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Canvas Press Gallery Wrapped Canvas Giveaway
9:35 PM Filed UnderGiveaways, Photography
I love taking pictures.
I love to capture life’s little moments – the joy, the pain, the laughter, the love, the tears, the silliness, the beauty.
Sadly, I’m terrible about getting those photographs off of my laptop and onto my walls.
I’ve drooled over Gallery Wrapped Canvases but, I have never bought one. I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t sure which picture to choose, or which company to use or just because it seemed like such an investment that I was afraid to make the wrong decision….
Well, this year, the internet and BlissDom and @Elainea led me to @DustinMeyer with Canvas Press who, as it turns out is not only an amazing photographer but, we went to High School together! {Go Warriors!}
Dustin and I connected via Twitter and tweeted back and forth for a few days talking about life and small worlds and photography. Then, one morning, he contacted me about my own photography and blog and asked if I’d like to work with Canvas Press on a review and giveaway.
It took about 1.2 seconds for me to say yes.
It then took me about a week to pick the photograph – even though I ended up choosing the first photograph that leaped to mind when he asked.
I have decision making anxiety sometimes 
The ordering and uploading process was really simple and the turnaround on my Canvas was days. NOT weeks –DAYS. Color me impressed.
When it arrived — my breath was stolen from me.
It is gorgeous, beyond my expectations.
I can feel the sea breeze, taste the salt, smell the brine and feel the waning warmth of the setting sun — the canvas is in a word – breathtaking.
I emailed Dustin immediately and told him that I blamed him directly for my new addiction.
I have TEN photographs in line to be made into Gallery Wraps by Canvas Press, they are worth every penny and my walls will never be more beautiful than when they are decorated with the beautifully wrapped images of my family.
Canvas Press has generously offered one of my readers the chance to win a 16X20 1.5 inch Gallery Wrap Canvas of their own!!!
{feel free to squee}
Want to win?
- MANDATORY: leave a comment telling me about the photograph you’d choose if you won and why.
- BONUS: Tweet this giveaway and leave the tweet URL in a separate comment
- BONUS: *like* Canvas Press on FB and tell them A Southern Fairytale sent you — leave this in a separate comment
This giveaway is open from 9:30PM CST 3/7/2011 until 10PM CST on Friday, 3/11/2011. I will use Comment Contest Plug-In to choose the winner. They will have 48 hours to get back to me or another winner will be chosen.
NOW — because not everyone can win, and because the people at Canvas Press are serious Rockstars. They have generously offered a 10% coupon code to all my readers. Just enter FAIRY10 at checkout to get your discount! (expires 4/15/2011)
Congratulations to our winner — JennHeffer:
WordPress Plug-Ins for Foodies
9:42 PM Filed UnderMouthwatering Monday, Tips and Tricks
There are many things that *I* believe will help make a good food blog better.
I’m not an expert — I’m just Rachel, just a Southern Girl tap tap tappin’ away on her Mac takin’ pictures of her food and writin’ out her recipes to share with those she loves at home and out there in internetz land.
After speaking about Food Blogging at BlissDom in January, I realized that a few of my favorite things are not all that well known; so today, I’m sharin’ my favorite WordPress Plug-Ins for Food Blogging.
First and Foremost -
Pictures, Pictures, Pictures
Think about your favorite cookbook – is it black text on white paper? Or is it glossy and filled with beautiful photographs that leap off the page and cause you to drool?
For me – pictures tell the story.
Therefore, I think every recipe should be accompanied by beautiful pictures however, a lot of photographs can bog your blog down so one of my favorite plug-ins EVAH is my Flickr plug-in that allows me to pull my Flickr pics and insert them directly into my blog posts all with the click of a pretty little button on my dashboard.
Next -
Easy to Read and Follow
Recipes need to be well formatted and easy to read and follow. When the ingredients are jumbled and the directions are an ongoing paragraph — the recipe is hard to read and can be more confusing than necessary.
That’s why I ADORE LOVE the hrecipe plug-in. All you have to do is enter the information in the provided spaces and the plug-in formats everything for you. Your readers will love you for it 
LOVE> LOVE> LOVE <3
Next and this one is near and dear to my little heart
Copyright Protection
I’ve had blog posts and recipes plagiarized and it is an ugly horrible feeling. There are only so many things that you can do and I highly urge you to do every single thing that you can to protect yourself and your work. I highly recommend
Share-ability
If your recipes and blog posts aren’t easy to share – you’re losing out on potential readers. You need to make it easy for your readers to share your posts – they WANT to share the posts and recipes that they love . Reward them by making it easy!
- Tweet Meme Rocks
- Facebook Share – A Must
- Sexy Bookmarks is an all in one if you prefer it that way
Last but in NO WAY Least
Printability
Y’all.
Y’ALL
{insert serious eyes}
If your recipes aren’t printable – you are doing your readers and yourself a serious disservice
- If you aren’t on WordPress or you aren’t in any way comfortable with html — Print Friendly is for you. It’s crazy easy, it gives your readers the choice of highlighting – selecting – deleting what they do or don’t want to print
- If you have some savvy with html (I have about zero and I can do this) or you have someone who can set it up for you, I can’t tell y’all enough just how much I love my WP Print This plug-in. A couple of easy little tags added to my posts and I can choose which part is printable and which isn’t – easy peas-y lemon squeeze-y.
Okay y’all, there you have them. A few of my MUST have Plug-Ins for Food Bloggers.
Have I left any out? Do you have one that you just L-O-V-E? Please share it!
I know this isn’t my typical Mouthwatering Monday but, I hope y’all don’t mind the lack of a recipe this week
