Everyone says you should have a blog in order to get noticed! You want to grow your craft business, but there’s not enough time in the day. What to do? Team-blog!
Collaborative artisan blogs like Collective Creatives rock my world. Many hands make light work, so the individual artists have more time for creating.
Multi-author blogs like this also make great reading! You get a steady supply of fresh perspectives, and nobody burns out from constantly having to write something interesting. With the pool of writers involved, the blog gets updated often, so readers find it a lively place to visit.
(A different solution to lightening the load of blogging is to have periodic guest bloggers. That approach might sound better if you want to keep control over your own blog. But then you’ll have to keep track of articles that have been promised to you, so the job of managing the blog just gets bigger.)
The Collective Creatives blog I mentioned has about a dozen members, and I assume all of them are able to log right in and post a piece by themselves. Any “co-editor” like this should also be able to edit any posts or comments that need sprucing up. So, all of the blog duties can be shared.
Art Bead Scene is another group blog that seems to always be lively, with five editors contributing on a regular basis. Each has her own strengths, including a specialization in a particular kind of beadmaking. When you set up your team blog, think about what each potential member can bring to the experience. Will each of you be responsible for posting on a different day of the week? Or take care of whole weeks, in rotation?
The Blogging Queen wrote a good post on the question, Should you join a team blog? She does a great job of bringing up the main questions involved:
- What will be the common theme (idea) of the blog?
- How will you achieve a common “voice” or tone?
- Will a team blog be beneficial to your own craft business? Put some thought into choosing your co-editors!
Have experiences with team blogs? Questions about how they work? Want to recommend a favorite one? Leave a comment below!
Instead of gluing onto them, “paint” pretty designs on the flat pads with rubber-stamping inks. Cindy Gimbrone shows off this great inspiration in her wonderfully titled blog post, “
Cindy also came up with the idea of adding texture and design elements by 
Another unglued inspiration from Cindy is this 
multi-stranding by adding a couple strands of chainmaille-type link work on either side of the bracelet blank.
In another great burst of inspiration, Lisa also created not just a bejeweled pendant, but also an 
–is easy to do, but I think it’s so impressive that you’d think it took a jewelry master’s touch.
which she titled “
More “
Dawno 
–that I want to call 
this time to make a necklace.
We hope these neat creations by our Blog Partners give you some ideas that you’ll run with and make your own!