Spring is a vibe
A Saturday between a garden, a playground and some prompts-->website building
Mother earth has graced us with a few warm spring days, so the kids and I headed into the garden with shears to tidy up the deadwood from the winter. Each clip revealed underneath the opportunity of new blooms and fresh growth. As we cut, we exposed the hollow stems where the overwintering bees lived, as if to say “Wake up! It’s time for you to come out!” I held seeds in my hand from last year’s native plants, like Goldenrod and Penstemon, now grey but once full of life and color. I clipped the seeds from the heads that did not fall over the winter, and scattered them to give them a new opportunity to naturalize and start a new life. The neighborhood kids pitched in and we explored each seed head with curiosity. We left the leaves a little longer, giving the butterflies and moths more time to emerge from their slumber.
All of this renewal reminds me of a story from a few weeks back…
I was pushing my kids on the swing, talking to another mom (Erica from How Solos Scale, if you’re curious - a great podcast/consultancy that helps consultants scale).
She said “Did you know that Lovable is free today? It’s International Women’s Day.”
OK, I just gotta say - whoever is to credit on the marketing team at Lovable for the IWD stunt - you got me. And now I’m a paid customer. Well done.
I’d been meaning to try Lovable, a “vibe-coding” software that translates prompts into real visual websites and apps using AI, but hadn’t yet. Earlier last year I had explored Replit, which was great at spinning up an app exploration, but once I hit the token limit (aka it wasn’t free anymore) I abandoned the idea. Lovable being free for a day meant I could probably finish a project without hitting a cost-ceiling on my first try. I was motivated.
After that playdate and a big bowl of Pho, I got crackin’ on my website. Yes, the website that I had been TRYING to set up on Framer for - oh - um - maybe - a bit over… A YEAR. Yes, a year that I tinkered with it and couldn’t get it *just right*. A year of trying to get a narrow fixed-width module to go full-width. A year of trying to get the logos to all look the same and failing. A year of not publishing it because it, frankly, looked like crap. A year of wasting my time and money on something I wasn’t proud of. It didn’t have to be this hard.
Enter vibe-coding. Once I had my copy written it literally took minutes.
I remember texting Erica back after maybe 45 minutes of tinkering with Lovable with a link to my new published website. I was thrilled to finally get rid of the old, dusty website I never launched and start with something fresh and new.
If you’re wondering what my first prompt was, it went something like this:
I'm building a portfolio site for my operations work.
Attached is a photo of me and logos of companies I've worked with.
I want two pages:
The first page "Work" will be introducing me and what I do.
Including who I've worked with, titles I've held, and my high-level philosophy.
The second page "About" will be about my background and how to get in touch.
I want the website to be in dark mode.
Use a warm color from the image to use as a secondary color.
Design should be approachable and fun, but professional.
Here's the copy for both pages:...I then went on to list the copy for each page in the prompt. Simple.
The best part about it was that it’s easy enough to do in between things with the kids.
With vibe-coding your Saturday afternoon can also look like this:
write a prompt
play with Magna-Tiles
write a prompt
make a snack
write a prompt
chase a kid outside
write a prompt
wipe a butt
then “oh, look at that, my website is done!”
As we head into spring how are you making space for experimentation, creativity, and exploration? What new seeds will you plant for yourself?
Speaking of, in Thursday’s newsletter I have an invite to try something new. If you look at my jen-makes-work-work.com you may just find it.
If this resonated with you I have a couple of asks:
1. Leave a comment.
2. Share this with someone.
3. Subscribe for future newsletters.
Jen writes about AI for real people. You can also find her at jen-makes-work-work.com and on LinkedIn.
Awesome article! Love where this is going!