Thinking Out Loud

December 4, 2014 by Christine Skari

Haiii there, friends! Can we take a hot minute to talk about how it’s already Thursday?

WHAT.

Where is this week going? If someone finds it, please let me know since I don’t have enough hours in a day to get all the work I have done. While we’re getting closer and closer to the weekend, we’re also getting closer and closer (gulp) to my approaching finals. Judgement week begins on the 15th and it’s not going to be a fun intellectual journey to get to where I want to be in terms of preperation for them. Someone hold me 😯 .

But enough of that. Let’s get on to more fun things! Random musings, here we gooooo! As always, thanks to the lovely Amanda for hosting this edition of Thinking Out Loud. You’re a gem <3.

First off, how cool is Kelty?

Kelty is one of my most colorful friends (in more ways than one) and I miss her like CRAZY. She’s off studying abroad for the quarter, but will be back after winter break . You might recognize her from the Never Merely Pretty post she wrote for my site. Anyways, she’s been doing all sorts of fun things to her hair since our freshman year of college, but recently went brunette. How does she pull everything off so well?!

Andddd here’s Martha!

Let me introduce you to Martha: one of my roommates, closest friends, and diva extraordinaire 😉 . She expressed some jealousy to me after noticing she hasn’t made an appearance on the blog yet, so I thought today would be the perfect time for her grand debut! Here she is in a picture I took over her and her boyfriend for their 1 year anniversary. So much cuteness <3.

This cinnamon sugar grinder…

Found it at Trader Joe’s and couldn’t say no to buying it. Forget that I can just sprinkle normal cinnamon and sugar on my food, that just wouldn’t do when I know that something like this exists. So cute and satisfying to twist. Pshhh…. the things I spend my money on.

Oh! And on the topic of sweet things, you guys are the sweetest!

Super loose connection there, but I want to thank you guys for all of your positive feedback and support for my November Income Report. Not only do those monster posts take absolutely forever to write, so it’s nice to know that they’re helpful, but I’m always nervous about hitting the publish button for fear of sounding insincere about blogging. I blog because I 100% love the community, friends I’ve made, creative release it gives me, etc. You guys are the best.

Cold weather is finally starting to hit California!

We had an insanely rainy day and, since then, the weather has started to get a little chillier. I took this photo today (after the big rain pour we had the day before) from our oceanside balcony (wow, do I sound spoiled saying that hahah) and couldn’t get over how stormy everything was.

Via a friend’s Facebook status…. So true. I love my school.

CHRISTMAS TREE!

One of my housemates went out the other day and picked up/decorated a tree for the house. This is a big deal for us since most of the time, we don’t get to have much holiday cheer until we head back to our hometowns for Christmas break. I can’t even how express how nice it is to wake up early in the morning and sip on some coffee with the glowing lights and sound of crashing waves. Heaven.

Want to know the best thing I’ve eaten this month?

THESE.

Decadent S’mores Cupcakes.

Argh. Drooling. *cue me passing out*

So since that basically leaves me as a salivating mess on the floor, I guess I’ll seeya guys tomorrow with another recipe that you won’t want to miss 😉 . It involves mini cast iron skillets, so you know it’s gotta be good!

Peace out, home skillets.

(sorry I’m so painfully awkward sometimes)

November Blogging Income Report

December 2, 2014 by Christine Skari

Hi all you friendly faces! I know I haven’t been all that consistent with these income reports, but I’m popping in today with my earnings for November. I initially started these income reports to share the things I’ve learned with all of you beautiful people in the hopes of inspiring those who have been considering starting a blog (it’s a blast!) and to show what works for me. I go through a ton of trial and error when it comes to blogging and I want to save you guys some time and hairpulling!

If you want to read more about my journey from blogging as a complete free time hobby to starting to make a small income from it, you can read my first income report here.

So without further ado, here are my numbers for the month!

Income:

BlogHer: $25

Adsense: $75.38

Lijit: $43.87

Swoop: $90

Affiliate Link to eBook: $14.13

Sponsored Post: $75

Freelance Work: $375

Linqia Campaign: $278

Twitter Influence Tweets for BlogHer: $50

Total: $1,026

As you guys can see, I broke 1k this month, which is madness for me. Remember that I’m a full-time college student and have yet to have a “real person” job other than babysitting and tutoring. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that within a few months of serious food blogging, I would be making a good amount of money from my little corner of the web. The coolest thing in my opinion is the potential for my site to grow. Who knows where I’ll be in another 6 months. Heck, in another few years, I could be making a full-time income! If you’re thinking about taking the plunge with starting a blog or monetizing the one you currently have, go for it!

Ready? Let’s breakdown the numbers!

Ads:

Midway through November, I realized that Blogher just wasn’t cutting it and delivering the CPM that I had been expecting since I signed up with them. This was a pretty big bummer for me since I was insanely excited to get accepted into their advertising network. I ended my contract early and replaced the Blogher ads I had installed with Adsense and Lijit. While I’m signing up with a new main ad network soon, I was pretty happy with the earnings I got with Adsense and Lijit. If I had them installed from the beginning of the month, I probably would have earned closer to $200 from them. Adsense and Lijit are relatively easy to get accepted to, which is a big plus for new bloggers if you’re thinking about starting to monetize your blog!

While my Swoop earning are only an estimated projection from past months (they don’t update earnings till a few weeks into the next month), I’ve found myself being continuously pleased with its performance. If you don’t know what Swoop ads are, they’re the little snippets that are placed within my blog. They only show relevant ads and are very unobtrusive to my blog, which makes me a huge fan. They, like Adsense, are pay-per-click based so I earn a little whenever a reader clicks on them/interacts with them.

Is all this talk about ads mumble-jumble to ya? You can get a more in-depth explanation on my first income report!

Affiliate Links

While I didn’t earn too much last month in terms of affiliate links, I did make a few extra bucks from a few of you lovely friends using my link to purchase a copy of Tasty Food Photography.

As most of you guys probably already know, I learned almost everything I know about food photography from this eBook and think it’s absolutely essential to new bloggers or bloggers who want to take their photography to the next level. While having pretty food photos isn’t all there is to food blogging, it plays a big role in giving your blog exposure. After buying Lindsay’s eBook, I started getting my food photos accepted on to sites like FoodGawker and Tastespotting, which not only increased my traffic dramatically, but lead to me being found (I think) by the Huffington Post and Buzzfeed. More people were brought to Apple of My Eye and subsequently pinned my recipes (as you’ll see in a sec, Pinterest brings makes up a huge chunk of my traffic), subscribed to my mailing list, and viewed/clicked on my ads. You eat with your eyes first!

Contributor Work

A big portion of my income from November came from the contributor work I do for another blog. My boss found my blog, liked what he saw, and sent me an email asking if I’d be interested in the job. This to me is awesome because my blog acts as its own resume. I’ve realized that, when I end up applying to grad school or future jobs, I can put down AOME as a small business.

Say whhaaaaaaat 😯

Cool fact (well, cool for a young college student like me): I just opened up a new bank account primarily to for my blog earnings since I needed a better way to keep track of my finances. It’s a good problem to have ;). Whoop!

For my contributor work, I essentially do the same thing that I do on AOME and create recipes/photograph/and promote them.

I’ve gotten a good amount of questions in the past about how I get jobs like this and wrote a small piece on what has worked for me. If you need any help, feel free to check out my post on Tips on Getting Freelance Jobs!

Linqia

Here’s something new that I’m excited to share with you guys! Linqia is a “marketplace platform that helps advertisers find, connect and engage with trusted community leaders who manage targeted communities of people across many social networks with full tracking, monitoring and payment capabilities.”

This is essentially how it works:

If you get accepted as a “Storyteller” by the Linqia team, you may occasionally be matched with a relevant campaign.
While what the campaigns may include may vary, most involve you weaving a product/company into a blog post that is authentic and meaningful to both yourself and your readers. For example, my Daisy Brand Cottage Cheese post was a campaign run by Linqia and they asked me to create a recipe that showed how I incorporate the product into my everyday life. I eat cottage cheese regularly, so this was very easy and genuinely fun for me to do!
Within your post and through your social media channels, you promote a trackable link that records how many engaged readers click on it. You get paid by the click up to a certain threshold, and if you get more clicks to the link than your initial threshold, your next campaign will have an increased maximum that will allow you to earn more! Your original threshold/earning potential are determined by how others with similar stats have done.
Within 10 days of the campaign ending, you are sent your earnings. **The average earning from each campaign is $225!

One of my favorite things about Linqia is that the company “understands that you will only share content that resonates with your audience. Our partnering brands offer you a comprehensive brief and full creative freedom as to how and where you share their content within your story.” They don’t expect me to conform to a strict manner of writing, photography, or promotion. I can choose to take the campaign if it resonates with my personal taste and opinions and make it completely my own!

Something you might be interested in? Here are some of the requirements:

I 100% reccomend Linqia due to it’s great messege, communication from your team leader, and fantastic compensation. I’ve already been assigned two more campaigns for December and can’t wait to get started on them!

If you want to sign up for Linqia, I would appreciate it if you could sign up through my affiliate link! You guys da best.

Traffic:

There Ya Have It!

So there ya have it! A quick and dirty overview into what has worked for me during the month of November. I’m projecting (hopefully!) an even better financial month for December and give thanks every. single. day. for all of you wonderful readers and friends who help keep my site going and let me use blogging as a part-time job!

*I’m re-posting this section of my income report because I’ve already spent a few too many hours putting this post together and need to start studying for my genetics class 😉 . Hope you guys don’t mind the repeat!

I also want to share what tools I use and the basics that allow me to monetize AOME in case you’re looking to start monetizing your current blog or even start a brand new one! Some of them are essential (like being self-hosted), while others play a big role in growing my photography or providing me helpful information/tutorials. Here they are!

BlueHost: Being self-hosted is 100% essential if you want to make money by blogging and I use BlueHost to “host” my site. When I first started blogging, I signed up for a free WordPress.com blog that I customized with a cute little apple-themed layout . After a few months, I realized that my passion for blogging wasn’t going anywhere and I was ready to make the small plunge to become self-hosted and start monetizing my site.

If you’re not self-hosted, you’re extremely limited and can’t:

Run any ads (like Adsense or BlogHer)
Have sponsored/paid posts
Use affiliate links
Host giveaways

Bummer, right?

For me, the cost of self-hosting (only $3.95 a month) is nothing since my blog makes more than enough to cover a full year of hosting service in a single month. Even when I first started out with Adsense when I started blogging, I could easily cover my cost. Along with being able to actually start making money off of my blog, BlueHost let’s me have full freedom in customizing my blog’s theme, installing countless plugins (like the one that displays my recipes, Pinterest feed, and popular posts on my sidebar), and let’s me have control of my site. That means that no one can decide to terminate my site on a whim. It belongs to me and only me!

I won’t lie, it’s a pain in the butt to install and took me a half of a day of cursing at my laptop (a squirrel is probably more tech savvy than me), but it’s completely necessary and worth it when it comes to monetizing a blog. And after that first day of instillation, I haven’t had any problems whatsoever with self-hosting. Win!

Tasty Food Photography: If you’ve been following my site for a while, you probably know that I FREAKIN’ LOVE this eBook. I still use it to this day and learned 90% of my food photography skills from it. The author, Lindsay, is a sweetheart and explains everything in everyday language so you don’t feel like throwing your camera at the ground in frustration.

Click here to visit Pinch of Yum.

While having pretty food photos isn’t all there is to food blogging, it plays a big role in giving your blog exposure. To be honest, in terms of generating traffic to my site the only thing I really do it submit my pictures to sites like FoodGawker and Tastepotting, which drive tons of traffic to the blog and have directly lead to my recipes being discovered by The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.

How to Monetize Your Food Blog eBook: This is a great resource that explains things nice and sloowww (which, if you’re like me, is fabulous) about all things monetizing your blog. From passbacks to writing your own eBook (a dream for me!), Kiersten’s book has it all!

Have any questions, concerns, general musings, etc that you want to share with me? Feel free to leave a comment or email me at christineskari@gmail.com . I’m all ears!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links for products I love!

Italian Turkey Meatball Tortellini Soup

December 1, 2014 by Christine Skari

Hello from the road! I’m currently typing up this post as Kyle drives us back to Santa Barbara and back to our approaching finals. Eeek. I am, however, comforted by the weird mix of country music, The Killers, Taylor Swift, and Bob Segar I have blasting on the sound system and the homemade pumpkin spice latte I have next to me. It’s the little things in life, no?

So anyways, let’s talk soup. And not just any type of soup, THIS lightened-up Italian Turkey Meatball Tortellini Soup which has got me s-i-n-g-i-n-g happy songs of filling, belly-warming goodness.

I’ve got all the bases covered in this recipe. We have the most adorable mini turkey meatballs that are supahh fast and easy since we cheat (shhhhhhhhh) and make them out of packaged italian turkey sausage, a flavorful base made out of chicken stock and tomatoes, softened kale that cooks into the soup, veggies galore, and, of course, the star of the show: cheesy tortellini <3. Can we pause a moment and give a big hallelujah to putting pasta in soup? No need for all that inner anguish on which to have for dinner (just me?) because, helllloooo, why not have both? Your raging internal food debate has been solved. WELCOME!

Not only does this recipe pack in a pretty powerful flavor punch, but it also is lightened-up and chock full of veggies and lean protein. I don’t know about you, but I’m still in a food coma from Thanksgiving and the insane prime rib dinner that I went to on Saturday with Kyle, his family, and his little brother’s girlfriend, Taylor.

Now here’s a conundrum for you: if you go to a fancy event and don’t post a selfie/picture of it, did it really happen?

Probably not.

What was I saying?

Oh yaaaaa, SOUP! Made healthier and perfect for the chilly weather. Or, you know, the 75 degree and sunny weather that California has been sporting. Someone tell me what winter is like, please.

Thanksgiving Recap!

November 29, 2014 by Christine Skari

Hi all you beautiful friends! I hope your Thanksgiving was especially tasty and filled with love .

I’m coming at ya with this recap two days late since I’ve been busy photographing/editing Christmas photos (check out my Instagram if you’d like to see some!) and vegging out on the couch<— very important work.

Here’s how my Thanksgiving went down!

My extended family is all really close since the majority of us live literally 5 minutes away from each other. I actually went to the same schools as most of my cousins and we always have very comfortable family gatherings! We eat all our turkey and fixings for lunch, so Kyle was able to join us before we headed over to his house for Thanksgiving dinner. And yes, I was STUFFED.

Prepare for picture overload!

After eating, we headed outside to digest in the sunshine! I don’t think that California understands the concept of cold weather (80 degrees and a shining sun), but I’m not complaining 😉 .

And a quick look at my hair from the back since I’ve gotten a few emails about it! I’m still getting used to it and think it’ll look a tad better once it’s grown out more and has more of am ombre look to it, but it’s a fun change.

Anddddd with that, I’m off to bed!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Bluehost Sale! Get Self-Hosted!

November 26, 2014 by Christine Skari

Hi all my beautiful bloggy friends! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope you’re surrounded by family, love, and most importantly, apple pie with extra vanilla ice cream. 😉

I just wanted to fill all of you guys in on the almost 50% off sale going on over at Bluehost! I know a lot of you guys are holding off on becoming self-hosted due to the cost of it, so if you’re looking for your opportunity, now’s your chance!

One of the biggest benefits of being self-hosted is that it gives you the ability to monetize it. I’m going to be posting my November Income Report soon, but the month’s total is going to be around $1,000- something completely crazy for a college student like me! Monetizing would not have been possible if I did not become self-hosted, and if I could go back in time, I would have become self-hosted sooner. I’m re-posting a blog I wrote a while ago on The Benefits of Self-Hosting to give you a better idea on what it entails!

If you don’t mind, I would be so grateful if you could use my affiliate link you make a Bluehost purchase!

Let’s start off with a basic definition and what web host I use.

What is self-hosting exactly?

“Self hosting is the act of having your website totally under your control. This can include you managing all whole aspects of it, from setting up the web server to installing software, to simply managing your weblog software like WordPress.”

What Web Host I Use: Bluehost!

I personally use Bluehost as my hosting site and love it. Here are some reasons why:

They have fantastic 24/7 support via phone (they called me to help me set up and to answer any questions I might have when I first signed up!), email, or live chat.
Bluehost is affordable and only cost $4.95-$6.99 a month.
WordPress only recommends three hosting services- Bluehost is it’s top choice!
It doesn’t have limits on your disk space or domains. That means you can host multiple blogs on one site!

What do you have now?

“The opposite of self-hosting is free hosting, where you use a free service to host your site. Usually this is done either through Blogger, WordPress.com, Livejournal or any other popular system. This means that you have very little control over your site other than the content and you have to follow specific TOS, which are very frequently quite limited.”

I know, I know. SNOOZEVILLE.

Try to keep your eyes from glazing over! To make it more simple (I don’t really even get what all that mumbo-jumbo means), here’s a more understandable list of what changes becoming self-hosted will bring.

Advantages:

1. More freedom over your blog code.

1. Hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of available themes/designs for your blog.

After you become self-hosted, you have much more control over how you want your blog to appear. When I first made the switch, I scrolled down the available layouts for over 30 minutes before finding the perfect fit for me, but I still haven’t seen nearly all of them.

3. Countless different plugins.

Plugins are similar to the apps you can get on your iPhone and are only available to self-hosted sites. There are countless numbers of them and each one of them serves a different purpose, is free, and you can install them with a single click.

For example, if you look at my site you can see the boxes on the side that show my latest pinterest pins, twitter feed, about me, “Share” on twitter/pinterest/facebook etc.

One of my favorites is called “EasyRecipe”, which puts my recipes in a cute and easy to read/print format. It also has an added bonus that lets a picture snippet of my recipes or blog to show up if you google me!

Plugins allow me to customize my site in any way I’d like and to bring much more of a personal feel to it. I noticed a big spike in traffic form people finding me on Google since being able to add my pictures next to my site! **Probably my favorite benefit of self-hosting!

4. Advertising and monetizing your blog.

This can be a touchy subject among bloggers, but I feel like it’s definitely worth mentioning. While I don’t blog for the purpose of making money (it’s really something I just LOVE to do), earning a little on the side from advertisements and getting to review products for free is a major bonus.

One of the biggest differences from self-hosted blogs to free-hosted blogs is that you are able to run advertisements on your blog. For example, free blogs on WordPress are banned from putting up Google advertisements and could get in serious trouble if they tried to do so.

While I don’t make a ton of money off my site, it’s more than enough to cover my monthly fees from being self-hosted and pay for my Starbucks addiction! So, in my honest opinion, it’s a win-win since making the switch to self-hosted doesn’t cost me anything (I actually make a tiny bit of profit!) and I reap a ton of benefits for my blog.

Disadvantages

As far as disadvantages, I can only really think of two:

1. You have to pay.

Like I mentioned before, this doesn’t bother me since the few ads I run and products I get to review more than make up the cost, but it definitely is a downside.

2. Setting it up can be a pain in the butt.

I was pretty frustrated for about two days after I made the switch. I feel like this comes with any new change, though, and now I have absolutely no problem navigating my site (the dashboard will still look almost exactly like your free WordPress one). Luckily, there are some pretty great guides out there to help you out with step-by-step instructions. If you’re good with technology, it shouldn’t be a problem for ya!

Let me know if you have any questions!

**If you are thinking of signing up and found this helpful, I’d love it if you could click to the site from my affiliate link :). If you go from my site to Bluehost (with this link), I get a portion of the cost they get paid from you signing up (with NO expense to you of course)! That just means I can afford more pumpkin spice lattes!

Click Here to Sign Up For Bluehost!

xo Christine