Are You a No-Reply Blogger?

I've received SOOOO many awesome comments/entries into the scrappy birthday giveaway, BUT guess what!? Some of you (whom I shall not mention) are no-reply bloggers and if you WIN the giveaway I won't be able to contact you and I'll have to choose SOMEONE ELSE!!!!! SOOO, please hop over to Jodi's BLOG and read her GREAT post about how to change that so that you CAN be contacted. THANKS!!

Happy Stitches,
Anna

Sorry for all the capital letters, I just want to get my point across. did it work?

Wacky Website Challenge and GIVEAWAY

I'm back and I said I'd fill you in on the details of what I need help with. I need all of you crafty ladies (or gentlemen) who have crafty eyes to visit our website and look for typos, misspellings, wrong pictures, etc. You see, in a month's time, Crafty Girls Workshop DOT com is going to be participating in the Fab Shop Hop!! I want our website to be spic and span perfect for all the visitors. Also, I have some flexibility with the way our shop is sorted into categories so if you have any suggestions I'd LOVE to hear them. Remember, we have over 150 bolts of fabric, so it isn't really feasible for me to go in and completely change the categories, but if there is another way to sort the items that you'd like to suggest, please let me know. So here is the deal:

If you will visit the website, "shop" around, click on items, visit the links, test things out and then come back here and put a comment on this post that says "Hey, I visited your shop!" You'll get 1 entry into the drawing.

THEN, if you find something that needs correcting and let me know THROUGH E_MAIL (to avoid any embarrassment) you'll get 1 more entry into the drawing! If you comment on here with a correction, I'm not going to count that entry.

THEN, if you have a suggestion for improving the website and you e-mail me your suggestion(s) I'll put your name in the hat again and you'll get 1 more entry in the drawing.

Here's a bonus:
You can visit/comment/e-mail me EVERY DAY this month for another entry! Meaning, if you visit the website EVERY DAY this month and come back here and comment "Hey, I visited your shop!" or something like that, I'll put your name in the hat EVERY DAY. If you happen to find another typo or broken link and e-mail me you can do so every time you find an oopsy for another entry! I'll also give you another entry for any honest suggestions you want to offer me through e-mail.

You could possibly end up with at least 30 entries this month! Pretty cool, huh? Oh, you probably want to know what the prize is, right? I mean, what could possibly be worth all that work?

How about a BRAND NEW charm pack of the 12 Days of Christmas line PLUS a yard of white on white Snowflake fabric? A charm pack has 42 squares of precut fabric. They are 5" square which makes into a cute baby blanket, throw blanket (with sashing), tote bag, even an apron! Here is a picture of the white on cream, so you can get an idea of the actual snowflake pattern. The fabric you will win is actually white in the background so that it coordinates perfectly with 12 Days of Christmas. (We also just ordered three more bolts of coordinating fabrics from 12 Days that should arrive very soon.) So, are you ready to help me with some quality assurance of my website? On your mark, get set, GO!!

Oh, and since I'm posting this a day into June, I'll hold it over onto July 2 so that you can get an extra day to enter.

Happy Hunting,

Anna

How Do You Feel About Advertising?

Starbuck, my baby, hiding among stuff in our guest room.

OK everyone, this is a feedback post, I REALLY need some feedback here. PLEASE leave me a comment with your opinion about this.

How do you feel about a blog that allows people to advertise on their site? Regina and I are considering offering this option here on the Crafty Girls Workshop blog. It wouldn't be a high cost thing, and we'd make sure that we only allow people to advertise who sell/make items that are relevant to what our readers want and, of course, don't compete with what we sell. That's part of the reason I need your feedback. It might seem a little over the top to ask people to pay for us to add their button to our blog, especially since we already sell fabric and kits and patterns but I want to offer people the option. Perhaps you're a reader of this blog and you LOVE to sew but have NO idea how to make cute jewlery, why not let us provide an image that links to a webstore of someone who sells pretty jewlery? Do you see where I'm going with this? So, hit me, tell me what you think, yeah or nay about advertising and IF you are someone who would be INTERESTED in advertising on here, please let me know as well. Of course, it would be sort of a let down if we went to all this trouble and no one wanted to advertise with us. Believe me, it's going to be VERY inexpensive to start, probably $5 a month! Most of our advertising budget goes to purchasing ad space on various blogs and we've paid anywhere from $10 to $85 a month for those ads, so I believe that $5 a month is VERY reasonable. I'll also do my best to help drive more traffic here so you get maximum exposure.

One more point: By asking for help with sponsoring our blog by purchasing some ad space, it will help us generate a little bit of money to be able to pay for ad space on other blogs. This will help us keep our prices on fabric, patterns and kits low and fair. We aren't doing this because we're greedy, but we do need to keep our ads on other sites running and hopefully we can do that and help promote some great crafty people in the process!

PLEASE leave me a comment with your opinion, no matter what it is. If you don't want your opinion to be public you can send me an e-mail anna@craftygirlsworkshop.com

BONUS: I will do a DRAWING from the responses (so make sure you leave me your e-mail) to win a CHARM pack of fabric! Drawing will be on Sunday March 7th. Thanks!!

Happy Stitches to You,

Anna

Coins for Comments, please help out

This is a quick post. PLEASE visit Becky over at Babes in Hairland, she's offering to donate 10 cents for each comment she receives on her post to a sweet family that is searching for their adopted children in Haiti. This family lives here, in the US and has been working to adopt these children for two years! She needs LOTS of comment love! So go visit her, right now! And then tell all your friends.

Thanks,
Anna

Merry SITSmas to All and to All a Good Time

I hope everyone has TONS of fun hopping around blogland today! I wish I could join you but as it turns out, I have to work at my day job, bummer! Maybe I can catch up a little after work while I'm waiting for our cable guy to come and replace our box. A few weeks ago, the SITS girls informed me that Crafty Girls Workshop would be featured on SITSmas so I am so thrilled! I hope that we get a lot of fun comments and new followers and visitors. I believe that also means we're participating in the Giveaway that they mentioned, but I am not completely sure of the details. Just know that it's something very cool from our shop. I hope everyone is having prettier weather than we're having here in San Antonio, Texas. It's chilly, drizzly, and altogether just depressing. It's one day I'm actually happy I don't have a window in my office! So, I hope that if you stop by and leave me some comment love that you'll answer one little question for me:

Are you making gifts for anyone this year?

This could be baking, or putting together a mix for cookies in a jar (I love that one), or letting your kids decorate the wrapping paper, I want to know what you are doing! If you aren't making gifts, have you found some great deals somewhere that you can share? (I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet.) Thanks so much for stopping by and Merry SITSmas!

Oh, and if you have NO IDEA what the heck SITSmas is and just happened to come by today by accident, I recommend you check out the SITS blog. They are a great group of women who will always make you feel good with their blog recommendations or their comments.

Happy Stitches to You,
Anna

P.S. I forgot to mention that if you DO decide to purchase something from our shop anytime this month, please add Merry SITSmas to the message to seller and we'll add a little something extra in with your purcahse. Thanks!!