Karen’s Opinion

Does your brain seem more foggy when there is snow on the ground and the day is dreary? I am so sleepy and am finding it hard to get motivated today. I did finish a purse for a customer. I am going to have to buy more of this fabric because I barely had enough to make this bag. It is the fourth purse I have made out of this fabric so I think that others like it too!

Hear ye! Hear ye! I have joined a great blog hop to get myself into the holiday spirit! I think you should join in. It is going to be loads of fun and you will meet some nice people.

The Frugal Housewife is hosting a Blog Hop on

“Decorating for the Holidays” on December 14th.

What do you need to do in order to sign up and be included in the “Decorating for the Holidays” Blog Hop?

1. Be a family friendly blog. Adult themed content (gambling, pornographic, or adult humor) will not be included.

2. If you are a family friendly blog and want to participate, sign up by December 9th using the MckLinky form. A list of the participants will be posted on The Frugal Housewife’s and will be available for the participants to post on their blog. This will give you linky love back to your blog.

3. Write a post on December 14th about the subject “Decorating for the Holidays.” It doesn’t matter what your niche is as long as it’s family friendly. If you are personal finance writer, you might want to write a post on how expensive it is to decorate for the holidays or how you can save money decorating for the holidays. If you are a craft person you might want to write a how to make a holiday decoration. If you are food blog, you might want to write a blog on how you can create a holiday tablescape. You get the picture… the post has to deal with “Decorating for the Holidays.”

This is very important!!! At the end of your post, you will need to provide a link to the next person on the list after you. Thus creating the Blog Hop. This also creates more linky love. A couple of days before the Blog Hop our host will let the participants know who the person is after them that they need to link to. If she doesn’t have an email address for you, please watch your comments for a comment from her.

What can you do to help drive readers to the blog hop?

ADVERTISE!!! ADVERTISE!!! ADVERTISE!!! The sooner you start advertising, the better! Give shout outs about the blog hop on your blog, your Facebook, your Twitter, whatever other social networks you belong to. Remember, the more you help drive people to the blog hop the more successful it will be and the more readers you will have and hopefully you will find new readers that will keep returning to visit your blog!

It really is a WIN, WIN combination!!! You get linky love from the Blog Hop. You give linky love to other blogs. You get new readers visiting your blog from other blogs. You basically get free advertising that you are a part of the blog from those posting the lists of Blog Hop participants. Plus … you get a lot of holiday decorating ideas!

Come on, what are you waiting for? Sign up and let’s have a great Decorating for the Holidays Blog Hop!!!

One thing I miss about not having kids at home any longer, (mine are adults and live elsewhere), is making crafts with them. Something just doesn’t feel right about carving a pumpkin without them. If you have children and they tend to whine about being bored, you should check out the post, Kids Love Halloween Crafts, on Squidoo. Making crafts with your kids is something they will enjoy during the moment and remember for a lifetime.

Wait! Stop! Halt! Those of you who are participating in this weeks Heads or Tails Meme, Here is my summertime memory. This post is for next week. Bonk on my head!

Fun theme this week for Heads or Tails! The word of the day is tool. Make any kind of post using “Tool” as your theme/prompt. Click on the Heads or Tails button and join us. It is fun and an easy way to meet some fantastic bloggers.

Wait! Stop! Halt! Those of you who are participating in this weeks Heads or Tails Meme, Here is my summertime memory. This post is for next week. Bonk on my head!

My favorite tool:

A tool I would love to have:

Tools I use to play in the dirt:

Tools I should use so my nails didn’t look so dirty:

Tool my husband uses to install floors:

A tool I wish our plumber would fix so we had more than one in this house:

Having been in business for over 25 years I have seen many business cards. There are certain business cards that attract my attention. They aren’t necessarily the expensive business cards. I am drawn to them because they are made with quality paper and have an attractive font. They have a professional quality look about them. I always order my business cards online from Vista Print. I am thinking about ordering some for the craft show I will be participating in this coming July. My family is busy making bags and purses to sell. So many customers ask for our phone number and how to contact us that it would be nice to have a business card with that information already printed. I have been using a signature stamp to put a note in each package so we can tell who made each bag. Vista Print has so many things besides business cards.

Vista Print is a favorite of many businesses but they are also becoming well known in the hobby world. We hobbyists need to get our name out and for that, we turn to Vista Print. I am very fond of the magnets that have our logo printed on them. When someone has that, they tend to remember us.