Bloggers Summer Camp Part 2

Yummy Smore's

Thank you again to etsyRain for sending me to School House Craft's Blogger's Summer Camp. I had a great time and met a lot of awesome people and learned about so many new websites that I am going to have to limit myself how many I can check out in one day so I dont get lost.

If you haven't read about my panel one take-aways go here.

During lunch all of the panelists split up among the tables to give smaller roundtable discussions. I wish I was able to go to each and every one, but I ended up zeroing in on photography tips, which was led by Andie Powers of Assemble. I just want to say that she is just a delight. I love her style and personality and she really knows what she is talking about. It is so great to hear that even the professionals use ghetto props to get the shot, and they don't have a professional studio taking their photos. This leaves hope for me. I am not the best at taking photos but I'm also not the worst!

Andie says the number one factor in taking great photos is the lighting. She recommends using shiny foam core to bounce light to get rid of hard shadows and to make your shots more evenly lit. She also recommended investing in a good camera (which thank goodness I already have) and a tripod (need to get).

She also recommends taking photos using natural light. This is a tough one for me. I feel that my home is unnaturally dark (I am surrounded by huge trees) and since I work late at night (and usually in my garage!) I never have natural light. For my situation she recommended getting some clamp lights and putting some parchment paper on them to act as a filter. The light bulbs are super important too and she advised me to get something with a daylight spectrum. I am going to talk with some photographers I have worked with in my past as a package designer and see what lightbulbs they think might work.

Another great tip she had for photos is to always take them in the same place. Consistency is something to be strived for in every brand and photography is no different. Even though photos are not graphics they are a huge part of the look and feel of your site and business identity. Taking consistant photos is key to a consistant pictorial voice.

The top 5 features to look for in every photo are:
1. Exposure
2. Shadows
3. White Balance
4. Saturation
5. Sharpness

A side tidbit for other bloggers: Andie also writes for Apartment Therapy and if she wants to use a photo she has sourced from somewhere online she will not use it if it has been watermarked. This is an eye opening piece of information for me. I thought this was something I should be doing to protect my intellectual property, but if watermarking my photos is losing me opportunities to increase my readership and reach then it's just not worth it.

Here are a few photos I took using Andie's advice. I am really happy with the results. I think I may need to find a better light bulb but that will be easy enough.

Custom Personal Stationery

Personal Custom Stationery

Personal Custom Stationery detail

Personal Custom Stationery

Personal Custom Stationery detail

Part 3 of Blogger's Summer Camp deals with The Myths and Realities of Monetizing your Blog, coming next Monday.

Feedback Needed! Please Help a Printer Out!

I am one to get stuck on the options. I just create too many! I have a hard time letting designs and color options go. Unfortunately I can not (nor should I) make them all. Please jump in on the discussion and help me narrow them down. Comment below on the designs you like and even the ones you don't. Constructive feedback is always welcome, because even though I can't decide it's not like I am married to them. I need to let some of them go. Please help me out!

In your comments leave the design options you like and/or dont and also if there are any color arrangements that you feel strongly about either way. Thank you in advance!

Letterpress: Blind Emboss and 1 other color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color plus a blind emboss. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 3 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: Blind Emboss and 1 other color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: Blind Emboss and 1 other color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2-3 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color plus a blind emboss. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 3-4 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 1 color plus a blind emboss. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 3 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 2 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press

Letterpress: 4 color. (The first 4 are meant to me Fluorescents but they dont represent well in the swatch)-©Bunny Bear Press


Whew! That was a lot of options! See what I mean! Please help me narrow it down! Ideally I would like to print 10-15 this round and definitely no more than 20.

Help a printer out!

Bloggers Summer Camp Part 1

Photo booths make me feel silly.

What better way to kick off my new and improved blog than by writing about attending School House Craft Blogger's Summer Camp today. As I started writing this post it started to get a little long winded so I am going to break this up into 3 different posts.

First of all I want to say thank you so much to etsyRain for the for sending me. I was excited to attend and winning a contest to go to something I was already super excited about was just icing on the cake.

The entire panel of women were amazing and gave such a wealth of information that I hope I was able to absorb it all because I know my notes just don't do the day justice! During the discussion a ton of websites were discussed and I will make a complete list of them at the end of this series.

People starting to arrive and beginning to mingle.

I am going to do a quick roundup of the information I quickly jotted down in my journal from these amazing blogging superstars starting with the first panel:

Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia
Blair Stocker of Wise Craft
Andie Powers of Assemble
Megan Reardon of Not Martha 

This panel discussion was about blog/life balance which is something that I struggle with. Which is kind of a funny thing to say since my previous blog was posted on so few and far between and I never really figured out what I wanted to say or show or talk about. But the reality is I have 2 kids. There, I said it. They are both under the age of 4 and I am a Stay at Home Mom. I also have a letterpress business that I am working on getting up and running. This means that I usually work between the hours of 9pm-12am. And when I am working at these hours I am trying to focus on my craft: designing stationery for myself and others, doing custom work, and printing.

I was always putting my blog off because I wanted to focus on creating my product. I am starting to see more and more how social media and my business are tied together. I think I am finally ready to make the leap into creating more online content and using this platform as another aspect of my business instead of something I have to do just because.

But anyway back to the panel advice: Set a schedule. Use Post-it Notes. Download an Editorial Calendar (which will be good for me since I may not want to be doing all of my postings at 11pm since no one is going to see them) and Photography, Photography, Photography. Another key take away point was cross referencing yourself across all the various social media platforms. I am sometime hesitant to do this because I dont want to seem annoying or pandering, but in a lot of ways this makes sense. I had this idea that I had to create separate content for each platform and that is not entirely true.

Another interesting tidbit is the idea of boosting your posts on Facebook to reach a wider audience. At this current moment I have 42 likes of Facebook, and the fact of the matter is 98% of them are my friends. Boosting a post could be huge for me to start actually building a network of people who are interested in my work and aren't just liking me because we are friends IRL.

Some other tips to increase traffic were to make sure to include any links that you may be referencing, and adding comments to blogs that I already regularly read. I must confess that I am an anonymus blog reader. I never have commented before, but that is about to change. No more hiding in the pixels for me.

Bloggers Summer Camp Part 2 will be posted next Monday, June 24th. Stay tuned.

Don't I look incognito?