Why now?

If you’ve been around the crafty/bloggy web as long as I have (2007!),  you’ll have noticed that the importance of comments has changed dramatically over the past few years.  I used to only be able to tell how popular a post or project was by either looking at the stats, or getting feedback in the comments.  Comments were the way we all communicated, and I will say between blog comments and Twitter, that was the way I built some great relationships!   But times have changed, and blogging/craft-blogging has changed with the rise of social media as a real force.  I don’t control the conversation anymore, my projects are floating around Pinterest, or shared in a variety of other social ways.   People don’t want to talk about it here, they want to talk about it with their friends.  Which is awesome, but it has definitely changed blogging.

Why Facebook?

No, not the evil Facebook, I hear you say! Although I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, most everyone has an account, so most everyone will still be able to make comments. I’ve had facebook comments available as an option for a while, and people seem to like them – you can choose whether your comment shows up on your timeline, so it’s a neat way to “like” a Dabbled project, and even share why with your friends! Also, your Tweets referencing any Dabbled article will continue to appear in the comments section, and old comments will still appear. So nothing’s REALLY lost. Except your ability to find cheap drugs or term papers, sorry!

But what I I need your wonderful guidance, Dot?

One thing that I will say, is that I don’t watch the facebook comments as closely (kinda like how slack I am on comments on the Facebook Page!) so if you have a question for me about a project, feel free to drop me an email – you’ll get a better response. It’s Dot at this website, you can figure it out.  Or send me a tweet (@dotatdabbled), that works pretty well too.

How to Get Rid of WordPress Comment box (while leaving your old comments)

You know I have to throw on my developer hat and tell you how to do this yourself, right?  If you’d like to do this to your blog, there are a couple of options.  One is to simply turn off comments in your Dashboard settings (Discussion section).  That will turn off comments for all future posts.  For past posts, set the “Close Comments after X Days” to 1 to close all the old ones.  This should leave your comments, but not allow more.

However, because I had already added Facebook comments (and they were tied in to my WP comments, in that they already added to comment count, and so forth) I didn’t want to do this.  In my case, I edited the comments.php to remove the line <?php comment_form(); ?> (which is what calls the comment form, specifically).  So, everything else still works exactly as it used to, but the actual form is never called.

So…

Continue to enjoy the posts on Dabbled, and continue to comment, or share, or whatever works for you.

Cheers!

Dot

FOAM AND DISPLAY BOARD:
· 9” x 12” Mini Bi-Fold Foam Board

X-ACTO:
· Designer Series Gripster Craft Knife
· Designer Series 12” Metal Ruler
· Designer Series 12” X 12” Self Healing Mat
· Designer Series 8” Scissors
· Designer Series 5” Precision Tip Scissors
· Designer Series Basic Shape Templates
· Designer Series Decorative Shape Templates

PAINTERS:
· Painters Bright Colors
· Painters Sherbet Swirl

CRAFTBOND:
· Dot Runner
· Foam Mounting Tape
· Thin Medium Glue Spots
· All Purpose Glue Stick
· Quick Dry Dual Tip Glue Pen
· Elmer’s Designer Tape

Just leave a comment below telling me what awesome project (holiday project???)  this box would inspire you to do, and by random selection you can win your own box. Tweeting about this also counts as a second entry, as they show up in the comments as well. Be sure to stop by and visit the Elmer’s Craft it! facebook site, too!

{Contest is Closed! Stay tuned for the winner as soon as I’m not on death’s door with this cold…!}

I do have a bunch of cool pics to show you guys from halloween (I assume you still want to see the awesome food and costumes, even if I am 2 months late?), plus some cool stuff for xmas coming up.  I’ll really try to be better this month!  I also have a cool giveaway coming up, as soon as I put the post together, so stay tuned for that.

And I’ve been trying to get in shape (a better shape than round) and I’ve been working out 4 times a week (that’s going from 0 times per week, so you see it is a bit of a change)–I’ve been doing FitWit for the last 2 months, which I’m really liking… well, as far as Dot could like anything related to exercise.  And now, this month I’m try to actually add eating healthy into to mix and see if I can lose five pounds by the end of the year.

Oh yeah, I promised a recipe:

Speaking of eating healthy, I posted a great roasted chicken and roasted cauliflower dinner over on Foodwhirl — super easy and tasty and healthy.  If you have any recipes I should check out, let me know, or post them to Foodwhirl too!

And book recommendations:

It seems to be the fashion these days, at least in my intown Atlanta circles, that everyone belongs to a wine… er I mean book… club.  So I figured you guys might like to know what I’ve been reading, and maybe you have some suggestions too?  Cuz that would be awesome, I need some new books to read!  :)

So for book club, we’ve read both of these lately, and both of which I’ve enjoyed:
Gone Girl: A Novel     Where’d You Go, Bernadette: A Novel

Very different books, but both excellent reads…  And good ‘book club’ books with lots of discussion possibilities.

Not for book club, but because I needed more stuff to read and libraries exist, I’ve also been reading this:

(The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making)

Which I’m totally unsure of how to describe, but it inspired the title of this post. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland (or maybe the Wizard of Oz), and I read it, then promptly started reading it to my 7 yr old son for a bedtime story (although the language is definitely on the high end of child reading comprehension). I have no idea if you would like it, but read the first page, and you’ll know if it’s your kind of book.

I’m a big fan of Young Adult Fiction, so I’ve also recently read The Maze Runner which was an interesting apocalyptic YA book with a boy hero, and The Scorpio Races which I also liked.  And because I managed to check it out on my Kindle from the library (which you can’t ever find any books ‘in stock’) I got The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which I’d never heard of, but it was a pretty interesting fantasy book with a female heroine.  Not a ‘oh my god awesome’ book, but a nice read.

So, you have any suggestions for me?

PS as always, support Dabbled for nothing by using my affiliate links above if you wanna buy these books!

More info:

• http://americancensorship.org/
• https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Internet blackout day is over, but we still need to stop SOPA. Yesterday I posted this to Twitter, but since we’re back up today, I’m sharing it here too! Feel free to pirate this image for use in getting the word out!

This is important, and you need to be aware and get involved if you care about the internet and the freedoms we currently enjoy. All it takes is people who don’t understand what they are doing (ie our representatives) doing something dumb in the name of trying to stop piracy, and ruining it for everyone.

Proposed US Senate legislation — the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA)– would put Dabbled, and most other sites that link to cool stuff on the web, in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement.

This would unmake the Web, just as proposed in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Please visit AmericanCensorship.org for instructions on contacting your Senator.

Thanks for reading Dabbled, and we’ll be back tomorrow!
Cheers,
Nancy (aka Dot), Dabbled.org

If you want to join the protest with your site – because we all have to stand together, the tall and the small – here’s a WordPress plugin that will help your site join the fight with just a small amount of setup: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/go-dark/

Learn More Here »

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more information on this and other issues central to your freedom online.

*thx to BoingBoing as I paraphrased some of their message for this one. I don’t think they’ll mind.

Halloween is coming up guys, and you know that’s the best time of year around here at Dabbled. So I created a new Halloween Projects page to collect a bunch of past halloween posts in one spot.  You’ll find costume ideas, food, halloween crafts and decor, and all kinds of tutorials, both from Dabbled and from elsewhere around the web.

So go check it out — You’ll find it in the main menu bar above under “Go Halloween!”

And if you have a cool halloween tutorial or created a cool costume, be sure to either leave a comment or send me the info (if you don’t blog, send me pics and a write up), and I’ll include it in this year’s halloween roundup.

Besides being an all around good time, Dragoncon is also a great place to get inspiration for Halloween costumes, like the REAL Iron Man !>>

I’ll also be on the lookout for cool artists…. so stay tuned.

Some past DragonCon posts:

• FSM Hat:: from Dragon-con
• Dragon*con Loot!
• Dragon*con! And some Geeky Links so you don’t get any work done today…
• Dragon-con 2010 Photos/Costumes
• Dragon*con Artist Report

Maybe I’ll see you there?

so stay tuned, this isn’t final… more to come!

And the randomly generated winners are:

Your blog has landed a spot on Babble’s first ever listing of Top 50 Mom Craft Blogs!  Selected for its creativity, helpfulness, and ability to inspire, your blog has set itself apart as a DIY leader, and we’re thrilled to have selected it from hundreds of competitors.

So, if you’re stopping by today and new around here, stick around and check the place out!

I’m Dot, jack of all trades, master of none, but I love trying new things… I’m also an artist, so you’ll find art and sketches here, plus I do web design, so I veer into geekiness on occasion.

I post projects — my own, as well as guest posters– of all kinds of types, from cool cakes, to crafty jewelry, to kids stuff… whatever I’d like to try out.  Check out the Projects page to see some of them — and some recent stuff you can see here in the green sidebar…

You can also check out Dabbled’s sister site Foodwhirl.com (we’re looking for new contributors!).

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