Stevie Puckett

Tag: courses

  • Adore Your Wardrobe Signature Course

    book cover featuring two people walking towards camera in stylish clothing

    I’ve written about this course before and wanted to spread the word that another class is getting ready to begin. Midnight tonight is the deadline actually. It is offered twice a year.

    September is the main time per year that I purchase clothes for myself and my family. It works great for us since we can catch the end-of-summer clearances along with some new fall pieces. So I was recently reviewing the course and remembered how helpful it was for me. It gave me a focus and plan. In the past, I have been quite overwhelmed in stores but no longer. It’s nice to know exactly what I need and what I’m looking for when I shop whether in person or online.

    My kids are open to shopping from their color palettes this fall. I told them about what I learned in the course when I took it a while back. Now it’s fun to see their confidence increase and to see how much better they look in colors that work for them as also happened for me.

    Hopefully, through sharing about this good course I needed and found, someone else who needs the info will find it too.

    (more…)

  • How to Pick Clothes

    I enjoy looking put together, but it has been a challenge for me. It’s expensive, and it involves visiting a store which I tend to find overwhelming. My lack of interest in fashion has held me back too. Recently, online shopping has made this chore easier for me, and so has learning from others more interested in fashion. 

    Last year, after trying many other resources, I found a teacher with a worthwhile online course about creating a wardrobe. Currently, I’m in her advanced class, and because her training was helpful for me, I am now an advertising affiliate and will earn a referral fee when someone joins her class after learning about it from me.

    The teacher’s name is Kelly, and “The Signature Course” is where to begin. Enrollment opens for the class a couple of times a year, and the next one starts April 21, 2021. That is in a few days, so you have perfect timing.

    The classes are online, and you complete the weekly units at your convenience. There is also a private Facebook group for students going through the course at the same time.

    Because I’m not a Facebook member anymore, I don’t access the group discussion part of the class. Although annoying, it also has advantages like not getting caught in other people’s struggles when trying to learn something for yourself. It’s also nice that I’m not being distracted by Facebook black holes. So the course is still worth it to me and worthy of a referral.

    Also, Kelly added a bonus for this enrollment period. She is including the seasonal buying guides from last year. So when you enroll now to begin next week, you also get those buying guides as a free perk worth $75. They are great for a year’s worth of outfit ideas, and you may find pieces from last season on sale now or better yet pieces already in your closet that work in the outfit ideas. Win-win!

    So sign up here and now if you think you would enjoy learning about a good strategy for building a flattering wardrobe that suits you well. Pun intended.

  • Back in the Studio

    Phase two of my audiobook narration and production journey is well underway. I had a long pause as we moved from Virginia Beach, VA back to Las Vegas, NV. Now that I feel settled in, I’m ready to roll with audiobooks again. Of course, I’ve continued learning the skill set and the industry while I was on hiatus. I set up my studio in my new home. I’ve re-designed my website. I’ve completed an official audiobook production and narration training course or two, and I’ve continued to keep up with ACX University, all while listening to several excellent audiobooks such as this one. All good and fine but nothing compares with getting back in the studio!

    Yesterday, I connected a couple of my newest additions: a Shure high pass filter and a new-to-me but used microphone. The high pass filter is an idea I picked up from George the Tech. He strongly recommends this for all Neuman microphones. That caught my eye because I picked up a Neumann TLM 102 in 2018. It’s a sweet little mic but for my voice, it isn’t the best for audiobook narration. It’s too bright on me. The high pass filter does improve my ability to work with it in my home studio but doesn’t fix the brightness issue. I plan to keep the mic anyway and use it as a backup mic and maybe for commercial spots that could come up or maybe even for visitors to my studio.

    The used microphone I purchased is an MXL 89. I did a short comparison test yesterday and the difference was subtle to those I asked for their opinion so far. It is subtle to me, too, but it makes a big difference in listening to audiobook narration for hours on end. Here is the little side-by-side test where I read a line or two from Steven Forrest’s book The Inner Sky (my favorite book of all time at the moment). It is unedited and unprocessed so that you can just hear the two mics plainly. The only thing in play is the high-pass filter.

    What do you think? Do you appreciate any difference or like one better than the other?