Welcome the new year!

Just a quickie to wish everyone a safe and prosperous new year! Hope everyone enjoys the celebrations tonight, just be safe!

I will posting more here soon!

Thinking of visiting England?

I have always marveled at the beauty and elegance that England has to offer. I have dreamt of seeing the beautful sights in London and the surrounding areas! The biggest thing stopping me from visiting the area is the cost. Most of us know how expensive it is to travel from state to state let alone to another country. Then when you get there you also have extra expenses such as hotels, food and enjoying the night life!

I have found a great website called cheaperthanhotels that lists all of the hotels in the area you are visiting and gives you various prices to choose from including any last minute deals that may be going on at the time. You can choose from all of the various hotels in the area and they also include a listing of the amenties that you will receive at each hotel and directions how to get there!

If you are interested in visiting the area in the future then go ahead and have a gander at these hotel listings for London Hotels, Edinburgh Hotels and Glasgow Hotels to get an idea of whats costs you should be preparing for on your visit!

Don't hate me!

Ugh, for the few of you that read this blog, Im sorry for my absence! So much has gone on since I last posted in here. My husband had surgery, then got laid off for the winter. He has a 3rd shift job for the winter and I am trying to get back into a routine here, lol. I've been slowly looking for a part time job outside of the home but so far no luck. Sears told me I pretty much had a job there and that a manager would be calling me to give me the job offer and tell me when to start, but I havent heard from them since! GRRRRRR!!!!!!! Im going to try and post here more often, I promise! I'm so bored in the evenings with my husband gone so blogging is just what I need to keep myself occupied (apart from the kids, ofcourse)

Anyway, for all of you myspace fanatics, I have just come across a new networking site that pays you for page views! It's just like myspace where you make your own page, add friends, comment each other, blog..etc. However, with yuwie you get paid for every hit your page gets! Ofcourse you wont get rich off of it, but it's fun to do and everyone can use some extra spending cash, right? I've just started my page so if anyone wants to join me in this venture, just follow me here!! Once I get more familiar with it I will post more tips that I learn along the way!

Do you myspace?

If any of you are on myspace (which most people are these days, lol) I just wanted to share this great page that you should befriend! It's called Incorporated Moms. The woman who does this researches and lists legit work at home jobs that don't require any sort of payment to get started! She sends out bulletins almost daily with listings of new jobs! Go check it out, look around and see if there is something there for you!

I know I have been scarce lately. My husband had surgery a few weeks ago and just got back to work this week. We are finally starting to get back into the routine of daily life again, however we just found out today that they will probably be getting laid off at the end of November for the winter months. I may take the time to look for a job for myself outside of the house. Why? Well, because, honestly, I need out of the damned house, lol! Im stuck with the kids 24 hours a day and it is starting to stress me out. I miss getting out of the house and meeting new people. It will probably just be part time and I will most likely keep my texting job as well as we will need all of the income we can get!

I will try to post as much as I can here in the mean time!

Uh oh..someone's not happy!!

Word got to me today that some people are having a problem with my posts pertaining to the texting industry. Just like all catty women they are all talking their smack behind my back and pointing fingers while hissing in my direction! Yikes, just like junior high school!

I just have to say this. I know some of you don't like people talking about the industry publicly because it is letting the secret out. Well, you know what? I do this blog to help women just like me and you be able to find legit jobs to do from home. If it weren't for other people letting the secret out then none of us would have ever found out about texting! I did a lot of research on work at home jobs before stumbling onto texting and am very thankful for it. If someone else hadn't let the cat out of the bag then I never would have known anything about it and neither would any of the rest of us!

I'm ending this thing right here and now before any flame wars get started. This is MY blog and there is a thing called freedom of speech. I'm not trying to let out secrets Im just trying to help other people looking for legit jobs! I really hope that we can all remain mature and adult about this and there wont be any shit talking. I don't really care if there is. You see, I DO have a life outside of the internet. I have 3 young beautiful children to take care of, an awesome husband to be with who is also having surgery in 4 days, and a I have a job...and basically, I'm not in 8th grade any more and don't have time to cat fight. Any snarky comments will be ignored because I don't have time for stupid crap.

I know..I know!!!!

It's been awhile since I posted here! I started a new texting job that is non rota (which means no schedule), so I can log in and out whenever I want to..which I LOVE!...So I have been logging in whenever I get a spare minute trying to make that money! I just really wish I could get into a better paying company. There are companies out there that have a high pay rate and you can make GREAT money each month..but they are also really hard to get into because no one leaves and they usually have a long waiting list. I'm still kicking myself for quitting my first texting job. I got into one of the better paying companies right off the bat, with no experience at all. I worked there for 9 months and got texting burn out (if anyone texts, they know that this can occur). The mod was starting to be picky and was constantly on my back about things all of the sudden and I just said screw it and I quit. I'm still kicking myself for that every day. Now Im working just as hard for not even half of the money..and they don't rehire, so I'm stuck for now, but I'm doing what I gotta do, I guess.

I'm going to try to post here every once in awhile. Every post probably wont be giving different opportunities but maybe posting about what it's like working from home or anything fun I come across online! For instance, I just found a great website for anyone who is interested in working from home. This site is called Home Jobs For Mom and has listings for just about every sort of legit work at home job out there including translation, customer service, transcription, direct selling and more! I feel like I'm writing a paid post for this, but Im really not, lol! Just think it has some great information on it and they also have a freebie section with a nice listing of where you can go to get free samples (I LOVE getting free samples in the mail!). So check it out for more information: Home Jobs for Mom!

Do traffic exchanges work?

There's a big debate about if traffic exchanges are really worth the time and effort put into them. Some say no, others say yes. Me? I say yes!

If you aren't familiar with traffic exchanges, it's pretty simple to do. You surf other sites while a ticker counts down (usually 20 seconds, sometimes more, sometimes less). Once the timer is done you can click on a button to go to the next site and the next site. In exchange you get traffic to your website. You get traffic to your site in trade for looking at other people's pages.

Most traffic exchanges offer higher paid memberships where you can earn more credits for traffic or even buy credits so that you don't have to do the surfing yourself. Some even offer games that you can play to win more credits for your site!

Does it bring traffic to your site? Yes, it does! It will make your counter go up and if you have an interesting enough website or blog then you will hopefully catch surfer's attention when they get to your site. You have to make your site eye catching and different than the rest to capture others attention.

I currently am using 3 blog traffic exchange websites. These are for blog only sites.

BLOG EXPLOSION

BLOG SOLDIERS

BLOG MAD


Check out each one and decide which one would be the best for you!

Planning a move?

I have moved twice now since I started working from home and it can be very stressful trying to work and take care of kids at the same time on top of trying to pack and get everything ready for the move!

I always thought how wonderful it would be to hire someone to do the moving for me! I could just go on about my business while someone else does the packing and moving for me!

I came across the moving company online called Boston Moving Company. They will do all of the strenuous work for you including the packing and moving! If your items need to be moved by a certain time they will make sure that it is done safely and securely! They will even move your cars and fine art for you! They also offer international moving services if you are planning on moving to another country and are worried about getting all of your possessions there safely!

Another thing that I really like is that they have climate controlled trucks incase you need to move something and have it be stored at a specific temperature. They offer storage space for you to store your collectibles without having to worry about anything happening to your items. They have security camera right in the storage buildings to make sure no one messes with your items!

This company really seems to care about their customers! For those of you who have children they offer activity sheets to keep them occupied along with great advice on how to make the move go smoothly with your children!

If you are planning a big move in the near future you will definitely want to plan a visit to Boston Moving Company!


*this is a sponsored post*

Cash Crate! Get paid to sign up for offers!

Cash Crate is a fairly new website that pays you to complete offers! Most of the offers are just surveys and can be done fairly quickly. I received my first check from them last week and can verify that they DO pay!

Most of the offers are free to do but there are a few that require a credit card, usually just to pay for shipping and handling or a trial offer of something. You do want to be really careful if you are using a credit card because most of the offers give you a time period (usually 10 days) to cancel so that you wont keep getting charged the full amount every month. The paybacks are usually worth the few bucks that it costs to sign up. For instance, it may cost you $2.00 to sign up but you get paid $10.00 for completing the offer.

One thing that you will most likely want to do is create a separate email account for Cash Crate because once you start filling out the offers you will receive a lot of spam and solicitation emails. I made an email account just for this and then I just sift through the emails whenever I have a few minutes.

Also, make sure you read the requirements for each offer because some require that you verify your email address or that you complete a survey. If you don't check your email to verify your address then you most likely wont get paid for that offer.

They also offer a points system where you can collect points for offers you fill out and then you can opt to pick various prizes (mostly gift cards for restaurants or stores) in exchange for your points earned.

The only downside to Cash Crate is that sometimes it can take a long time for them to verify that you filled out offers. From what I understand, it isn't Cash Crate's fault, it's the advertisers fault for not sending confirmation to Cash Crate. After two weeks with no confirmation cash crate will put the offer back up to be completed again.

There is also a forum for you to discuss problems with other members and they sometimes offer various contests each month.

In the Scotland area??

For those of you who live in the Edinburgh, Scotland area I have found a great website for you with a large amount of listings for jobs in the local area.

If you are new to the area or just in search of a different Edinburgh Job they have various job listings for computing/IT, sales/marketing, chefs/cooks, teaching, babysitting/nanny and many other jobs! Just take a look for yourself: Jobs In Edinburgh

Apart from job listings this website is a great resource if you are looking for a flat or house to live in or wishing to buy or sell items in the area. It also has a friends and dating section and various other sections. If you are new to the area this would be a great place to start to find new friends and various services in the local area!

If you are looking for information on different cities they have a wide range of listings for cities in England, Scotland, Wales, Poland and Australia!

This website should be your first stop if you are in any of these areas! It contains a lot of helpful resources for all of your needs!

Need to get your website seen?

One of the most difficult things about starting your own online business is getting people to look at your website! You have to build a reputation for yourself and your website. People are sometimes reluctant to come to a new website that they haven't heard of before. It can take months and months of hard work to get your website recognized on the internet!

I've just found a really great site that can help new business' get on their feet and generate new potential customers to their website! They can teach you different strategies to help you build your website into something big! Just have some patience and learn what you can do to help your business!

Edmonton search optimization offers a variety of services for new web masters including Internet Marketing Consulting, Search Engine Marketing, Web Analytics, Pay Per Click Management and much more. Right now they have special going on if you sign up for their managed pay per click services you receive $50.00 in adwords credit!

If you are like me, you really don't have much knowledge of how the internet and websites work so this is a great way to learn everything you need to know! If you are serious about your new online business then you definitely want to check into Edmonton search optimization


This is a sponsored post.

How to make it work?

One of the hardest things about working from home if you have children is that you are still trying to look after your children while you are working and it can become a bit hard at times. It's not like an out of home job where someone else is taking care of your children and you have 100% of your time dedicated to your work. At the moment I'm trying to potty train twin 2 year olds and it gets kind of difficult to get my work done when I have to keep cleaning up messes and checking the potty!

I've always been one for routine and schedule. If my routine gets messed up for some reason then I feel like I am "off" for that day. I have a routine each day for meals and cleaning, working out and working. I schedule different household tasks throughout the week and then I usually work in the afternoon. I'm sure things will be much easier once my kids start going to school. My oldest starts headstart in September and I'm sure just having one less child part of the day is going to make a big difference!

Everyone is different and everyone has different routines and things that need done. Sit down and make out a schedule of what will need done each day and how much time you are going to have to dedicate to your work, too. Set up a plan that will work for you and your family. If I don't make a schedule or routine then a lot of things normally get left behind at my house!

Get in on the action, now!

Agloco is the newest thing in earning money on the internet but for those of you who don't know about it, I'm going to tell you a bit about it here!

How it works is simple, you download a toolbar which will flash ads according to things that you search for at the bottom of your screen. Ok, it's not really flashy ads, just little text ads. The toolbar is small and just stays at the bottom of your screen. I have had no problems with it so far and it was easy to download. It doesn't get in the way of anything.

The toolbar also records how long you are online and then pays you if you are online atleast 5 hours a month. If you are just doing it on your own then there isn't a whole lot to make but if you can get lots of referrals underneath you then you can earn a percentage of what they earn and of what their referrals make..etc..etc. It can grow to be something big if you can have enough referrals underneath you! You have the possibiilty of earning cash and shares in their stock!

You can find all of the information on their website. There really isn't anything to lose since it doesn't require much work except finding other people to sign up underneath you! I'm trying it and hoping to grow as the new company grows, too!

AGLOCO

Get Paid To Post Your Opinions!

I have been a member of mylot for a few months now. It's simple and easy to use. Basically, it's like a forum where people ask all sorts of questions. You get paid for giving your opinion or answer (as long as it's not spam or just a waste of space), posting pics and starting your own discussions for other people to respond to! You can also earn extra money by referring other people to join. They pay via paypal and they DO pay. I have been paid by them numerous times.

Now, mylot isn't going to make you rich, but as long as you have the extra time to dedicate to it it can give you some nice spending cash at the end of the month!

Apart from making money it can also be quite interesting to read through all of the discussions that other people write! Join MYLOT now!

more tips for tptp!

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I'm so glad I found this!

So, the other day my husband had a really important job interview. The interview went great and they wanted him to start a few days later. Ofcourse we are some of the unluckiest people when it comes to car problems and guess what happens? His car starts acting up. Every time the car would get to around 50 mph it would start running really badly and acting like the engine didn't want to shift.

My husband is very handy when it comes to fixing cars. His dream is to one day own his own mechanic shop, so he is most always able to do repairs on our vehicles without paying someone else do it. The problem is we still have to go to the auto parts store and buy the part which happened to be quite expensive. We just paid our rent and bills and had just enough to survive on until pay day. We didn't know what to do. We couldn't wait until payday to fix his car because he had to start this new job and this could be his only chance with this company that he didn't want to miss!

Then I remembered a website that my friend told me about. It's like a cash advance place except you can do it online! You can take out a loan up to $1,500 with no credit check. They deposit it straight to your bank account overnight and you don't even have to leave your house! This was a big life saver for us. Check it out here payday loans.

I went online right away and filled out the application and we had our money the next morning! My husband was able to fix his car and started his new job today!!

This is a sponsored post.

A new kind of texting....

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Myspace can work for you!

Despite the negative reputation that myspace has (I wrote a little rant about that whole thing in my Rants In My Pants blog) it's a great tool to network and promote your business!

I made a myspace page for my cafepress store, you can see it here. The first thing you need to do is go to myspace and create a page for your business and/or products. If you already have a personal myspace page then you can add some of your friends to your new business page. You can make your own little comment graphics that include information on your business and/or a link to your store and leave them as comments on your friends' pages for others to see.

There are thousands of groups on myspace. Do a search for groups pertaining to your products. Once you join the group you can become active within the group by joining discussions and adding other members in the group to your friends list.

Once you have a decent sized friends list you can begin sending out bulletins. Bulletins are sent to everyone on your friends list. You can announce new products or sales you are running. The possibilities are endless on myspace!

OT: Our trip to NYC

Times Square

From the Staten Island Ferry

This doesn't have anything to do with working from home, but just wanted to post about our recent trip to NYC!

Our alarm clock was set for 3:00 am saturday morning to give us time to wake up and get to the airport. At 2:45am Northwest airlines called us with a recording saying that our flight had been cancelled and they put us on another flight scheduled to arrive in NY at 5:30pm! SEVEN hours after the original arrival time! I was irate and freaking out, so Roger called the airlines and told them that we were on a tight schedule and needed something else, so they got us on a Continental flight that would change planes in Cleveland and would arrive in NY one minute later than our original plane! Since we were put on new flights at the last minute we had separate seats on both flights. Luckily, the little puddle jumper plane from Toledo to Cleveland only had 4 people on it (all 4 were supposed to be on the one that got cancelled), so we could sit wherever we wanted. However, the big plane from Cleveland to Laguardia was full and the grumpy old man sitting with Roger refused to switch seats with me, so I was at the front of the plane and my husband was in the back! Anyway, we saw some beautiful scenery on the way. The plane flew right over NYC and we could see everything from the plane. All of the skyscrapers and the statue of liberty.

We get off of the plane and not even 2 minutes of walking from the gate we literally run into Mark Henry from WWE! He looked really pissed though so we didn't try to talk to him. We get a shuttle to our hotel and in the middle of all of the airport traffic we see like 7 cops surrounding a car, trying to break into it. Some twat left her little kid (small enough to be in a car seat) in the car and the kid locked the doors!

We got to the hotel and since it was too early to check in we went to Jen and Mike's room. Crissie was already there waiting in their room, too! I haven't seen Crissie since our wedding almost 4 years ago and I haven't seen Jen in like 7 years?? Crissie then told us the story from the night before when she was sitting in the hotel lobby in the middle of the night and heard someone screaming and someone came running in saying, "Get a towel".. Thinking someone was hurt she went to look and there was a naked woman running around the parking lot waving the towel over her head, LOL! Only in NY, right??

Once we got checked into our room we got ready to go. The hotel guy told us that the best way to see the city is to buy the metro pass for $7, you can use the bus and subway all day long as much as you want until 3am. Awesome! So we got on the bus and took that to the subway and then went on to Grand Central Station. The subway is a great place for people watchers like me. I love to watch people and you can find alllll kinds of crazy different people on the subway. On our first subway ride we had a man just take out his guitar in the middle of the train and start singing for everyone. The city was packed! We first found a place to eat and then walked around some taking in all of the sights. Then decided to go to the Empire State Building. On the way there I see Morgan Freeman standing on the sidewalk taking photos with people..but wait, he isn't moving? It was a wax statue of him! I thought it was really him at first! We were at the Wax Museum but decided it was too expensive to go into, lol. Then we saw Dave Atell (not sure of the spelling) from the show Insomniac just sitting having a drink but I think he heard us talking about him because he got up and walked away really fast.

So, we get to the Empire State Building. UGH! It was hot out to begin with and we had to wait in line for almost 2 hours just to get up to the top and it was soo damned crowded up there we could barely even get a chance to see anything! By the time we finally DID get up there we were all so pissed off we just wanted to go back down. But guess what? There was a wait to get OUT of the building, too! Oh yeah and they wanted to charge $25 for the group photo they took of us HAHAHA! No way! I had my own camera and could get a lot of pics developed for $25!

After we finally got out of the Empire State Building we had plans to go get the ferry around the statue of liberty but we ended up at Ground Zero. There was a very somber feeling being at ground zero. There was a fire department right across the street from ground zero who were first on the scene when 9-11 happened. They had all kinds of memorials for their fallen firefighters and some of the firefighters who were there when it happened were out there meeting people.

We walked around some more and then decided it was time to go back to the hotel and relax a little bit before going to Duff's. That was a mess. It ended up taking us an hour and a half to get back to the hotel because of construction and other things along the way. We got back to the hotel, had dinner and then realized that we were all wayyy too tired and sore from all of the walking and couldn't deal with more public transportation to get to Duff's that night, LOL! We all ended up falling asleep soon after we got back to our rooms.

The next morning, Crissie found out that some of her friends had come to NY to look for her at Duffs, so she got ahold of them to meet them in the city later on and go home with them. We had breakfast with Jen and Mike before they left back to PA and then we headed off to the city again. Our first stop was the Staten Island Ferry which was a beautiful ride! Went right by the statue of liberty and you could see all of the city from the ferry. It was very relaxing!

After the Ferry we headed back to the Subway to find Crissie's friends. We saw lots of crazy things in the subway stations! After Crissie left, Roger and I were going to go to Rockefeller Center but ended up just walking around. I saw a bunch of lights and something told me to go that way. The crowds were getting bigger and bigger. People coming up to us offering us Rolex watches and Gucci purses! We ended up in Times Square! MTV building, Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, M & M World, Broadway..all kinds of things. It was crowded there. Oh yeah, we also saw P. Diddy in his limo (ack). There were limos everywhere, cops everywhere, swat everywhere, street performers, everything! We found some Irish pubs and went into O'Lunneys so Roger could have an Irish beer. We went into Planet Hollywood and saw all sorts of cool props from different movies. We had dinner at Famiglia Pizza which was authentic sicilian pizza and was very famous for their pizza and I know why! yummmm! We ended up just walking around Broadway taking in all of the sights until we were too tired to do anything else! Then we headed back to our hotel and crashed. Had another horrible experience with Northwest Airlines on the way back (dont fly northwest!) but we made it home safely Monday evening. Ohio just seems so quiet and..boring after being in NYC..nothing is quiet there, lol!

To see all of our pics you can go to my myspace page and view pics!

Don't Limit Yourself To Just Shirts at Cafepress!

You don't have to limit yourself to just designing shirts at cafepress. They have a long list of other merchandise that you can add your designs to!

Other cafepress merchandise include: stickers (various sizes including bumper stickers), mugs, coasters, buttons, journals, tote bags, hats, mouse pads, clocks and pillows. You can let your imagination run wild with the things you can design for on all of these products! You don't have to settle with shirts alone!

If you have a flair for photography then you definitely want to utilize some of their other products like wall calendars, prints, notecards..etc. You can check out some of my photography merchandise here. To give people some different choices I even added little inspirational quotes on some of my photos.

The photography products can be a little bit tricky, just make sure that you have your designs made to the exact size and upload them to the page. Follow the guidelines that are given to you to make your photos look the best on your products!

Find the niche that you want to fit into and let your imagination go crazy! Just think of all of the great things you could put on these different products. Try to think like a customer and think what would get your attention if you were surfing around. What would it take to make you want to buy a product?

I just moved!

Yep! I just moved..back in with my husband about an hour away from where I used to live. I just moved this past weekend and have lots and lots of unpacking to do and not much time for blogging. Hopefully I will be more settled in next week and can get back in the swing of things again!

Cafe Press Affiliate Program

To be honest, the affiliate program through cafepress has been a great money maker for me. It's simple and easy to do. How it works is you go to cafepress.com and sign up for the affiliate program. You can then find other cafepress stores who are also involved in the affiliate program and link to their site from your own with your own special affiliate ID number. Every time someone uses your link to purchase something from this affiliate store you receive a percentage of the sale! You can also network with other cafe press stores and have them link back to your site with their affiliate number.

I have read a lot of merchants complain that affiliates take part of their profit, which is true, however I look at it as being extra sales that I probably wouldn't have made if it hadn't been for these other sites linking back to my page! If it's bringing more people to my site then that is the most important thing!

If you're not sure where to start to find other stores who are also in the affiliate program you can go to the message boards and look for threads regarding affiliate programs or you can post that you are looking for affiliates and welcome people to link back to your store. It's a great way to get your name out there to more people and to maybe earn you a few extra sales or a few extra bucks! It's great either way because you are always earning money!

You can make a page like mine to let people know about the affiliate program. People don't have to own a cafepress store, they can easily just sign up for the affiliate program and get their ID number and just link back to your site from their own, whether it be a personal website, a myspace page, a blog or a business page.

You can find a lot of very helpful information on the affiliate program through the community message boards at cafepress!

Making your own website?

In my opinion, if you are thinking about starting a cafepress shop it would be in your best interest to create a main domain page website. It gives a little bit of a personal touch to your shop along with a more professional look.

Just because you may not be html savvy that does not mean you can't create your own website. I am pretty ignorant when it comes to html but I made a simple homepage with a domain name for my shop. I not only give information on what my cafepress shop is about, but I also add various pages to the site including a links page and information on becoming an affiliate of the store. The possibilities are endless and having a domain name is much better and easier to remember than having to type out cafepress.com/blahblahblah right?

You can use your imagination and be creative with your website and give people a reason to keep coming back! You can advertise sales that you may be running or new products that you have designed and added to your store. You can post up various shirts or products that you have in your shop to entice people into looking at the actual shop location. You want something that is going to catch the viewers eye and keep them going straight to the shop where they can purchase your products.

You can get a lot of ideas by looking through other cafepress shops and their own homepages!

Again, the link to my homepage is: daftcreations

A few of my cafe press shirt designs!

You can find these shirts at: daftcreations

I decided that every once in awhile I'm going to showcase some of my shirt designs from my daftcreations shop. Here are just two. I try to target more than just one specific kind of customer in my shop. I have everything from shirts for expecting parents, shirts for babies/kids to political shirts, sarcastic shirts, marijuana support and more! I have a lot of different interests in my life and I know that other people do, too!

These designs are pretty simple. Believe it or not, the watermelon shirt has been my best seller! It is ofcourse meant for expecting mothers. It's so surprising to me that it has been such a big hit because it's such an utterly simple design! None of my designs are too fancy or spectacular, but there really isn't a lot I can do with phrases!

Promoting Your Cafepress Store

If you are thinking about starting a cafepress shop the first thing you want to consider is what target audience are you going to try and reach? Is there are certain niche you want to touch on? Do you want to target teens? Adults? Kids? Maybe you will be like me and have a little bit of everything?

Once you decide what area you are going to delve into, the next thing to think about is how to promote it. You might have some great looking products in your store but if no one knows about them, no one is going to buy them! You might get a few sales here and there through the cafepress searches and other search engines, but you want to go beyond "getting lucky" with search engines.

There are a lot of ways to promote your website and here are a few that you can try.

*The obvious: tell your friends and family about it!
*Join forums that focus on the same subject as your store and be sure to add your link into your signature. Jump into different conversations throughout the forum and have your link seen by many!
*Put your link in your email signature.
*Make a myspace page! Check mine out: daftcreationsmyspace (I will focus more on networking through myspace later on)
*If you have your own personal myspace page be sure to advertise on it there.
*Make business cards.
*Make shirts or bumper stickers through cafepress to help advertise!
*Search for free advertising/classified sites to advertise on.
*If you have the money, you can pay for advertisement, just do your research and decide what you think will work best for you.
*Do lots of reading in the cafepress shopkeeper forum for other tips and ideas
*Join traffic exchanges. Yes, a lot of people say that they don't work, but I honestly think they do. Even through just surfing for credits I have found a few websites that caught my attention! Just make sure that your website is eye catching and attention grabbing!
*Be creative! I'm sure there are many strategies that will work, just use your mind and think of new ways to get your business name out there!

If you start a cafepress store, don't expect it to take off immediately. It can take months and months to get your business name out there unless you happen to have a decent amount of money for advertising! If you have the patience to stick with it, you will be successful and eventually your efforts will pay off.

I'm surely not acting as a cafepress professional, but I just want to pass along the knowledge that I learn along the way!

Interested in trading links?

If anyone has a blog similar to this one and would like to trade links and be added to me blog community listing then you may either let me know in a comment here, or email me at: tatteredsoul77@aol.com!

ChaCha invites are closed

ChaCha has just closed their guide invites. Hopefully they will open them back up fairly soon! If anyone is interested in becoming a guide you can still feel free to email me and I will put you on my list and when the invites come open again I will email you to see if you are still interested!

Are you creative enough??

If you have a creative mind and like to work with graphic design then a great start for you would be cafepress. They have all kinds of gifts including shirts, hats, journals, mugs, clocks, note cards and many other items that you can sell with your own design on them.

You can start out small and run a free store or you can pay a small monthly fee to have a nicer, bigger store with more options. You pick what products you want to sell and you design the artwork for on the product and then design your store. You set your own prices and you decide what you want to sell! Cafepress does the rest! When a customer wants to purchase something from your store cafepress does the leg work by taking care of the transaction, making the product with your design on it and shipping it to the customer. Cafepress tells you what their "base" price is and then you choose to set the price that you want to sell the products for and whatever price is above the wholesale price, YOU get! Once you reach the minimum payout ($25) they send a check out to you.

They also offer an affiliate program where you can help promote other cafepress stores and earn a percentage of what they sell (more info on that later) and you can also have other stores help promote you and get your name out to the public!

Running a cafepress store can be a lot of fun. I will be giving more tips and information on how to run a cafepress store in upcoming posts, but in the mean time be sure to check out my own cafepress store DAFT CREATIONS!

Where is my adsense?

Can someone help me out with adsense? It's not showing up in my blog but it's supposed to! I've put the codes in and done it exactly how I'm supposed to through blogger. I even approved the email from adsense asking blogger to have permission to use the code ..but still nothing is on my blog! The help page here is kind of worthless. All it does is explain how to put adsense on your page, but there aren't any trouble shooting posts!

Be a ChaCha guide!

ChaCha is the new big thing in search engines and I'm sure eventually it will catch on! They have only been around since September of '06 but have blown up in size really quickly.

ChaCha is a search engine where you have the choice to do the searching yourself or have a search "guide" do the searching for you.

As a ChaCha guide you communicate with customers through an instant messenging type of chat and find out exactly what they are looking for and then you find it for them. It's easy! If you know how to search the web efficiently, you can be a guide!

There are a few stipulations for being a ChaCha guide: you must be 18 years old and be a resident of the United States. You must also have good customer service skills as you have to know how to deal with sometimes rude customers or "info seekers" as they are called.

I have worked as a ChaCha guide since October 2006 and have been paid many times and can tell you that they are definitely legit! As far as pay goes, you first go through some training searches that are unpaid. Once you make it to "pro" status you are then paid $5.00 per search hour. You can pick your own keywords and then train on those keywords to become "pro" and then a "master". You are also paid to train other guides on their keywords. Once you reach "master" status you are given "invites" that you can use to invite other people to become a guide. Once they become a guide and start earning money you also earn a commission percentage of what they make, so it's almost like getting free money if you can get a good network of guides underneath you!

To get paid you must sign up with an internet bank through ChaCha and this bank will send you a debit card. On your profile you will be able to see how much money you have made so far and whenever you are ready to be paid all you have to do is push the "pay me now" button and the money will be on your debit card for you to use in a store or get money out of an ATM with!

The only way to become a ChaCha guide is to get an "invite" from a current guide. I currently have a few invites left if anyone is interested. You can email me at: tatteredsoul77@aol.com and tell me why you think you would be a good ChaCha guide! If I think you will be a good candidate I will send you an invite!

How about a Texting Operator?

Are you asking yourself, what the heck is a texting operator? Most people do when they hear those words! Not many people know about the texting industry but it's a great way to earn money and it is currently my main work at home job at this point in time.

Let me explain what texting is. Most texting companies are located in the UK. They advertise as a texting chat line where people can chat with others through texting. As a texting op. you are literally paid to chat! Most companies give you a pre-made profile and you chat to customers or "punters" as if you were the person in this profile. Your goal is to keep the punter texting back as they are paying to text you and that is how you earn money! A lot of texting is adult oriented but there are companies who also do non-adult and tarot reading.

All companies work differently. Some require that you work a minimum amount of hours per week. Some have a schedule or "rota" that you use to schedule yourself to work in advance while others allow you to come and go as you please. The great thing about texting is that most companies allow you to pick your own hours each week! If you have an appointment coming up you can schedule aruond that. Most companies pay per text message that you send out, however a few pay per hour and some also offer bonuses if you keep a high retention level.

The problem with texting jobs is that they sometimes take awhile to get into as most companies have a very long waiting list.

You can find company listings on various forums and message boards. I've recently come across a yahoo group called Work at home people. If you do some research you should be able to find other forums that provide information on the texting industry.

My advice when applying is to apply to every company you come across. Tell them a bit about yourself and be honest with them by telling them that you don't currently have any texting experience but are interested in getting into the industry. You can also dress it up a bit by telling them how long you have been using the internet and various chatrooms/instant messenger programs and what sort of creativity you may have. When you email them, ask them to please place you on their waiting list for when they might have upcoming positions available. Also, you will want to email them every 2-3 weeks just to make sure that your name is on their waiting list and to keep your name fresh in their heads!

Where to start?

A lot of people are leary of work at home jobs and I can't blame them. There are so many scams out there trying to steal money out of innocent people's pockets and it's hard to know which ones are legit and which ones aren't. That's why I have decided to start this blog. I have tried and tested many work at home jobs. Some have paid, some haven't. I'm going to tell you which ones worked for me and which ones didn't!

My first word of advice: DO NOT pay to work! There are hundreds of advertisements in newspapers and magazines promising that you can make $1,000.00 a week just for stuffing papers into envelopes or putting little toys together. It sounds great, doesn't it? Have you ever called about any of these jobs? I have! The first thing they tell you is that you have to send them X amount of dollars to get your "starter kit". That should stop you right in your tracks. No job should ever ask you for money to work for them! If you went to a face to face interview and they told you if you gave them $50.00 they would hire you, wouldn't you be a little bit suspicious? Exactly! Any job that wants you to pay them money up front is a big fat scam!

There are so many online job opportunities out there and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming not knowing where exactly to start. My suggestion is to find a few work at home forums and look around. A couple of my favorites are www.wahmzone.com www.wplh.com and www.wahm.com. (I will add a favorite links section to my blog for all of the links I mention in my posts.) These forums are full of people that do legit work from home. You can get information on all types of work at home opportunities and talk to these people to find out exactly how they work and what you need to do to get started! This way you know exactly what you are getting into before taking that first step!

My next post will introduce you to my main source of work at home income. It's something that not many people know about but can be great and flexible work for you to do from the comfort of your own home!

My 3 inspirations!

These are the 3 biggest things that motivate me to work every day..my kids!

Are you ready to work from home?

Before getting into specific work at home opportunities, I'm going to go over a few things to consider before you decide to pursue things further.

There are many different types of people who would like to find a legit way(s) to make money from the comfort of your home. Many of you are like me, a parent who wants to stay home with your children and not give up that quality time while still being able to contribute to the family finances. Some of you may not have a choice as is my case, considering the cost of transportation on top of not having family or friends to babysit your children and having to pay a hefty price out of your pocket for daycare. Working out of the home wouldn't even be profitable in my case as daycare for three toddlers would eat up any sort of paycheck I might make! Some of you might already have an out of home job but would like a way to earn some extra spending money on the side, while others of you might just choose to stay in the comfort of your home and make a decent income for yourself and your family! Whatever your situation may be, there are a few things to consider.

First, you need to make sure that you have some sort of reliable high speed internet access as most internet companies require high speed internet access to accomodate their website and applications. You also need good anti-virus software so that you dont have any unexpected crashes or slow downs.

Secondly, you need to consider your surroundings! If you are looking for some sort of telephone customer service work then you will need to make sure you have a nice quiet office to work in. Most tele-jobs require a quiet atmosphere without any screaming or crying kids in the background making you sound too unprofessional. If you are just looking for computer work online then ofcourse background noise doesn't make much of a difference.

Another thing to think about is your schedule. If you have kids or an out of home job then your time may be limited as to what hours you can work. You need to sit down and make up a sort of schedule mapping out what and how many hours you can work each day throughout the week, even weekends! Some work at home opportunities require a minimum amount of hours worked per week while others you can do on your own free will.

One of the biggest things to think about before going into any work at home job is YOU. Can you motivate yourself to get off of the couch or pull yourself away from housework to work every day? Do you need a boss standing over your shoulder telling you what to do? This is one of the biggest problems people face working from home. Some people just can't motivate themselves to work on their own. They are always thinking of other things that need done or that they would like to do besides working. Working from home is not for these type of people. It can be very comfortable working from home and it takes a lot of self motivation to work when you are at home.

Working from home can be a great opportunity. It can give you a great sense of accomplishment knowing that you are doing something for yourself and your family from your very own home. You can do so many things that you can't do at an out of home job. You can work in your pajama's, you can work with your baby in your lap, you don't have to worry about paying the high price of gasoline or going out in the freezing cold early in the morning. There are so many ups to working from home! I have been doing it for about a year and a half now and it really boosts my self esteem knowing that I am with my children every day but am also contributing to the finances of my family without having to depend on my husband to take care of everything. I love making my own money and money is my biggest motivation! Even on the days when I'm tired or sick or just don't feel like working I see the almighty big red dollar signs running through my head and know that when pay day comes it will all be worth it!

Welcome to Crazed Mama's house!

Welcome everyone to Crazed Mama's first blog post! To introduce myself a little bit my name is Dea (pronounced "Dee"), I'm 29 years old from Ohio. I have 3 children under the age of 4 years old and have found it to be extremely hard to be able to work outside of the home due to transportation problems and lack of affordable childcare for 3 toddlers! I have done a lot of research for work at home jobs online and have tried many different areas. Some work, some don't. I have been working from home for almost a year and a half now and would love to share my knowledge with others who are looking for the same chance to be able to work at home!

Working at home can be great, especially if you have children. You can still take care of them, make their lunch, play with them and spend quality time with them yet still be able to earn some extra income to help with family finances. It's so nice to be able to work in my pajama's!

Even if you don't have children and you are just looking for some legit ways to make money from home or looking to make a little bit of extra income in your spare time I can give you some great idea's to get started.

You aren't going to get rich overnight from my work at home strategies but if done right they may supply you with some extra spending money or money for the electric bill!

I'm extremely busy between taking care of my children plus working various jobs from home so I'm not exactly sure how often I will be posting in this blog but I'm going to aim for at least once a week! Keep checking back for more!