Blogger Recognition Award

A grateful thank you to Tami of Tanglewood Knots for nominating me for the Blogger Recognition Award. I humbly accept and truly appreciate it, especially since it’s coming from a blogger I admire.

The rules for the award:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Write a post to show your award.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
• Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
• Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

How my blog started

I was in the process writing a book. I wanted to start a blog about the book and my experience going through it. It’s a crochet book about making crochet dolls and I was pretty proud of it. It was mostly done but I still needed to edit the thing and add pictures and what not. I got going on the blog and then froze up. I wasn’t sure what I was going to write. Since the book was mostly done, I wasn’t sure I wanted to write about that anymore. Instead, I focused on the crochet projects I was currently working on. Since then, I’ve found my blogging ‘voice’ and am happy with it’s direction. I have to chuckle that the reason for the blog, i.e. writing about my book, never happened (at least not yet) but I found I enjoy the blogging experience very much.

Advice

1. My first piece of advice would be to take your blog seriously and post consistently. Set a realistic goal for yourself about how often you want to post and try to meet it. But also be flexible. It’s ok to change your goal with more or less postings, but don’t neglect it or forget about. In the beginning, I was worried I wouldn’t have enough to write about. I set a goal for myself and most of the time I was able to meet it but there were times I didn’t have anything to write about. By having a goal, it forced me to think about topics I could be posting about. The more consistent I became, the more I found I could write about.  Now I have a queue of things waiting to be written about and trying to find the time to write them all.
2. My second piece of advice and one I wish I had started using sooner is to use the tools WordPress offers to help your blog be successful. They have excellent tips and tutorials that are very helpful. I Just recently discovered The Daily Post. It’s a very good resource for bloggers. One of my favorite sections is the daily prompts.  They provide a daily word to post about and you can link back to the prompt. I’m finding the prompts very helpful in stopping writers block. If I run out of ideas on what to write, I can always turn to the word of the day and connect to that community. The fun part is trying to make the word of the day work with the topic of crochet. More often than not, I can make it work. I don’t do the daily prompt everyday but it’s there when I need it.

Bloggers I like:

I know that many of these blogs have already received this kind of recognition before so if you are on my list, you don’t have to do anything. It just means I really enjoy your site.

1. Tanglewood Tapestry: I love her writing  and look forward to reading her creative short stories but I am hooked on her Scary Saturday stories. They are true stories submitted by her readers. I love reading true, scary stories. I am always looking forward to her Saturday posts. I encourage everyone to check it out and submit stories. I can’t wait to read them. 🙂
2. Evelina Crafts: I love making crochet dolls and hers are beautiful. Looking at other peoples work is very inspiring for me. She makes really cute miniature crochet toys. So cute!
3. Kate Davies Designs: This one is about knitting and I don’t knit but her work is amazing. Her husband is a photographer and his photos are simply stunning. It’s definitely worth a look.
4. The Twisted Yarn: I love her sense of humor. Her work is fantastic and I’m always chuckling while I’m reading. As a bonus, she has fun giveaways all the time.
5. That Space  in Between: If you like art, this is a really cool blog. I like seeing the work come to life. Looking at art inspires my crochet by inspiring me.
6. Coastal Crochet: I am so jealous that she lives near the coast but I love seeing how she incorporates her love of crochet with her love of the sea. Love it.
7. Lime Green Lady:  There’s some really cool crochet happing at this site.
8. By hook, by hand: This is one of the first blogs I ever fell in love with many years ago and helped me become a better crochet-doll maker. Her work inspired to keep working on my dolls. She has tons of free patterns and her dolls are beautiful. Truly worth checking out.

Honestly, there are so many excellent blogs and bloggers out there. Another piece of advice is to search out the ones you resonate with and become a part of the blogging community by interacting with others.

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