TERI ANNE STANLEY

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  • Home
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    • Deadly Chemistry
    • Bourbon Brothers >
      • Drunk on You
      • A Shot With You
      • A Taste of You
    • Big Chance Dog Rescue >
      • Big Chance Cowboy
      • Lucky Chance Cowboy
      • Charming Texas Cowboy
      • Rescuing the Groomsman
    • Accidentally in Love >
      • Accidentally in Love with the Biker
      • Accidentally in Love with the Pilot >
        • AiLwtP Chapter One
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What the Heck is a Bullet Journal?

1/18/2018

3 Comments

 
Simply put, a Bullet Journal is a hand-written planner. 
​As the Bullet Journal website says, it's an analog system for a digital age.
I tripped over this concept on the internet a couple of years ago when I was feeling an intense need to be organized, but also really frustrated with the planner options available to me. I always bought a really fancy setup, with the best intentions in the world, then bailed on it halfway through January.  

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The really awesome thing about a Bullet Journal is that you set it up in whatever way works best for you. I usually set up about a month's worth of weekly spreads at a time, and have pages in between with notes about a variety of topics, lists, and trackers (pretty checklists of daily to-do items). 
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​I made this tracker with the idea that I'd cross off keys on the keyboards for every page I edited on my current WIP, and even made a cute little cover mock-up to go with it. The problem is, I'd have to count the individual keys to keep track, and I don't have time for that. 

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​So I changed it to this one. I recieved a few chapters worth of suggestions from Cat, and a whole book's worth from Laura, so they each got a section. 
And as you can see, I should totally be working on that instead of blogging. But I'm making progress! 

Getting Started: 

Check out the video on the Bullet Journal page You can use any notebook you have available for a Bullet Journal. I've got dozens of empty notebooks, and I especially love those black speckled composition books you can get super cheap at the end of summer. This is where I started, because I didn't want to "mess up" an expensive journal. 

Check out these people: 

You'll want to check out some of the awesome ideas on Pinterest or Instagram, and visit these websites for ideas: 
​Kim, at Tiny Ray of Sunshine
Kara, at BohoBerry

And then...

Then when you feel more confident in your page spreads, you can invest in a Leuchtturm or  Moleskine. The ones linked here are the dotted and/or graph ones, which are nice for making pretty pages
By the way, I've use affiliate links to Amazon here. It doesn't cost you anything extra, but I get a small commission if you buy through the link

And THEN...

Then, of course, you'll want to get All the Pretty Pens. The Tombow Fudenosuke pens on the left, are pretty awesome for fancy lettering, but I'm also a huge fan of the good, old fashioned Bic blue ballpoint. And look! They come in BOLD!

Another option: 

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My author friend Jessica Lemmon is a big planner addict. She's not only an awesome writer, she's The Supreme Goddess of Washi tape.  She uses the Erin Condren system, which is also very cool. Click HERE for a detailed explanation of her system, if you like something with a little less of the dorky home made look. 

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Stella's Spotlight: Got Your Six Support Dogs

1/16/2018

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Good Things about Animals and People, by Teri's favorite brown dog. 
While Teri's busy in the editing cave, working on her Big Chance Dog Rescue series (about cowboy military veterans who train rescue dogs to perform service, therapy, and support; and manage to find loooove along the way), I'd like to tell you about a real-life group that trains dogs to help veterans and first responders with PTSD.

I think it's so awesome that we dogs can provide relief to those people who've put their lives on the line to keep us safe and free, so read on to learn about GOT YOUR SIX SUPPORT DOGS! 
​ Got Your Six Support Dogs is located near St. Louis, but I heard about them when Teri came home from a writer's conference in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. 
She'd gotten the chance to get to know a dog-in-training named Goose, who was learning the ropes. Goose was awesome. She could turn lights off and on, could retrieve a cell phone, and recognized when someone was anxious, which Teri got to see firsthand when she got the news that her father had passed away. Goose was right there for Teri, offering kisses and putting her head on Teri's lap when she sensed Teri was feeling bad about not being home for her family. 
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Check out the Website and click around to learn more about this awesome group! 
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It takes a lot of time, effort, and talent to train a dog to help someone who's suffered trauma, and a lot of money (I should know. I'm not even that fancy, and I've heard how much it costs to keep me healthy!). 
Needless to say, GYSSD can always use help, so click here to donate! 

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Make It Monday: My Silhouette Cameo 3

1/8/2018

1 Comment

 
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Look what Santa brought me! It's a Silhouette Cameo 3, which is a digital cutting machine. You can cut all kinds of cool stuff, like cardstock and paper for scrapbooking and card making, or vinyl for a dorky (okay, I secretly think they're awesome) rear window family, or heat transfer vinyl for shirts and stuff. I'm thinking I can spiff up tote bags with Teri Anne Stanley on them to use as giveaways, wouldn't that be cool? 

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So the first thing I did was make a name tag for it. The Cameo has a lot of cool features, not least of which is the pretty amazing software, but it wasn't too straightforward right out of the box. I did, however, find this wonderful, amazing woman who has a website called SilhouetteSchoolBlog, and she has All The Tutorials. Bless you, Melissa, you are AMAZEBALLS!

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And THEN, my Favorite Daughter got engaged over Christmas to the most awesomest sweetest guy ever, and I have FIRED UP THE PINTEREST BOARDS!
First thing I did was find ALL THE WORKSHEETS for wedding planning, print them out, and put them in this swell binder, then I got to make another vinyl decal with my Cameo. 
We haven't written much in the planner yet, she's not getting married until she finishes college, but we're going to be ready when she's done! 

So with all that experience under my belt, I decided to monogram some hankies for my menfolk. I did pretty well with getting the monograms set up. I even remembered to reverse the images so they'd be right-side up when I transferred them. How hard could it be to hold an iron down on top of the corner of a handkerchief for forty seconds? 
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Apparently, it's not as easy as you might think. 
​Only the one on top came out without sticking to the transfer material! 

Oh, well. The good news is these weren't exactly silk from Brooks Brothers. I can go back to Walmart and get more, any time I want. 

I wish I knew if it was my poor iron handling skills, or if the HTV is crummy since I bought the cheapest stuff I could find on Amazon, or if I need to buy a big-ass heat press, because an iron just isn't going to cut it (Hey, honey? Want to get me something cool for my birthday?). 

1 Comment

Art Journaling

1/5/2018

2 Comments

 
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​​I can spend hours on Pinterest browsing other people’s art journals (and Bullet Journals, and scrapbooks…) but it’s only been recently that I started to mess around with the concept in my own practice. I’ve signed up for a few challenges here and there where you’re given a daily prompt and are supposed to make some art and post your project on Instagram or other Facebook with the appropriate hashtag.

Last fall I got interested in pretty lettering (aka #brushlettering, #handlettering, #calligraphy, etc.). To be honest, I’ve loved fancy writing my whole life. It was something we learned in high school art, and when I started scrapbooking as a young mother, revisited the concept. But that’s a whole ‘nother post.
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I signed up for a challenge at Dawn Nicole Designs and made a few pages with words about color. My attempts are pretty beginner-ish compared to the rest of Instagram, but I’m willing, in this case, to let my hiney hang out there for y’all to laugh at. ​
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I also came across Allyson Bright, who has an art journal prompt group. 

But ultimately, for the moment, I decided to work on New Year's Resolutions (or as I like to call them, "Goals," because "Resolution" seems to be a bad word (as in, "Oh, I don't do resolutions"). ​
​This is about one of my big goals for the coming year: No New Stuff! There's a place in downtown Cincinnati called the Indigo Hippo (I took inspiration from their website), and they accept donated craft supplies for their resale shop. Now. If I can just get down there and drop stuff off without adopting an equal volume of stuff to take home !
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Anyway, I started a little booklet with some artsy/craftsy/messy pages about what I want to do this year. I'm posting everything on Instagram as I do it. If you want to doodle and post along with me, use #2018ArtJournalGoals and let me know to look for you! ​
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Going Live!

1/4/2018

3 Comments

 
I've changed web hosts, so this is my first blog on the new site. In my mind, this is going to be the start of a new, improved, social-media savvy me. We'll see how it goes. If posting regularly makes me crazy (er than I already am), I may back off, but right now I have good intentions. 

In a perfect world, I'll post at least three times a week with specific topics on specific days, but let's be real--I'm trying to be a full-time author with a full-time day job and a very active Attention Deficit habit. Although "deficit" isn't exactly the problem. It's more like Overactive Attention. There are WAY too many things that keep me busy, and I definitely focus on each one at the detriment of the other things I'm supposed to be doing.

Like right now, I'm supposed to be sleeping. And if I'm not sleeping, maybe I should be working on my book. I've got edits to do on my first Sourcebooks Casablanca title (Big Chance Cowboy, coming out in fall of 2018, a story about an Army veteran who reluctantly begins to train his high school love's Rottweiler T-Rex to become a service dog). I've got to get those done, because my Entangled Publishing editor is going to be sending me edits for Accidentally in Love with the Pilot (July, 2018) any minute now. Eep! 

But I also set that whole, "Step up your web presence" goal, so mental meandering on the blog is valid, right? 
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