Blog Design Give Away

Recently "Miss Kopy Kat" blog had a blog "refreshing".  

I found a blog designer on Etsy who was really great to work

with to help make my ideas a reality.  To celebrate my new 

design, I would like to have a give away worth $100 to one

of you to start a blog or tweak an existing blog. 

If you are thinking about starting a blog or already have a 

blog up and running but want a little refreshing too, this 

would be a great opportunity to have some help doing that. 

Ginny with "My New Favorite Designs" has a love for 

working with folks to help their blogs look great.  She 

feels that if your blog is attractive, more people will want

to come to your blog and see what you have to offer. 

She works with both Blogger and Word Press applications.

Ginny has good ideas but is willing to work with you to 

make your blog look just like what you have in mind.  

Her prices are very reasonable.  If you win the $100 gift

certificate that I am purchasing from her Etsy store for one

of you, you will get so many features that you could 

basically change the whole look of your blog (if you want to).

All you have to do to enter the give away is to go to 

Ginny's Etsy store online here (click highlighted text)

My New Favorite Design , look around, think what type

of service you might choose if you win the give away,

and let me know by leaving a comment below this blog 

 post telling me what you liked at Ginny's Etsy store. 

Even if you like the way your blog looks now, there is a

blog consultation available that Ginny offers to give you

advice on how to make your blog work even better. 

Part of her service included in the consultation packages

and five "fixes" is a Skype session up to three hours.  

 In my Skype session she showed this computer dummy

 so many great ways to keep the look of my blog fresh season

 to season myself. It's like a private blog tutor session!

A new product that she has come out with is a pre-made

 template for Word Press users called "Be Strong" .

It has so many features and is only $49.95.  It can be 

used for a personal blog or for a business or brand. 

You can customize how you spend the $100 gift certificate.

Ginny offers small add-ons and tweaks starting at only $10.

If you are the winner, you will get with Ginny and decide

how to spend your gift certificate with her.

No refunds on gift certificate amounts not spent at "My New Favorite Design". 

Even if you are not the winner, keep Ginny in mind if you

 need help with your blog design in the future...she is

 awesome to work with....so smart, nice, responsive and fun!

Pass the information along about the $100 give away to

anyone you know wanting help with starting a blog or 

refreshing an existing blog. Deadline for entering the

 give away is August 10th.

The winner will be announced on August 11th.  
Update:   The winner of the blog design giveaway is
Sherry with the "No Minimalist Here" blog.
Congratulations Sherry!!!

My Favorite Projects of 2012

My favorite projects that I got done in 2012 were not

necessarily the "most viewed" on my blog but they 

were personally rewarding for me.  Either they were things

I had intended to do for a long time and finally completed

or just fun to do and see good results. 

After years of trying decide whether or not to paint my 

antique bookcase/dresser, I finally took the plunge and

painted it with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

"A Make Over With Chalk Paint"

I do enjoy working with the official chalk paint but sometimes

I need chalk paint in a hurry and I don't have a supplier nearby.

I devised a way to mix some myself with wall texture from 

the home improvement store.  I can make it in as large or as 

small a quantity as I need in whatever color is wanted.

The "recipe" is in "A Homemade Chalk Recipe To Try".

I used it on a mirrored screen and various smaller projects. 

Another painting technique that I experimented with was adding

artist gel medium to poster/art prints to make them look like

real paintings.  This project earned me a spot in the Shaw Home

Floorings "30 Days/30 Bloggers" Facebook Giveaway.

The first print I did was a winter print in 

"Make a Painting From A Print".

I also continued to make "paintings" in 

"From Art Print To Painting"...

...and compatible prints that mimick canvases in

"Crazy When Company's Coming".

"Summer of '12 Mantle"  also had an art print mounted on

foam core (I never did get around to adding the gel medium 

to it) and the  DIY faux Japanese fishing floats.

The most fun part of this mantle was the imitation dock 

pilings made out of pool noodles and wood-grained shelf paper.

I won $100 gift certificate from the Dollar Tree for that 

project which is detailed in "Using My Noodle(s)".

Another project that was a long time coming was to try to 

make an expensive looking Italian chandelier out of a 

standard inexpensive one in "The Chandy Challenge".

It was fun to try different techniques to make regular jars

look old in the posts "Making Jars Look Vintage" and

"Is This the 'Perfect Mason' Jar Paint Technique?"

One of the projects that took the most experimentation to
achieve the look I wanted to copy (but could not find good
instructions for) was "Submerging Flowers".

My most recent endeavor (OK, my husband would call it an
obsession) was bleaching, painting, glittering inexpensive 
bottle brush trees for indoor Christmas decorating. 

 Yikes! I still have more bottle brush trees to do blog
 posts on but here are the ones I have done so far: 
"DIY Glittered Bottle Brush Trees"
"Bottle Brush Tree Mantle Vignette"
"Bottle Brush Tree Wreath".
(I know Christmas is over and no one cares about holiday decorating posts but I have not had time
to blog about the little trees and I just want to so I am...when I can...that's the fun of having a blog.)

By far, the most viewed posts that I did (thanks 
to Pinterest and Google) were the ones
involving deco mesh.  I love how quick the deco mesh
projects are to complete and how "showy" they are.
The biggest and most impressive deco mesh wreath
I made in 2012 was the spiral/curly style:

The tutorial for that wreath can be seen at 
"How to Make a Curly Deco Mesh Wreath".
I made it in Fall colors but, of course, you can choose any colors.

I'm almost embarrassed to look back on my first deco mesh
wreath I did a post on but it still gets lots of views.

"How To Make Deco Mesh Wreaths"

Other deco mesh wreaths I did blog posts on were
"How To Make A Deco Mesh Pumpkin",

"How to Make A Santa Belly Deco Mesh Wreath"

My most "viewed" post ever is the deco mesh garland!
"How To Make a Deco Mesh Garland"

In 2012 other blogging highlights I had were to go to the
Haven Blog Conference in June (just bought my ticket today
to go back to the 2013 Haven in August) and to have a 
blog design make over by Cutest Blog On the Block.
Who knows what 2013 will bring to Miss Kopy Kat?

I'm sharing this post over at
Wow Us Wednesday @ Savvy Southern Style
Best Projects of 2012 Party @ Tatertots and Jello
Whatever You Want Wednesday @ Free Pretty Things For You
Top DIY Projects of 2012 Party @ Southern Hospitality
Weekend Bloggy Reading @ Serenity Now
Show and Tell Saturday @ Be Different Act Normal

Custom Blog Design Give Away

"Miss Kopy Kat" blog is getting close to 400 followers,

 having 100,000 page views, and a new blog look .
(Update: New blog design up now)


To celebrate and thank my blog followers, I am giving away a custom blog design package by "The Cutest Blog On The Block"

to one follower who would like a blog make-over too.

The give away if for "The Essentials Package" for Blogger

which includes a custom background, matching header, and

a custom column template.  If the winner would like more custom

elements, they can purchase "extras".   Also, the winner will need

to agree to TCBOTB terms of use   (which, the only one I could imagine

 anyone having issue with is that their small logo has to stay on your blog background as long as

you are using their design...you can even move it where you want.)

You can even pick the designer you think would most

"fit" the look you would like for your blog by looking

at TCBOTB portfolio of designs they have done for others.

I am purchasing "The Essentials Package" not only in

appreciation of my followers but also for how nice everyone

I had contact with at TCBOTB was to work with.

Please leave a comment below (one per person, please)

if you would like to be entered in the give away for a

custom blog design by "The Cutest Blog On The Block".

I will have the random number generator pick a number

(your number will be the number of your comment)

on Thursday, May 11th and announce the winner then.

Update: the Random Number Generator picked #2
to be the winner of the blog design make over.
That would be Rondell of the
Something Nice and Pretty blog....congratulations!


 

Telling On Myself

Patsy from Fairview, Texas has a great blog

called Pattycakes In The Kitchen. 

I have enjoyed reading her cooking blog and

gleaning recipes that have been passed down

to her by previous generations that she is now

generously passing along to us via her blog. 

Patsy was kind to nominate me for the Versatile Blogger

Award and I thank her very much for that honor.

When you are nominated for the award, you are to

tell seven things about yourself so here goes:

*

I am so happy to be attending the Haven Bloggers

Conference in Atlanta on June 21st and 22nd.

*

Today is a Friday the 13th.  Last May on a

Friday the 13th, I bought a package of illustrated black

cats to begin my quest to design a blog background for

my blog "Miss Kopy Kat".  I'm not so great with computers

so it took me a long time to get it just "OK" looking.

I have recently had my first blogiversary so I am giving myself

the gift of having someone who knows what they are

doing to re-design my blog for me...I'm excited.

*

I work full-time as a Registered Nurse in a

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (premature or sick babies).

My shift starts at 7pm at night and I work until

7am in the morning.  I am actually a "morning person"

but for several reason I like working those hours.

*

I am on husband #2. 

We both had been married for over 20 years to our spouses

when they unexpectedly left us for other women.

A mutal friend got us a blind date. We have been

married for eleven years now and are very happy.

*

I have three wonderful children.

(sorry I look like I have a "bumpit" in my hair...it was windy on the beach)

My oldest son lives in El Paso, Texas, with his wife and

daughter. My middle son lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.

My daughter is back in Montgomery (for now) after

having lived near Los Angeles, California for several years.

I love this photo of my son and his daughter,(the only grandchild for now)  Lilly.

Tom Kat with his son and my sons playing "Muscle Beach" for the photo.

Fun jump photo of our children with their significant others.

*

Every couple of years, my family rents beach houses and try to

get lots of the extended family together. 

For this year's reunion, I hired a photographer to come take photos of the family.  Actually, I had to

hire her for two separate shoots because not all of the family could be there at the same time.

Some of the family (mostly men) were not too happy about the photo shoot but I told them

that they would enjoy looking back on the pictures in coming years.

Lilly was not happy about the photo shoot either and did an "on purpose" face plant in the sand.

My brother-in-law muttered "I feel like doing the same thing."

*

My parents have been married to each other three

different times!  They are in their eighties now so

hopefully there will be no more divorces.

(Just as a side note: as much as Lilly was fussy during the photos, when the photographer was

packing up and getting ready to go, Lilly came up beside her and started posing.  To

the photographer's credit, she took back out her camera and got some really cute shots.)

Thanks again, Patsy, for the Versatile Blogger Award nomination.

New Blogs On The Block

Thank you to Barb and Dell blog

for honoring me with some Liebster Blog love.

Barb and Dell are two cousins who share the same

intrests in decorating, gardening and photography.

Barb lives in Minnesota and

Dell lives in South Dakota. 

Their blog is "Barb and Dell Designs".

Here is what Barb tells me:

What is a Liebster Blog you may wonder.  I was told Liebster is Sweetheart in German, thus...Sweetheart Blog.  It is an award meant to connect us even more and spotlight new bloggers who have less than 200 followers.

Fiona from Raindrops and Daisies sent me the Liebster Blog and asked that I send it on to new bloggers.  Fiona is from Ireland has a lovely blog and great photos. She says her blog is a bit of fun and her day to day ramblings.

Here are the rules for the Liebster Blog
1.  Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2.  Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3.  Post the award on your blog.
4.  Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the Internet - other writers. 
5.  And best of all - have fun and spread the karma!
****************************************************************

So, while my picks may not be brand, spanking

"New Blogs on the Block"

they are ones that have less than 200 followers

that I am a follower of 

 and have caught my eye

These are in no paticular order:

(in case you are not very tech-y like me,

you click on the highlighted text to see the item I am "talking" about on the web)

"June and Bear"

The author is a mother to two toddlers

(June, 4 and Bear, 2) . 

She has all kinds of fun posts on her blog

from home projects, to things going on in

her cute family's life, and pictures of her darling children.

If you want to get to know her

(gosh, I don't think I know her name, actually)

she recently did a blog post

"Twenty-One Questions".

She did a post on an amazing joint birthday party

she threw for her kids...so many good ideas.

"Oz Party"

**************************************************************

"Bear Rabbit Bear"
Melanie has a really cute blog background
but I am not computer savvy enough to
get it to copy and paste here...you go over and
see it for yourself.  She has a daughter and her husband
is a youth minister so they have lots of "kids".

She hosts a blog party on Thursdays called
"Crafts for Under Twenty-Somethings"

One of my favorite posts that she has done
was their master bathroom remodel.
"The Great Bathroom Makeover"

She and her husband did what I only TALK
about doing...ripping the ginormous tub
(circa 1980's) out of the master bathroom.
******************************************
"Sweetwater Style"

Mary lives in Minnesota.  She is a true DIYer
and attempts so many different types of projects.
She is a jack-of-all trades and always has
a project going.  She believes in just
putting yourself out there and trying things.

One of my favorite posts of hers is helping
a bride do the flowers for a wedding.
"Wedding Flowers For Less...Making It Happen"
********************************************************************

"Never Enough Flowers"

Brooke posts wonderful photos of garden-themed decor
and collections of things that she finds beautiful.

Her posts are visually inspiring.  One of my
favorites that she did was showing pictures of
(normally indoor) furniture in outdoor settings.
Outdoor Furniture?
*********************************************************

"ELA's Smile"
(sorry, could not grab title header)
ELA are the initials of this blog author.
She started her blog in January 2011 as part of her
New Year's Resolution to be more creative
and share her projects, pictures, and thoughts.
She lives with her very handsome husband
and a fat white cat.

Her photography is also just outstanding.
She has achieved her goal of being creative for sure.
Here are three of my favorite posts of hers:

This is her first post.  Be sure you go all the way to the end of it.
"Inspirations"

This is a trip she and her husband took to Dallas.  Be sure to watch
the fun video at an art museum that she included.
"Dallas Anniversary Trip"

In this post, ELA refinished a magazine rack.  It looks amazing.
"Shabby or Chic?"
********************************
I didn't want to infringe on anyone's pictures
so I did not post pictures of their projects
but I hope you will go visit these bloggers
and see their wonderful blogs for yourself.

Needy For Linky Help

I adore the "You Might Also Like" Linky tool on blogs.

I have not been a blogger very long so it helps me by seeing past posts that bloggers I am visiting have done that I missed seeing.

It's great on my own blog to direct folks to other posts I have done that might be of interest to them. The linky tool has increased viewership of my past posts dramatically.

(The "stats" tab on the dashboard of Blogger blogs lets you know this kind of infomation. If you don't know about the "stats" tab,

"you might also" want to see my post about it.)

So, while I am grateful for the free (for now) Linky tool

"You Might Also Like", I don't like that the photo it often "grabs"

from the post, is the "button" of a blog party. 

I have tried not adding the buttons until I have "published" the

post at least once without the buttons but later the tool seems to go back and grab a button.

"Googling" the issue did not help either.

Link With-in company said to write them with any problems so I did (a least a month ago) but I did not recieve a response about how to change a picture in "You Might Also Like".

I have resorted to not putting the party buttons in the post and just having the link. This has fixed the "problem" but I think the hostesses would rather have their party button included.

I really do appreciate the blog party hostesses and I want to put their buttons in my post. 

I wish there was a way to have the blog party button

AND be able to select or change what picture 

the Linky tool selects.   

I'm tripped up over this.  Is there a fix?

I am linking to

"A Nest For All Seasons" Tripped Up Thursday Blog Party

http://anestforallseasons.blogspot.com/

Know Your "Stats"

Did you know that your Blogger blog has a built-in feature that keeps track of all kinds of information for you ?  I didn't know this until I was trying to find out how to add a widget/gadget that would count individual views on each post I was doing. 

At first when I was looking on the Blogger forums about where to find one, etc., all I saw were suggestions of other websites that would put a "free" post view counter on your blog.  When I went to those websites, I realized that in exchange for putting a "free" counter on my blog, they would be allowed to put ads there.

Nothing's wrong with having ads on your blog site but I would like to have control of what ads are on there and with a "free" counter I would be giving that up. 

I went back to the Blogger forums and looked some more.  I noticed that one poster had said that she wanted more information than was provided by the "Stats" tab on her blog dashboard.  "Huh?" I had seen the tab but never even clicked over to it. 

I may be the only Blogger that didn't know about this but it is wonderful!  It is like having a little statistician living in your blog

constantly compiling information.  By clicking on different time frames, you can see traffic on your blog broken down into as small as the last 3 hours or as big as since your blog began.

Before I knew about the "stats" tab, I could see total number of times my entire blog had been viewed since I started it in March at the bottom of the pages but I also wanted to know how many times each individual post had been viewed.  The "stats" tab has all that information and so much more.

I will be the first to admit that I am a Computer Dummy and I do not know how to do a "screen capture" except to take an actual picture with my camera to capture an image of my computer screen.  My husband tried to tell me how to do a screen capture but I got "brain strain" after the first 30 seconds of his explanation and my brain shut down for the rest of the time he was talking.  I also do not know how to download pictures that I take for my blog to the computer...he does that for me.  When I got embarrassed about how my blog looked with the standard issue blog template and decided to try to design a background myself, it took me a month of free time to get it close to what I had in mind.  I would not let myself do a blog post until I got the new template.  You can see on the graph how the traffic on my blog dropped during that time.

If you already know about the "Stats" tab, feel free to leave by clicking out...the rest of this post will be boring (maybe even irritating) to you.  Here is a little tour around my "Stats" page to show you all the good info you can glean from it.  Some of you get more views in a day than I have gotten in five months but the type of things it tells you are the same.  The statistics of your blog can help you know how to increase viewership of those blog posts that you work so hard on.

Here is a weekly view:

This is basically the last week in July when I did these low-tech screen captures. You can see under the column "Posts" the stats tell me that my starfish post was my highest viewed post that week.  It was my newest post and the one that I was "taking to blog parties" to try to increase viewership of it.  My  DIY coral post had been #1 the week before but dropped to #2 in viewership.

This is a monthly view:

I am not a very prolific blogger.  I'm doing good to get out more than one post a week.  This monthly graph is interesting to me because I had two "firsts" and I can see on my monthly stat graph how they influenced traffic on my blog.  The first "first" was that a post I did on a spoon wreath was posted on Pinterest by another blogger and re-pinned around quite a bit on that site.  The bigger "first" was that Sherry at ""No Minimalist Here" was gracious to feature my next post ( DIY coral) and some photos of my house on her weekly "Open House Party" on July 27th.  She has so many followers and quite a few of them came over to my blog to see the coral post at her suggestion.  I also can see under "Traffic Sources" that popular bloggers Marty at "Stroll Thru Life" (she hosts Table Top Tuesday party) and Pat at " Savvy Southern Style" (she hosts Wow Us Wednesdays party) have given me opportunities for exposure by participating in their parties.  When I click on "More" on "Traffic Sources", it tells me what other places my blog's viewers are coming from.  This info lets you know which blog parties you better not be late for!  Another party that hs been so helpful to me and other "newbies" (but was not on the screen at the moment I took that photo) is Debbie from "Debbie Doos Blabbing and Blogging" who hosts the "Newbie Party" every week.

 A daily graph shows about what you would expect in terms of times of day you get the most traffic on your blog:

The "Now" overview shows you what happened in the last three hours in terms of traffic: 

]

I had recently joined Sherry's newest "Open House Party" with a new post as well as Sommer's "V.I.P."  blog party at  "Designer Garden " and Leigh's "Thrifty Thursday" at "Blogeritaville" so the "Traffic Source" on the stats page tells me that I am getting views from those parties.  Another thing that I am happy to see on my stats page is that older posts are still getting "views" due to the Linky tool "You Might Also Like" widget/gadget (I don't know the difference) that I put on my page.  I just love that device and it is VERY EASY to install...you should add it if you don't already have it.  The stats tab also encourages me that even if I am not getting a lot of "comments", that on average about ten times more people SEE the post than actually comment on it. 

You might be a worldwide sensation and not even know it:

In the "Audience" column you can see where in the world most of your blog's viewers live.  If you click on the "More" button, it breaks it down by country for you by numbers.  Also on this "screen capture photo" I want to point out the button that you can click "Don't Count Your Own Pageviews" that tells your little statistician to not count YOUR clicks to your post in the view count.  I didn't tell mine not to count me.

I mostly looked at the "Overview" tab but there is also the "Post" tab (gives more detailed info on pageviews for individual posts), "Traffic Sources" (which tells you how folks arrived to your blog divided by URLs and websites) and "Audience" (which lists viewers by Browsers and Operating Systems).  Those last two tabs are too advanced for me...invokes  "brain strain" again.