Guest blogging: the Letter Writers Alliance

Today I'm thrilled to be guest blogging for the fantastic Letter Writers Alliance, a gem of a blog devoted to keeping the art of letter writing alive.
Come on over for a lovely post on stamps galore. See you there!

Postcard print dress

I spotted this Zuzi Zuzi White Postcards Prom Dress in New Look while visiting a friend. Given that I'm an avid letter writer, I had to snap it up. Generally I'm not one for overly 'cute' prints, but this one felt subtle enough to win me over.




I've been a bit AWOL over the last few days after a pretty 'work had, play hard' week. It's been a lot of fun though and I'm just feeling an avid need to catch up on sleep.

Some highlights:

• My new Beach Walk Yankee candle, which reminds me of the salty sea air in my home town
• Seeing The Lion King on the West End
• Seeing Marley at the cinema, a documentary about the life and music of Bob Marley
• A big Friday night out consisting of cocktails, casinos and general misbehaving
• Going on a London Walk in Bermondsey and watching the sun set over Tower Bridge
• Spending Sunday afternoon baking cupcakes with my bestie

Free download - May 2012 mixtape

^ Image via

The last few weeks have required some seriously upbeat tunes to keep me on track with my deadlines!

Feel free to download May 2012 Mix. Definitely one for playing before a night out or better yet to keep you perky while doing mundane housework!

1. I Wanna Go (Captain Cuts Remix) - Britney Spears
2. Top of the World (featuring Dev) - The Cataracs
3. Heartbeat - Childish Gambino
4. Bass Down Low (featuring the Cataracs, Proper Villains Remix) - Dev
5. Que Que (Featuring Maluca and Diplo) - Dillon Francis
6. Loca People (La Gente esta Muy Loca - DJ Khriz
7. She Makes me Wanna (Featuring Dev) - JLS
8. Give a Little More - Maroon 5
9. Embody - Sebastian
10. Ayo - Hyper Crush
11. Lights (Wired dubstep remix) - Ellie Goulding
12. This Night - Cherise and Nadia (aka BootyLuv)
13. Bed Intruder Song - Auto Tune the News

Geometrically Speaking from Modcloth

Ever since I first saw Modcloth's website, I have earnestly wanted one (or all) of their beautiful dresses. Generally speaking, their dresses completely fit my taste - fit and flare in gorgeous prints.

However, being based in the USA, I considered them to be completely unattainable. Shipping to the UK is often horrendously expensive, so I knew I'd have to pine from a distance.

But something happened to change all that. I mentioned my frustrations on Twitter, and Modcloth kindly pointed out to me that they had been researching shipping options and recently found a much more reasonable international delivery option.

So I hopped online and chose this gorgeous Geometrically Speaking Dress, paying just £6 postage to the UK. I was so thrilled with it when it arrived, and felt really impressed that Modcloth had paid attention to me, and the feedback they'd received from shoppers about postage.

For me, the moral of the story is not so much about the accessibility of international shopping, but how much more likely I am to buy from a brand which engages with me on a personal level. And I have to say my experience of Modcloth so far has been pretty darn good. They are polite, enthusiastic and have always responded to my tweets. There is nothing worse than a brand which is too big for its boots.

After all, consumer-led marketing is the future. So a big thumbs up to you Modcloth! I'll be buying from you again.

Outfit details:

Dress from Modcloth

H&M cardigan
Vintage belt

New Look

Patchwork cushions

Today I'm very excited to share a little project I've been working on: patchwork cushions.

My long-suffering sewing machine has been busily making quilt blocks over the past few months, but I found myself getting frustrated by the length of time it was taking.

I'm the kind of person who is encouraged by progress, but with a big project that takes a long time to complete, I can feel impatient and demotivated.

So in the meantime, I decided to whip up a couple of patchwork cushions using old fabric scraps. The seams are still a bit wobbly, but overall I'm really pleased with the result.

Each one took about 4 hours to complete and I hope to do a tutorial in the future so you can all have a go :)

The Knitting Gorilla - a lesson from Liz

I was utterly touched to receive a package from a lady called Liz this week. I have never met Liz, or even heard of her, but she told me she'd been reading my blog every day and had seen something that she wanted to send me. Apparently she'd had it for a while, but hadn't yet plucked up the courage to pop it in the post.

The gift was a gorgeous little book about a boy gorilla who likes to knit, much to his father's disapproval. At first the little gorilla gets ridiculed and bullied for knitting, but after a while, people begin to accept it and eventually love it. It's such a sweet little tale about being true to yourself, which felt completely relevant to me and how I feel about my blog.



I sometimes feel that blogging can be a little self-indulgent, and it took me a long time to acknowledge to my family and friends that I had one. Even now I feel a little embarrassed about it. It doesn't feel very 'cool' to be prancing around in front of a camera or sending cute little packages to people you don't know. But even if these things aren't cool, they are things I enjoy, and that's what it's all about. Like the story of The Knitting Gorilla, it's about being faithful to your passions and character.

I was touched that this kind-hearted stranger wanted to give me a gift, and it made me so happy to think that my blog is bringing people joy.

So thank you Liz for your encouragement, and for giving me the confidence to keep on blogging about what I love. From now on, every time I hover my mouse over the 'publish post' button feeling doubtful or embarrassed, I'll remember The Knitting Gorilla and immediately hit CLICK.

Louche Julita dress from Joy

Some dresses are so utterly perfect that they make you feel a million dollars. I have lots of great dresses, but if I'm honest, most of them have something about them that I'm not quite content with - feeling a little too snug, slightly too short, neckline not quite right, a dodgy zip - you know the score...

When I found this Julita dress in Joy, I immediately adored its 50s charm. I bought it for a friend's wedding and had to wait several months before I could wear it. When I did, I loved everything about it - the thick fabric, gorgeous pattern, flattering waist-line, capped sleeves and electric blue belt.

It's not often I feel pretty, but on that day I really did. Plus while wearing it I got asked out on a date for the first time in three years, so all in all, a very successful purchase.

Outfit details:

Dress from Joy

Primark cardigan

Faith shoes

Oasis shawl

Editorial skills kit – part 3: Writing for the web

Welcome back to my editorial skills kit! Last week I talked a little bit about respecting people’s intellectual property online. Today I’ll be sharing some tips and tricks on writing for the web.

The traits of an online reader
First and foremost it's important to remember that reading a webpage is not like reading a book.

Imagine yourself in your pyjamas, curled up in an armchair with a big mug of tea and reading a novel. You were supposed to go to bed half an hour ago, but the prospect of finding out whether Mr Bingley will ever propose to Jane is just too alluring.

You read slowly, savouring every word, turning it over in your mind and relishing the wealth of imagery that Jane Austen brings to mind. While you’re lost in this literary fairyland, you’ve become oblivious to the fact that the phone is ringing and your tea has gone cold.

Now picture yourself reading a web page. You stumbled across this blog while catching up on one of your favourite bloggers. She’d linked to it in a recent post and you thought you’d see what it’s about. You actually came online to order a few things from Amazon, but one thing led to another and here you are.

Do you want to stay on this page? You’re not sure. Your eyes flit from the post title to the right-hand navigation, and then scan the subheads and photos to see if it’s up your street. You can’t be bothered to read any more. It looks boring and you move on. Or do you?


Audiences first
One benefit of writing for the web is that you don’t have to guess what readers need. You’re a website reader yourself, so you already know that they are generally impatient to find something interesting.

Try putting yourself in their shoes and think about how you would read your blog. Would you read a blog with tiny pictures and big blocks of text? Probably not.

Once you’ve grasped the fact that reading online is different, there are tricks to get people to stick with your page.

General tips on writing for the web
Everyone is different, but I try not to cover too many topics in one blog post. If someone writes a post about their weekend, then adds in a book review before finishing up with a giveway, I’d probably have given up at the point they got back from the shops on Saturday afternoon.

Publishing every scrap of information you have won’t grab your readers’ attention, plus you’ve just lost the opportunity to form three good blog posts by combining it all into one. Think about your audience, and think about how you like to read online.

Remember to include key words that people might use when searching online for this kind of content. This helps search engines find your work.


The opener
You only have a few seconds to grab a reader’s attention before they decide to move on, so make the most of your opening paragraph. Try and sum up the topic concisely.

This will not only let them know early on what you’ll be covering, but will also help readers who follow you on feed readers like Blog Lovin’, where people can see a short snippet from the beginning of each post in their feed.

Short sentences
People are impatient when they read online. A long, convoluted sentence spanning several lines can bore readers. It’s much better to use short sentences and small paragraphs. People can soak up more information online if things are in bite-sized pieces. It might look weird on the page but it reads better on screen.

But make sure you write well – keep things simple, precise and clear. There’s no need to use several words where one will do. Cut out the waffle.

Go through what you have written before you publish to see if there is anything that could be trimmed down.

Subheadings
Break up your text with bold headings. Make sure you use words that are relevant and tell readers what they can expect in the text immediately below.

Puns and clever word play are fun but they aren’t always helpful – and Google rankings improve with clear, relevant subheadings.

Using vague or cryptic subheadings can cause confusion as well as putting an irrelevant heading above a block of text.

Subheadings should help readers find the information they need. Use plenty of them and make sure they are relevant to the text immediately below them.

And don’t forget Google uses them to rank pages. So think about what someone who would find your page useful might type into a search engine. Use those keywords in your subheadings and copy.

You can also break up large bodies of text with large, bright images.

Bullet points
Another good trick to break up text is to use bullet points to:

• cut up lists into short points
• mark out key information
• highlight important facts

Links
Link to relevant information. Links can help you cut down on the amount of text on page. You can also link to previous posts you’ve written to help people navigate around your blog.

Don’t use ‘click here’ or ‘read more’ as link text. Highlight a couple of relevant words.

Over and out
Well, that’s it folks. I hope you found this useful! Do ask any questions, or else share some other tips and tricks in the comments section. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Stay tuned next week when I’ll be covering planning, structuring and writing a blog post.

Lunchtime craft club

I'm lucky enough to work with some of the best people I know, many of whom share my love of craft. While chatting over a lunchtime sarnie, we often discuss little things we've made for friends and family, share patterns, discuss fabric and wool shops, and generally share thoughts and ideas.

So it occurred to me, why not set up a little lunchtime craft club? This could include bringing along something we're already working on, doing an excursion to a craft shop, or having an organised craft where one member shares their passion.

Yesterday was our first proper meet up. I offered to host a mail art themed session, as the girls already know I enjoy it, but haven't tried it themselves.

We've started out with three members, and people across the charity have already asked to come along, which is great.



I brought along all kinds of goodies, from patterned papers and rubber stamps to stickers and tapes. I also pre-made some envelope templates out of pretty paper to save time. I laid them all out ona big desk so they could get stuck in.



I think they were both a little apprehensive about it at first. Many people I come across think they're not good enough 'artists' to enjoy mail art. But once they got stuck in they really enjoyed themselves.





And here they are! Kirsty, Catherine and I with our little creations. It was great to share the art of letter writing, and they both said they'd like yo write more to family and friends which will be great.

So there we have it. This is a great way to spend a lunchtime at work. Why not set up your own?

Instagram diary

A few recent Instagram pics for you to enjoy.

Are you on Instagram? If so do leave a comment with your username and I'll follow you. If you'd like to follow me, my username is queenieandthedew.



^ I treated myself to these nice earrings recently on my way back to London after visiting a friend. I'm such a sucker for a pair of earrings.



^ Wearing my new Julita dress from Joy for my friend's wedding. Exciting



^ This was the view from the recption at my friend's wedding on Loch Lomond. Breathtaking.



^ One thing I love about Scotland is that you find Irn Bru EVERYWHERE :)



^ I spotted this girl on the tube and wondered whether she was taking the phrase 'crazy cat lady' a little too far... Those kittens kept staring at me and it totally freaked me out.



^ Bright red nails (and lippie) for my friend's wedding.



^ I had great fun making these cute origami bows using Helen's tutorial. All it takes is a few folds and snips. Easy!



^ The pattern on my new geometric Modcloth dress. Blogpost coming soon!



^ Apple, rhubarb and berry crumble using my mum's recipe.



^ Found this amazing postcard print dress. Can't wait to show it off to you properly!