Changes in Craftermath

Remember back in January when I said I was thinking about different ways that I wanted to work with my blog and change things up a bit?  Well, I’ve done some more thinking on it and I think I have a plan of attack.  You see, my teaching schedule is busier this semester (and I’m in a mini grant season).  That’s eaten up a bit of my time and caused me to think about what my posting schedule will actually be.  Up until now I’ve pretty much written whenever I had a few minutes and never really scheduled things.  That’s not working anymore (surprise, surprise)!

The first thing I’ve done is create a schedule in my Google calendars.  Here’s a tiny snippet:

 

You can see that I’m planning another post for today!  And of course, tomorrow is the Silhouette Challenge day, so there’s something there to.  I’m not going to show you the rest of the schedule yet though, since I want to make sure that it all works as planned.

The second thing I’m doing is thinking more intelligently about what types of content I like to write, what you (my readers) like to read, and how much effort it takes me to produce a good quality blog post.  I want my tutorials to be things that you’re interesting in working with.  I know that my software tutorials are particularly popular among many of you.  So here’s what I think I can commit to.  (Yes, you heard me right, commit): 1 thorough walk through a week.  This might be a craft, or it might be software.  I can’t really juggle both at the moment, but at least I can commit that you’ll have one a week.  These will usually come on a Monday.

Outside of that one post, I’ll still be trying to post an additional 2-3 times a week.  What will these posts be?  Well, they might be my simple silhouette posts, or they might be a crafting hour, or even a small, quick project.  And of course, I still have finished crafts around my house that I can show you which don’t have tutorials associated since they are pre-blogging.  I might even do more ramblings about how I fit crafting into my life!  Notice that some of these will still include tutorial like information?  That’s because these are intended to be things I can write quickly, and there are tutorials I can write quickly!  So things like “Simple vinyl cuts” and “weeding vinyl” are things that I can do pretty quickly and write short little posts about.  This actually helps work towards the goal I have of being able to showcase the crafts by linking back to mini tutorials showcasing different techniques instead of loading lots and lots of information into a single post.

I’m also branching out into social media a bit more, and I’m trying to figure out how best to use these things.  I know I said earlier I didn’t want a twitter or an instagram (<– link to my accounts!), but you’ll notice, I have them now!  I’m still trying to figure these out, but I’ll get there in time.  I’ve already decided that instagram will come in hand amazingly for my crafting hour posts.  So, here’s the deal with the crafting hour.  I’ll now be taking all my photos through the instagram app and posting them there *as they happen*.  That’s right!  You can see my progress in almost real time!  Don’t worry though, I’ll still post them here, but I’ll wait until I have 10 hours of a project to post it.  That should create some consistency to how I post those projects.

Finally, I’m working on some back end for my page.  I’m in the process of re-configuring my about page, writing up a policies page, and streamlining my categories.  Plus, I’ll be adding some more permanent links to either the top or the side bar to collect some of the projects and walk through’s that I have for easy access.   I’m also working on making the site more accommodating to mobile devices.  Finally, don’t be surprised if you start seeing ads on the site or projects that are done in collaboration with companies.  Of course, I’ll have guidelines for what is and isn’t acceptable here.  It’s something I need to start thinking about if I want to make this site sustainable.  I chose to work on the platform I’m using so that I can get into the nitty gritty code of the site, but it does have the drawback of paying for hosting.

So to recap, here’s what to expect for content from me going forward:

• 1 well written, complete tutorial a week (usually on Monday)
• an additional 1-2 shorter posts of a variety of types
• Crafting hour progress posted to Instagram

I’m still working on how best to utilize my Facebook and twitter accounts.  Sadly, my drawing challenge has dropped off the radar a bit.  I’ll try to get that back in swing this upcoming week!  Thanks for dropping by, and keep your eye out for that second post to come in some time this evening!

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