Sunday, February 24, 2013

Guest Post - Make Your Blog Work for You with the Right Payment Options

I am pleased to share with you my first guest post at I Heart Decorating!  This could not have come at a better time - I have a slipped disc in my back and crafting is the last thing on my mind right now!!
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Make Your Blog Work for You with the Right Payment Options

Guest post by Gretchen H
One of the biggest online phenomenons has been the blogging craze. There are people using blog websites to write memoirs, to write how-to articles, and to share creative ideas with family and friends. There are many stay-at-home moms who have found success blogging on the experiences of homemaking and parenthood, and many of them have developed products in these areas that are both fun and innovative. No matter what your blogging about, it can be a lucrative business to sell your products through your blog. The first step is to find out which payment option will be best for your site.

Remember, all payment processing services have fees, and some of the fees are monthly, annual, and with each purchase. It's important to be clear on what the fees will be with your service. One of the less expensive merchant services is one in which you do more of the processing work. A manual merchant service will require you to call in all of the credit card numbers and process them with your phone. This can save you money on monthly fees, and the savings can be in the hundreds of dollars per month.

If you don't have time for manual credit card processing, there are automatic processing services that work directly from your site. Someone can send in credit card information and the payment can be directly deposited into your bank account. Many people choose this options because it comes with less hassle. You can expect to pay more on your overall fees with this automatic service, but it will save you time. For low fees, you can look at a site like http://www.advantageprocessors.com/.

One of the easiest and most affordable payment options out there is PayPal, which makes it easy to take payments through PayPal. Many bloggers love the PayPal button on their site because it's easy to setup, and the fees are very competitive. PayPal offers fast processing, which means you will have funds from orders in your account almost immediately. This is a simple option for bloggers that don't process a lot of payments or are otherwise just getting started with their website.

When it comes down to it, the type of payment merchant you go with depends on what your blog needs and how much money you will have coming in. You will want to determine how much you can afford to spend on merchant solutions, and then analyze how much time you have to deal with processing orders. Then you can determine whether you want a manual service or one that works automatically.

www.mommybloggerdirectory.com/blog

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Happy Crafting!!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day! Sight Word Bingo

Happy Valentine's Day!

I had the pleasure of organizing the Valentine party for my daughter's kindergarten class today!  What a joy these kids were!

During our room mom meeting in January, we came up with the idea of playing Sight Word Bingo during the party.  If you do a Google search for "Sight Word Bingo", there are tons out there to print off and use.  Could I do things that simple?  No!!  I decided to make my own bingo cards for the kids!




The kids all got some candy conversation hearts to use as the bingo card markers.  They loved that they could eat the game pieces!!



At our craft station, we decided to make some super cute Hershey Kiss mice that one of the room mom's found on Pinterest.  Really easy craft for the kiddos - 2 Hershey Kiss with a foam heart in the middle.  We also used a foam heart for the feet and I added googly eyes. 



The kids thought these were hillarious!  For some reason - mine looks more like an elephant than a mouse!


Hope your Valentine's Day was special!
Happy Crafting!