NORMAL SERVICE HAS BEEN RESUMED

Hi everyone

Well, it only lasted for one week, but I knew that it would be hard to break a habit, so my chatty post is back to its normal posting day of Sunday (Yes, I know today is Monday, but I lost track of time).  I found it hard to put time into posting on Tuesday and although last week was extra busy, it is something that I know I will find hard to do normally (very busy tomorrow, I know I would not be able to post then).  My plan is to arrange my Sunday post as first part for Handmade Monday (HM) and the remainder will be the chatty catch-up post.  That way the HM contributors will not have to get bogged down in non-craft-related chat.

Section 1: A crafters life for me

I spent most of last week working on my wedding invitation order.  The week included three nights of working from early morning until gone midnight to ensure I kept to the deadline that I had set myself - and agreed with the bride and groom.  Finally completed everything at the crack of dawn yesterday morning (well, a little later actually) and the bride and groom collected their invitations in the afternoon and I am pleased to say they like them.  You know how it is, we are hypercritical of our own work and are always somewhat surprised when it is complimented.  Why do we do this to ourselves?

This is a photograph of the finished invitation.  The invitation is a pocket with orange ribbon and a diamanté buckle around it; around the half circle at the top are diamonds (I wish!).  On the front are two sections of purple card with cream card on top - the top one has the couples initials and wedding date (covered in this pic) and the bottom one has the name of the invitation.  Inside is a purple card which has cream card on both sides - one side is the invitation, the reverse is information about the venue, church, etc.  A matching ribbon pull has been added to the insert.  Finally, I made supports for the back of the pockets so that they could be stood up.

This week sees the start of making the Orders of Service - these are similar in design to the invitations in that they have an orange ribbon and diamanté buckle on the left hand side.

I am very late with my Handmade Monday/chatty Sunday post, but don't forget to visit the other contributors to Handmade Monday.  Lots of great blog posts to read.

Section 2: Non-stop chat - almost

Did you watch the Olympics closing ceremony?  What a spectacular end to a truly amazing event.  To go through all of those times and parts that brought tears to my eye would mean a very, very long post, but I am sure they were the same for many of you.  How about the runner who continued even though he had suffered a broken leg!  Believe me, having broken a leg about 4 years ago, I can assure you that running was the last thing I was able to do!  And we still have the Paralympics to come - I am sure there will as many tear-jerking moments at this event as there has been in the last two weeks.

Did you manage to catch my Friday Guest Blog?  Rich Little of Bloggabase wrote about his new website that is for bloggers of all types of blogs - it's a really great idea and I hope it takes off very soon.  Do have a look and join.  Rich is looking for at least 2,000 members before going live, and at the last count he had just over 1,000, so half way there.

Most of my time last week was spent on work, work, work.  Great to have orders and I received two more yesterday for a Ruby Wedding anniversary card and one for a 65th birthday.  I want to get everything, including Orders of Service, completed this week as Richard is on leave next week, and don't want to be working while he is lounging!  I am hoping it will be third time lucky for him weather-wise as the last two breaks have seen heavy rain most days - he is getting a complex.

I had lunch today with a couple of friends at Elstead Mill.  We reviewed the Olympics and decided we needed to do some form of sport/exercise, but agreed hurdles and the pole-vault were definitely not on our list of possibles.  Up to a few years ago I used to regularly play golf, so that was a possible one for the list; we also thought we might try rowing.  I will let you know how (and if) these sporty plans develop.

I have a lovely guest blog post on Friday of this week, so don't forget to check back.  As I am back into my usual blogging pattern, I will be back with a mini post on Wednesday.

I hope you enjoy this week and if you want to be a guest blogger, please do get in touch: christmaspiecradfts@virginmedia.com (many thanks to my previous bloggers for promoting this on their blog posts).

Jill

TODAY'S GUEST BLOGGER IS.....

Firstly, I'd like to say thanks to Jill for kindly offering me this opportunity to guest blog.

Secondly, allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Rich Leigh and I am one of the co-founders of www.bloggabase.com, a service I launched recently to try and improve the relationship between bloggers and marketers.  I've worked in PR for about five years, and blogged for longer.

In my day-to-day job, working with bloggers has become more important over the last couple of years, as clients have realised that niche audiences are sometimes more useful from a brand sales perspective than traditional media outlets.  Despite this, there is only one real way to identify bloggers to approach, and that's by good old-fashioned desk-based research (otherwise known as Google).  Trawling through lists of potentially relevant bloggers is something that takes a lot of time, and as such, across the industry, often falls to junior agency members, or professionals who are simply too stretched to make a good, thorough job of it.  This can lead to sloppy, irrelevant pitching, with a greater emphasis still placed on media relations, or talking to journalists.

That's where I think we are missing a service to help make 'blogger engagement' (or 'blogger relations' as you might also know it) easier and better for both parties.

Bloggabase will be a way for bloggers to send requests, receive targeted products and service review opportunities and also hear from guest posters and marketers who have stories to tell that bloggers might want to hear.  Through making contact with these marketers, it may also be a way for bloggers to make money from their blog, though for me, it's about the relationship, first and foremost.

My hope in launching it is that marketers will only contact bloggers about things they and their readers might care about, rather than the 'throw enough and some will stick' approach I have been subjected to when wearing my blogger hat.

If you're interested, please do take a second to sign your blog (or blogs, if you run more than one) up for free, here:

www.bloggabase.com (we're on Twitter @bloggabase)

It's for all bloggers, no matter what subjects they write about - we've had bloggers sign up with all sorts of interests, and even if you have a blog that is just personal to you and about nothing in particular, you may still find the service of use.

At the moment we're recruiting blogs - we aren't opening up to marketers until we hit 2,000 blogs just to ensure a useful proposition - so any help sharing the service to reach the target faster would be greatly appreciated and will of course make the service of use to bloggers sooner.  We're currently at more than 1,000 blogs, so I'm confident we'll get there soon and, I hope, find a way for marketers and bloggers to work together in a mutually beneficial way.

Rich Leigh
Co-founder

www.bloggabase.com and @bloggabase)