DIY: Starting Your Very Own Blogtasticness

 Just a few vintage blogging images from my vast library of crazy: (l-r) DIY Rock Star Apron; The Seven Habits of a Crazily Dressed Art Teacher; 12 Favorites of 2012

Hey, friends! Today I thought I'd tell y'all about a presentation I gave at the NAEA conference: Tip-Toeing into the Wide World of Blogtasticness. I've been blogging [seriously] for three years (and I say "seriously" because I did have a blog for a hot minute a couple years previous. You'll find out why that was a flop in a hot minute) and I've learned a whole lotta stuff along the way. So being the caring-is-sharing-and-sharing-is-caring person that I am, I thought I'd give y'all a few of my tips and tricks to bloggin'. 

DISCLAIMER: Look at me. Do I look like an expert in anything other than crazy to you (please don't answer that)?! I'm no bloggin' pro, howeverness, I do know a thing or two (okay, two. I know TWO things) about bloggin' and I thought I'd share 'em with you. Take 'em. Leave 'em. Put 'em in your pipe and smoke 'em (on second thought, don't. Smoking killz.). And puh-lease feel free to add your two cents in the comments. I'm sure it will be way more enlightening than whutz found here.

So. If Ima gonna talk at ya about blogging, I need to give y'all a lil back history as to why I started to blog. Honestly, I started blogging because I was as stale as a Poptart left behind on the kitchen counter: I wasn't creating and I was regurgitating the same ole art lessons. As a way to snap outta my funk, I thought a blog, where I would feature my weekly creations and art lessons, would hold me accountable. This was my way of holding my own feet to the fire; for creating deadlines and obligations for myself. This blog was started for purely selfish, "hey, stop being so doggone lazy!", reasons. The surprise bonus that I NEVER imagined: meeting you. Meeting other passionate folk who love sewing or teaching or creating or just dressing like a nut. I never imagined this twist of events and I really, like really-really, couldn't be more thankful. More on those lovely bloggin'/art teacherin' ladies above here. 

Okay, y'all, time for a quiz! Let's find out if this blogging thing is for you! So, grab your No. 2 Pencil and a sheet o' paper and jot down the answers to the following (yes, I'm fur realz. And, YES, I can totally see you):

1. What is your fave craft/hobby?

2. How often do you create weekly (this can include anything from crafting a superb meal for your fam to gardening)?

3. If you didn't have the job you have currently, what would you do for a living?

Okay! Pencils away. Pass those sheets forward, kids. Let's see how you did.

So, the first question asked what's your fave thing to do. Mine is sewing and creating crazy clothing. What's yours? Figure it out cuz that's the key which will open up your blog and make it unique. There are, like, ONE MILLION blogs out there. What could possibly make yours a stand out?! YOU. You are what makes your blog unique. So, find your passion, harness it and have it be the star of your blog.

My next question was how often do you create weekly, no matter what you were creating (the way I see it, if you are using your creative juices [whether that be picking out fabric, arranging your furniture, planting flowers], you are creating!). Just so you know, that time you spent creating? if you have a blog, you are gonna lose that time to blogging. I'm writing this post up right now. I chose not to finish cleaning the bathrooms just.for.you. I opted out of putting a zipper in a dress just.to.tell.you.this. Are you ready for that give-n-give? Y'all better think about it.

Finally, I asked: if you weren't currently employed in your job, what would you be? Well, kids, I hope you said "writer" or "photographer" cuz in the Land of Blogging, there's a whole lotta that. 

Let's Talk Passion: In my pre-bloggin days, I had my life very compartmentalized. I had my art teacherin' day and my art-makerin night (if I was lucky). When I had to lesson plan, I resented that time was being zapped from my creative time. Then, one day, while grumbling over my stitching time being used for "work" time, I just thought: What if I sew a dress that co-insides with my lesson?! What if, while the kids are learning about England, I craft a Mary Poppins ensemble and read 'em some P.L. Travers' books while serving tea and biscuits. And, suddenly, I became very excited. About teaching. About creating. About blogging. When you connect as many dots as possible in your life it will feel like suddenly you've got the ball rolling and there's no stopping it. Try it. I ain't lyin.

Let's Talk Time Management: Haha! If you even knew what an Epic Time Waster I am! My hubs is prolly on the floor rolling around laughing at this very statement. But, in all seriousness, blogging is an absolute time-suck. However, if you want readers (and, really, isn't that why we blog?!), you gotta be consistent and manage that time of yours. For me, that means I attempt to blog three times weekly. And I like to have a theme. I rotate between the following: In the Art Room, What the Art Teacher Wore and DIY. If you are blogging, you might wanna consider some sort of theme. People like to know what to expect. They also like consistency. So give 'em that. If you are just starting out, blog once weekly (on a consistent day of the week so they know when to check back) and have a theme. Tip-toe into it y'all. It will feel more like a kiddie pool and less like an ocean that way.

Finding your voice: Let's face it. One of the biggest hurtles of blogging? Writing. Many folks are terrified of writing. Look, y'all. My mean-a## aunt was my English teacher: I lived in fear of writing! She always hated my "casual" tone. And now...it works for me. Because it's my voice. It's how I talk and, therefore, how I write. But it's not for everyone. So, ask yourself: who are my desired readers? How would I speak to them? For me, my desired reader is my BFF (hello, Mallory!) and this is how I speak to her. 

Just a coupla tips: Read your blog post out loud. Does it sound like how you would speak? Also, have a no-holds-barred friend read through it. They'll tell ya the truth. 

Photo 101: Allow me to introduce you to my camera. The one that's been dropped more times than I can count, the one that's been bandaged in Scotch Tape and the one who snaps all the photos for this here blog. That's right, y'all. You don't need no million dollar camera to get decent pics for your blog. Save your dinero. Get a point -n- shoot. These types of cameras can take fab photos if you use 'em correctly. Read that lil manual. Learn how to set your camera to take high res photos. The money you save on a super cheapo camera? Spend it on a tripod! I gotta tell ya, my pet peeve on blogs is when the photos are stinky and shaky. Set that camera on a tripod (no matter WHAT you are snapping), set the timer (yes, your camera has one) and allow the camera to do the work for you. THEN, edit those babies. Crop out the background, bump up the color/contrast, polish 'em up (but try to steer clear of too many photo treatments, kay?). The result will be clear, colorful and interesting photos. All the pictures of me you see on my blog were taken this way. That's right, my hubs isn't the photographer, it's me and my camera. 

Connect with Others: Okay. So, let's pretend you're a blogger. And you've been at this bloggin' biz for sometime and, well, you ain't gettin' nuthin back from your readers. Your comment box is empty, your viewship is down and you're thinking to yourself, what am I doing wrong?! Consider this: are you making a connection with your readers? Are you listening to them...or are you just talking at them? In my experience, one way to hear back from you readers is to host giveaways (I did an entire slew right before Christmas and it was a great way to connect!), contests (for me that meant a dress-up contest), book clubs and craft alongs. The more you engage and interact with your readers, the better, y'all!

And, well, there you have it. My purely two-cents worthy two-cents. These are my lil bloggin' rules...and I do hope they help you out a bit. I absolutely love teaching, creating, and blogging, in that order. This lil set of philosophies works for me. And I hope you might gain a pinch from it as well. I'd love to hear your tips, tricks and advice as well! And if you have any questions, please feel free to ask, y'all. 

In the Art Room: NAEA 2015 Convention

Well, helloooo there, friends! Long time, no bloggity-blog. As you art teacherin' buddies of mine mightah guessed, I was at the NAEA convention this past week. It was a thrilling experience as those of you that attended can attest. I was determined to blog about my experience in fur realz time, but you know what? As soon as I got there, the phone, camera and laptop went away and I just dove right into the moment. That's right, y'all. I did the unthinkable: I lived in realtime. And I think my experience was all the better for it. Howeverness, I gotta tell ya, my photos are rather lacking and for that, I apologize. 

I do wanna give a shout out to all of you that attended and snapped a photo with me. Thank you! I loved meeting each and everyone of you and I was thrilled that you wanted a picture with my wackiness. I love y'all!

So in this here blog post, I thought I'd break down for y'all my experience. I had so much fun attending sessions and presenting (a whopping four times. Someone. Please. Remind me next year just how crazy I am, ermkay?). If you weren't able to attend, don't you sweat it, sistah (and brah), Ima be creating blog posts on my presentations (10 Exciting Ways to Introduce Vocabulary and Tiptoeing into Blogging) later this week. So stay tuned!

And without further ado-ness, I present to you NOLA NAEA 2015!

So the amazing Tim Gunn was our keynote speaker. And he was seriously just that: ah-freakin'-mazing. Like, there was laughter, there were tears, there was loud coughing into the microphone by the interviewer (whut was that, y'all?!), it was ab fab. As y'all might recall, I interviewed Tim waaaaay back in December for the April issue of School Arts magazine. So, I gotta tell you this hilarious stalker thing I did after Tim's talk: I was standing around outside the auditorium with a bunch buddies rehashing the dude's awesomeness when we spot him! He's chatting with a small crowd of folks and my friends were all, "OMG, there he is! Let's get him!" And, being his new BFF, I lead the troops to introduce ourselves and say hellllllo. Did I mention that one of the buddies in my group was wearing a dress completely decked out in Mardi Gras beads? Well, imagine this if you will, we start walking towards Tim but he's leaving! So we start walking faster. Next thing you know, we are chasing the man and I can hear the SWISH! SWISH! of the beaded-dress girl behind me. Now, least you think I'm a total fool, the dude WITH Tim was waving us on! He was saying, "Hurry! C'mon!" So our behavior was totally encouraged, warranted and justified. When we finally reached Tim breathless and swishy you can tell poor dude is in a rush. He rapid fire shakes our hands and poof! disappears. I was mortified. I shook my clenched fist at the man who encouraged us and said, "You told me to hurry! You told me to c'mon! Now he's going to reissue his restraining order!" 

 

Shortly after that awkward exchange, I was in Tim's class (so, duh, why didn't I just wait to talk to him then, right?!) which, I gotta tell you stressed me out, y'all! It was basically a condensed version of Project Runway. We worked in groups (I had The Best Group. Just sayin'.) and were given a table full of supplies (rubber bands, tape, scissors, clothes pins, highlighters, velcro, etc). Tim came around and handed each group a paper that said things like "T-shirt to Zombie Apocalypse", "T-shirt to Runway". Ours said "T-shirt to Purse". We had 30 minutes and managed to pull that cute thing together. I had to walk the runway which also made me a nervous wreck (whuuuuut?!). All that to say, after that experience, I had no nervous energy left for my presentation!

See that teeny tiny speck in the background? That's me talking about teaching vocabulary in a 25 minute session. I was thrilled that so many folks showed up (thanks, guys! Y'all made my day!). It was standing room only. I was worried I wouldn't get through everything so I told everyone I was gonna talk fast and I finished in 15 minutes! So I opened up the floor and so many awesome art teachers shared their vocabulary cheers, chants and tricks. I couldn't have planned that better!

Now I gotta tell ya, this is like my 5th conference or something. And when I first went, I didn't know anyone. Which can be pretty lonely even when you are surrounded by thousands of other like-minded folk (in fact, it can feel even lonelier!). If you had even a pinch of that at the convention, I'm so sorry! I know I felt very shy (imagine) and intimidated when I first started attended and hardly spoke to anyone. If you attend, please don't let that be you! Strike up a convo with everyone! Talk, share, swap war stories and phone numbers. The connects you make are priceless (me with my buds Laura and Nic!). 

After the vocab session, I waited in line a long line to meet Tim Gunn. Again. The poor dude. All kidding aside, he stood and signed autographs for well over 3 hours, y'all. That's after being the keynote speaker and leading a session. He's perfectly awesome. AND he signed this here article! 

On Friday, I presented a session about blogging with several other art bloggers. That was a tremendous amount of fun! But as Phyl of There's a Dragon in my Art Room pointed out, it's too bad we couldn't have attended each other's presentation to learn from each other! Again, I'll be sharing my chat in a blog post later this week. 

After that, AOE hosted a blogger meet and greet. It was so fun to chat with the AOE team (so much awesomeness! Jessica has some great taste!), meet blog readers and chat with bloggin' buds. Some of these bloggin' buddies of mine feel like long lost friends (Nic! Laura! Phyl! Hope!) and new best buds (Tim! Andrew! Sheryl! Theresa!). I love this meet up. 

Thank you so much, Jessica, for arranging this fun!  

I love these two ladies! Being around so many art teacherin' besties is good for the crazy soul, I tell ya. 

Of course, I had to get outta that convention center for a lil bit. I roomed with a couple of friends of mine from Memphis (thank you, Debbie and Kim for being the best roomies everrrr). On Friday, I did manage to skip away with them and another buddy to do some serious credit card exercising. Trashy Diva was my fave place to shop on Magazine Street!

On Saturday, I decided to hit the French Quarter with some buddies. We met some incredible street and gallery artists (this city is so full of talented folks, it's nuts!). Of course, eating a late lunch of seafood gumbo and monkey bread pudding on a balcony overlooking Jackson Square was a must! 

 That evening I taught a ticketed event on needle felting. I do believe I officially got 25 lovely ladies addicted to a new craft. To introduce needle felting, I had each create a palette hair clip (as you often see me wearing...DIY post to come).

 I love how this artist had a "mixed colors" palette! So clever!

Then each was given a blue apron to needle felt their individual design upon. We also had give aways, crazy story telling, chocolate consumption...it was a big time all around. Special thanks to all that those who missed part of the masquerade ball to attend.

If we look a lil cray [that's cuz we are], we are trying to show you our palette hats! None of the ladies finished (felting takes longer than just an hour or so) so they took home enough roving to finish their masterpiece. Hey attendees! When you do finish, email me a photo so I can share it here, please.

After that, we decided to crash the ball with some other buddies! It was so fun, I'm so glad we went. The night may or may not have ended with some serious Hurricane consumption...I'd give you the full story but what happens at an art convention stays at an art convention.

Until next time! 

In the Art Room: See you in New Orleans!

Hey, y'all! Please pardon my absence on this here blog...I've been crazy busy spring breakin' and preparing for the art teacherin' conference in New Orleans! Which one of y'all are going? I do hope to see y'all there. There will be plenty of chances for us to get together and chat as I foolishly decided to present a buncha times. In case you are interested, I thought I'd throw my prezi dates and times out there for y'all: 

Thursday, March 26th: 

2:00 - 2:50 PM

Write? Right! Publishing to Advocate Your Art Program

Pam Stephens, Nancy Walkup, Cassie Stephens, Nicole Briscoe

Join four published authors to explore publishing your art-teaching ideas and then turn those ideas into advocacy for your program. Includes practical suggestions, tips, and writing guidelines. Interactive Discussion

Hilton Hotel/Chart B/Riverside Building

4:00 – 4:25

10 Exciting Ways to Teach Art Vocabulary They Won’t Forget

Cassie Stephens

Learn new methods of enriching student vocabulary in fun and innovative ways. Songs, word games, call and response methods, and sign language are just a few of the exciting methods introduced. Best Practice Lecture

Convention Center/Meeting Room R05/Second Level

Friday, March 27th:

11:00 - 11:50 AM

Elementary Carousel of Learning: Teacher Art Blogs

Nancy Walkup

Four accomplished elementary art educators from across the country will share their successful art blogs for their art rooms. Phyllis Brown of There's a Dragon in my Art Room, Laura Lohmann of Painted Paper, Sheryl Depp of Primary Art with Mrs. Depp and Cassie Stephens of that blog with her name because she wasn't creative enough to come up with anything else.  

Convention Center/Meeting Room 216/Second Level

1:00 to Wheneverness

Meet Art Ed Bloggers in the AOE Booth!

Meet up and chat with some of your fave art ed bloggers in the AOE booth in the vendor's hall! I know I absolutely loved meeting my blogging heroes and well as chatting with the 5 folks that read this here blog! Drop by and let's chat, y'all!

Saturday, March 28th 

7:00 - 8:50 PM

Design Your Own Curriculum-Aligned Clothing Line

Cassie Stephens

Instead of simply talking to your students about famous artists or their works of art, why not become the three-dimensional element that brings the experience to life? In this workshop, you will learn the art of needle felting and apply that skill to the creation of an apron. This apron will be designed with your own curriculum in mind and will be ready to wear in your art room. Armed with this new method of altering clothing, as well as other techniques introduced, you will be able to design your own curriculum-aligned clothing line. Hands-On Workshop Studio (2 hours) Ticket Required. (Sorry, y'all. This one is SOLD OUT.)

Hilton Hotel/Rosedown/3rd Floor

And there you have it, kids! If you aren't able to attend this year's NAEA conference, don't you fret. I'll be sure to post both what I shared and all that I learned right here. If you want minute by minute action, you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Looking forward to chatting with y'all both in for realz life and via the interwebs.