Blogger Spotlight: Anthea Barton, ZingZingTree

The concept of ZingZingTree grew out of a love for making things with her three young children. Through her blog, Anthea Barton offers creative ideas for parents to try with their kids, as well as tutorials to try on their own. Using a range of materials such as felt, paper, card, and pipe cleaners, Anthea’s achievable creations provide the perfect present ideas. Whether you want to create something new for the home, interested in taking up craft, or want to find something to keep the kids busy – ZingZingTree allows readers to let their imagination run wild. In this spotlight Anthea, who recently appeared on our craft ranking, chats to us about what makes her blog different, what advice she’d give to someone thinking of starting a blog, and why she feels honoured to be recognised by Vuelio.

Why should people read your blog? What makes it different? If you’re looking for some great crafty inspiration, then zingzingtree is the blog to go to. I like to think it offers unique and inspiring craft projects for all ages covering arts and crafts, face paint, costumes, home DIY and beauty DIY. The posts contain lots of clear photographs that accompany step by step instructions. I try and use a mix everyday items found in nature and around your house along with traditional crafting materials. I love a challenge so often work with other craft bloggers from around the world to create a series of theme based projects. The craft projects you find on my blog are keepers. They’re the kind of projects you want to display and put on your wall. They’re projects that make memories and bring families together. They’re the kind of projects that make you want to craft!

How do you measure the success of your website? Obviously I can check my followers, traffic, stats, awards, rankings etc to see how my blog is progressing and it’s always nice to see the numbers increasing. I didn’t start out blogging to make money but as the blog has grown so have the opportunities and I am slowly trying to make it more of a commercial opportunity. But the key measure is how happy and content my family is. There’s a fine line between my blog ticking over nicely and being all consuming. It would be very easy to loose myself totally in my blogs world, and sometimes that does happen, so I’m continually re-evaluating my family/blog relationship and often have to take a step back to get the balance right. I can create and share a blog post anytime but I can’t go back and recapture time with my three girls.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a blog? Go for it but go in with your eyes open. It’s hard work and very time consuming as well as being rewarding. Try and be original, find your own voice and don’t compare yourself to others. The blogging community is incredibly friendly and supportive (I’ve made some amazing friends) but it can also feel pretty lonely at times, especially when your just starting out. Join some blogging networks/groups and don’t be afraid to ask for help. We’ve all been where you are and we still all help and support each other and probably always will.

How do you work with marketers and PRs? I’m quite selective about the brands I work with as I don’t want to dilute the quality of the blog posts I produce and because zingzingtree is a craft only blog I won’t post anything that’s not craft related. That’s not to say I can’t work with a shoe company for example. The difference would be the slant on the campaign… I might be making a paper mache pair of this seasons shoes or a summer craft out of their sandal packaging. The collaboration could involve a review, sponsored post, an event or a workshop. Nothing is off limit as long as we can have a crafty slant!

How do you use social media to promote and share content? What are the challenges? The main challenge for me is time. I blog around my family and sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything so I have to pick certain platforms to focus on throughout the year. Pinterest is a natural crafters champion and a big part of my craft post promotion that helps give me an international readership along with Instagram. I have struggled to keep on top of Facebook and twitter in the past but have recently started using a scheduling app that has helped enormously and I’m really pleased with the results so far.

What can PRs do in working better with you? As far as crafts are concerned I think PR’s need to understand just how much work goes into creating a craft post and be prepared to pay for the time and quality of the craft. I prototype most crafts first plus I also like to include a lot of step by step photographs.These take time to set up, edit write up so it’s not uncommon for a craft post to take a week to complete. I also think PR’s miss a lot of opportunities to subtilely promote brands through crafters. Our posts have longevity and the foot fall for a post last years. Subtle product placement or using a brands packaging in our creations provides them with enormous reach that they often fail to take up.

What has been your blogging highlight? Apart from being nominated for awards and seeing my crafts in online publications such as Buzzfeed, Cosmo Magazine, Blogosphere Magazine etc the highlight has been the creative buzz I get when I work with brands and other craft bloggers to come up with projects. My mind is bursting with fantastic ideas (well I think they are!) and I have a back log of posts that I’m always trying to get on top of. A simple collaboration around a book title or bottle top for example can generate a wealth of ideas and I love it.

What will be big in your blogosphere in the coming months? I don’t have anything big on the horizon (feel free to contact me with suggestions!) but I am hoping to make time to vlog my craft projects. I think a vlog will add an extra dimension to my craft posts as well as being a stand-alone product to accompany my blog. And hopefully that will allow me to reach a new audience.

What does the Vuelio Blog Ranking mean to you and how does it affect your blog? I’ve been blogging a few years now and have always seen myself as a slow and steady blogger mainly because my family comes first. The Vuelio ranking is a wonderfully visual recognition of all the hard work I’ve put in over the years. It allows me to stand out from the crowd as a craft blog of quality and value which in turn engages readers, brands and collaborators.