Friday, August 28, 2009

Blatant Self-Promotion For a Good Cause


Remember a long time ago, when I started this blog, and claimed that I was going to talk about gardening as well as my garden inspired painted glassware designs? And remember how I said that and then started writing about everything EXCEPT painting? Well finally, I have a quick bit painting news to share with, as usual, a food related twist!






On September 1st at the Almond Tree Manor in Alpha, NJ, my hand-painted glassware will be featured as part of the Empty Bowls Luncheon. This event takes place every year and arranged by the NORWESCAP Food Bank. The food bank operates as the middle man between food pantries and local businesses and restaurants with excess supplies. The surplus gets donated to the food bank and redistributed to 120 food pantries in Warren, Sussex and Hunterdon Counties. I volunteer here as much as I can, and have donated about 30 hand-painted bowls to be given away at this event.






The Empty Bowls Luncheon is a great big soup, salad and bread buffet, and man, do I love a buffet. Local restaurants and businesses donate all the food, and local artisans donate bowls to be taken home by the patrons. The bowls are usually hand-thrown pottery from local potters and school art classes, so each one is unique. I donated a bunch of bowls in some existing designs and some never seen before designs as well! Last year they had about 6 different soups, an ice cream sundae bar, Rita's Water Ice, breads from Panera and lots of salads from Shop Rite. I'm excited to see who will be there this year!






Check out the above link for more details, and consider attending this fundraiser if you're in the Central Jersey area!
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The Big Bad Blog Beginning: Marketing Gone Awry

So awhile back, I was talking to my home business and web marketing diva. I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, "Big deal! Everybody has a home business and web marketing diva." Maybe so, but if you're not talking to Dina at http://www.wordfeeder.com/, then you've got the wrong gal.

Since I have the right gal, Dina said, "You should start a blog to help promote your website."

"Really? How come?"

She then said something along the lines of "Hoogety boogety search engine optimization foogety moogety page hierarchy loogety toot toot meta-tags and strategic links...." and many other extremely smart things. Please keep in mind Dina has never actually said "hoogety boogety" to me in any context. What she did do was give me a brief explanation of web marketing that made complete sense, but the wisdom of which I would completely mangle upon retelling. The relevant gist was as follows - a blog, when properly done, can be a great tool to drive traffic to my website.

I mulled this over for quite some time. Could I write clear and informative articles about the decorative painting business? Er, sure, I think. New techniques, preferred paint and brush brands, offers of free templates.....Ooh, but how bout the funny fellow painter ladies I see at my teacher's studio? Or the nutjobs who I meet at craft shows?

And then I started thinking about other humorous stuff, like the time my mother swiped HER mother's mother's day gift from me and refused to give it back. And the stories from my grandfather about the 8-10 different ways he's accidentally electrocuted himself throughout the years, and yet still stands. Or about the time I spent half a day convinced that drunk people snuck into my yard during the night and dug up 48 newly planted impatiens (until I realized a deer ate them).

That's about the point that I realized that I actually want a blog to show the world how hilarious I am, and if I can throw some web marketing in there, so be it. I can make it work. For example, the two funniest things I do are 1.) garden organically 2.) allow people to speak to me. Since I paint flowers and creatures and landscapes, does it count as web marketing if I blog about growing flowers in a landscape while shouting obscenities at creatures? You betcha! And when my mother does something bizarre, should that go in there too? Absolutely. Ah, yes. Yet another blog is born.

So in the end, I will market my website the way I organic garden - seek out the advice of experts, change it all around, and find myself continually shocked when my system doesn't work. Effective? No. Funny? Oh yes indeed! Keep reading.....