Stickytapeandstring

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beginner blog

27 May 2018

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Hello 🙂

Welcome to my second update.   I hope you have had a happy, productive week?   I have been busy finishing the little bags I started last week but Sunday did not start well.    I left my crochet in a bag in our living room over night, and this is what I found the following morning….

and this is the likely culprit!    We have three dogs, a mum and two pups.   The pups are just over a year old and still love to chew things!   The puppy in this pic is called Poppy and she is the worst for chewing things.   So far she has demolished various bags and shoes, including some expensive boots and the only pair of pricey sunglasses I have ever bought!    Our fault for leaving things in her reach I suppose.

Luckily for me my Mum loves to untangle yarn so I gave the tangled mess to her and now have a nice tidy ball again.     I finished the bags and basic bag pattern and put a blog post out about that.   bag pattern post.

I also made a few discs and hearts in the process – the discs were the bottom of the bags but I like the look of them on their own.   I might work them into a project of some kind but haven’t quite figured out what yet.    The hearts started out as motifs for the bags, from a basic pattern I found online.  I wasn’t very happy with the pattern so I adapted that to make a few medium and larger ones.  The larger ones are a bit more stable, I am very pleased with the pattern I created.

I am going to experiment with a heavier weight of yarn next.    I think these would make lovely table decorations for a wedding, baby shower or birthday.   I will write up the heart pattern so I can share it with you in a future post.

I made some in brighter colours too in Drops Paris yarn that I am worked sample squares in for a blanket.    I might try to work these hearts into the blanket design!

The other project I have been working on since I spoke to you last, is some bunting for a family birthday.    I put up a separate post on this as I managed to complete the work.   The bunting looks lovely and will be able to be reused unlike the tacky plastic stuff I normally buy.    I have been considering a design for crochet balloons but I am not sure I have that sorted yet 🙂   My post on the bunting includes the basic flag pattern and explains how I joined them into a garland.    You can read that post here  Bunting Pattern post

Last week I promised an update on my blog goals.    I put quite a bit of thought into this but I haven’t managed to create the bullet journal pages yet.  I am trying to keep it simple as I do find that keeping a bullet journal takes a lot of time.    The time I spend is lovely relaxing mindful time but I am not sure I have enough time available to devote so much of it to keeping a track of progress.   I will try to get these trackers done for next week’s update.   I do worry that I would make more progress if I didn’t spend so long tracking it 🙂

Status today – I have 544 Pinterest followers so I put on 22 this week.   Nothing exciting has happened with AdSense so I am still on 16p 🙂   I am getting a few page views, around 80 per week on average but no clicks.     I need to do some research on how to improve that if I want to achieve my goal of being able to spend more time on my crafting and blogging.   Maybe the adverts are not relevant enough.

I haven’t read up on mailing lists yet but mean to do that this weekend so watch this space on that one.   I haven’t listed anything new on Etsy either – I plan to write up the more complicated bag instructions along with some edged bunting and options for decoration then I will list both patterns.    I could list the bunting for sale but I want to use it at home – I will have to make some more!!

Finally, I was soooo thrilled to get a response to my first weekly update so this week I am planning to do a bit more research on my fellow crochet bloggers and leave a few comments on their posts, to see if I can make new connections and support people who are working on similar projects.   That’s all for now – more next week!

Happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂

 

20 May 2018

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Hello 🙂

I have decided to keep a log of my progress as I build my blog and Esty shop.  I will  share my experience here, in case anything I learn can help anyone else. This is my first weekly update post.   I might need to split the content between the nuts and bolts of blogging and the crochet/knitting design work as I am not sure anyone would want to read all of it!   I am not sure anyone will want to read any of it if I am honest but I am putting it out there in hope 🙂

So far I have only written a post when I had a project ready to share.  That makes weekly posts tricky as there are some weeks when I do not feel I have anything at the right stage.   You will see from these updates that I have a bit of a problem with focus 🙂 I tend to work on several projects at once and I am not much of a completer finisher.    Does anyone else have a problem with that?

I work full time and jam my crafting into the corners and spare moments of my life. I generally get a good amount of time to spend on my crafting and blogging at the weekend.  During the week I spend two hours a day on the train travelling to work.   I am normally surrounded by sleeping commuters!  I took the decision when I first started in this job, that I would not waste those two hours a day.

One of my tasks each weekend is to get myself set up with projects for the train.   I need the projects to be small and easy to carry.    I generally get a seat on the train but I don’t get much elbow room so the work needs to be compact and not need laying out.   This week I have been working on little crochet bags.    I started with a basic pattern which I will share in a separate post.    I worked up a number of variations.    I thought that these could be used for wedding favours.   We just had a bit of royal wedding fever here in the UK so that was what set me off!

I am still working on designs for my sample squares blanket.   I haven’t managed to get to a design I really love yet so I put the project on hold.    I started with the layout below then edged a number of squares in black and wasn’t sure I liked that look.

I think I am going to ditch the black edges and join with white instead.   Maybe it is because we are coming into summer and the black just looks too heavy.

I am progressing my Spring Flowers Blanket I completed all the flowers for one row last week.    I have joined them now and I am working on the next part of the design.   These colours really make me happy.    I was going to pick up a row of chain after the flowers but I think it will be neater if I start in the other direction and mirror the panel I just made.    My project for the train this week will be another set of flowers to make a new row across the work.    I am going to put in some zig zag rows this weekend.   It has to be a weekend job as the work is too big now to take on the train!

Every week I like to do a bit of research on blog or Etsy tips.  I read an article this week on Etsy success which said that you need c200 items listed to start to get a higher chance of sales.    I was shocked.   That is a huge number of listings.   I am currently at 10!   I think it will take about two years of work to get me to the 200 listings point

I do have a lot of patterns in draft that I plan to list and a number of those could be projects that people could give as Christmas presents.   It sounds dreadful to be thinking of Christmas in May but given the time it takes to produce items I think it is a good time to be planning and starting to make gifts.    This is a link to my shop in case you want a look.   Stickytapeandstring

One of the problems I used to have with my blog and Pinterest posts is with photography.    I have now invested in a light system and have a small ‘studio’ set up in a corner of my bedroom that allows me to take great photos of small and medium sized work.   I bought the kit on Amazon – it was a lot cheaper than I expected.   Problem solved!!

I have included an affiliate link here to the type of kit I bought, which if you find the link helpful, allows me to get a bit of income whilst not costing you a penny more than you would pay anyway.

The problem I haven’t been able to crack so far is how to photograph really  big items.   My sunshine flower blanket looks lovely in real life but I cannot get a decent picture of it to list on Etsy.   I might take it into the garden on a sunny day and see whether sunlight does the trick!

When I am travelling to work I listen to audio books.   After a phase of murder mystery type books I have moved on to self improvement.   Everything I have read/heard tells me that I have more chance of success if I write my goals down so I am working on a bullet journal page to do just that.     I will post an update on this next week.   I love my bullet journal and have a board on Pinterest to keep all the inspiring ideas that I see.   Many of them seem to need more artistic ability than I possess but a lot of the pages can be copied.   Working on the bullet journal is an exercise in mindfulness all on its own and I find it very relaxing but it is a bit of a drain on time if I allow it to be!  Pinterest board link here – Bullet Journal.

I will share my progress against my goals each week once I have set those goals.   For now I can give a status report.    I have 522 Pinterest followers and 10 Esty listings with no sales.    I do not have any blog subscribers yet but plan to start a mailing list next week.   I rarely get comments on my blog and haven’t really looked into how to improve that yet.    I signed up with AdSense a couple of months ago and so far my cumulative earnings are 16p 🙂   The only way is up!!

I think I had better stop writing now and go and make something.

More next week,

Annie 🙂

 

New to blogging

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Get your first blog up and running!!

I wrote this as my first post when I was just starting this blog. The advice contained below is exactly what I needed when I was new to blogging. I have loved my blogging journey and hope this helps you start yours…..

Original post starts here – May 2017. I am a new blogger and learning all the time from the huge number of articles out there.    I have found it to be a complete information overload.

Many articles claim to make the process of setting up a blog simple, then proceed with complicated instructions.

I am a complete beginner and have no qualification or expertise in this area.   I am only sharing my experience and limited knowledge in the hope that it helps you on your journey.

Below I share two links that are enough to make a proper start and get a working blog out there.   These are the best I have found.   I am still learning and I will continue to share as I find helpful information.

Firstly it is important to note that there are many free options out there for hosting your blog.   However, the solution I have chosen uses WordPress on my own domain hosted by 1&1.   This means I have paid for my own website name. My site is not part of another website. I read several horror stories about bloggers who put hours of work into blogs only to lose the content later.   Owning your own domain removes a big risk of this happening.

The links below take you to 1&1 Ionos where you can choose your own domain name and hosting package.   1&1 make this part very easy and quick.   Hosting packages can be very cheap and I would advise you start small.   You can always upgrade later as your requirements change.

get a domain name – 1&1 ionos

get hosting with 1&1 ionos

I found navigating WordPress and getting my blog up and running the hardest part.  I had made a small start using the welcome instructions in the WordPress software but I didn’t make any serious process until I found this free online course.

free wordpress tutorial

It really is free!   Signing up gives you access to a facebook based user group for support.  There are also discounts on offer for more WordPress support services.   I do not know yet whether I will need to use these but it is good to know they are there.

The only investment I made other than in hosting my own domain was to buy a WordPress Theme.  This is not essential and does cost money. However, the free themes are quite restrictive in what they allow you to do.   I bought the Genesis theme.  The course covers this subject.

This is all it took to get my first blog up and running!!   I did have to break off in the middle of setting up to complete a few tasks that I could have done in advance so I will put those into a separate post.   The main tasks were taking photos and preparing text.   I am still working on the photos!!

I hope this helps you and I wish you all the best in getting started on your own blog journey!   Please let me know how you get on 🙂

If you would like to read more of my blogging journey – click on Blogging in the menu above or follow this link to one of my more recent posts.