A Delightful Home has a ‘delightful’ bath mix that would be enjoyed! Pair some homemade oatmeal cookies with the Oatmeal Cookie Bath recipe found on her site.
Maybe you could go one step further by adding a candle, lotion and some tea to a gift basket?
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
December 1st is when I really get into the Christmas spirit. The decorations come out, the carols get played and I get started with baking.
If you love Christmas (or the month of December) as much as I do, then you will most likely want to fill your calendar with fun and festive activities like decking the halls, baking and caroling! Thanks to my mom, today’s post lists simple activities you can do in December to help you enjoy every day of this fun and festive period.
What are some of your favourite December activities?
I’m loving this twist on the typical candy or chocolate advent calendar! Download 100 free Advent calendar activity printables from Edventures with Kids.
Have you got a bearded man in your life? If so, he’s sure to enjoy this homemade beard balm! With only four ingredients, it’s a breeze to put together! Check it out at Heartful Habits.
I think this idea is so great! And a perfect family gift idea!
Head over to Momtastic to learn how to make your own DIY Yard Yahtzee!
Indulge me if you will. I’d like to do a little bit of frivolous dreaming today. 🙂 Well, not all frivolous. Some of these gift ideas I actually need or already have (but would love a renewal)! However, I’m thinking that this list of awesome gifts for bloggers will actually come in handy for those of you that know a blogger or are a blogger yourself!
This list hosts a wide range of things. Some are essentials to blogging while others are just really nice to have. Some are cheap while others are pricey.
An annual subscription to a web hosting service is an essential that can range anywhere from $25-150 (or more!) annually. Not all hosting companies are equal. Some are better than others, so be sure to choose the right one. I highly recommend Siteground. I’m currently using them and they are fast, reliable and have great customer service.
When I first started blogging, I used Bluehost and highly recommend them for affordability when you’re first starting out. They’ve got prices starting at only $3.95 per month!
Another necessity. A computer is a must if you want to get any blog work done! I currently use an HP laptop, but I really love Asus laptops. Once this one dies, I’d love to replace it with an Asus.
I have never had the unfortunate event of having my computer crash, but boy would I be devastated if I lost all my files and pictures! I’ve recently learned about BackBlaze which is a service that will back up all the data on your computer. Not just the photos. If you’re looking for something to keep your photos safe, an Amazon Prime membership comes with unlimited photo storage.
Taking good looking photos for a blog is important and necessary. I would love a new DLSR camera! One with a video option would be really special 🙂 I have an older Canon Rebel so I know the newer version would be wonderful. But I’ve also heard great things about Nikon.
So I have a camera for taking pictures, but sometimes the pictures I take just aren’t good enough. Enter stock images. Stock images are photos that you can purchase (or find free on sites like Pixabay) to use for blog posts to make the post more visually appealing. Currently Deposit Photos has a Black Friday deal going on. Get 100 stock images for $100. Ends at the end of November.
I’ve been feeling like Simply Frugal needs a bit of freshening up. Since I have zero website building knowledge, I would have to hire someone to revamp things for me. This can add up very quickly so I would be ecstatic if someone were to gift me a new custom design! While you can pay $1,000 or more for something completely custom, there are premade themes out there. A WordPress theme can range from $45-100. (I love Hello You Designs and Restored 316 Designs)
If you’re a Photoshop fan like I am, chances are, you are paying the $10 per month subscription fee for the latest, most up to date copy of the photo editing software. But there are many other programs that fall under the Adobe brand that a blogger might find useful: Illustrator, inDesign, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro to name a few. There are different packages and options available, but the most popular is the $50 per month annual subscription which includes all of the Adobe Creative Cloud apps.
I ain’t got time to spend all day on my computer pinning things to Pinterest 😉 (However, sometimes I wish I did!) This is where Tailwind comes in handy. I love, love Tailwind. I basically have to spend a few minutes each day, or as I remember, scheduling pins to my boards, then Tailwind does all the work and gets them published out on my public boards for everyone to see! This is a must for me since Pinterest is my biggest traffic driver. It’s very reasonably priced too.
Another must for any blogger or business owner. Having an email list makes it really easy for you to keep your readers and customers up to date on the happenings of your blog or business! However, using an email list service can come with a heavy price tag. I pay about $35 a month for my service so a gift of a subscription would be fantastic! I use Mailerlite and I’m loving the usability and features, but there are some other great options out there. I’d say the current most popular is Converkit.
This is another must for me. Like I mentioned before, I don’t have time to spend all day on my computer so having the ability to schedule posts that go out to Facebook and Twitter is amazing. It may look like I’m up all hours of the day, but I’m not because I hand chose the content earlier in the week to be scheduled at various times of the day. Sneaky right? 🙂 Once again, there is a cost to this. While there are free options (Hootsuite), I find for my needs right now I like Post Planner and CoSchedule.
There you have it, my “frivolous” must-haves for blogging! I would be tickled if anyone bought or paid for any of these things for me this Christmas!
If you’re a blogger, what are your must-haves?
