Lights and LettersLights and Lettershttp://www.lightsandletters.com/writing/2012-02-23T04:12:58ZSquarespaceArtifacts from the Farm: The Househttp://www.lightsandletters.com/writing/2012/2/22/artifacts-from-the-farm-the-house.htmlLeslie2012-02-22T20:35:41Z2012-02-22T20:35:41Z

I have visited our family's 100 year old farm twice now and I love to spend time there. My great grandfather, on my father's side, obtained the land in 1912 when land was free in Canada for farming. My family farmed it for 60 years and now it is leased out to other farmers. The buildings are still there, unused and falling down. There is a house, a barn and three or more outbuildings. My great grandparents lived there for about 30 years until their family grew up. They moved to Medicine Hat about 1950. Then the farm was run by their son Otto and his family lived there for about 20 years. After that the house was only used in the summers when the men would stay there alone.

When they finally stopped farming and began to lease the land, the stuff that had been left there by the men farming in the summer just stayed there. Most of the valuable materials have been collected over the years, like the leather and the stained glass windows, but so many small items still remain. It's a little strange to see a toothbrush sitting on a shelf, as if the place was left in a hurry and everyone forgot to take their things. What makes it even more strange for me is that these things belonged to my relatives. It's my family history out there, blowing in the wind and succumbing to the weather and the animals.

I collected a bunch of recognisable objects, as if I were on an archeological treasure hunt, and photographed them on a white backdrop. When the items were at the farm, laying in the dirt, they were garbage. I cleaned them up and now they are artifacts from the past that tell stories about who my relative were, what they liked and how they lived. This is part one, everyday items from the house. Stay tuned for part two next week, hardware and items from the barn.

Let me know what you think of these items. Do any of these old products look familar? I love the Dippity-do jar.

]]>February Photo a Day: 8-18http://www.lightsandletters.com/writing/2012/2/20/february-photo-a-day-8-18.htmlLeslie2012-02-20T14:29:50Z2012-02-20T14:29:50Z2.8 "Sun"

The second week and a half of this challenge was just as fun as the first week. I find I am really enjoying the process of creating interesting images with my phone. Some days I will shoot a few different things and see which turns out the best and I have been taking multiple shots to get it just right. I love the feedback I am getting on Instagram! It's great to see new followers, to have people "liking" my images and to see which images get the most feedback. I have linked each image back to Instagram, so you can see for yourself. 

2.9 "Front Door"

2.10 "Self-Portrait"

2.11 "Makes You Happy"

2.12 "Inside Your Closet"

2.13 "Blue"

2.14 "Heart"

2.15 "Phone"

2.16 "Something New"

2.17 "Time"

2.18 "Drink"

]]>ALT Talks: Growing Your Readershiphttp://www.lightsandletters.com/writing/2012/2/17/alt-talks-growing-your-readership.htmlLeslie2012-02-17T15:03:25Z2012-02-17T15:03:25Z

Today I am featuring and illustrating the Growing Your Readership session from ALT Summit, in the same way that I did the talks from Camp Mighty. I found it to be such a great way for me to process all the information and also a great way to share it. You can click on the image above to link to a larger version that you can print out.

Growing Your Readership was hosted by:

They had three main points about how to grow your readership:

1. ORIGINAL CONTENT

  • Create a personal narrative from your own experiences. Examples included Jordan's move to Paris and Nicole's home renovation. Use these narratives to share tips and resources.
  • Use your expertise for DIYs and tutorials. Showing people how you do what you do is a great way to gain readers. It's the old give a man a fish/ teach a man to fish parable.
  • Do your own research and make something new. Don't just link to what other people have said or made, have a look at everything being done in a certain category or on a certain trend and do a comprehensive post that shows a complete picture and showcases your own insights.
  • Make custom layouts, curate and remix. Creating your own content is key, but if you are using other people's content, be sure to ask first, credit sources and then present it in a way that is new. Add graphics, pair things up, put your own personal stamp on it.  

2. CONSISTENT SCHEDULE

  • Have an editorial calendar. Plan ahead and try to post on the same days every week. If people know what to expect, they will look forward to your posts.
  • High quality posts are better than high frequency posts. Rather than post one item every day for a week in a series, consider posting all five at once on one day. Make it easy for your readers, don't space out content to have a post up every single day. Quality over quantity.
  • Find the right amount of content for your audience. Kelly found that when she was posting three times a day, less people were reading, it was too much. When she scaled back she found more people engaged.
  • Best times to post are 7am (EST), noon, 4pm and midnight. Know who your audience is and when they are more likely to be reading. Sometimes off times can benefit as well. Midnight is a good time for overseas audiences. Or you can just post it when it's done!

3. PROFESSIONAL LOOK

  • Invest $ in your blog. Spend money on design if you are not a designer, quality giveaways for things people want, hire assistants and pay contributors, and make sure you have childcare so you can dedicate time to your blog.
  • Masthead and URL should match. This means investing in a dedicated domain name and designing your header to be the same. Make sure you have a domain name secured before naming your blog.
  • Good design is a prerequisite. Good design used to set blogs apart, but now it is common place. You must have a good design that is easy to read and navigate to be successful.

Additional tips:

  • Put stuff out when you are excited about it and tweek it later. Execute the bare minimum of what you need to do to get it out into the world and then update it later.
  • Join Communities, build communities, comment on other blogs (but make sure they are quality comments, not just "cool post"), post on Facebook (have a page for your site) and contribute to other sites that have a similar aesthetic, style and audience with your writing or artwork.
  • Capture search traffic with unique seasonal and event based content. Check out what the trending topics are for the day. You can post about current events and holidays, but make sure it is not something that other people are doing. Make it special.
  • Learn how to do SEO and tags. Check out Google tutorials.

If you are interested in learning more about Alt Summit's Growing Your Readership session, check out Nicole's twitter recap on Storify.

]]>Valentine's Day Photo Walkhttp://www.lightsandletters.com/writing/2012/2/15/valentines-day-photo-walk.htmlLeslie2012-02-15T18:07:42Z2012-02-15T18:07:42Z

I took myself on a little photo walk yesterday, bought some chocolates for my family and had brunch alone at a French cafe. It was a lovely morning and when I returned home with the kids, there were white lilies from Chris. These are my best shots from Valentine's Day.

I got a new lens and all of these pictures were taken with it. I had to send in my 28-70mm f/2.8L for a calibration and a minor cosmetic repair and since it's my only lens, I had to buy a new one. I looked at the 50mm f/1.2L, the 100mm f/2.8L Macro and the 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro. I want them all, but I got the most affordable and the smallest, the 50mm Compact Macro. Tracey Clark was raving about it at ALT and I figured for less than $300 I could test it out while my big lens is gone and if I didn't like it I could return it. 

I like it.

The tones are great and it's a sharp enough lens with great depth of field, but the best part? It's small. I was able to carry it around all day yesterday without it being too heavy or bulky. It *is* a bit noisy when I focus, it's like a little robot talking to me or something, and I will purchase that 50mm 1.2 one day, but for now the 50mm Compact Macro is lovely. (Thanks Tracey!)

What lenses are your favorites? What do you shoot with your different lenses? Is there a dream lense you have been lusting after?

]]>Crafting with Kids: Valentine'shttp://www.lightsandletters.com/writing/2012/2/13/crafting-with-kids-valentines.htmlLeslie2012-02-14T00:09:35Z2012-02-14T00:09:35Z

Over the weekend we worked on our Valentine's. Rather than create everything from scratch, this year I bought cards with envelopes so that the kids could just focus on writing names or drawing pictures. It was an attempt to make it a bit easier for me, as well as the kids. If I plan for there to be too many steps, I find that I end up doing the whole thing. Even this proved a little too much for Quinn, but Milo totally rocked it this year! Quinn just needs to get a little older.

Milo diligently wrote all 18 names of his classmates inside the cards AND on the envelopes, as well writing his own name 18 times! It's a testament to how well he is able to print his letters. He was moaning by the end, and had to take a couple of breaks, but I was so impressed by how much work he did this year! Quinn is not quite there yet, so I asked him to stamp each of his cards with an animal stamp and I stamped his name. He made it about halfway through before he lost interest, mostly because we ended up struggling over stamping his name. He wanted to do it but he refused to do it in the right order, so it was NIQU or UNIQ. This drove me bananas and when I insisted he do it the right way, he left. Confession: I don't craft well with my kids.

This article by Lisa Belkin was an interesting perspective on how involved parents should be in their children's projects and I really related to Laura's experience working on her son's 100 days of school project. We recently did the 100 days project for Milo's kindergarten class. I did some set up for him, gave him 3 choices about what he could do and then I let him choose and glue things by himself. He rarely wants my help, and often finds my involvement frustrating, so I'm happy to stay out of it until he gets tired, and then I will do what I can to make it easier for him. It's been a learning process for both of us to get there though, I have learned to stay out of Milo's way and Milo has gotten older and is more willing to have my input when he needs it.

I've always found the idealized version of what it is like to craft with kids and the reality to be very different. Maybe it's me, or my kids, but crafts are sometimes a bit hard. I really have to let go and just let them be, anytime we are trying to follow a set guideline it makes it more difficult.

Do you craft with your kids? Do they follow directions or are they free thinkers who want to do it their own way? Is it easier with older kids? I think the key with younger kids and free thinkers is to keep it short and simple. I've had the best results when I just let them do their thing within a loose frame work, like a particular paper size, or a limited set of colors.

For more ideas about crafting with kids, check out these links:

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