New posting schedule: more posts!

Finally after months of sporadic posting, I’m happy to announce I’m back to a 5 days a week schedule: Monday – Friday.

And starting next week there will be two posts each Monday! A main post and a smaller post. After trying that on for size for a few weeks I’ll see about adding a second post on Wednesdays too.

Mondays: Random assortment of book reviews, interviews, current news, and whatever else might tickle my fancy.
Tuesdays: Redress posts–a mix of studio, home, and wardrobe redressing.
Wednesday: Crafty business, shop updates, and a mix of the random.
Thursdays: Thrift Kitchen posts–ideas on keeping things delicious, healthy (for the most part) and cheap. It will be a mix of articles on creative cooking/cleaning ideas and recipes.
Fridays: Project patterns and tutorials. A nice mix, some new, some from the vault that have been corrected and reformatted. On Fridays, I’ll show you how to make what I’ve made.

New things on the Website!

I know quite a few of you read CL exclusively through your RSS reader. I am exactly the same way but you might want to swing by because there are quite a few happy changes.

1. Ads.

I’ve gone back and forth a lot with ads over the last few years, especially with BlogHer. It is a great service–supported by women, for women. It helped me open the door to earning money with my blog. Those are great things, but I have had a few issues.

Mainly, they don’t fit with my blog template. They never have and I suppose they never will. Second is I really just don’t care for the content of the ads. Some of them are great public awareness sort of ads, but others are for Sprint, Walmart, or other ads that just don’t fit with Craft Leftovers. Here is the thing, that real estate is 100% theirs to control. I can black list certain words or companies, but that’s about it. I can’t use that space to promote the people I would like to promote (people like you) or even my own shop.

Enter BlogAds. BlogAds is a great service that lets you set the price of your ad space, fill it with your own content, sell the content to your readers, sell the content from the BlogAds website, and be included in ad campaigns sold to clients. It’s a little slow at first, but after a month I already started selling ad space through them and have easily made what I would have made through BlogHer and then some.

I get to choose my ads. When anyone submits an ad through BlogAds, I get an email notification and have 24 hours to approve or decline it. If I take no action it’s automatically accepted.

Fifteen days after the end of the month, BlogAds sends the revenue right to my Paypal account. Excellent. I’m not making a killing, but every little bit helps.

2. Homepage.

The Craft Leftovers homepage is finally sorted out. The slider is 5 recent posts. The area below is 4 featured “From the Vault” posts. The twitter widget has what’s currently going through my mind. That makes a lot more sense than the mash of stuff I had before, things from the archive as well as current content in the slider and the summaries. I’ll try to update the whole homepage every week starting next week because I’m still playing catch up. :)

3. Contact

You may or may not have seen this inconspicuous little tab show up along the top of the website. It’s there. Check it out. Send me a hello. Seriously though, I decided to go ahead and add a contact form. Send me any questions you may have, but especially leftover related questions! I got a great email from Karen the other day asking about splotchiness when over dyeing clothing that spurred a great idea for a post.

I would love to start having a reader mail bag post to answer craft related questions. I may not get to everyone, but I’ll try my best. So, do you have a question about the best way to sew rick rack into a seam or how to weave in the ends of slippery cotton yarn? Use that contact form and I’ll post about it or reply directly!

4. Project Archive

I’m still making my way through the archive to replace photos, add material lists and summaries. It will take time, but it’s really coming along. No more weird-o lightbox issues. Click on the image or the title and it will take you to the right place.

The Craft Leftovers Shop

1. Restocking

– I’m working hard to restock what I already have. Next on the list is some fun collage kits and Love Bug clutch sewing kits!

2. Designing

– I am not by any stretch of the imagination a proficient code writer. But slowly and surely I’m making the shop look a little less x-carty and a little more Craft Leftovers. I just added a new banner for one and am replacing the other graphics over time.

3. Debugging

– Another great use for that contact form. If you have encountered a glitch over at the shop (your order won’t go through, it’s throwing back a rediculous shipping charge, you’ve entered all the info, but it’s telling you there are empty fields) fill out the form and let me know. I’m not good at programming, but Jason is and he’s working on getting all the bugs fixed so it’s s smooth experience.

4. New stock!

It’s been awhile since I posted anything new outside of Craft Leftovers Monthly and I am happy to say that is also changing. I have a few mini zines, kits, handmade goodies in the works. I’ll post an update of what’s new next week.

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I’m so excited about all the fun things I have in store for us over the next few months. I have all these ideas for Craft Leftovers that I’ve been having to jot down and set aside until a later date because of the mural, move, book deal combo breaker that has been in the works for the last 6 months. It’s so good to be back. Ahhh, nice sigh of relief.

This is the last “getting on the same page/catch up/updates” post. I think we are all square. Now let’s get down to cleaning out the fridge (tomorrow’s post) and the best way to rescue paint caked brushes (on Friday).

Happy Crafting!

Kristin Roach

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