Abra-cadabra!

And now, without further ado, I’m going to share a magic trick. Behold, as I turn an ordinary teapot, into a flowerpot!

** Poof! **

Haha – alright, so maybe this wasn’t magic, but it was a transformation (albeit a small one).

You see, I’ve had this teapot for about 5 years. I bought it when I moved into my little garden apartment, just outside of Philly. This past Christmas Paul got me a fancy-shmancy electric tea brewer, so my little green teapot was no longer needed. Sadly, it started to become an object of inconvenience. It was constantly being shuffled from the stove, to the counter, back to the stove.

Since I was too attached to part with it, I decided to give it new purpose as a flowerpot!

The real trick was making sure my new little plant wouldn’t drown in a vessel that is specifically designed to hold water. The solution? I added about an inch and a half of small stones at the bottom so that water can drain out of the soil when necessary. This makes it deceivingly heavy – but my leafy-buddy appreciates it :)

I intentionally avoided a plant with any height (because of the handle), but in hindsight, I think something more colorful (like gerber daisies!!) would look cuter. No biggie…I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I find something else around the house that needs a little magic :P

That new blog smell!

Mmmm – can you smell it?? No? Well at the very least, I hope you can see it! My Sandblog recently underwent a small renovation! Ta-da:

I was starting to feel cramped with (and tired of!) my old theme. I needed a fresher look, more whitespace, and a wider area for larger pictures. So – behold WordPress’s Book Lite theme with a few Sandblogifications :P

But Amy, aren’t you a web designer? Why didn’t you design your own layout? Good questions [imaginary reader in my head]. The answers: Yes, yes I am a designer. But I really want to get back to blogging, and I didn’t want to blog until I had my new look and feel. So I chose to find a good theme that basically had what I needed, and then just tweak the CSS to make it more “me”. And voila – here we are! Maybe one day, in my spare time (hahahahahaa – does such a thing really exist?) I’ll completely customize my blog…but for now, I’m happy with this. :)

New look, new direction!

The plan: blog more, write less. Huh? I know that sounds contradicting – but I REALLY want to get away from writing epically–long–posts, that take me nights to write. Spending all that time writing keeps me from actually playing and creating in my Sandbox – which completely defeats the purpose of my Sandblog (create then share!). So, I’m hoping I can create more, write less and just let my pictures do the majority of the talking.

The best way to achieve this? Let’s set a goal!

On average, my posts contain about 710 words. Yikes! I’m willing to bet that you, my dear reader, are busy! I appreciate you taking the time to read my posts – but you certainly don’t need to spend THAT much time here! So, I’m going to shoot for about 400 words/post. Just a nice brain break, some positive vibes, some nice big pictures and then you can get on with your day (but feel free to leave a comment before heading out ;) ).

And so, as I’m hovering dangerously close to my new self-imposed word-limit, it’s time for me to say toodle-loo! I’ll be back in next week to share some magic!! Oooh!

Final word count: 372