A little bloggy giveaway!

 

A while back, I expressed my desire for my blog to hit the big round number of 1000 followers.  In response, my readers reminded me that Google Friend Connect is sort of passé, and that many people are now following me through Blogloving or some other reader, and that I probably have a lot more readers than I know.  And I suppose that's true, so I decided not to fret over the almost-round number.  But few days ago I discovered that, while I wasn't paying attention, my numbers had been slowly, quietly creeping up, and I actually had passed my goal of 1000 followers on Google without even noticing!  Right now have reached the grand total of 1002.

So to say thank you to my loyal followers, I'm going to have little giveaway.  If you read my blog a lot, you know that I love to make jewelry, way more than I ever, ever, ever could or would wear.  So I'm going to give away a necklace, possible a necklace/earring set, or maybe even two, and maybe a couple of pairs of earrings as well.  Don't get too excited - I'm not giving away my PMC (precious metal clay) jewelry - that stuff is ridiculously expensive to make and is all MINE.  This stuff is more colorful and fun, but does not include precious metals.  The photos on this post are a sampling of what I have.  While the only earrings pictured here are parts of sets, my collection also consists of many fun individual pairs of earrings, particularly right for someone who likes a dash of color.

Here's what you need to do if you want to take a chance on this giveaway:

• First of all, if you don't already follow this blog, become a follower.  
• Then, once you are a follower (or if you already were one in the first place) leave a comment.  In the comment you need to tell me the following:
• An email address to contact you if you win.  (Please feel free to write out the 'dot' and 'at' to avoid spam.  I'll figure it out.)
• Favorite color schemes/color families for jewelry, including metal preferences (silver, gold, copper toned, etc)
• Size and style preferences, such as big and chunky or light and delicate?  Prefer longer or shorter or any length? Ears pierced?  Funky or conservative?

• Also: If there is any piece pictured on this post that particularly suits your taste, please point it out, as it is possible that something pictured here might be what is sent, and if you win, I definitely want you to like and wear what you receive!

• Leave your comment no later than midnight one week from today, Thursday, June 5th.  A name (or maybe even  two or three) will be selected at random and the winner will be announced on the blog and also contacted via email for mailing information.  If you do not leave an email contact, you are not eligible to win.

 

 Thank you for being loyal readers of my admittedly sometimes quite random blog!  You are the best!

UPDATED! New Question!! and a big thanks and blogger advice needed

FYI, the new question has been added at the bottom of this post, in dark red font. 

Today I discovered that I now have 888 followers.  WOW!  What a cool number!  That's a lot of people taking a peek now and then to see what I am up to.  I am very appreciative of all of you, more than I can say.  Thanks for stopping by!

 

And now, since I have your attention (maybe) I need your help.  Let me explain: I've been doing my best to ignore the changes (doom and gloom) that are coming down the pike, in relation to using Blogger.  Avoidance has been easy, but I know I can't avoid much longer.  In fact, I have discovered that perhaps I've waited too long.

Unlike many of you, at the time I didn't really care much about the loss of the Google reader, or whatever the name of it is/was, (it's gone already; it left when I wasn't paying attention) because honestly, I only used it when I wanted to hunt for something.  Otherwise, I pretty much use the Dashboard to see what's been newly posted, and if there's something I want to find my way back to, I pin it on my Pinterest page.  However there are some things from way back that I wish I could still find, but... oh well.   And I am pretty clueless about some of the stuff you guys were recommending as a replacement (Bloglovin? etc) and of course, since I  no longer have the Google reader to search for what you were saying, I can't find your advice and recommendations any more.  Dumb of me to wait so long...  I have just spent an hour scrolling through old posts on the Dashboard to try to find what everyone was saying, and with no way to filter the posts, I never found what I was looking for.  So I need some solid advice, written in a way that someone (me) with absolutely NO comprehension about downloading and other technical whoop-de-doo will understand.

And aside from the need to find a new reader so that I can do searches, there was something else happening / changing  (when?) having to do with blogs that are not Blogger blogs.  Will they all be gone from my Dashboard at some point?  How do I prevent that?  (I have some that I don't want to lose track of.)  And what the heck is Google + and do I want it?  Why? What will it do differently than what I've been doing these past three years?  HELP!  I'm feeling very dumb right now, and I will very much appreciate your help.  I'm feeling a bit alone here in my technophobia.

Here's the update: 
So, friends,  I now am signed on to Bloglovin', but am already a little flummoxed.  The Google reader had a search option, where you searched through the blogs you follow for a specific word/topic - for example "Chihuly" or  "color wheel" etc.  Then you could highlight them and get back to them easily.  Bloglovin' has a nice clean format, but as far as I can see, the search option on Bloglovin' searches every damn blog it can find (not just what I follow), thus making it impossible to find that post you are looking for.  I couldn't figure out how to search as I did on Google reader.  Any advice?  Do I need to try Feedly instead?  And what does it mean to 'claim' your blog?  Why would I want to/need to do that?

My Fabulous Followers & some advice for newer bloggers

When I first started blogging, every time I got a new follower I clicked on that person to see who she or he is.  Did she have a blog?  Where is he from?  If I liked what I saw, I would start following.  As a result, I follow a lot of blogs.  Some of them post regularly, and some, not at all, so it really isn't as crazy as it sounds.

But as my number of followers grew exponentially, it became challenging to check out each and every new one of you.  But still I wanted you, my followers, to know I value you, so that's when I placed you at the top of my blog.  I wouldn't want to keep posting if nobody was reading. 

So today, I decided to take some computer time to see who my followers are.  I randomly started clicking on the little faces, and what a pleasant surprise it was!  There are old friends there, from my 2+ years blogging, who I feel like I've known forever.  And there are followers I've never 'met', many with blogs, from everywhere! The first one I tried was, I think, from Turkey (not really sure since I couldn't read the language), and another from, I assume maybe Denmark or Sweden (again, I'm guessing based on language). Wow.  

Then I saw one from "the Woodstock School" - hmmm - I've recently visited both Woodstock NY (home of the music festival) and Woodstock Vermont, both a reasonable distance from my home for a day trip, but I hadn't heard of the Woodstock School.  No wonder -  this Woodstock School is in India!!!!  http://artatwoodstock.blogspot.com/.  Check out their phenomenal high school age student artwork - it will blow you away!

Today, as a result of looking at my followers, I also visited a blogger from Texas: http://artistsaremagic.blogspot.com/; 
 from Pennsylvania: http://artipelagoteacher.blogspot.com/;
 from Brooklyn (also where my dad was from): http://artexplorium.blogspot.com/;
from Germany, I think (another one in a foreign language): http://klexbude.blogspot.com/;  
There were more - from Missouri, New Zealand, Nebraska, and Australia for example.  Some of these folks have been around for a while, but more seemed to be relatively new bloggers.

So I have a little advice.  If you have a newish blog, and want people to read it, and to follow it, you have to get them to find you somehow.  Being quiet and waiting for won't make it work.  Your blog is not a field of dreams, where if you build it, people will simply come.  You need to recruit.  You need to make people want to visit you.  Here's what will work:

• Leave comments frequently on the blogs you read and like.  I don't know about all of you, but when I read a comment from somebody new, who I don't know, I usually click on their profile to see if they have a blog too.  So commenting on a blog is a good way to get people to visit your blog.
• Post a lot.  You want readers to find something new when they come and visit.  Don't feed those same stale brownies leftover from a month ago!  I want something freshly baked!! ;-)
• Invite people to visit.  There it is again; you have to leave comments on other blogs and say "come visit my new blog!!!!".  It works.  That's how I got going.  And again, when they visit, they don't want those stale brownies... am I repeating myself?
• Fix the layout of your blog so that your followers are visible, and your archives are visible too.  My first stop, after I've looked at the current post on a new blog I'm reading, is to dig through their archives and find their FIRST EVER post.  It tells me a lot about you.  Also prominently place your list of labels.  More about that in a few more bullets.
• For goodness sakes, don't just say "I teach at the Bla-Bla School in Bla-Bla county"  Uh, what state is that in?  Or what country?  Where the heck ARE you???  It made the Woodstock School infinitely more intriguing to know it was in INDIA!  
• If you are from a place where you speak in a language not commonly used world-over, please put a translator button on your blog.  If I can't figure out what it says, I probably won't come back, and I'll bet I'm not the only one.  I doubt I'm the only blog reader who doesn't read Turkish. 
• Use labels (also called tags) wisely, for two reasons:
• You want people to find you using a search engine like Google and shrewd tagging will make all the difference.
• You want people to be able to find posts that interest them when they get to your blog.  For example, I'm a freak for papier-mache, and for dragons, and for Matisse.  If either of those three things show up in your labels, they will be my first stops.  Or maybe I want to find something I know you previously posted, but I don't know when.  If  there are no labels, it can get pretty painful searching your archives, scrolling through month after month, to find that one lesson you wanted to remember.
•  Don't be afraid to ask for help.  If you leave a comment on a blog saying "help, I don't know how to do this", readers will hop over and visit and help you out.  Guaranteed.  Art teacher bloggers are nice people!

I think that's more than enough for today, no?