A possible alternative to writing your own unique post is to use one of the free articles at Article Alley. You can search through the 1/2 million articles written by over 60,000 authors for one that fits your blog. It’s not just for blogs, you can add any of this information to your website. It’s helpful for those who want to post about something, but don’t really have all the facts. I found a site where someone teaches you how to use a certain site, but because she used all the wrong termanology, it made no sense. A quick look over to Article Alley could’ve helped her.

Personally, I wouldn’t just take articles from this site and post them on my own site. I like to take inspiration from others’ posts, then post my own unique content  based on this. I would go through and pick a topic like How To Create Helpful Error Pages, read it through, make notes on points I feel are important, then make a few notes on points I think they missed. After that I would construct my own article based on this, then cite that article as a source. I think that is the best way to use this service.

Of course, another good idea is to submit articles. Many times I’ll want to write about something that doesn’t really go along with my blog. Sometimes I just put it into my personal blog (because I can do whatever I want there) but to help me build up my own site I could post an article on Article Alley and get a link back for it. Then, those who use my article would also need to link me. It’s just another great way to keep your blog interesting and to get noticed better.

Just a few small updates for you.

I’ve adopted a lil gummy bear named Mika. I wanted to adopt Mika because that’s my baby nephew’s name. And he’s the cutest baby. You can see my gummy bear at the bottom of the sidebar.

I have some new affiliates. Thanks to Jake and Stephine for accepting me.

I’ve been thinking about making a new design, but with all I have going on right now I just don’t have the time. So I think instead I’m going to focus on making this one work better for me. The sidebar is very sloppy and I want to clean it up. The navigation is pretty poor, too. I’m going to work on that, as well as see how impossible it would be to get my site validated. Hoping to release some new goodies soon.

I also wanted to bring on someone to work with where I can help them optimize their site. Help them make it look nicer, load faster, validate it, etc.. and then post the results on the site as sort of a guide. If you’re interested in this (a service that would usually cost hundreds of dollars), please let me know. You’ll need a couple of hours for about a week to work with me on it.

Since the last update, I’ve put up some new Jojo PSDs. They’re cute, I think. I tried to make a set of it, but I only ended up being able to do two of them. They match, though, so they should be pretty good for layouts or blends.

Today I put up some new stock photos, too. We went to the park for a while and I was going to take photos but the D60 was full and dead, so all these were taken with my p-o-s camera. They’re still pretty nice, though. I hope you can find a use for them. If nothing else, they’d make decent brushes or even textures.

I was playing around and made some new 88×31 buttons, too. So use’em and link me. Let me know if you do so I can link you back.

ROI Analytics is a website that offers you the ability to track these visitors to make the most out of your advertising budget. With a site name like “Lala Land”, you never know what people are going to show up. It’s important to make sure my advertising clearly states what you can expect from my site to make sure I only get visitors looking for what i have to offer. By tracking these visitors I can find out if a certain ad placement is performing well, or if people feel misled when they arrive at my site.

I’ve signed up for the free trial on this site and I have to admit, it’s a little overwhelming. I’m glad they offer training and even consulting, because it’s important to me to make sure my business can perform well for years to come. The ad placements I set up now will effect my company in the long run and I don’t want to waste money with the wrong ads. I’m glad there’s a solution to ensure a return on investment from my marketing budget.

My Technorati Profile

Can you believe there was no one online to get feedback from? I guess people have better things to do on a Friday night than sit here and critique for me. How dare they? Hah. Despite the fact that the layout was validated both in XHTML and CSS, there may still be some issues, so let me know if you find any. I checked the way it looks in both Google Chrome and IE7, but not Firefox or IE 8. I’m going to assume it works the same, unless someone tells me otherwise.

I also put up some new content yesterday, which was PSDs. I found a really easy to understand tutorial on my new affiliate’s site and decided to give it a shot. It’s much easier than I expected and I wish I had sat down to try it sooner. So the two new PSDs can be found in the graphics section, but here are the previews. I’m working on a whole set, which should be ready some time next week.

I set up a few affiliates last night, too. Welcome to Josh and Jana. Thanks for accepting me, even though my site is still fairly new. I won’t disappoint you! I put up some new adorable banners for you to link me with, too.

1. First update is an addition to the brushes family, a 2nd set of grunge brushes.

Download Grunge Set 2 For Photoshop

2. I’ve put up some buttons for you to link to me with. It seemed kind of self defeating to ask people to link back to me for using my stuff, but not offer a button to link me with. I followed a tutorial (poorly) to make these buttons and I like the way they turned out.

3. I also added a Facebook for Lala Land, which I’ll be working on. The button to view it is on the sidebar and I got it from here (more than just facebook, they have many web 2.0 icons). There’s currently nothing on the page, but you can view it here and go ahead and become a fan. I plan to put all my freebies up there, too. Maybe even a few extras.

4. I put up some stock images from my own photography. These images are only to be used with credit back. Don’t even look at them if you’re not willing to credit me if they’re used. This includes any sort of textures, brushes, or any other way the image may no longer be identifiable.

5. I added some new fonts to the fonts page. I found these online and I loved them, so I thought I’d share them with everyone.

Download Cash Font / Credit Owner

Download Skirules / Credit Owner

6. I also added a ‘Mentoring’ section that I plan to turn into a service matching advanced users to beginners to help them grow. Before I spend the time getting into all of this, I’d like to know if this is something that would interest anyone. Would you like to help others achieve their potential? Would you like help from someone who already does what you want to do? Let me know if you think this is something I should move forward on. This is taking the place of the old “sponsoring” section Lala Land used to have. I took that word down for fear that Google would misinenterpret it send me to my doom.

Lastly, I’m trying to get a better reach and more readers, so I’m ready to link exchange with those who might be interested. I have standards (it can’t be a link farm) but I’m not going to turn down any sites just because I don’t think they’re “elite”. Let me know if you’re interested. Also looking for suggestions on how to make my site more popular.

  into a brush that looks like  

Start by downloading the photo here.

Open your photo in Photoshop. I’m using Photoshop CS3 for this tutorial.

On the left toolbar choose the quick selection tool.

quick selection

Use the Quick Selection Tool to select the entire doorway.

select only doorway

Then go to Edit > Copy. When you copy something, Photoshop automatically takes the size of what’s on your clipboard to make your new image. So go to File > New and click OK. Then paste by going to Edit > Paste. When you paste, it will paste into a transparent layer on top of a white background. If your background isn’t white, simply delete the background layer.

doorway alone

Make sure you foreground is White (FFFFFF) and your background is Black (000000). Then go to Filter > Sketch > Conte Crayon. The settings for this should be: Foreground: 11; Background: 7; Texture: Canvas; Scaling 100%; Relief: 4; Light: top. When you’re done it will look like..

conte crayon

Next go to Filter > Sketch > Torn Edges. The settings for this should be: Image Balance: 37; Smoothness: 12; Contrast 14.

finished product

Once you’ve got the image you’ll need to create the brush. Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset. Give your brush a name and it will be automatically added to the current list. Make sure that once you’re done making all your brushes you save them to a set so you don’t lose them. (set tutorial coming soon)

It had been a while since I made any brushes, so I want to thank Swimchick for her tutorial to get me back into it.

Download Grunge Set 1 for Photoshop

I also uploaded all the old brushes I could find. I don’t know what they look like anymore or what they’ll work in, but I listed the date next to them so you can see how old they are. I tried the Photoshop Blinkie Blocks and they really suck. But they work. And the PSP brushes should work in the older versions. I’m not sure how PSP brushes work anymore, but I’ll be working on how to make them so I can offer them, too. Enjoy!