Taking on tags

Well, first step to re-organizing the blog is to take a look at how I've set up finding previous posts.

When I started this blog, I thought that the more tags or labels, the better and easier to find projects. But the more I've been reading up on marketing and promotion and I've been visiting all kinds of blogs I love, I've seen that my judgement was faulty. I'm taking pointers on what they do well and what I'd like to see reflected in a well organized Magpie blog.

And what I was able to see was that my sidelist of tags was cluttered and hard to follow. It was an immediate priority to make my blog entries easier to navigate.

And I am pleased to announce that after four hours of editing:

I was able to pair down the 267 tags to 38!!

I've discovered along the way that simplifying the many multiple tags has really made me think of specific ways to come up with blog entries now tailored to my new tags.

So I'm very excited for the next few days and the changes here at the Mythical Magpie blog!!

Shhh...

I have a secret....

Over the next week, I am going to change the look and feel of the blog and hopefully will add lots of fun new articles and tutorials.

I am really excited about it and I hope you all come back soon to see the new changes!

Magpie Organizes

So, I have been in a state of disarray after having moved my craft studio to the basement. There is room for all of my crafts and I can work without dragging out tables, projects and supplies into the living room each day.

I must admit, I'm not called Magpie for my ability to organize. So this has been a challenge to pull all my shiny things out and put them in order.

But I am making headway, and after today this is the fruit of my labor. Shelves of fabric arranged by coalor, separated by fat quarters of corresponding colors.

Now, to find a quick quilt project to celebrate!

(Before: A mess of bins and junk)

(After: Stacks of fabric organized by color, separated by fat quarters)

Accomplished!

I came home, after my first training session and was WHUPED!

But, I decided I wanted to get some things accomplished tonight. So I pulled out the shelf we registered for and I ended up buying with a gift certificate. It is seriously heavy, like ninety pounds, but I managed to wrangle myself to put it together.

No bloodshed, no screaming fits, I just read the instructions and it came together quite nicely.

There were a few prayers to Hephaistos, to be fair...and one shameful thumb-bashing with a hammer. But all in all, I was pretty proud of myself.

But the real drama was putting it in the computer/craft room. Below is the picture of what my previous cabinet looked like.



And now, the same amount of stuff in the new shelf!



I wish I knew why things like this make me so pleased, but I am thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly tickled.

So I'm going to pass out...blissfully fatigued.

Goodnight all.

Now what?

So my car is mostly fixed (yay!) The basement is getting dried out and EVERYTHING is getting washed. But I'm still really having a bad allergic reaction to the mildew and mold we've been fighting off.

Ugh. So we're spraying a bleach concoction and airing out the house.

Yesterday for my mom's house, I made a cushion with hand made piping (which I will post when I can get my pictures uploaded) and two coordinating pillows in like no time flat.

And I'm going through a cleaning phase today. I'm trying to get my craft room back into order and that's been an herculean effort, if I may say so.

But I had time to sit down and craft....but I couldn't figure out what to do. It's kinda making me feel a little crazy. There are like an hundred projects that I'd LIKE to do, but I can't seem to sit down and have inspiration come!

What to do?

I have time, but how do I figure out what project to work on?

ARGH!!!