Happy 3rd Birthday, bloggie!

Today is my 3rd year blogiversary! Happy birthday/anniversary/whatever you want to call it to I Like What I'm Herring! 

Back in 2010, I started this blog to document the adventures of home ownership when my house that I had been in for about 3 months completely fell apart. There was a leak from upstairs, and my 3 roommates and myself had to move out for a month.. into one hotel room.  Then the pipes in the backyard clogged up, sewage came up through the shower and under the toilet, and the entire shebang had to be replaced. In the middle of the other disaster. Needless to say, everything has worked out on the home front! 

Normally I'd do something special for this joyous occasion, butttt I'm midway through a massive order of 57 pieces! FIFTY SEVEN! All shapes and sizes. The majority are for Auburn Art to stock up for football season, and the rest are Etsy and word-of-mouth orders. I am so excited that everything is rolling along in my little business world! EEE! 

I'll leave you with this pic of some orders I filled featuring the rival schools here in my home state. 

Who else is ready for football season?!? I can't wait! 

new bloggie layout

Oh my word, it's the rare and elusive Saturday morning post!

I was sick yesterday, throwing up and whatnot (tmi?). When you work for yourself, you can't really take days off, so I would hammer then vom then layout an invite then vom. Awesome, eh? I have a killer sore throat this morning, but the show must go on (aka I have to string and go to the post office to get some of these pieces off so they arrive before Valentine's Day). 

At the point yesterday where I thought I couldn't go on any longer, I got in bed. Of course my mind wouldn't shut off, and I just HAD to redesign my blog so I snuggled up with my computer in bed. I'd been thinking about it for a while, especially since I made the new Herring Design Co logo. I wanted it to be cohesive, like the old Fish + Line logo was with the old header. 

As you can see above, here she is!

I took the colors from the Herring Design Co logo and made the wording ombre. I LOVE IT.

At this point, you might say: but where is the fish, Rachel? Don't you slap that thing everywhere? And I would say: yes, of course I do! She's at the very bottom on the footer.

A lot of blogs have who it's designed by at the bottom (like Fabulous K or Cutest Blog on the Block), but since I did this all by myself (and coding was involved), I just let everyone know that I can DIY blog designs as well haha!

Here's the Herring Design Co logo to compare:

Here's the old header. A bit masculine now that I look at it next to ol' pinky above. 

And here is the old logo before I changed to Herring Design Co. 

And going back super old school, here is the first blog header I created. I didn't get a screen shot of that first layout, but it had a blue scalloped background. Very busy.

Bleck. We've come a long way, bloggie! 

guest posting!

Good morning, my lovelies! Today I am guest posting over at my friend Whitney's blog about some design tips for finding and transforming pieces for your home. Whitney is one of my friends from Interior Design at Auburn, so she knows all about staying up late to finish up crazy projects! She currently live in Ringgold, GA with her hubs and cute little baby boy! 

Click here to check out the post, and be sure to follow Whitney if you want some great design inspiration! 

Thanks for letting me guest post, lady! 

hoot hoot!

I am a night owl, yall. It's about 1:30am, and I just posted a bunch of stuff on Etsy, and thought I'd let everyone know! 

I added more prints (some that I had at the art show back in May) and I am also starting to add thrift store finds. First up was the horse head bookends. I have more thrift store finds that I haven't even shown you yet (if you can believe it!) that will be listed soon.  

Don't worry, I will introduce everything on the blog before throwing them out to the world. We are, after all, BFFs. 

In bloggie design news, I added the huge Etsy link button on the right over there. I also edited the Fish + Line Design button at the top, so now it actually goes to a page on the blog with some info rather than going directly to the Fish + Line Design site. 

Just tryin' to make things easier up in this B. 

You're welcome. 

state of the union

... of the facebook pages.

To merge or not to merge? 

I currently have two facebook pages, one for the bloggie, and one for Fish + Line Design. The two entities were separate at first, with the bloggie being solely house projects, and Fish + Line being just invitations. But then the two started merging.. making a string art for my dining room here, designing a print there, and now the lines have blurred between the two. I want to show the prints on both! And string art started out just as a house project for myself, but those have just taken off, so they're in the Fish + Line Design Etsy shop now. 

Sooo I need your input. Should I merge the pages? Do you even care if they're merged?! I try not to be one of those people that post multiple things at once (well sometimes I post bloggie posts on my personal page..), so I have tried to keep myself from posting something on both at the same time since I know there are a few of you out there who "like" both. If I did, I would keep the "i like what i'm herring" facebook page as the remaining one. You might have noticed I've been getting more likes lately.. I've been shamelessly asking people to like the page haha! In order to merge, I need more people liking the bloggie page than the Fish + Line Design page. 

Just when I think I'm ready to merge, I keep going back and forth in my head. What to do what to do...

My other thought is this.. facebook will let you change the name of the page before it gets to 200 likes. Maybe I should keep the Fish + Line Design page, then change the name once I come up with one I like? (Remember the branding issue from a while back..) 

I've also researched other big blogs/companies with my issue, like Jenny Komenda who has the most fabulous blog: Little Green Notebook. Her blog has a fb page, but her interior design business, Jenny Komenda Interiors, does not. Same with Kim and Scott's blog Yellow Brick Home. They have a bloggie facebook page, but not one for Kim's pet painting business called The Pet Shop. I'm basing these off people whose blog has a different name than their business, btw.. 

SOOOOO what do you think? 

Are you just tired of me rambling about it?! haha 

Onto another state subject..

I made some new string arts this weekend. One was a state I hadn't done before..

Arkansas! 

The city was Cabot, which I had never heard of..

but I'm guessing she was a Razorback fan due to the colors she chose! 

And you know it's getting close to football season when I'm popping out SEC colors! 

Next was ol' rocky top, Knoxville, TN. 

Can you believe they make the circus peanut orange spray paint color?! haha! 

That made it much easier. 

I shipped 'em out today! I've sold a bunch of the You Are Beautiful Auburn and Alabama as well, so if you're looking to show your team spirit, visit the Etsy shop! 

And let me know if you have an opinion on the facebook page debate! HA! 

project gallery

I've had a riveting Saturday night here at the Herring household updating the bloggie! You may have noticed I added a project gallery tab at the top. It was thrown together fairly fast with just links to projects. 

Booorrrrriiiinnngggg. And a bit uninformative. 

Tonight I added some pictures, so now you'll know exactly what project you'll be clicking on! 

WOO!

I'll be updating it as I complete projects.

Enjoy!