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By Little Mummy, December 31, 2008 1:37 am

Mummy: I don’t know if you can tell (!) but you weren’t too impressed with the snow. This photo was taken in January, and as I write this in December you are far more keen on the snow. In fact, I have to try and stop you picking it up and getting your gloves soaking.

Mummy: This is you on your birthday.

Mummy: A really pretty photo, taken on a nice warm day.

Mummy: 60′s fashion is ‘in’ at the moment and you’re right on trend

Mummy: This was taken when we were in Wales

Mummy: Christmas card making 2008, we also made little gift bags and star cookies.

I’m writing this on Christmas Day, and we’ve had a lovely day. You were a little disappointed that Santa didn’t eat all the cookie, but the dolls house and fifi rollerskates made up for it. You’re tucked up in bed now with your new doll.

Love you.

Mummy

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By Little Mummy, December 30, 2008 2:16 am

Yesterday I wrote about the new Baileys with a hint of coffee. The picture shows the coffee cream crunch desert I made which was sooo good.

I have two bottles of Baileys with a hint of coffee to give away. You could make the recipes here, drink it or even give them as gifts. Entry is simple, you only really need to do step one…

To Enter

1. Sign up for the newsletter

Your email is confidential and you’ll receive an email newsletter around twice a month. You’ll also receive automatic entry to future draws as well as the chance to win an Amazon gift voucher if you’re the 100th subscriber.

2. Leave a comment on this post for a bonus entry

3. Open to UK and Ireland residents only. Competition closes on Tuesday 6th January. Draw will be made by random number generation.

Good Luck!

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By Little Mummy, December 29, 2008 2:11 am

Just before Christmas I was sent a nice big bottle of Baileys with a hint of coffee. I like Baileys, I like coffee and I like coffee liquers like Tia Maria. This was sure to be a winner?

After a tough afternoon I decided to ‘taste’ the coffee baileys (read: I was stressed and took a swig to help with my christmas cheer). The ‘hint of coffee’ was a bit more of a hint on my coffee-o-meter but still very pleasant.

The PR person suggested I try one of the recipes, made by the one and only James Martin. Not really keen on James Martin, a bit smug, and not that great a presenter but very good at making deserts and the coffee cream crunch was sensational.

I made it without the ‘crunch’, a shortbread biscuit on the side, but the creme was soooo good. The recipe and method reminded me of creme brulee, but simpler. I’m not the greatest at following recipes but this turned out really well, even though I didn’t even sieve the mixture (checked cupboards, no sieve). The recipe produces a smooth creme with a strong alcohol and coffee flavour. It was really rich and I wish I’d made the shortbread as that would have complemented it perfectly. This recipe is definitely on my list as an easy desert to make at future dinners.

Here’s a video of the recipe if you’d like to give it a go. I’m also giving away some Baileys with a hint of coffee, visit littlemummy.com in the near future for further details or sign up to the newsletter for automatic entry (and a chance to win an Amazon voucher).

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By Little Mummy, December 24, 2008 4:59 am

Littlemummy.com Winners

Congratulations to Terry and Alexis who won the CooKin Kids Ebook.

There’s still time to be a winner. Win £100 groceries by entering this contest. Or sign up for automatic entry into all future prize draws.

Carnival

The Best of British Mummy Bloggers carnival is posted at Thames Valley Mums blog. Great job, I really need to submit better posts to these carnivals

Christmas & 2009

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I’m soooo excited now! 2009 doesn’t look to be too bad either, I’ve had some interesting conversations over the past few days which could make 2009 and Project 500 very interesting indeed.

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By Little Mummy, December 22, 2008 4:19 am

About a month ago I had another hairbrain idea to start an email list and promptly signed up for Aweber.

This isn’t a review of Aweber, but basically it’s a very cool site that manages your email list for you. You can create sign-up forms (like the one in the sidebar), and create really nice newsletters and it’s all really simple. Highly recommend it if you’re going to start a newsletter or whatever. I think I pay $19, which is what, around £10 per month. A bit of a bargain really.

But anyway, so, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Aweber, producing newsletters and checking my stats.

And checking my stats

Is there a blogger in the blogosphere who isn’t addicted to stats?

RSS subscription rate, email feed figures, pageviews, unique visitors, Alexa rank, Technorati Rank, Twitter followers, friends on facebook, money I made from blogging in two seconds last thursday. We’re stat junkies. And now I have an email list, oh yes, I get stats from Aweber too.

I get the percentage of people that opened my last newsletter, the amount of people subscribed, the amount of people that have unsubscribed, the links that people clicked on…

What was that? The links that people clicked on. Oh yes, it’s like Big Brother round here, I’m watching your every move

But seriously the link clicking stat is actually quite fascinating and I think it could really shape both my newsletter and my blogging in the future.

Here’s how it works

I produce a newsletter, with five features.

Feature 1: A giveaway competition offering a bonus entry for clicking the link and leaving a comment.

Feature 2: A voucher code for an ebook, with a link to buy.

Feature 3: A link to a post about baking cookies

Feature 4: A link to join Bukisa

Feature 5: A link to a post about the future of work for mums

You send your newsletter, and get a 100% open rate (which I had for my last newsletter, yay!) Of the 100%, you get a 50% click rate. You then go into the Aweber page where you can see what has been clicked. You find the following stats;

Feature 1 (bonus entry): No clicks

Feature 2 (voucher code): No clicks

Feature 3 (baking cookies): No clicks

Feature 4 (Join Bukisa): 7 clicks

Feature 5 (future of work for mums): 5 Clicks

It’s pretty easy to identify the information that your readers or interested in and looking for.

This is powerful information, you can now tailor your newsletter toward the most interesting topics, same with blog posts. This information is as valid for bloggers as it would be for small businesses.

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By Little Mummy, December 19, 2008 4:29 am

Raisngkids has identified a new kind of family unit, the ‘relay parents’.

Relay parents take turns of working and looking after the kids, working in ‘shifts’. They report that research shows that parents are spending more time with their kids but less time together or as a family unit.

How it works for us…

Over the past six months what was a part time job for me sometimes exceeded twenty-five or thirty hours. My husband works shifts and I slotted my shifts around his, we took turns of looking after our daughter. Occasionally, family stepped in when our shifts overlapped. We are a new breed of ‘relay parents’, we liken it to a conveyor belt that never ends.

The Pros

As the report identified, less money worries, more hours worked equals more money.

Little, or no requirement for costly childcare, meaning you keep more of what you earn.

A feeling that everyone is contributing both to the financial and childcare aspects of the home.

The Cons

After a while you feel your sole purpose is to be at work or assuming the role of primary child-giver.

Less time to spend/enjoy the money you’ve earned.

The requirement to ‘synchronize’ diaries constantly, and then there’s the housework which needs to be slotted in somewhere.

Eventually becoming ‘ships that pass in the night’, also a feeling of constantly ‘going through the motions’ rather than living life.

The Future

As parents and families we are constantly looking for that happy balance of working and earning, and enjoying life and our family. Relay parenting may have been better than both working full time, but what’s better than relay parenting? Multiple income streams, read my article here…

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By Little Mummy, December 19, 2008 4:02 am

Building an email list isn’t something that can be rushed, which I guess is why I failed the challenge (in the sense that I didn’t make 100). It takes time to find the people that want what you’re are offering. It also takes time to figure out exactly what you’re offering. It takes time to build trust and the motivation for someone to sign up, this can’t be rushed or forced either. Here’s what I learned during the challenge.

Quality Not Quantity

Quality in the longterm will pay off, all the ‘recruiting’ I did during the challenge was targeted. I may only have 24 on my list, but I have a 97.4% open rate on my newsletters and no unsubscribes. If I can steadily build my list whilst keeping these stats high that would be an excellent result.

Have a dedicated page

Chris Garret taught me the value of having a dedicated sign-up page. I have left the link to my newsletter in my signature on forums, which continues to bring a trickle of new sign-ups.

Just because you built it doesn’t mean they’ll come

If you start an email list don’t expect people to fall over themselves to sign up, unless you have a five figure readership. Email list building takes time. It’s my hope that each time I have a giveaway a few more people will sign up, building my list slowly with highly targeted subscribers.

The power of friends

I’ve learned that friends and networks are more important than I first thought. During the challenge friends helped to spread the word and retweeted my posts. I plan to spend more of my time building my network and helping others.

If you’d like to join the British Parent Blogger network, please contact me.

List building is fun

I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed producing the newsletters and checking open rates and which links were the most popular.

You can learn a lot in 7 days

I read a lot on email list building and took on a lot of tips and information in a short space of time. Many of the ideas I can’t implement in a week. Others I couldn’t implement while doing the challenge, like offering a prize for the 100th subscriber, as I had the counter on saying how many I was up to.

Challenges produce juice, juice produces new ideas

Stepping outside my comfort zone, doing something I wouldn’t usually do creates quite a bit of energy and ‘juice’ (inspiration). I have outlined five or six blog post ideas that I definitely wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t done the challenge. I’ll definitely be pushing myself in 2009 to step outside my comfort zone more often.

Providing value is the ultimate aim

You have to keep giving if you ever want to receive. I have plenty of giveaways planned for 2009, as well as a 25GBP Amazon Voucher giveaway, I’ll also be giving away information in 2009 about what works and what doesn’t as I try to make an income from home. Join my newsletter!

What did I achieve?

I doubled my email list. I increased my RSS/Email subscribers by over 10%.

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By Little Mummy, December 18, 2008 5:07 am

By the end of 2009 I predict that I’ll be earning (at least) £500 per month online, working from home (or anywhere I want).

£500 may not seem much (or it may seem a lot), but this figure isn’t plucked from thin air, read on to find out why £500 and how to find your target.

In my recent post ‘The Future of Work For Mums‘ I pondered the idea that multiple income streams were the future. In 2009 I plan to test the theory. Where possible I will shy away from the ‘pay per hour’ model to the ‘pay per product’, ‘pay per click’, or ‘pay per view’ models.

Which means I’ll be paid commission on a sale, for a click on an advertisement or for a view of my article/post.

What do I want?

In 2009 I’m going to focus on what I want rather than what job I want. So, what do I want?

I want to be able to look after my daughter, dropping her off to nursery and picking her up.

I want to do my next Open University course ‘An Introduction to Business Studies’?

I want time to sort my garden and make my home more homely.

I don’t want to commit a lot of time trading hours for money, in fact, ideally I would like to only do this occasionally and for social reasons rather than money.

I want to spend time on my blog and working on ideas.

What do I need?

Money wise I need to earn £300-£500 per month. At the moment this is made up by trading hours for money. 50 – 80 hours per month.

The Plan

Over the next twelve months I will see if it’s possible to earn the money I need from multiple income streams. My main focus will be providing value in anything I do. I will test some of the following but my plan isn’t really to plaster my blog in ads that nobody’s interested in, and to be honest, if that’s the only thing that works then I’ll fail and we’ll all know better. Some of the things I may try, if the opportunities arise;

Freelance Writing
Affiliate Marketing
Pay per click Advertising
Home based Sales
Banner Ads
Product Reviews

Project 500 won’t become the focus of my blog, it’s more a resolution to myself. An ‘is it possible’? question that I need to answer before I move on and get a ‘proper job’. I want to share what I learn because it’s nice to share, plus I think there is a multiple income stream model that could work.

Conclusion

£500 per month frees up all my time to focus on anything I like. In 2009 those things are above. In 2010 I could grow that to £1000, meaning in 2011 I could spend my days at university/exercising/cooking/playing poker or anythingelse that takes my fancy. Fantasy land? Maybe. I guess we’ll find out.

I’ll be sharing some ideas via the newsletter. You get automatic entry to prize draws if you sign up.

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By Little Mummy, December 17, 2008 1:09 am

Ring in the New Year with £100. One savvy sleuth will win £100 (or equivalent in Euros) worth of groceries to kick start the New Year!

Little Mummy and Allrecipes.co.uk have teamed up to give one lucky reader the chance to win £100 in grocery vouchers. All you have to do is prove you know your mixed peel from your mincemeat!

To enter for your chance to win, simply follow these steps:

1. Find the answers to the five questions below

2. Take the first letter of each answer to make the secret code

3. Submit your five-letter code below

If you crack the code correctly, you could be the Little Mummy reader who gets £100 worth of groceries!

Competition is open to UK and Ireland residents and closes on 15th January 2009.

Good luck!

Crack the code…

1. This sauce calls for 675g of _____ cranberries.

2. Which herb flavours this roast turkey recipe?

3. What type of butter is called for in this Christmas pudding?

4. This Christmas cake recipe comes from which country?

5. For how many hours must you bake this Christmas cake?

Cracked the code? Enter here for a chance to win!

………………………………………………………………………………………

Like this? Join the Littlemummy VIP list for automatic entry into prize draws and more competitions like this

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By Little Mummy, December 16, 2008 12:36 am

The thought leaders in Social Media have been, well thinking. They’ve produced a PDF providing us their predictions for 2009. I’ve read the PDF, here’s what I think there is for us (the mum bloggers, the mumpreneurs or wannabe mumpreneurs, the work at home mums or wannabe work at home mums).

From David Armano

Organizations will come to terms with the reality that although it is now “cheaper” to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology—it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful. This will not be easy for many businesses/brands as it brings up a host of issues
ranging from empowering employees & agencies to have direct contact with customers, to staffing up projects differently. 2009 will prove that the Web is not powered by technology alone. Organizations will realize they require warm bodies and bright minds in order to successfully execute programs, whether they be external or enterprise.

Is this going to mean that there are more work at home jobs for web savvy stay at home parents like you and I? Or will this kind of work be outsourced at ultra low cost like the virtual assistant market? I think both will happen, larger businesses may outsource at low cost but there will always be a large small business market that need people to manage their blog, their email list, and to carry out blog marketing exercises. Could this be a niche that web savvy stay at home mums could fill?

From Joseph Jaffe

“Live” – in a real time world, expect a shift to even more as-it-happens content creation in blogging, podcasting and in particular, video.

So there you have it, instantaneous blogging like twitter will be big, podcasting will be big, but video will be the biggest.

From Littlemummy.com: Tips on getting over self-consciousness to get that first video out there, come on peeps let’s see you

From Scott Monty

In short

1. Join Twitter

2. Make online video