Featured Blogger: James Kicinski-McCoy

'Hello, I'm a girl names james married to a boy named aubrey...' So starts the introduction to one of my favourite blogs, Bleubird.

'What We Wore' is one of the feature sections
of the blog

At one time James ran a vintage store, but now she concentrates on her blog which she runs for profit. James blogs about vintage style, family life, favourite finds and her children's lunch boxes, amongst over things!

They are a very cute family and one of the real charms of Bleubird is the beautiful photography. No wonder James has such a strong following - on the blog, on Pinterest and on Instagram.

Featured Blogger: Lisa Lam

This week's featured blogger, Lisa Lam, has run her own online business U-Handbag for the last six years,  and a busy blog in parallel called the U-Handblog. She describes U-Handbag as "an online bag making supplies shop for bag making fanatics (and fanatics to be!)" The blog is where Lisa can promote her products, give customers an insight to who she is, provide tutorials and showcase the bag making skills of others.

Lisa considers her blog to be a more informal, more casual place than her online shop, which is more geared towards e-commerce, but having said that, both main site and blog are presented and written in a really friendly style. It's on the blog that we learn Lisa has recently had a baby, for example (congratulations!), and it's a forum for conversation with likeminded handbag-making fans.

Lisa's blog is a rich resource of information and
she has a number of free patterns for download, like this one.

Typepad is Lisa's blog platform of choice. Although it's not free, Typepad hosting starts at $8.95 a month, which Lisa considers to be a bargain, given the functionality and support it offers.

And her number one tip? "If you have a craft business a blog is essential" -  Lisa describes her own blog as "invaluable" to her business and the perfect platform to introduce current projects she's working on, talk about the craft process and engage with her customers.

As well as having authored The Bag Making Bible - a detailed guide to making your own bags, Lisa has a new book hot off the press, called A Bag for All Reasons  - here's a sneak preview on Lisa's blog!

Tech Tip: Hosted vs self-hosted blogs

Choosing your blog platform is a big decision. Many experienced bloggers go through a number of different platforms as their blog grows and their demands change.

The easiest way to start blogging is to choose a hosted platform, such as Blogger.com (where this blog is hosted), Wordpress.com, Typepad or Tumblr. 'Hosted' means that everything you post to your blog sits on that company's servers. A basic hosted blog is usually free to set up, comes with plenty of online help and support, and allows you a pretty good amount of customisation.

Textile designer, crocheter and online shop owner Emma Lamb
has a beautiful Blogger blog at http://emmallamb.blogspot.co.uk/

With so many blogs hosted on these platforms they are communities in themselves, and the software has built-in tools for connecting with other blogs. For example, Google owns Blogger, so it's easy to befriend other Blogger blogs and see their latest posts on your Blogger dashboard.

New Zealander James Squires' internet comic Moonbeard
is hosted at Tumblr - http://moonbeard.com/

If you go for a 'self-hosted' option, that means you need to download and install the blogging software on your own webspace. This means you are completely in control of your blog design, content and functionality - but you are also responsible for keeping the software and any plugins you install up to date, hosting, security, promotion and everything else to keep your blog up and running. One of the most popular self-hosted software solutions can be found at Wordpress.org (not to be confused with Wordpress.com - the same company, but the hosted version of their software.)

Lori Lange's Recipe Girl - http://www.recipegirl.com/
 is a self-hosted blog using the Wordpress platform.

If you are tech savvy, or planning to blog in support of an online business (for example), you may decide the self-hosted option is for you. My own business website is in fact a self-hosted Wordpress blog in disguise, whereas this blog is on a simple template hosted at Blogger. It has a lot less functionality, but  it was easy to set up and it serves its purpose pretty well.

There's more about this topic in Chapter 2 of Blogging for Creatives, and plenty of tips and advice to be found in the blogging community. Do some research and have a think about what is going to be best for you before deciding. Changing blog platforms isn't impossible, but you can't be doing it every few months!