Ready to turn in

The site is ready to turn in now.  I have uploaded the classes for crochet and knitting and even cake decorating.  I separated the links into beginning, intermediate and advanced level classes.  I wrote a review for one of the free crochet classes offered.  As soon as I can watch some of the other classes I can write more reviews.  I also have more recipes that I can upload.  I’m just waiting to have pictures to go with them.

I also signed up to be an affiliate with Shutterfly.  I figure that there are a lot of holidays that mean lots of pictures and lots of greeting cards of one sort and another.  I will add banners for free prints, etc. to my site.  I can also write one or two reviews of Shuttterfly products that I have used in the past.  I have been approved to apply for other affiliate partners through share-a-sale.  However, I don’t really want to clutter up the site with too many.  Craftsy is labeled as a top 100 company on share-a-sale’s site and I am already affiliated with them.  Their banners and ads are tasteful.  And all of the classes are links to Craftsy classes.

I can continue to add to the blog portion of the site but the rest of it is up and ready to go.  I am excited to see what we do next.

Now an affiliate of Craftsy

I am now an official affiliate of Craftsy.  I jumped through all of the hoops and was finally approved.  Now I can offer their classes on my website and they even have a widget for yarn on sale.  I have uploaded all of the links for knitting classes.  I need to go through and do the same for crochet classes.  It would also be good if I could split them into Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced classes.  I will try even though I don’t know much about the classes themselves, I can sort of tell from the titles.  Then I get to decide which class to take myself.  As an affiliate I get to take one class free–up to 49.99!  They also offer free classes that I think I will look at and review.  I also posted my first crochet pattern ever!  I am very excited.

I am learning a lot about doing business as an affiliate.  The group that manages Craftsy offers dozens of other affiliate programs that I can sign up for as well.  I am thinking of adding shutterfly’s Christmas card ads to my site.  There are so many possibilities.  The catch is to only do a few and not clutter the site with affiliate advertising.

I have a site!

Well, it isn’t a site just yet but it will be!  I have a domain name and the name for the site.  I have a hosting service and I am working out the best way to set it up.  Now that I’m getting into it I don’t know if Weebly will work the way I think it should.  It might be better to go with WordPress which I’ve used before in maintaining a site, although I’ve never built a site before.  I like the color scheme in Weebly and I hope I can get it to work but if not it’s better to know now than later.  I spent today brainstorming a list of posts and photos that I want to put on the website to start with.  I almost think that content will be the hardest part to complete in the 2 weeks.  I have a start but it will be a lot of writing, taking photos, re-sizing photos, etc.  I am excited and a little nervous.  I think this is going to be a great experience.

Starting to get some traction

I have almost completed project 1 and have decided I want to do a blog on crafting and making cookies. I think I will call it cookies n’ crochet. I would like to use Craftsy as an affiliate to sell craft supplies and classes online. I will ask my friend, Amber if she wants to contribute here ideas once in a while. She is very crafty and she likes to write.
I think before I actually embark on an affiliate relationship with Craftsy, however, I may take a couple of their free classes and purchase some yarn and supplies from them–just to see how it goes.
I am starting to get excited. I invested in a large bag of sugar and other cookie making supplies this week. I even made my initiatory batch of Chocolate Chunk cookies today. It is slowly coming together. And I’m not freaking out anymore. Very nice!