be light this week, and I actually intend to take the whole month of August off so I can finish preparing and relax a little before we leave. I have a bunch of ideas up my sleeve for when we return and I'm sure I'll have loads of Paris photos to share, too, but for now here's my new favorite photo - 

Completely unrelated to blogging or Paris, but I love it. Me and Ezra with our new haircuts. It's from our family photo shoot from the weekend... to see more images (and to tide you over until I have something more substantial up!) check out Steph's blog post about the shoot.

Hope your week is off to a good start! 

take forty-seven // my new profile photo

Everyone always assumes that because my husband is a photographer that I have great photos of myself. Not so. More often than not, I'm trying to jump out of the frame as Matt captures images of Ezra, usually because I don't like my hair or my outfit or some other silly reason. When Matt wants to try out new techniques or styles of shooting he expects me to be his guinea pig but I am the least willing subject he can find. However, recently Matt wanted to experiment with some lighting in our basement and I've been wanting a new photo for the blog since I removed the one I had in my profile months ago. Although Matt took it, he said he didn't like it, plus my hair is longer now (and not as smooth for some strange reason). So I agreed to sit for him for a while as long as I got some profile pictures out of it, but if you ask Matt I groveled. Anyway, here are some of the photos from our basement shoot, complete with outfit changes and outtakes.

here I am just warming up. I was making this face on purpose, I promise. 

my instructions here were "look at the water heater"

goofing off while Matt adjusts the tripods

trying to get my point across

sneezing, and letting Matt know I have at least one more sneeze in me

I was ready to be done before Matt was

and the one I ended up with

Matt, sorry for giving you such a hard time! And thanks for all the time you spent post-processing the images, especially my infamous first selection. Read more on that on Matt's blog post about the shoot right here. 

blog design

(image via Made by Girl by Jen Ramos)

You may have noticed some changes around the tiny hummingbird lately and there are more to come! Once I started changing the look and layout I became slightly obsessed and have been bothering Matt nightly with requests to design new sidebar buttons, resize my banner, change the color scheme... and on it goes. Some days I feel ambitious, temporarily overcome my fear of HTML and CSS, and delve into the world of blogger tutorials. Some days I'm successful, and on those days I regale Matt with exciting tales of how I changed the width of my sidebar! and he gives me a patronizing smile. Some days I am frustrated, and on those days I compile a list of things I need Matt to help me with and persuade him to check off every item on my list before the night is over. To save some fellow bloggers (and their innocent web savvy husbands or boyfriends), I figured I would share a list of the links that I've found helpful. Hopefully these are useful to someone! And if anyone knows how to decrease the amount of space between sidebar buttons, please, do tell.

- I learned how to remove the navbar and remove borders from images from Alli's post
- this post helped me fuss with the width of my sidebar and main column
- I decided against it (for now), but here's how to create three columns
- it took forever, but I finally got my social media icons to work
- I considered switching the sidebar from right to left (for now I'm keeping it on the right)
- how to stop being a no-reply blogger - this is only slightly related, but applies to those of you who read blogs but don't write blogs. Comments are one of my favorite things about blogging, and I read every single one that I get. They're forwarded to my blog email address (thetinyhummingbirdblog at gmail), so I often reply to comments via email. Lately, I've been experimenting with replying in the comments section, but I still think it's probably easier for commenters to receive an email response than to keep checking the comment thread. Anyway, there are times when I receive a comment from someone whose email address isn't visible in his or her blogger profile, and then the address shows up as "no-reply blogger" and I can't respond directly. This issue has been bothering me for a while and I'd been planning on writing a little tutorial on how to make your email address visible in your profile, but then I discovered that one of my favorite bloggers did the work for me by writing this post just last week. Visit dandee for super simple instructions on how to not be a no-reply blogger anymore. Because I want to write back to you!

Any tips or tricks you care to share?

one year

Hip hip hooray!  It's my one year blog anniversary, also known as a blogiversary, but Matt made fun of me when I said that the other night.  We'll stick with blog anniversary.  

To celebrate I'm giving away this pink polka dot garland (inspired by this one by the purl bee).  It's 15 inches long, perfect for adding some cheer to a craft room, nursery, or anywhere in the house!  One use I discovered while taking these shots - decorate the chair of your guest of honor at your next party!

There are three ways to enter the giveaway and you can do one, two, or all three to improve your chances of winning.  

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite thing about the  tiny hummingbird, or if you're new here, your favorite thing about another blog.  I'm looking for ways to improve my connection with readers!

2. Become a follower of the tiny hummingbird and tell me in a separate comment.  

3. Mention my giveaway on your blog, facebook page, or twitter and link back to this post to spread the word! Leave a separate comment with the link.

Best of luck to you all!

Giveaway Guidelines

- You have 4 days to enter this giveaway (closes Friday, February 25th at midnight)

- anonymous comments will be ignored so make sure I know who you are and how to contact you!

- the winner will be chosen randomly and announced in this post Monday, February 28th

- winner must respond within three days to secure the prize or an alternate winner will be randomly selected


The winner is Keri who said, "Happy Blogiversary!  The banner would look cute in AJ's room!"  Watch the mail, Keri, the banner is on its way to your sweet Amelia.  

blogging business

1. I missed my 100th post.  Yes, it was quite a while back and I'm just now realizing it but that once-in-a-lifetime post just blew right by me.  I had grand intentions of hosting a giveaway to celebrate but it's a little late now as I'm pretty sure this is my one hundred fifty something post.  Instead I'm looking forward to my blogiversary, which is in a couple of weeks on February 22nd.  Check back here on 2-22-11 for a giveaway to celebrate!  The prize will definitely be something handcrafted and it will probably something whipped up on the ol' Huskystar.  I have some ideas for what I'd like to create but I'm open to suggestions.  Please keep in mind that I consider myself a beginning sewist as my skills are nothing to write home about so don't suggest I give away anything tufted, pleated, ruffled, or beaded.  
2. Maintenance of the tiny hummingbird - I've cleaned up and added to my list of lovely links on my sidebar (see right column) so check out some of my favorite online reads.  Do me a favor and leave a comment today - tell me what your favorite blog is and why I should read it, too.  I love learning about new places to find inspiration around the blogosphere.  Thanks for checking in today!
{the tiny hummingbird word collage courtesy of wordle, which I was prompted to use for the tiny hummingbird by karissa}