In my first months of blogging, I am so thrilled to have several projects featured at some really terrific blogs. These are blogs that we’ve been reading for a long time and taking inspiration from, so it’s quite the honor to have our projects featured there.
DIY and craft bloggers are some of the most supportive people around. They have a willingness to share their talents and showcase the talents of others. That’s a rare thing indeed.
Knock Off Decor featured my Pottery Barn Knockoff Mercury Glass Easter Eggs.
If you drool over the home decor catalogs like we do, you must check out Knock Off Decor. There’s a wealth of tutorials that will teach you how to furnish your home in catalog style, but without the catalog price tag. We also recommend Beckie’s other blogs, Infarrantly Creative, where you’ll find tons of creative craft projects, and Roadkill Rescue, which is full of trash to treasures transformations.
Uncommon Designs also featured my Mercury Glass Easter Eggs, along with lots of other great decorated egg ideas! (Hurry up and check out the link; you still have a few days before Easter to craft up one of these awesome projects. I’m really loving the paper-punched eggs from Alderberry Hill and the adorable bunny butt eggs from I Gotta Create.) They also featured my Family Bucket List, which was such a fun project to make.
Trish and Bonnie at Uncommon Designs are such an inspiration. They make the most gorgeous and accessible projects. My Pinterest boards are full of pins from their site.
Ginger Snap Crafts also featured my Family Bucket List in a roundup of things she’d like to get for Mother’s Day. That is high praise, indeed!
I’m in awe of how Ginger does what she does with five kids. That probably explains why she has so many great kid-themed crafts — everything from lunch boxes to teacher gifts to adorable things for the little ones to wear. Ginger also has lots of great printable and vinyl projects. And I think her Pinspired Rewired Linky party is brilliant. Cannot wait to create something and link up, and this month’s theme is washi tape!
Thanks, ladies, for featuring Atta Girl Says. You made my day, my week, my month and have given me the motivation to keep on crafting and creating.
i have a question; i’m not trying to sound snarky or anything, but i keep reading these things on other people’s blogs about how they’re in their “first few months” of blogging and they’re getting featured on other blogs and they’ve got all these followers already, and whatnot, and i’m really not just jealous, i’m just wondering, how do you get all these people to know your blog is even out there? mine’s been around for about half a year, and nobody’s even noticed as far as i can tell. yeah, my blog’s not exactly scintillating, but i think it’s interesting. i don’t really have tons of friends, so it’s not like i can just ask my friends to start following me to get things going…so that’s my question; what do you do get the word out there and get followers? any advice / tricks will be appreciated! thanx! have a good one!
Hi Debra, you don’t sound snarky at all! Just curious.
One of the things we’ve done to build our traffic at our blog is to participate in link parties. That has given us some great exposure and the features that you reference. There are literally hundreds of link parties going on around the Web. We’ve been submitting our projects on the blogs that we already regularly read, and we’ve been lucky enough to have several of our projects featured.
Pinterest has also gotten us some traffic, and we also have a Facebook page, which we have promoted to all our friends. And we did run a small, inexpensive ad on Facebook to help spread the word about Atta Girl Says. We’re also on Twitter, but I don’t know how much traffic that is driving our way. We’ve also done some real-world things like participating in some local craft fairs, teaching some crafting classes and passing out lots of business cards. That part is hard for me, because when it comes to promoting myself, I’m pretty shy. When I was a newspaper reporter, my notepad emboldened me to approach anyone. But not so much now that I don’t have that reporter’s notebook to to provide me courage.
One of the best ways I’ve found to bring readers to our site is to be an engaged reader at other blogs. When you comment on other blogs, as you did here, many, many, many bloggers will come visit your site and many will become followers (as I just did!) I would also encourage you to email some of your favorite bloggers and ask them for advice; the ones I’ve met online and in person are overwhelmingly helpful and willing to share.
Our site is still growing, and we’re not in the big leagues by any means. But we’re focusing on producing authentic and what I hope is interesting content. And I’m trying to engage with our readers, though I am often slow to respond to comments and emails.
I look forward to getting to know you better. And thank you so much for adding us to your blogroll. That’s something on our to-do list here at Atta Girl Says. We need to create a blogroll and so many other things.
hi! thanx a lot for your response and the “follow”…i appreciate it! you are correct, i do need to participate in more activities at other blogs…i read them, but only sometimes comment, and i’ve never participated in a linky party…i know i should, i just need to get it together!
i do use pinterest…i can’t tell if it’s helping anything yet, i need to get more proactive about promoting myself, i guess. i have a facebook page too, but i neglect it (bad girl!) the blog is more work than people think and i have to maintain a fun / work balance, and that’s something i’m just learning to do. also, i have a lot to learn about the technical aspects of blogging-i’m not real tech savvy, unfortunately, but i’m trying to get better! it’s just sort of scary sometimes. your blog looks very slick, professional, well-put-together,but still friendly and i’m aiming for something like that as well, but it’s all still a work in progress.
like you, i too am shy about just straight out approaching people for advice…it takes me awhile to work up my nerve, then i keep second-guessing myself about what i say! i’m trying to get over it however.
anyhoo, thanx a lot for the advice…i will follow it, and i’ll be back to visit soon!
take care!
debra