Friday Extra: Holiday Gift Guide!

Last minute gift shopping? Here are some ideas for any type of person!
Crafty
After collaging my walls, I had to put my work somewhere else so I went to compositional collaging in my collage book. You can find a blank notebook or sketch book at about any craft store. If you want to be extra thoughtful, pick up some magazines to get them started!
Cosmetic Loving

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If you are looking for a cheap present for someone who loves makeup, go for the holiday packs of lip glosses such as EOS and lip smackers! OK OK Lipsmackers is a bit of a throwback to fifth grade but who can resist peppermint scented chap stick? A lot of holiday makeup packs come in really adorable packaging that is great for gifting! I found a wide variety of sets at Target though I am almost positive they sell sets like these at your local drug store.

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Fashion Loving
Bangles are a great gift because this gives the person a chance to start a collection of them. I really love Alex and Ani because they have such a wide variety of styles for all sorts of fashion senses and personalities.
Music Loving
If this said person likes listening to music, I would seriously suggest an iTunes gift card if you are looking for a cheap and quick gift. This gives your loved one a chance to download all the new music that will be released in 2014! If you looking into being real generous (by generous I mean THE BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD), and this said person likes pop punk (and other genres), Warped Tour 2014 tickets (or any other concert tickets just that Warped is amazing) are a great idea for it gives the gift receiver something to look forward to. If your shopping for someone who enjoys making music, buying them a ukulele is a huge suggestion of mine. Learning ukulele is fairly simple and extremely fun. Also you can get one extremely cheap (it may not be very high quality). If you want to spend a little more and be awesome, I recommend shopping at The Ukulele Workshop they sell beautiful decorative ukes from dinosaurs to flowers. My favorite one is their pin up girl one (shown right). The ukuleles they use as bases are extremely high quality and sound great too!
Book Loving
If the person you are shopping for loves reading, I would recommend the Divergent series. The books are going to be released as a major motion picture soon and are absolutely amazing!
Other
Bastiste Mini Dry Shampoo- Set Of Three
This is a simple gift for anyone who loves these hairsprays! Even if the gift receiver has never used this hair product, I use the full size kind and it is a life saver for a bad hair day! I found these at Urban Outfitters.
Disposable Camera
I got my friend, John, one for secret Santa and he absolutely loves it! These kind of cameras are just fun to use and give off a sort of 2005 feel (if you are into that).
Socks
I constantly tell my friends that socks are the best presents because to be honest, they really are. I mean not only do they keep your feet warm, but they come in all different kinds!

Happy Holidays!
-Ann

Friday Extra: A Guide For Starter Bloggers

Well hello there! I kind of lied to you all in my last Friday Extra saying that I was not going to do a "Friday Extra" but here we are! I found a way to work around this by working extra hard last week and writing up ALL of the posts for this week last week (well in my terms it is May 9 at the moment that I'm writing this) OK OK lets not get complicated. For this post, I decided on talking about something that I had to deal with almost three months ago: Starting A Blog. I made this blog into a couple steps that I suggest you follow in order
Part One: Get The Outline
First impressions are always important! Even though not many people will be looking at your first post at the moment, you have to draw those readers in! Think of what your topic is about. Do you want to become a fashion blogger? Wanna write about pets? Or how about life advice? You can write about whatever you want but you have to decide before you even think about making your blog. If you want to blog about multiple topics you always have to start with one. Think of me as an example. I started off with only beauty and fashion but look where we are now! Start small and then expand!
Part Two: Set Up An Account
Where do you want to blog? I suggest you create a blogger account for it is simple and easy to create for beginner. You now have a HUGE decision to make. What are you going to call your blog? Make sure the name you choose is unique and memorable. I chose the name "How Fitting" for it has two meanings:
1. It can be interpreted as clothing fitting (fashion!)
2) How Fitting is a phrase I use 24/7 so it has a personal touch to it
I love my name and when I saw that howfitting.blogspot.com was taken, I was so upset! To get around this problem, I changed my URL to howfittingBLOG.blogspot.com. There are always to work around taken URLs!
Part Three: Make Your Blog GORGEOUS!
When you enter a website the first thing a person looks for is display. If your blog is boring than it clearly will not stand out to your viewers. When designing your page, make sure your design has something to do with the topic of your blog and looks like YOU designed it. This is your blog and it has to look like it. My blog background and coloring was all done by me and I made sure that it looked like it.
Part Four: Get Writing!
Your first post can be almost anything. You can jump right in and get writing about your topic like I did or say a hello to your potential viewers. Either way it perfect. Double check your writing and make sure there are no mistakes. You don't want to make a stupid typo on your first impression!
Part Five: Get Your Blog Spreading!
At first, I was afraid to show my blog to my Google+ followers but I quickly realized that the only way to get "How Fitting" spreading was to share it with my friends. My decision on posting the link to my March Fashion Bible was an amazing one! Not only did people read it but I got a lot of positive feedback on it! I love it when people at my school talk about how much they like the little blog that I thought up after seeing Tavi Gevinson's success. The compliments are amazing! If you do get criticism, don't give up! Check the post and see what's wrong with it. There probably will be a couple things that the public doesn't like and this is your chance to change them!

REVISE!

Part Six: Keep Going!
Now that you've gotten past the first post, keep writing! I suggest you create some sort of schedule so your viewers know when to check your blog. Make sure YOU love your writing and what your doing. Don't become obsessed with views. Starting a blog is the hardest part and obsessing over how many people read your blog is just a drain that you don't want to get sucked into.

"How Fitting" has given me an outlet to tell people about the things I love and I can't ask for anything better. Yes, I'd LOVE if more people read it but I try not to pay attention to that and just have fun with my writing. I hope this helped all those beginner bloggers out there!
-Ann

p.s I made a playlist for the music that I listen to when blogging! This isn't even half of it but I added some of the best:
Ann's Blogging Playlist
revision artwork taken from http://rookiemag.com/