Making these dolls has meant that I’ve used up some of my vintage buttons. You know the ones – those super pretty carved buttons that you hang onto forever and take out just to look at every now and then. This has given me an excuse to bid on some buttons on Ebay. A lovely bag of vintage buttons arrived today. Here are a few of my favorites
There are two of that bigger blue and white flower one and one of them is already being sewn onto the newest doll’s hair.
I’m also working on an owl and owlet in a bag set for a woman whose little son is really into owls right now.
I did a little work on this here blog the other night. I got a nifty Flickr badge instead of my unwieldy photo album. I am starting to worry that my blog takes a long time to load. Do any of you find this to be true? If so, what can I do to correct it?
sally says
Adorable new banner. I don’t have any trouble viewing your blog. I love your new vintage buttons. I’m thinking of hosting a vintage button swap sometime in the near future…who couldn’t use a few more buttons for their collection?
Fiona says
I just love these girls you’ve been making, Abby! Love the new banner, too (that photo!)… I’m not sure about anyone else, but I’ve noticed that all typepad blogs take a while to load, presumably because they are so graphics heavy(?) I guess making your photos smaller can sometimes help… but I’ve fiddled with mine in photoshop lots and it seems to make precious little difference. I’ll be really interested to see if anyone else has any suggestions. 🙂
Emma says
I love photos like this, thanks for sharing your buttons with us!
wendy says
the only thing that i can think of that would help your site load faster is to have smaller images. your images are just compressed to the size that they are being viewed at in your blog, rather than actually being smaller. it’s pretty simple to resize your images in any photo editing software. i usually make my own “thumbnails” that will fit in the width of most people’s screens, and then have the thumbnails link to full sized images that people can view if they feel like it.
also, i normally read my blogs in bloglines, and the images come through only in the larger size, making it very awkward to read whatever text there is. i end up either going to your blog itself (meaning everything ends up loading twice) or having to scroll side to side. not sure if anyone else does this too, but having your site loaded twice all the time won’t be good for your bandwidth (i don’t think at least, but i could be wrong).
carolyn says
i have no load issues with your site at all – it’s lickety split for me. (of course i visit everyday so i think it only has to load the new stuff, the old stuff is probably cached.) and i love the size of your photos! i tend to bypass blogs that use only thumbnails! 🙂
julie says
lovely buttons. I’ve been so tempted by the buttons on ebay, but I’ve been trying to resist!
I don’t have any trouble loading your site. The nice thing about typepad is it lets you post those nice big images. And I love being able to click them to see the larger versions for details. The down side is a little longer wait, but I think it’s worth it. Patience rewarded. : )
mimi k says
Your blog is not slow for me- of course now I am wondering how mine loads… 🙂
Julie Milliken says
Hey Abby, Your blog is a little slow for me, but the reason is likely b/c you’re taking your pictures hi-resolution (300 dpi–top quality for printing) with your camera and putting them right on the web. I downloaded the button pic above to check and see. For the internet, they only need to be 72dpi (probably a lower quality setting on your camera). That’ll make the file sizes smaller so they’ll load faster, of course, then you won’t have the high quality all the time if you are wanting to print them. Let me know if you try anything!
BTW, it’ll still load slow for a while b/c you’ll still have all those hi res ones on your site. You can also try 150dpi if 72 doesn’t look good enough.
Julie again says
I see now that some of your pics are 72 and some are 300. But the ones at 72 are huge, and basically a regular size at 300, so again, may have to play with some settings on your computer or camera.