Wordless Wednesday

I thought this was a neat pic with the sun breaking through the clouds.  What is a good pic that you have taken?

Mid Week Blog Hop

Weekend Blog Hop

Free Online Interactive Children's Library

I just learned of a fantastic free online children’s book library that is being developed which I highly recommend for you to visit and ‘Like’ their Facebook fan page to show your support and to be appraised of their developments. Children’s literacy is so important and the goal of this program is to create a public library online giving families and schools access to 100’s of quality interactive children’s books at no cost.

Here is the link to show your support for this wonderful program:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Online-Interactive-Childrens-Books/158576927518927

Statistics. Who automatically cringes? Read this ...

I was totally excited when Tammy asked me to write about my experience during the Back to School, Back to Blogging Challenge hosted by Kludgy Mom. When I sat down to think about what I learned from this challenge, I was overwhelmed, I didn’t know where to start – I learned so much! I decided to do a Best of Back to School, Back to Blogging Challenge and post the favorite five things I learned and found beneficial! This is #5.  Here we go……

 Statistics

I’m guilty of obsessing over my blog statistics. I would check out my Google Analytics each night and would get excited that I had three more visitors today than I did yesterday or that the average time people spent on my site was now 2 minutes, 26 seconds! Yes, that is exciting, but other than that, I didn’t know how to get the most out of my blogs statistics. That’s where the B2S/B2B came in!

Kludgy Mom introduced us to the StatBook StatBook. She gave us an excellent tutorial on how to bring all those worthless important information we pulled from our statistics into one spot. She walked us through the making of the book, and what information was important to include. Kludgy suggested many important statistics to include that I hadn’t thought of as significant until then. Now that my StatBook is complete, each month, I will enter the prior month’s stats and can start to look for trends in my blog!

• The Official B2S/B2B information about statistics can be found here HERE and here HERE!

This is the last guest post from Cori, she was a real life-saver. I hope you enjoyed it!

Stumbled upon Stumble Upon yet?? Here's how!

Cori's  take on Stumble Upon


I have to be honest with you; I haven’t been fantastic about using Stumble Upon. I love the concept, but am having a hard time remembering to Stumble! However, I see how important it can be to bring new readers and potential followers to your blog!

First off, you need to sign-up for  Stumble Upon and I highly recommend you download their toolbar to your browser!

According to Gigi…

“Stumble Upon is a network of sites (not just blogs). When your site is registered with SU, you have a chance of receiving free traffic from other members (called Stumblers). But like with any other social media tool, you have to BE traffic to get traffic.”

Stumble Upon is very easy (assuming you downloaded the toolbar!) to use! When you visit a blog you enjoy, click the “I like it” icon on your Stumble Upon toolbar - that’s it, you’ve Stumbled!! If you are the FIRST person to like that specific page, you will be brought to Review Box. Type in your review and hit submit…easy!

The more you Stumble onto other sites and “like” them, the more people will Stumble upon your site!

Want a jumpstart to Stumble-Upon? There’s a weekly group on Kludgy Mom's Blogfrog Community], where you can add a post you want stumbled that week, and others will stumble that pages in exchange for you stumbling theirs! It’s a great way to begin climbing the Stumble-Upon chain!

• The Official B2S/B2B information about Stumble Upon can be found here HERE.

Who needs ideas?? Go to the idea bankl!

Courtesy of Cori 


We’ve all gone through blogging slumps. We have nothing worthwhile to blog about. Life is boring. Thus, your blog is boring. Now can you get out of the rut, with Kludgy Mom's Idea Bank]!

The Idea Bank is comprised of nearly 700 writing prompts! Pick a prompt, and write about it! It’s as easy as that!

The Idea Bank is continually being edited and updated! Have a prompt you want to add…according to Kludgy we should “keep the Idea Bank fresh by depositing a new idea (by leaving a comment) if you make a withdrawal of an idea”. I challenge you to leave a deposit or two in the Idea Bank, let’s keep the Idea Bank balance high!

• The Official B2S/B2B information about the Idea Bank can be found here Idea Bank, if you want to check out the idea book you can find it here HERE.

If you are enjoying the guest posts, I hope you are showing the love to Cori & Gigi!! ~ TP

Photography ~ guest series continues!!

 Guest series with Cori from Coris Big Mouth continues with her comments on how to add photos to your blog....

 

I think in my next life I want to be a photographer. Lately, I am so intrigued by not only photography, but also techniques and photo editing! Prior to B2S/B2B, I became a fan and follower of Alicia’s blog A Beautiful Mess and her beautiful photography. (If you haven’t checked out her blog, you must! You’re totally missing out!). Well, it didn’t surprise me that she was chosen to do a guest post on photography for the final week of the challenge!

 

Alicia reassures all us non-photographers or photographer-wannabees that “these days, you don’t have to be a photographer to have amazing photos”. Few! There’s still hope for me! Here are a few of her suggestions to add better quality photos to your blog.

 

• Use Stock Photos – Perfect if you forgot to take photos or you don’t have photos appropriate for a blog post!
• Utilize Photo Editing Programs – I’ve been getting better about using photo editors to improve my photos! It’s amazing what a couple simple enhancements can do to a boring photo! My personal favorite photo editor is an online program Picnik [http://www.picnik.com]. With Picnik you can edit and enhance photos and make collages! All very user friendly!
• Watermarking – I’m bad at this, but I understand that in today’s world, you really need to watermark your photos, so other people don’t steal them. This is one aspect of photography and my blog that I need to improve! But with all the crazies in society today, you can never be too careful when trying to protect your family!
• The Official B2S/B2B information about Photography can be found here HERE.