Recently while going thru my favorite local magazine I came across an article spotlighting 2 stylish young women that blog about their own passion for fashion. Intrigued, I emailed them about their blogging beginnings and brought up the idea for future collaborations here on 365daygirl.com. So let me happily introduce Gabi & Julia of The Slash Project:

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Producing regular content is a lotta fun…and a nice challenge…and sometimes a GODDAMN PAIN IN THE ASS!

*deep breath* phew! okay. lemme esplain…
See, I love creating content. Producing content that you folks want to and/or enjoy seeing is a interesting and welcome challenge. Learnin a whole lotta good stuff here. What bugs me is the finishing, uploading, and maximizing part…all the crap I gotta do to make sure it all gets out there and loads and has got all the tags and shit that takes forEVER and I’ve already just spent 2 hours making some decent stuff. Here’s the breakdown.

Joy: Recording a fun vid for youtube.
Challenge: Timing it just right
Pain in The Ass: uploading it for 1 to 2 hours each time :P

Joy: Writing an inspired and witty blog post for wordpress
Challenge: formatting in an nice readable way.
Pain in the Ass: getting photos, finding links, adding tags, categories and THEN publishing it…phew!

Joy: Taking a random self portrait for flickr.
Challenge: making adjustments in photoshop
Pain in the Ass: adding color changes, filters, getting rid of bullshit, sizing, saving and THEN uploading to flickr to then add titles, descriptions, tags, and send it to my groups.

Joy: Feedback and suggestions from REAL friends and new interesting people.
Challenge: working the lovely constructive criticism I get from you folks into my processes in a timely manner.
Pain in the Ass: spam, skeazy internet stalkers, and poopy comments.

Joy: Meeting new people virtually and in the “real” world.
Challenge: finding those new people on facebook so I can add their “friendship”.
Pain in the Ass: not hearing from some of them for weeks…*sigh*

Joy: sharing stuff from the REAL world
Challenge: linking stuff from the REAL world to the virtual world
Pain in the Ass: lighting…

Joy: The Internet (”that muppets video made my day!”)
Challenge: The Internet (”um…what’s the code for bullet lists again?”)
Pain in the Ass: The Internet (”oh no you did NOT just go down Internet!!!”)

Joy: ideas from my ever creative brain.
Challenge: producing from my ever creative brain.
Pain in the Ass: making sense of my ever creative brain.

Really though I am not stopping. It is ultimately too much fun and super interesting. Besides your continued feedback makes it all worth it in the end so I get back to drawing table again.

Okay dear readers this may be a bit of a boring post for you since I’m not going to talk about any hot current news, or divulge some scintillating detail from my sex life, or even how I glam myself up for a night on the town. I’m just going to share with you my joy in learning how to make my content look good and be easier to read. Its damn helpful for the internet and for business so you might actually appreciate my findings (if you didn’t already google them yourself and you are already a turbo expert at it) I really enjoy learning how to make my stuff look pretty.
So I today I googled “bullet list html” to get myself some code for making lovely little bulleted lists on my pages. Why bullet lists? Let me explain:
Why Bullet Lists Are Hot

• They look nice and neat
• They outline statements in an easy to digest way
• I like circles :)

Isn’t that nice? If you are interested here is the page for the code.

Alright…I am hella busy with all my internetting projects so I’ll get back to work. Again thank you for the feedback here, on youtube, facebook, and flickr! Love hearing from you!

I bet you are super web savvy. I bet you’ve got a nice little collection of web profiles and accounts. You know just what is going on with them and how they all fit together. If your online persona was a painting what would it look like? The Mona Lisa perhaps? Well, mine would probably resemble a Jackson Pollack…only with bright pink shades. I am all over the web but it’s not entirely clear who the hell I am at this point. It’s a little crazy.

Here’s the current breakdown:

Web Profiles and Pages:

• 5 (?) Gmail Accounts – um….how do I justify all these…meh…I’ll do that later!
  3 Twitter Accounts – oh Twitter…I’m trying to get into you…but it’s such a challenge being a twit!

• 2 Wordpress Websites – 365daygirl is doing well, my other “girl” blog however gets slammed with spam.
• 2 Myspace Accounts – I don’t go on MS anymore…too creepy.
• 2 Facebook Profiles – one in married name (I’m divorced) the other in super fancy new name!
• 2 Yahoo Mail Accounts – 1 is spam. the other…was an a whim.
• 2 Youtube Channels – one is personal the other is all for YOU! :)
• 1 Digg Account – I really like DIGG…I just don’t ever use it.
• 1 Flickr Account – this has gone through 3 “username” transformations…I’m so wacky.
• 1 Yelp Account – great site that hardly any one in my state uses…*sigh*
• 1 This Next Account – another great site that I need to update
• 1 Shop Style Account – it’s like playing dress up…but it takes me hours to “play” with it!

My “Friends”…Real and Virtual:

• Facebook: 137 – I have more “guy” friends than “girl” friends which bugs me a little…even though I really like boys and a few in particular :)
• Flickr:49 – a handful are real professional friends, the rest are just cool people that take photos I drool over
• Wordpress: a bunch of friends have left comments. I’ve been bookmarked by some new people, but I don’t really know how many people are reading.
• Twitter – 300 something on “catthegirlguru”, and just a handful on 365daygirl since I have done much “tweeting”.
• Youtube – like 2 friends? 3 if I count myself from the personal account. lol
• Yelp – 15 friends…most of them from out of state.

  I could go on and on with this…but I’d rather hear about your webness :)
  So, whatchoo got goin on in your web universe? Is it working for you? Or do you try not to think about it all?

I hope this isn’t a dry blog site. Generally I have too much personality for that. MY problem however involves how I dispense all the interesting info I got stuffed in my brain in a timely manner.

Today I uploaded two videos about beauty and it took me about 10 takes for each one of them! Total NEWB! Thing is I wanted to get it right AND I wanted to make sure youtube didn’t reject them again due to length (I’m a talker when I get going). The time limit thing is really rather smart of youtube cause 30 seconds on the web is like 1 hour in real life. So I get to make it snappy. Getting my videos under 10 minutes is a welcome challenge though.

As I recorded I also wanted to make sure I was actually sharing relevant information in an interesting way. Storytelling is no problem for me. Sharing amusing anecdotes about my life? Piece of new york cheese cake (with cherries)! Providing valuable information in a nicely structured manner that is UNDER 10 minutes? Uh….workin on it.

What really helps is working and being with a guy who’s fantastic at business. Successful business men are all about THE POINT and whether or not it matters to them. THE POINT must be delivered quickly cause they have IMPORTANT things to do – like running a company, securing an investment, etc. etc.
THE POINT must also interest them. Otherwise, they got a whole host of better things to do that will make them money, power, that sort of thing. Their time is precious so they carefully invest it only in things that will RETURN that investment.

The Businessman mentality I’ve noticed applies to just about everyone that jumps on the web. We are all RICH with our access to information. Our ATTENTION however is very precious, and so is our time. So me getting to THE POINT and GETTING YOUR ATTENTION in 10 minutes or less is a very cool learning experience indeed.

Speaking of time…I gotta run…late night dinner with a hot biz guy :)

I have a question for you web users out there: How much does your use of your devices and your web profiles to express your interesting little self COMPARE to how much you use all that to screw around?

Folks be forewarned – I am one opinionated little missy but I say this all out of LOVE: *steps onto soapbox

Ahem.
Being in this here Information Age is a real challenge. An exciting one mind you – at least depending on how you look at it. I think those of us that are thriving within it know just how to rock the social media. Everyone else may just be cluttering up the net with virtual chatter. People we love too! It’s so freakin sad sometimes! I know it bums me out when I read more about a friend’s Farmville status reports then their actual life! Let me be a little voice of sense and reason here okay? Just because you are awesome at growing pixelated vegetables doesn’t mean all your friends care to know… each and every time you get a new sprout or rutabaga spouts up from the virtual ground. Does Oprah rock at Farmville? Hell. If. I. Know! Thankfully she doesn’t share those precious little updates with her fans on her web profiles.

I know I’m gettin on my high horse here but I just find it ridiculous reading about stuff that DON’T MEAN SHIT! So instead let me tell you how you can share somethin REAL and how it’s really not all that hard.

Things to Post: Links
This is the easiest type of content to post and it can still be unique to you. So go ahead and post links to all sorts of great stuff:
*Movies
*Events
*Clothing
*Toys
*Software
*Music

Things to Post: YOU-ness
You can also share the unique and weird stuff about YOU:
*Your wacky philosophies
*Your silly adventures
*Even your wisdom
*I suggest postin little 1 to 2 line blurbs in most things and then spilling all the juicy details in a big wordy blog post. NOTE: formatting things with headers and bolded text is FANTASTIC.

Things to Post: Comment Lovin
Share the love okay? Tell your friends you are thinking about them or compliment them or somethin. Believe me they need to know and it’s just super nice and cool.
*Wall Comments
*Blog Comments
*Share a link just for them
*Refer some cool resource
*Tell them their photos are cute and you want to see more
LOVE LOVE LOVE!
SHARE SHARE SHARE!

And THROW SOME MUD ON THE WALL. Do not get all preciously perfectionist about it. Otherwise you won’t learn anything and nothing will progress into something truly valuable. Chances are you won’t say, post, or upload the most perfect thing at first. But you will learn if you practice and allow yourself to get some golden feedback :)

Take me for example. I’ve decided to put my goofy ass out there and produce content at the most basic freakin level possible with this whole project.
*I’ve uploaded the most amateur photos from my sorry ass little webcam.
*I wrote my first blog posts on the generic little wordpress template EVERYONE starts with.
*And I’ve posted my videos with the lamest lighting I have available – including the creepy blue glow of my laptop.

All with the intent to show you fabulous people what this whole journey starts out like. And I have learned every step of the way and produce better content each time! Half the time it’s from people that are just wanting to be helpful and lend their expertise:
“Can I show you how to not take Myspace photos?” -says Anomaly Boy who is a genius with Photoshop.

Let me get back to Oprah here – she’s nearly Queen of the Universe right? Her first Twitter post was all in caps and Shaq had to be the well meaning jerkface to tell her that she was SHOUTING on the web. Maybe a tad embarrassing but INSTANTLY fixable. Just by pressing a button.

So Here’s Your ACTION List:
1. Do.
2. Screw Up.
3. Learn!
4. Make something Prettier next time!

Or you could be one of those fortunate souls that produces something brilliant your first try and everyone wants more more more!

Either way it’s easy as pie :)

Okay I’ll get off my soapbox here and get back to work.

Fashion obsessed girls, I have a question for you:
Do you dress fashion forward or do you dress feminine?
What’s the difference you ask?
Well one is more for yourself and to impress other women (Fashion Forward) and the other is dressing more to attract men (Feminine). So I suppose the real question girls is: Do you dress for men or do you dress for women?. Here’s another breakdown for you:

Fashion Forward is:
*dynamic
*bold
*cutting edge
*androgynous
*sexy in a high fashion model way ala “my cheekbones and clavicle bones can slice you in two!”
Think: Mary Kate Olsen (you know with her slouchy coolness and morbid hotness)

Feminine is of course:
*body hugging
*form fitting
*flirty
*pretty or cute
*sexy in a playboy bunny way ala “here’s my boobs, betcha wanna play with em!”
Think: Kim Kardashian (ever noticed that girls ass? it’s devestating! I’m sure it’s given J-Lo a marathon run for her money!)

Personally I veer slightly more towards men because I enjoy flirty with them and accentuating my femininity. But I also have a very strong creative streak that allows me to get all creative and experimental.

I promised to post links from my video so here they are for you girls!
Fashion/Makeup Links for the Ladies!
*Fashion: Veni Caprice: store on Etsy where I got my awesome revolver hoodie dresses.
*Makeup: < href="http://www.youtube.com/user/SarahVictor">Sarah Victor: does really fun and super informative makeup tutorials on youtube. You can also check out her facebook fan page (I just became a fan myself!).

Spread the social media joy and tell your girlfriends to look, read, or watch 365 Day Girl and I’ll post more girly goodness for you!

Last Day of My First Week! It’s been a helluva start! Later on today I will do a recap of the events and try to answer some of the questions I’ve received from some of you (like…”uh, what is it about?”)

In other news, as I was “approving” the comments for this blog I noticed that I have not received ANY spam comments to date! That is amazing since on my other blog (catthegirlguru.com) I get like 20 a week all spouting various gibberish at me.

REAL, ACTUAL COMMENTS!!!! God, they are just golden! I think…I’m gonna cry a little…

Okay maybe not actually cry but I still think it’s total RadCakes! :) Thank you!!

Speaking of REAL friends and REAL comments from such I want to give Big Pretty Thanks to Michelle for steppin up and being the first girlfriend to comment on this site. Such a goddess! In fact, I shall change your name in my phone to include the “goddess” tag :)

Yay! Keep it comin! Oh and feel free to comment with any questions you have about the project like “why are you doing this?” or “what was that you said on that last video?”, etc. etc. And also I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics I blog about.

First off let me say: Johnny “AwDaMaDDiX” is a “saint”! Thanks for commenting on my still crappy generic looking website! Love it! Any more saints out there? I <3 your web generosity!

Anyhoo. Yesterday was great fun and I had a blast at the Halloween Party I helped decorate at my friends coffee shop. Talked with a lot of fantastic looking people in costume and was really impressed by the staying power of the helium filled balloons I bought 24 hours earlier.

Today, and after a freshly de-cluttered vehicle and purse (fast talking video <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5Z3rI-hwY”>here</a>) one of the MAJOR thoughts about this project occurred to me: answering 2 questions when blogging and sharing information in social media:

1)Deciding “What” To Talk About
and
2)Deciding “What NOT” To Talk About

Now…I can ramble on and on about all sorts of stuff cause I’m a chatty, curious, and imaginative gal. But unless you actually give a shit or it’s of any VALUE then it’s not really worth publishing and cluttering up the Web world with right.

Yeah. Always gotta keep that in mind with this thing.

The latter is of course much more of a challenge but makes what is actually talked about all the more powerful.

okay. deep thoughts. will talk more…and less later ;)

What can I say…I’m a sucker for starting projects :)