It’s been  just about a month since the Alt Design Summit. I came back excited, inspired, and lucky to have met such an amazing group of bloggers. But I also came back feeling conflicted. Blogging is an odd thing: everyone seems to be doing it, a large percentage of people claim to be experts at it, but no one is sure where is going or what it means. 

On the plane home, I wrote up a list of what I heard the most at Alt.

be authentic, but focus on what your readers want

be authentic, but focus on making money

be authentic, but tell everyone you have the GREATEST BLOG EVER!

blog 3 times a week, but say no to being overwhelmed

focus on one social media outlet, but rule them all

sponsorship is not a dirty word, but sell yourself to make a lot of money

find your niche, but don’t get niched–you must appeal to wide variety of brands

do everything for free, until some point, then charge a lot for everything you do.

video is the future, but no one knows if video is really the future.

do all of this yourself, even though most profitable blogs have teams running them.

 

1. dana 2. jessica 3. me looking like it’s the first day of school 4. melissa 5. andrea 6. kate 7. delia

It’s confusing and conflicting but still all true. Oddly, it’s a lot like the advice new parents get. Maybe blogging is like parenting: you stay up all hours doing it, you can’t explain to people who don’t have blogs why you have one, and you’re not sure how it’ll turn out in the end.

clockwise 1. me, again on the first day of school 2. carla 3. celina 4. andrea 5. bonnie 6. marigold 7. helen 8. stacy (kneeling)

I did learn one really good thing at Alt:

Blogging is weird. You talk to so, so many people everyday, but every interaction is planned, controlled, and/or edited. Not at lot of creativity bursts forth from controlled situations. We need other people to challenge us and show us new things–this coming from a tried and true introvert. So reach out to similar bloggers.  Collaborate! Contribute! Talk–face to face even! Gossip! Bullshit! Just say something off the top of your head for once…

Alt: part #2 

I need your advice on a few projects I’ve got going on. First is this vintage quilt I picked up at the thrift store recently. It is super fantastic, there is no doubt. The colors are super saturated and somehow read neon and pastel at the same time. The prints are flat out amazing…

…but the thing is ginormous! Queen size? King size? I don’t know but it weighs a ton. I’m thinking of cutting it down to a twin size for my daughter’s bed. What do you think? I’m pretty sure I can just cut it to size and then hand bind it. I want to use a pattern binding (stripes or polka dots), but is that too much? If I just do a solid color, which color?

And then what to do with the rest? There might be enough for curtains for my daughter’s room, but is that too crazy? Is a pillow to boring and matchy matchy? Advice! Direction! I need you!

Second is this cheetah print. Leopard really, but my youngest son is obsessed with cheetahs and he is convinced this is a cheetah print. He has requested a jacket made out of it. I’m planning on using the Study Hall Jacket pattern. How do I do it so it’s not too costumey? I was thinking of pairing it with that dark green jersey. That’s one option. Another is dying the print:

Another idea is to do more of a color block thing with the print–like Shauna from Shwin and Shwin did. I don’t want the thing to look goofy. I mean he’s 4, so he can rock goofy, but still. Any ideas?! Any advice?