Happy Australia Day!

One of the things I love most about this online world is how it washes away the miles between wonderful souls.  A personal example of this is that a large portion of my customers are from the lovely land down under. And so with that in mind I want to wish you all a very happy Australia Day!

Enjoy~

✻1000th Giveaway Winners✻

Yes... just as the title says, I'm hear to announce the winners for my 1000th Followers Giveaway, whoot! I simply couldn't be happier or more excited for everyone!

I want to thank all of you who participated in this event ~ it really means so much that you took the time to visit and Follow/Like my wonderful sponsors. Honestly, they're a huge help in enabling me to create and provide gorgeous images for blogland & beyond and I'm blessed to have them!

So without further adieu, here are the winners for this giveaway....

✻First prize of the "Rocket Science" woven wire bracelet goes to Magaly Guerrero of Pagan Culture!

✻Second prize with her choice of any key holder from my Etsy shop goes to "(Angie or Angela)" of Lilac Wolf!

✻Third prize of a $30 gift certificate to my Etsy shop goes to Elizabet of Dark is the Night Tonight!

A huge CoNgRaTuLaTiOnS to all of you!!

Enjoy~

One Thousand Followers Giveaway

Recently while checking into my blog I realized the Followers count was quickly nearing one thousand, holy smokes!! If you'd asked me two and a half years ago what I expected I can tell you I never would have imagined what an amazing journey this would be. This road has been filled with so many blessings; from the absolutely a-m-a-z-i-n-g friends and customers I've made and met to the incredible projects I've worked on.

Few know that many of the customers I work with have suffered great setbacks and heart ships, from victims of physically debilitating illnesses to emotionally devastating circumstances, they are an amazing group ~ each with a heart of gold trying to find a voice in this crazy online world. My job has been a blessing ~ truly. To enable these wonderful people to find a fitting backdrop for their stories in blogland or their small online businesses is nothing short of a delight and I am always immensely grateful. You've all been so wonderful! It's hard not feel as though this road has been paved with the wonder and beauty that only a divinely inspired journey could be.

To show my appreciation to all of you I'm holding a fabulous giveaway! It's a celebration of this creative journey, a way to say thanks to my wonderful (and creative) sponsors, and jam packed with goodies. So read on to find out how to participate for loads of chances to win some special creative treasures and have fun!

The Goodies
First prize is this fabulous handmade Woven Wire Bracelet titled "Rocket Science" featuring a wonderful artisan Lampwork focal bead by IrinaS. These bracelets are a huge hit in boutiques and art festivals and they shimmer at every turn. Their eclectic asymmetrical design and shimmering crystals make them a real eye catcher.

Second prize is one of my woven wire key holders ~ winner's choice! Yes, the winner will have her choice of any key holder listed in my Etsy shop ~ so you can pick and choose based on your favorite colors and elements (just like my custom themes, whoot!)

Third prize is a thirty dollar gift certificate good toward the purchase of anything in my shop. This is a wonderful gift because it can be used for so many different things; if you love my seasonal blog themes ~ pick up a selection of coordinating banners! Always wanted one of my custom themes? Save more than any sale through the year! Want to play with all of my digital collage sheets? Yep, you get the idea!

To Enter
Follow each of the steps below for chances to win and be sure to leave a comment for each item so all of your entries will count. Enter as little or as much as you like ~ it's up you!

1. Become a Follower of this blog and leave a comment on this posting

2. Visit each one of my sponsor's links below and either "Follow", "Subscribe" or "Like" then return to leave a comment after each one ~ each sponsor's visit will gain you one entry for a total of six entries.

Angels at My Door - Like
Austin Accents - Like
Crafting Granny's Card Shack - Follow
Dean Designs - Follow
League of Champions - Join Newsletter
Memory Bound - Like

3. Grab the badge and share it on your own sidebar ~ then let me know you did. (be far, it can't be buried at the bottom of a dead blog and yes... I check)

<center><a href="http://www.PlumroseLane.com" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="1000 Followers Giveaway" src="http://i806.photobucket.com/albums/yy344/plumrose-lane/Badges/PrL-1000th_Follower_Giveaway-x150-1.png" /></a></center>

4. Post about it on your own blog ~ then come back and leave a comment so I know.

The Rules
This giveaway will run until Friday, August 10th midnight EST. Winners will be announced in a followup posting and will be contacted via email or blog comment. This giveaway has the same rules as all of my giveaways which basically are that you have to be an active blogger, with an active blog, and a functioning profile (picture included) to participate. To read more about the rules for this giveaway you can click here.

Thanks so much to all of you for joining, spreading the word and making this such a wonderful journey!

Enjoy~

Google Friends Connect ~ going, going, gone...

You many have heard lately that a few features are being phased out from the Google repertoire. Being that Blogger is owned by Google many of the blogs I follow have become increasingly concerned with the March 1st ending of a little add-on called "Google Friends Connect" and if you're like me you've been receiving a slew of email notices from worried bloggers, concerned they may soon be loosing 'you' from their blogging audience.

To delve a bit deeper, here is the exact wording for this change from the Official Google Blog and their November 22nd posting of last year...

Google Friend Connect—Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We're retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google+ and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch.

Now while this may sound like a catastrophe for all of us using the "Followers" feature on our blogs, the two are clearly not the same and I believe the key words here are "We're retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites..."

What this means to me is that if you're using the built-in "Followers" gadget that comes along with your Blogger blog then you're safe ~ no need to worry. The wording clearly states that this change only affects those who have this as an add-on for their non Blogger sites.

I hope this helps put some of the recent tension to ease and remember, if you want to follow along with what Google is up to these days you can always visit their own blog found here: Official Google Blog

Enjoy~

Followers & Comments ~ What's up with that??

In an earlier post one of my visitors asked about the issues she's been experiencing with disappearing Followers and the inability for visitors to leave comments. I think we've all noticed how glitchy Blogger has been lately with these two aspects and I'm sure we're equally hoping a fix is just around the next blogger corner.

While the Followers issue seems to be ongoing and affecting most, if not all of us, sadly I haven't found anything that directly affects or repairs this issue. On the other hand I have successfully assisted some of my customers in overcoming the Comments issue and so I'll share with you know how we accomplished that...

The first step is to delete your browser's cookies, this is helpful as it can affect functionality and clear up online glitches but I must warn you that it will also log you out of all the websites you're automatically logged into. What I use to remedy this situation is Xmarks ~ it's a great tool that helps remember all of my log-in information so I don't have to. I've found it to be a free and reliable service so feel free to use them.

Once again you'll need to determine what browser you're using to figure out how to delete your cookies. I've included links below for how to remove cookies from the most commonly used browsers...

❀Internet Explorer

❀Firefox

❀Chrome

❀Safari

Click on the above link to go to a page that discusses how to remove cookies for your specific browser. Or you can also use this page which lists more help for deleting cookies from specific browsers.

After you've finished removing the cookies, I also recommend restarting your computer. This helps to ensure that the next time you start your browser you're getting a fresh clean start.

Once you've done this, I suggest visiting the area of your blog that controls comments. To do this, log into your blog and navigate to the "Comments" area under the "Settings" tab, as in the example screen shot below from my own blog...
On this page is where you can set all of the specific attributes related to comments on your blog. Now this page can be individualized in many ways and much of it is up to personal tasted but I've included a screen shot from my own blog so you have a guideline on how you might want to have your options set....

remember ~ to view a larger version just click on the image above

The most important areas to pay attention to are the "Who Can Comment?" area and the "Comments Default for Post". You'll want both of these to be set up so you don't have to worry about postings on a case by case basis. To do this, I recommend setting the "Who Can Comment" to "Registered Users", this helps lesson the amount of spam comments and the "Comments Default for Post" to "New Posts Have Comments" so that visitors can automatically comment.

When you're finished making any adjustments, be sure to click the "Save" button at the bottom.

While I don't profess to be a guru of any means, and I certainly can't make any guarantees, I do hope these topics have been helpful and maybe even relieved some of the issues you've been experiencing.

"Followers" ~ Where'd They Go?

I'm just popping in on this holiday weekend to give a little heads up on the "Followers" issue. Some (or all) of you may have noticed the lack of that Followers gadget on your sidebar. Seems Blogger is undergoing a little glitch in this area. I've checked into it and they are aware of the situation so hopefully it will be a fixed shortly.

I try to remember during times like these that Blogger does offer our blogs for free ~ it's a big help when things start glitching our here in blogland.

Can you imagine what life would be like without blogs and blogland? All those creative souls we've touched and friendships we've made would never have been. Not mention, I'd be out of a job, hah! So here's a big ThAnKs to Blogger for giving us a voice to touch the world, one creative soul at a time ~ now just fix our "Followers"... please. ;D

Enjoy~

New Tutorial - The Basics of "Following" & "Followers"

Recently a friend/customer and fellow blogger ran into some issues with the "Following" feature ~ namely, sometimes her identity was showing up as anonymous and other times it turned out she wasn't following the blog at all. While it's difficult to say whether this was simply a Blogger glitch, there have been far too many lately, or whether this is an issue that can be easily resolved, I figured it wouldn't hurt to cover some basics on the "Following" feature.

And so I've created a new tutorial titled The Basics of "Following" & "Followers" which highlights some of the key points of Following and even offers a little troubleshooting. Simply click on the title above to view the tutorial or find it in the future on the Tutorials page.

I hope this helps to make your adventures in Blogland that much more enjoyable and stress free ~

Enjoy!