How-To: Box Covering

Do you remember I mentioned that I ordered boxes for my button cluster necklaces that were way too small? Well I ordered new ones which are the perfect size, but the wrong colour, so not one to shy away from a little extra work I decided to cover the boxes in wrapping paper. Or rather the little OCD voice in my head wouldn't allow myself to leave them plain card and not matching the other boxes. So armed with a scissors, wrapping paper from Pennies and A LOT of double sided tape I covered 12 jewellery boxes(btw I get my double sided tape in the €2 store, don't attempt this at home if you are paying the normal ridiculous price from a craft shop).

After doing the first one I worked out a system. Firstly cover two of the long sides(if rectangular) with tape, bringing the strips around the corners by about an inch. Then do four strips on the underside of the box. Also put four strips on the inside lip of the box too. Now your box is prepped. 

Cut out a piece of light wrapping paper that is at least 2 1/2" bigger on all sides. Remove the backing from the tape and place firmly face down on the reverse of the paper.

Make a cut in the paper that run parallel to the longest side of the box, repeat this for the four corners. What you should be left with are two long strips either side that you can fold up and two smaller ones in the middle.

Trim the edges of these longer strips by about an inch on all four sides. Then remove the backing for your tape on the one of the long sides of your box. Delicately fold up the paper, you are left with two tabs either side that can be folded around the corners to go onto your overlap of tape. Repeat this step on the opposite side.

Now remove the tape from the inside of the these side panels. Because my box was quite shallow I didn't need to make any cuts in the paper, I was just able to fold them down.

You are now left with the two side panels. Just add some double sided tape to the two edges, and fold up repeating the last two steps above.

If the bottom part of your box is visible you can cut out an insert of paper to go inside to cover the last panel, just tape in with double sided tape.

Repeat all the above parts of the tutorial for the lid of your box, and hey presto you have a pretty box. This seems like a lot of work the first time you do it, but you find yourself getting into a rhythm pretty quickly.

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How-To: Paper Collage Lids

Yesterday I showed you my new crafty jars, now I'm gonna show you how to decorate the lids. They would be a great project to give as a gift to someone, fill the jar full of their favourite sweets/trinkets, add a bit of ribbon, et voila a nifty gift!

I followed this tutorial that I found on Pinterest for decorating the lids.

1. Choose some nice paper. In the tutorial they seemed to use a kind of tissue paper. I used thin cheap wrapping paper from Pennies which i got for 50c a roll. I tried to use more expensive paper that was shiny but the glue just slipped off the surface. You need something that will absorb the glue that is thin enough to fold easily around the edges.

2. Was all of your jars really well. I used peanut butter jars so there wasn't any hassle with staining or odour, if you need to bleach the lids to get rid of smells/stains. Leave to dry completely.

3. Cut your circle of paper about 1" larger than the size of your lid.

4. You can use Mod Podge or make your own by mixing 70% PVA with 30% water.

5. Generously coat your lid and paper with you glue.

6. Make slits all around your excess paper. Gluing as you fold them over. Make sure to poke the paper into the groove of the lid with your brush, remember that you will need to close the jar when you are finished. 

7. Because the branding on the jar I was using was quite dark it was still visible through the thin paper. I cut out some roses, buttons and hearts to decorate each of the tops of the lids.

8. Generously coat the whole of the top of your lid with glue, then glue the back of your decorative piece of paper. When you position it then add another layer of glue on top.

9. Leave to dry completely before using(or the paper will rip on the inside of the lid). I also added another layer of varnish afterwards as I will be selling them and i wanted them to be extra durable.

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Egg and Quinoa Cups

I get very bored eating the same food all the time so I'm always on the lookout for new recipes, that's why Pinterest is a goldmine for new ideas. I have a food board called 'Tasty...nom,nom,nom' where I save the most delicious looking things(and also things I would feasibly make), I also have another board especially for Crock Pot recipes as I'm still learning how to use mine. I've tried quite a few things that I've pinned but I never remember to take photos, so they don't make it as far as my blog, but for once before diving in I thought to take a couple of badly lit pictures.

When I saw these quinoa cups I knew I had to try them, I'm a little obsessed with quinoa at the moment, it acts as a carb as part of your meal but it's a protein so it's much better for you. You get that nice full feeling like rice, but without the bloating, like a light satisfying fullness that gives you lots of energy. It's quite similar in texture to cous cous, but better since it's not made from wheat. It's a little bit more pricey than things like pasta and rice, but it's totally worth the extra money. I usually cook mine with a veg Knor Stockpot, and it's delicious. I got the original recipe here on Iowa Girl Eats, but it can be easily tweaked to whatever you have in your fridge, just like an omelette.

Basically they are like an omelette that you cook in the oven with added quinoa. The original recipe made little mini bite sized pieces but I used my muffin tin instead for dinner sized portions. As I said you can put in whatever ingredients you like, but this is what I used.

Quinoa Cups:

3/4 of a small cup of uncooked quinoa

1 veg knor stockpot

3 eggs

fistful of grated cheese

1 finely chopped red pepper

1/2 red onion finely chopped

6 cherry tomatoes finely chopped and de-seeded 

2 slices of cooked ham

black pepper

dash of soy sauce

Salad:

Rocket

Cherry Tomato

Cucumber

Grated Cheese

Mixed Seeds

Linwoods Flaxseed mix(super food,I would highly recommend getting this, I add it to loads of things like breakfast, soup, salads, pasta etc)

Cook your quinoa with 2 1/2 parts water to every part quinoa, then add in your knor stockpot to add flavour, bring to the boil, and let it simmer. While this is cooking preheat your over to 180 degrees. Then chop and grate your ingredients. And mix in a bowl together with your 3 eggs. Liberally grease your tin with oil/butter/non stick spray. When the quinoa is cooked add it to the egg mixture, and divide evenly into your cake/muffin tin. I got 4 servings from this mixture, but I'd say if I added another egg (I had a little extra quinoa left over) and made the portions a little smaller I would have gotten 6 out of it. Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes, wait until it's golden on the top and cooked through.

This may not look like the most filling dinner in the world but I was totally stuffed after it, I will definitely be making it again!

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Blog Signature How-To(Kinda!)

After much to-ing and fro-ing over the past few months I'm eventually happy with the box at the end of my blog posts. It's gone through a few variations, and to be honest if I was on Wordpress it would have been as easy as a few clicks and a plugin. But sadly blogger is a bit more fiddly!!

Eventually I found some html code for making a box with some text on the inside of it(if you go to the link it's at the very bottom). It gave me the basics to start with then I did loads of editing on the code to make it the colour and dimensions that I wanted. I'm not very good at coding but I have a few scraps of knowledge in the recesses of my brain, but to be honest it makes my head hurt.

I had seen these boxes on Wordpress blogs and thought the looked lovely and was convinced that they would improve return traffic. I especially liked the ones with the pictures in them, so I made it my mission to figure out how to make one! Firstly I copy and pasted the code into a new blog post and went into the html view and then made the following changes
widened the bar to 680px
shortened the height to 80px
background colour to white
lowered the font to medium
font colour to black
(all this can be changed by reading the html carefully and changing the values accordingly)

Then things started to get a little tricky. I started with my basic sentence 'Thanks for stopping by my blog!....'You 'll see the highlighted area above listed as number two, place whatever text you like in here, I recommend typing the full sentence first then add your links afterwards. To get your Rss Feed just highlight 'rss feed' and click link enter what you see inside the quotation marks at number 3, but make sure to replace my url with your own before it says 'feeds/post/default'. To add links to your facebook/twitter just highlight and click link and put in the appropriate links when prompted. I also like to add target="_blank" after the link  and before the '>' bracket as this opens the page in a new tab.

The next tricky bit is the image.Firstly I uploaded my image to photobucket and copied the link. See the
I do apologise for not being able to post html that you can copy and past(I don't know how to do it!, when retyped it it came up as another image box), but if you retype exactly what I have in the image above, but just replace it with your own links you should get your own text box for your blog posts.

All you do to make sure this shows up on each of your blog posts is to copy the finished html go to 'settings', then 'posts and comments', and paste into 'post template'. If you can figure out my half baked code gibberish and you attempt this please let me know, also if you have any questions just leave them in the comments section and I'll try my best to help you out.

Good Luck!!

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How-To Lavender Sachet

I got a call the other night from a friend asking me to making a present of a lavender sachet for a 90 year old woman, not a request I get every day! I have never made one, but years ago my sister in-law Shelly taught me how to make crane bags, and when I was around 10 I made a tonne of them. But it had been a while, 20 years, since making the last one. 

1. Get a large dinner plate or lid and trace out a circle on two different, but matching pieces of fabric.

2. For a bit of extra decoration to the outside of the bag I added small pieces of matching fabric, composed them together and pinned in place.

3. I used a zigzag double layered stitch on my machine to applique on the extra bits of fabric, you don't need to do the edges of the circle as these will be sewn later.

4. This is what it should look like.

5. Get your second circle of fabric and face them both inwards, if it helps pin the two circles together. I also wanted to add a lace trim(as the lady who this was intended for is 90). With the frilly edging facing inside your fabric leave a small edge peeping out, see image above.

6. Sew together in small straight running stitch, I set my machine to No.2. Leave a small gap at the end.

7. Turn your sachet back around to the right side, take your time, you'll get there in the end.

8. This is what it looks like after being reversed, notice the small gap, this will be fixed later. About 3/4" in from the edge sew a straight running stitch all around the diameter. I forgot to take a picture of this stage, but you can see it in the picture below.

9. This is the really frustrating bit. You need to insert string or ribbon into the gap that has been made around the diameter of the circle. I Cellotaped my ribbon to some circular knitting needles, these are perfect as the have a pointy end but are flexible.

10. Persist with this stage, you make muck it up and have to start again, go slowly and try not to force your needle through your seams.

11. With a bit of hand stitching tidy up the gap that was left, turning in the edges. If you used lace make sure to sew the two end together.

12. Fill with lavender and pull tight to close it. I'm allergic to lavender hence there is no sight of it in these photos! To add the extra loop to hand the sachet in your wardrobe you just add one extra loop before lacing it as normal. Like tying your shoes but adding one extra loop step. Sorry it was too hard to do that last step and take a picture, I don't have a third hand.

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15 Tips for Using Pinterest

I mentioned last week that I would write up a guide to Pinterest, it seems like my Timeline and Blogging articles were popular so I might as well continue imparting my nerdy skills. If you are at all involved with crafts/design you will probably have heard of Pinterest, that is if you are not already a member. It's a website where people share their taste via virtual pin boards, basically it's like bookmarking with pictures in a shared community. For designers it's an amazing resource for two reasons, one it's fantastic for research and information; I've learned tonnes of new techniques for both crafts  and computers since joining. Secondly it's as a way of sharing your own creations, I 'pin' most of my blog posts and some of my etsy listings so my 'followers' (and virally millions of others) can see them. Even though it has one twentieth the users as Twitter it generates nearly the same referrals, which just shows you the power it has to generate traffic for your brand/website. I've been addicted since before Christmas (go here if you would like to follow me) so I've learned a few things along the way:


1. Set up an account;
For some weird reason the site is still invite only, but you can either request one when you go to Pinterest, or if you leave your email in the comments section I can send you an invitation.


2. Don't just repin;
There are two ways to pin; either by repinning an item that someone else has pinned or by pinning something new to the site. After you've been on the site a while you will see lots of the same tutorials floating around, the community depends on people adding fresh items or it's gets stale very fast. Some of the hardcore Pinners say you should contribute 1 new pin for every 5 that you repin. But I'm gonna be realistic and say that I do 1 for every 10, I see way too many cool things not too. You can install the pin button on your tool bar that makes pinning cool stuff from the internet really easy.


3. Pin with the correct link:
After a while you will notice that not everyone knows how to use Pinterest properly and that some images don't link to the proper site, as a user this is insanely headwrecking!! Please don't be one of those users. For instance if you are on a blog and you see a great post, don't just pin the whole site and click the picture you like, you have to click into the link of that individual blog post and then click your 'pin it' button. Otherwise other people will be brought to the main site rather than that specific post. I hate it when I see a pin for a fantastic tutorial and then I can find the page. Another thing that people do is pin images directly from Google images, giving that as the referral link rather than the website, leading people to a dead end, which is also really annoying and breaks the rules of Pinterest.


4. Find a lost pin: 
If you get stuck in the above situation but you really really want to find the source there is a way. Right click on the pin, then 'open image in new tab', right click on that and 'save as'. Open up Google Images and drop the file into the search bar, it will then give you a list of sites that this image has appeared on (this is also a good way to see is anyone stealing your images online without permission).


5. Organise your brain and your browsing:
I used to use bookmarks but I really hated them as I always lost sites of forgot what I named them. Pinterest is fantastic for sorting out this kind of information. I have a board for loads of helpful articles for selling online that includes loads of marketing tips that I can refer back to when I need them. The same goes for card making, sewing tips and cookery. Now when I sit down to make cards I take a look at my board first and scan for inspiration(just like I do with my scrap booking magazines). I also keep a cookery board, so if I can't think of anything to make for dinner I can take a peek at my board and see if anything takes my fancy. I use Pinterest as a place to store ideas until I need them. 

6. Add text to your image;
This is something I haven't quite gotten in the habit of doing yet, but I see it used a lot to great effect. If you are doing a blog post that you intend to pin, or something useful that you would expect others to pin then add text to one of the images. For instance for my blogging article I made images to go with the piece and included the phrase '20 blogging tips' in the picture. There is a pin description, but sometimes people leave this blank, for these instances your pin will still have an explanation embedded into the image. Another tip I read was also to include your website address in the image. This has two benefits; 1.If the link gets lost along the way or someone pins it incorrectly then people can still find your site. 2. It creates brand awareness on Pinterest, if your posts get popular people will start to recognise that brand.


7. The ins and outs of linking to FB and Twitter;
I have to raise my hand and say I learned this info the hard way. In my settings I linked my account to my Facebook timeline, thinking it would show on my page; not knowing that it would update all my friends about each pin(can I add that I'm addicted so that's a lot of pins). When pinning something it gives you the option to share on Facebook and Twitter, you can do this sporadically so you don't spam all your friends. At the start I was frustrated that I couldn't share to my business page, but I figured out how to do it. After you pin something a box appears asking if you want to share your pin, click the Facebook one, then go to your page in the drop down menu.


8. Write good descriptions;
Writing a good description makes it easier for people to search for this item. Even though it's tempting to write 'amazeballs' as the descriptions, ''chocolate sponge with caramel glaze,they are totally amazeballs cookery# baking# cake# chocolate#' will mean that more people will find it. I must admit that when I'm repinning I don't always edit them to make them better for searching, but it's worth the effort. You can also use the @ and # symbols like you do on Twitter.

9. New profiles;
Pinterest just changed their profile layout recently, and you can now choose what image represents your board. Just click the main image and choose your cover image from your pins. Pinterest users are very visual so try to curate your profile like you would an Etsy treasury, I thought about what images and colours matched each other. Also make sure to add all of your relevant links to your profile, I've stated following lots of new blogs and Facebook pages because I've been interested in their taste of Pinterest. I also added my business name in brackets after my own name just in case people don't know me as Ruth.


10. Find out who is pinning you:
I pin quite a few of my blog posts, but other people pin them too, and it's nice too see what is popular. Just type in www.pinterest.com/source/yourwebsitehere/ and you will see all the pins that link to your site.


11. Be Seasonal;
Every time a new holiday/season rolls around Pinterest is flooded with pins for that event, so at Christmas and Valentines there are endless recipes, present ideas, craft tutorials and shopping guides. If you are trying to promote your own seasonal wares or articles make sure to post them early so that they have time to circulate. Or if you like writing craft how-to's then think about the seasons ahead of time and write up some tutorials geared towards these holidays.


12. Share your profile;
Add links to your Pinterest on your blog and business page. Promote it just as much as the other sites that you are part of, if someone finds you on one platform they will want to know where else you are. Make it easy for people to follow you. I even mention that I'm addicted to Pinterest in my twitter profile. You can also add a link to your account to your email signature. Recently I started using social networking icons on my business cards and labels, and on my latest batch I added the P to represent Pinterest.


13. Add the Pin It button to your posts
Sometimes you will see a little red Pin It button on blog posts, this is just like a facebook or twitter sharing button. You can go here to get your button and just paste the html into you post template so that it appears in each of your blog posts like a signature. You can find this in Settings, and then go to blog posts, and paste in the html.


14. Pinterest is a community
You are able to like and comment on pins just like on Facebook. To take part in the community more comment on other peoples pins to interact with them. You can also use the ' symbol to tag another user if you see something that you think they might like, or to let them know you are talking about them. I must admit that I'm guilty of not doing this, but I'm very excited when i do get a comment because it happens so rarely!

15. Set a timer/limit;
Be warned Pinterest is incredibly addictive, and time can easily fritter away. Because of the nature of the site it always leads you to more sites, with more cool stuff, with other links, and so on. They estimate that the average regular user spends 1 hr 17 minutes on it per day. To stop yourself whiling away the hours looking a pretty things set a deadline for yourself, trust me I've learned the hard way.

Helpful Links:
Pinterest deconstructed infographic
Guide to Pinterest infographic
Marketing tips for Pinterest
How to find the original source on Pinterest
7 Ways to use Pinterest
and saving the best til last...
The ultimate guide to Pinterest

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Mini Photography Studio

I've been trying to post more photos of my work on this blog and also on my Facebook page. The temptation is to be lazy and not bother with photos as it can seem like a really time consuming task. Mostly it was the set up that kept putting me off, having the bother of clearing a space, and trying to get good light. Something had to change!

I looked around my house and saw that I had a really bright spot in one area of my studio, I was using the top of a chest of drawers to store envelopes and packaging stuff. I cleared it all away and made a permanent photography area that would always be ready for me to take a few quick snaps. I set up a back board that has vintage material draped on it, and placed a matching base material to cover the table. New backdrops can be added really easily if this colour theme doesn't suit my subject, behind this floral material the board is covered in blue gingham wrapping paper(which you can see below). I covered another board in tinfoil, this helps to bounce light onto my objects being photographed, and allows me to take pictures a little later in the day by pulling in a little extra light.

I force myself to keep this area tidy and not let it build up with clutter, unlike every other available space in my studio! Because of the tinfoil board I've found that I barely have to edit my pictures afterwards which also saves me tonnes of time. Below are some examples of before and after shots, on the left are the new pictures and on the right are older ones that I took over the years. I'm using a bog standard camera, a Canon IXUS, so I'm pretty happy with the results I was able to get.

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Blogging Part 3: 12 Steps To Increase Traffic To Your Blog

This is the third and final part of my blogging series, this installment is about increasing your traffic. Follow the links to read part 1, blogging basics, and part 2, blog design.I don't claim to be an expert in getting traffic to my site, to be honest it's probably the thing I'm weakest at. But I've made lots of mistakes along the way which means I've learned loads too. Here are some tips that I picked up:

1. Use Your Tags:
When writing a post make sure to use your tags, it will help people who are searching on Google. On blogger there isn't a categories option but I used tags as a way of making easily defined topics, each of my posts uses one of my 12 set tags. Try to think about your article and how a reader might describe it if they were trying to find it.

2. Share on Facebook and Twitter:
Make sure you share all of your new blog posts on your social networking sites. My facebook business page has been a massive help to my business and my website, it is a large source of my daily traffic. Some people prefer to comment on fb or Twitter on your posts rather than comment on your site, make sure to engage in these comments. I also like to share specific links with other users if their conversation is relevant to one of my older posts. For example if people are talking about good films they have watched recently I might comment with a link to a review I wrote. Be careful not to do this too much or in a spammy way, only post it if you genuinely think people will be interested.

3. Join Pinterest:
Pinterest is an amazing site where people 'pin' or bookmark images from sites, and create virtual mood boards that are catagorised by topic. It has been great for bringing new traffic to my site, from other members pinning my posts. I also pin some of my own posts too, like this series on blogging and other crafty how-to's. I will be doing an in depth post on the ins and outs of Pinterest in the next two weeks for those of you unfamiliar with the site.

4. Ditch Your Networked Blogs Feed:
I used to use Networked blogs as an automatic feed for my Facebook page, and I thought it was great as I didn't have to manually post the link. But I noticed that Facebook has started to group topics in the news feed, so all posts from Networked Blogs would come up as one single update. This means that if 10 people that I follow were using this tool had new blog posts in the same day I would just see one update in my news feed, something that could be easily missed. To avoid this just uninstall the tool, and go back to manually linking from your Facebook.

5. Guest Post on Other Blogs:
A great way of reaching a new audience is to do guest posts on other blogs. Lots of people that have never heard of you before will be able to see your site. I really enjoy writing for Etsy Ireland, and last year I was thrilled to guest on my favourite blog Lupin.

6. Add an RSS Option:
To be honest I've never used RSS, and didn't know what it was until recently, so I didn't pay any attention to it. But other people use it to follow blogs and find out about new updates, so you need to add the option to your site. Blogger have a gadget which you can add to the sidebar. I noticed that Wordpress sites have welcome box that can be added to each post with invites people to follow via RSS. I tried to get a posh one online but it wouldn't work, so I just added a basic text one. A simple bit of text can be added to the body of each of your posts by going to Settings-Posts and Comments- Post Template, in there just enter your html for your RSS welcome message.

(Note: I created my html by going to New Post, typing in 'Did you find this post helpful or interesting? To follow my other posts here is my RSS feed'. I changed the background colour to blue, and changed the text colour to white to make it stand out. I then highlighted RSS and added the link to my RSS feed. I then switched to html view and copied this text over to the Post Template. Here is the code you will need for the atom feed, just make sure to replace your own address in the text)
 http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
(Also note that RSS feeds do not work for Google Chrome)


7. Do Featured Posts:
I regularly do posts based on a theme usually around something that is trendy at the moment, like beards, alternative weddings, or tattoos. I usually feature lots of images from Etsy shops or crafty how-to's. I make sure to link to these shops, and then I let them know via a convo to their Etsy shop. I normally say that there is no need to reply but a comment on the blog or sharing on the fb or Twiiter would be greatly appreciated. I prefer to do these posts than make treasuries on Etsy, as I think they get seen by more people. They also help traffic to the site as people will find them in Google searches, I still get lots of traffic from my post about weddings.

8. Host a Giveaway:
I haven't done a giveaway in ages but it really helped me at the start to get some followers. Make it a condition of entry to become a follower, and give bonus entries for sharing on Facebook or Twitter. If your prize is from your Etsy shop make sure to post it on Etsy Giveaways to let people know about it. Or alternatively you could host another persons goods as a guest giveaway, Ruby Clover did this with great success, and even hosted one of my own giveaways many moons ago.

9. Add Your URL to Your Email:
It's such a simple thing but lots of people forget to do it. Create an email signature with links to your site and your shops. Also when ever you send a convo  on Etsy make sure to have a link to your website, fb and Twitter, it's annoying that you have to type it out each time, but it's worth the effort. Here is a great article on creating an email signature.

10. Business Cards:
If you are blogging for your business make sure you have a card, or even if it's a personal site it might be fun to have cards too. I hate when I meet bloggers in real life and we have a great nerd chat about blogs and neither of us have cards on us. Even though I have my flyer that I use for work with all my details on it, I still get Moo cards printed just so I can always have my business cards handy in my key ring. I also enclose my flyer in every online sale, and in the bag with every real life sale, you never know who will hang on to that info or pass it on to someone else.

11. Add Share Buttons:
Make sure to have share buttons on your posts, both Wordpress and Blogger have options for this, so there is no excuse not to have them. You want to make sharing your posts as easy as possible for readers.  To add the tool on blogger go to Template, and click the middle box that says Blog Posts, and you will see the option there. I also added a Pin It button to all of my posts since I became a Pinterest addict. This is a little bit of code I grabbed from the site and added below my RSS signature, so that it comes up in each post.

12. Use Images:
I talked about using images before and how important they are in breaking up the space and making your blog look prettier. But images are also great for searches too, a lot of people do Google searches through images instead of text. Getty Images is a good source of free images if you don't have your own graphic or photo. Always make sure to link back if you are using somebody else's image.

I hope this series has helped you all, I mostly did it for fun, and I must say I learned loads while researching it. If you have any more tips please leave them in the comments section, I certainly don't claim to know it all, and I'm always hungry for more information, so please share!

Helpful Links:
21 tips to increase blog traffic
25 tips for blogging
Creating an email signature
Hosting a blog giveaway

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Blogging Part One:20 Basic Blogging tips

After writing my post yesterday about my blog design I decided to write a series about blogging, it was only when I logged in did I notice that this is my 600th post, how appropriate! It will be a 3 part series dealing with basics, design(Part 2), and promotion(Part 3). Today I'll be doing the basics, I wrote an article last year on this for Etsy Ireland  ,some of the info is out of date because of the changes made this year to blogger, but there are still some helpful tips for total beginners.

Firstly you have to decide if blogging for you, lots of crafts people feel that they have to have one because everyone else does, or that it's hurting their business not to have a blog. Now that we have things like Facebook and Twitter there is really no need to start blogging if it would feel like a chore. It's just as easy to share your new creations on FB/Twitter, and there is not as much pressure to write. So if you like writing, would enjoy getting involved in the community of bloggers, and don't mind putting in lots of work for free then you have found your calling as a blogger. I've been blogging for nearly 5 years now, and I started it because I missed writing. In my day to day life there is no reason for me to write, and between the years of finishing college and starting Nice Day Designs the only things I composed were emails. I don't claim to be a great writer, but it's a hobby that makes me happy, so starting my own blog seemed like a perfect forum for my ramblings.

So now you need to choose who to go with. Most web designers and bloggers will say Wordpress , as it has more potential down the line to make it feel more like a website rather than a blog. I went through a phase of being very frustrated with Blogger, but I've stuck with it over the years. With all the developments they have made in the past 6 months it's an incredibly easy to use site, and might be preferable to beginners. I've tried Wordpress and I wasn't really a fan. but that's probably because I'm so used to Blogger. There is a handy table here to show you the comparison between the two to help you decide. Most established blogs seem to switch over at some point to Wordpress, and to be honest I'm still toying with the idea, but it can be expensive to hire someone to do it. I just found this ebook that came highly recommended to help guide you through the switch over process if it looks like your blog turns from a hobby to a more committed thing.

Tips:
1. Think about your content, but don't stress over it. When starting your blog think about what you are trying to say overall and who your readers might be. This will help you come up with new posts when you are having an off day. Example this is a craft blog and I wanted to keep my own personal voice. Which means I have a mostly female readership, which in turn will be interested in things like fashion and handsome men! Hence the addition of things like my 'What I'm Wearing' series and 'Hotty but Notty'. Content is key, you will not keep readers if they feel you are writing it as a chore to help promote your business. I've seen an endless raft of blogs like this and I never go back to them.

2. Post regularly and consistently. If you are a once a week blogger then choose a particular day. Don't have 10 posts in 5 days and then nothing for a month.

3. Choosing themed days might help you with get over any writers block. We used this to great effect on the Etsy Ireland Team blog, there was how-to tuesday, and fab 5 friday. You don't need to catagorise your whole week but it's handy to have an old reliable, and it's also nice for readers too as they know what to expect. I'm a particular fan of mags Pretty Boy/Girl Friday.

4. Link as much as you can when you are talking about something. People who read blogs want information. If you are writing about crafts link to your shop, where you got your supplies, and what craft books you are reading. This is done by highlighting the word in question and clicking the link option.

4. When linking always have the option 'open this link in a new window', that means that you are not sending your reader away from your site. It's very easy for a reader to get distracted in that new site and not go back to yours, whereas if they still have your site open in a window they will most likely go back to it.

5. Refer back to old articles on your blog when you are writing, like above I mentioned yesterday's post and also the article I wrote for Etsy Ireland. This will get people interested in your back catalogue.

6. Another handy tool for this is Link Within, that's the little pictures you see at the end of each blog post show you older and related posts. As a blog reader find these really helpful and have often spent a half hour on someone's site reading their older posts. It's really easy to install with their step by step guide.

7. Please turn off the Captcha if you are on blogger! Loads of people hate them and it puts them off commenting. If you are concerned about security then moderate your comments, or what I do is moderate on comments older than 14 days. I have had spam bots post tonnes of comments, but after I made the older posts moderation I haven't had any trouble.

8. Scheduling your posts is a great way to get posts written for the week when you have spare time. Monday is usually my blogging day and i space them out over the week.

9.Interact with other blogs, when you read an interesting article, don't be silent, leave a comment. The blogger will appreciate it and other readers will click your link and go to your blog. Try to do this a much as possible.

10. Respond to comments left on your blog. I don't respond to every single one, but when a few have build up I leave one comment responding to a few people at once. If you notice a new commenter visit their site and leave a comment on their blog about something they have written, it's only polite.

11.Give credit. If you are not using your own photos, or if you found a great crafting tutorial make sure to link to the original site, otherwise you are stealing the image/how-to. Most bloggers don't mind if you link to their work without asking permission first as it will drive traffic to their site. Again it's about being polite.

12. Please don't have music on your blog, or if you really want it let it be optional. A lot of people read blogs in the office(when they meant to be working) so the last thing they want is an announcement to other satff that they are skiving off. Even though I work from home I find it annoying and distracting, most of the time I click out of the site.

13. Share your skills. Lots of my favourite blogs are informative by either doing craft how-to's, marketing tips or cookery suggestions. If you have a hidden skill people want to know about it. Do you have an amazing recipe for chili, or a genius list of uses for vinegar? Let the world know about it by writing a how-to/guide.Be careful not to spill all your business secrets though, if you teach people how to make all the products that you sell they might not buy from you. Lupin Handsmade balances this line very well.

14. Don't obsess over you visitors numbers, it can take a long time to get established. It's only in the past year that I'm getting a decent amount of hits per day, and even at that they are fairly small compared to other craft site. Remember to be patient, but also remember to enjoy it and not stress over the figures. In later articles I'll give tips on driving traffic9although I'm no expert!)

15. Use lots of photos, number one they serve to break up the text, at heart we are all children who love picture books. I like to upload my pictures as extra large and centred, this avoids tricky formatting trying to integrate them into the text.

16. Link your images where possible, most blog readers expect this(I know I do). For example when I doing an etsy finds post I link the image to the item(by highlighting the photo and clicking link) I also type in a description and price underneath, and I also link this. I tried using the add caption option and linking this but that means that when you click the image you get an error notice. I prefer to put in the extra effort and link both separately.

17. I prefer having a long list of posts rather than having to click older posts repeatedly. It's totally your preference, but I get get bored if the whole rage has to reload every time I want to read an older article. I limit mine to 15 posts.

18. Intersperse weightier more time consuming posts, like this one, with lighter quick posts like my beardy post last week. Otherwise you will be a slave to your computer and not have a life.

19. Mix things up, don't just blog about one thing. If i just blogged about the crafts that I make I would bore myself and my readers to tears. I have other interests so I share them here, it gives a more personal and fuller perspective about who i am. You never know what will appeal to readers, my most popular post of all time is how hot Dave Grohl is.

20. Don't over share. I'm all for letting people in and showing my vulnerable side, but I still treat this site as a face for my business. I don't talk about my sex life, or bitch about people I have issue with. Your blog, especially  business blog, is about putting your best foot forward.

Most importantly have fun!

Stay tuned next week for part two on the importance of design.

Useful Links:
Blogging Your Passion 
Get a more professional looking blog.
The Backlight-loads of blogging tips
Blogging Myths
50 tips to battle writers block
The Art of the Article

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Tackling Timeline

Those of you who run business pages on facebook will have noticed that they are phasing in Timeline for pages. You have till the end of the month until it's mandatory, so that gives you a bit of time to figure it out and play with your page design before it goes live. At this stage I'm a bit of a business page expert, for anyone looking for tips on setting up a page I wrote this article last year on 'Facebook Pages:An Idiot Guide'. Whereas today's article is a bit more advanced for those with established pages who know the basic ins and outs already.

Firstly I cannot overestimate the amount that facebook has helped my business, it may be time consuming but at the end of the day it's free, and it's a form of advertising that customers actively opt into and pay attention to, you just can't buy that kind of press. I've had my page for about 2 years and it has brought me lots of new customers, real and online sales, and helped me build a personal relationship with the people who buy from me. They get to put a face to my business and I get invaluable feedback, it's a win win situation.

In the past few months facebook have been making lots of little changes that at first seemed very limiting to pages, but now that they have unveiled Timeline most of it gels together very well. The most obvious difference with Timeline is the appearance, it's a much wider 'wall' with two columns instead of one. Older stories are now accessible by date from the panel on the right hand side, giving the lifespan of the page. They have added a new tool which means that you can bump up old posts by Pinning them, this is done by clicking the pencil icon on the right of any post and choosing the option 'pin to top'. This brings this post to the top of your timeline on the left hand column. It's a good idea to regularly pin popular posts that reflect your page so that prospective 'likers' can gauge quickly what your page is about. Once an item is pinned it remains at the top for 7 days.

Another way to make a post more noticeable is to star it(do this by clicking the star icon on the right of any post) this makes the item double width, and much more noticeable when scrolling through older posts. It's good to punctuate the timeline with a few of the favourited posts to break up the double column layout.

When I first went onto timeline I was disgusted that landing pages were made defunct as there is no longer control over what tab a new viewer arrives on. Previously I had designed a landing page that reflected my business and brought me lots of new 'likes'. Facebook have replaced this with a cover photo, a large image that sits behind your profile picture. It is fine to use an image of one of your products in this window but to get the best results it would be better to have a text and image graphic. Although be careful facebook have some rules about what text can go here, you are not allowed to point towards the like button, include sales promotions or other info that should be in the about section. The dimensions for the cover photo are 851 px wide and 315 px tall, and make your document 72 dpi.

They have also added 'milestones' to the timeline, which act like starred posts(double width), but are designed to highlight key events in your business like awards, press etc. Your chosen event date will then be marked in your timeline. You can create these in your status bar, next to ask a question, and you can upload a photo with your description, the picture dimensions are 843 px wide and 403 px tall. This new feature can be used to great effect to give the history of a business in a dynamic way, especially for older businesses as they can mark events and trivia through the past decades. There is a lovely example here at Leo Burnett Worldwide.

Facebook have added a handy admin panel at the top so all traffic and notifications are easily available. Thank goodness the days of no notifications on business pages are over, that was a nightmare! You can monitor traffic, reach, and who is talking about your page. They have also added a private message section which is really handy rather than people having to discuss sales on your wall. During my research for this article I found out that pages can directly message their 'likers', although be careful not to abuse this and alienate your readers by spamming them. But you can only message people who have already send a direct message to your business page, you can not start a new conversation with one of your fans. It would be a good idea to post an update letting your fans know that they can now send you a direct message, as most people don't know the mechanics behind a business page.


You should also note that the amount that your updates appear in peoples news feed has changed over the past few months, someone who interacts with your page is more likely to see your updates that people who don't. This means that you need to post more regularly, and at different points in the day. It is also advised that you post different types of things, not just talking about your business all the time. Use pictures, ask advice, questions, share finds from Pinterest etc (For more info on this large topic head over to this great article).

The magazine format of timeline has meant that facebook is becoming a much more visually based forum. Do things like share photos of work in progress, a yummy muffin you are eating, or materials you just purchased. There are lots of ways to vary your updates, just start thinking outside the box.  You'll soon start to notice your 'talking about' numbers increasing, and afterwards your likers. Try to post information that people will want to share, George Takai (Ensign Sulu from Star Trek) has a great business page where he posts loads of funny geek pictures, he gets hundreds of 'shares'  every day because his content is great.


All in all I'm pretty happy with it now that I've learned all the new features. At first I hated it because it meant that I had to relearn lots of things. One frustrating thing is that they don't have an attach link function anymore in status updates which leaves an ugly pasted link at the end of the update, it seems like a pointless change. But the overall benefits outweigh any clunky problems. Knowing facebook they will come up with a whole host of new changes in another 6 months just to annoy everyone!

Helpful Articles:
Involver
The Drum: 5 ways timeline will impact business pages
CMVLive: Timeline, what's it all about?
How to get more interaction on your business page

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How-To Button Wine Glass Charms

Can I just preface this how-to by saying I won't be using my retro app again for photographing step by step guides, after uploading them I realised that I got a pretty blurry account of the project, so apologies now for the fuzziness of the pictures....

I saw this cute how-to on button wine glass charms, and thought I would give it a go. It turns out the link isn't a how-to at all, just a finished picture telling people how easy they are to make....which they are, after a while that is.
What you will need:
Snips or a tough scissors
Flat buttons of various sizes and colours
Wine glass charm rings
Wire(I'm not sure what gauge I used, I just had some laying about the studio)

Glass charms are usually sold in set of 6, with each one having their own distinctive pattern or colour, I picked out red, yellow, blue, green, purple and pink and chose complimentary colours for the top buttons. I know this sounds really silly but I had no idea what the purpose of these charms were until last year, it's so people don't get their glasses of wine mixed up at parties, each person gets their own colour, what a smart idea!! I'm obviously not a grown up and I need to go to more dinner parties, I should have copped onto this yonks ago!

It took me about a half hour to figure out how to do the wire wrapping,(in the end I gave up on trying to go through the 4 button holes) and I broke a few buttons, but when you figure it out it's really easy after that. Cut approximately 6" of wire, weave your wire through the buttons, leaving about 1" one one side at the back.

You'll have to use your imagination here to picture that I've twisted the wire together with the pliers, make sure the end of your wrapped wire is tidy.

Push the twisted wire against the button so that it's flush against it, then loop around your longer piece so that the loop pops up about 2mm over the top of the button.

Leave about 1" of wire sticking out from the bottom of the button and cut. Again we put on our imagination caps to see that I've wrapped this piece of wire tidily with my pliers around the base of the loop, tucking in the end of the cut wire.

Then simply put your wine charm ring through the loop that you created, and repeat 5 more times to get a set of button charms you can wow all your dinner party guests with(just make sure to tell them that you learned how to make them on this fantastic blog!)

Quite simply as cute as a button!
Update: Since I scheduled this post I've added a jump ring so that the buttons sit better on the wine rings. Also I will be listing a bunch of these sets in my etsy shop when the postman arrives with my rings, I made loads of sets the other day, it was button heaven!

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