Influential Mom Blogger, Mom Blog Brand Ambassador, PR Friendly

I. Love. This. Idea.

How great is it when a mom can not only come up with a business she enjoys, but find an item that teaches children (and adults!) in such a brilliant way.

A little about Bitty Brailles concepts and beliefs:

Bitty Braille is a new children’s collection and the bitty division of Julie*Ann Handmade Goods, a small central NY based creative indie company.   The owner/designer, Julie Dutt, is the driving force behind the company.  Married to an Army guy and mom to three homeschooled children, life is often hectic, almost always fun and definitely not boring!

Personalized Braille name pendants and birthstone Braille initial charms were the first products in the Braille line of goodies.  Bitty Braille infant and toddler tees are the next step.

The concept is to introduce Braille to the young in addition to offering a unique, hip and trendy collection of tees. They are custom handcrafted by the owner/designer in her central NY home studio on 100% cotton American Apparel tees.

Bitty Braille has offered us a CUSTOMIZED short sleeve tee for your boy or girl, newborn to 4t (value $28). Think of what a conversation starter this shirt will be with your child’s name in Braille! I think Charlotte should definitely be getting one for Christmas. Its practically ingenious! Support this mom by sharing her business with others and shopping her in the future!

To win:

Just leave us a comment about this product!

To gain a second entry, blog about one of our posts or share Bitty Braille with your readers. We will pull a winner on Saturday August 2nd!

I did eat the cheesecake. I took your advice, a horse did NOT sneeze on it, a kitten did…and it was chocolate, so if there was any extra snot, it blended it.

Yum.

Get on your feet and give a warm welcome and round of applause to our newest Feature Blogger, Kim from What’s That Smell?! Today is KIMS BIRTHDAY!! So go over and say Happy Birthday, OLD LADY!!!!!!!

(leave Kim a Birthday message in the comments!! Use words like ancient, old, decrypted)

 Also, we are very happy to announce that Kims fathers cancer in in remission.

 1. Congrats on being a MomDot Feature Blogger!  Why don’t you start by introducing yourself to our readers! 

 I am a “30-something” married SAHM to a 4 year old son and 8 month old daughter. I am a “recovering former working mom” and used to be an Architect. Staying home is my dream and although it’s sometimes tougher than working, it has far more rewards! I do miss my morning commute with nothing but my iPod and coffee, but we have 3 bathrooms so I can usually hide out for awhile before being found! Lori is also a SAHM with 3 kids. We used to work together as Architects some 13 years ago (I was 10 at the time), but have both seen the light! We call ourselves “Accidental Mommies” because we were never quite sure we were cut out for the “mommy business”. We named the blog ‘What’s That Smell’ because I was blessed with a super smeller and at least daily say that very phrase – parenthood does that. Lori calls me “Stinky” because of it.

 2.  How did you arrive on the blogosphere?  What got you interested in blogging? 

  I have no idea how I got here really, but I got interested in blogging because it was a neat way to share my experiences as a mom with friends and family and keep a record of stories about my kids and my general feelings about life as a SAHM.  I also liked the idea of connecting with other moms because the world of a SAHM is often very small.  The internet provides a whole new avenue to connect and socialize even with your kids underfoot!  I dragged Lori here with me!

 3.  Can you give the MomDot readers a “sneak peek” into what’s coming up next for your blog?  Any new events, giveaways, interviews, etc.? 

 Every day more and more wonderful things happen.  We will always have giveaways so long as I can keep finding sponsors.  I love telling someone they won a prize, almost as much as I like winning one myself!  We plan on adding to our catalog of product reviews, continue our paid surveys series, and branch out into other how-to type series for moms, with the next one planned to help moms get into blogging.  Eventually we would also like to take our design gallery to the next step and make it a full fledged business of its own and add other types of web design to our portfolio.

4.  If your life could be a Reality TV show, which one would it be? 

 Nanny 911 crossed with Fear Factor

 5.  Remind us never to babysit! What are your goals for your blog?  What’s the next step towards reaching those goals? 

I want to continue what I am doing, growing in readership, meeting new people, and giving away great prizes.  I also want to help other moms who are looking to grow their blogs.

 6.  How did you get into designing blog buttons?  Did you design your own blog? (I love mine, btw!) 

 It was purely accidental (no pun intended).  I designed my button and then through Entrecard and reading other blogs, I noticed that the 125×125 blog button was a standard size but that not a lot of people had them, and many that did obviously didn’t have the tools to do it so it stood out and grabbed people’s attention.  I volunteered to make some for a group of moms and it took off from there!  Through my job as an Architect I had done a lot of graphic and architectural design using Adobe Photoshop and so I have the tools and the skills to design the blog buttons.  I used a template for my blog but it is highly modified and combined with some design elements from another template. (you can purchase one for $5 here)

  6.  I can totally relate to the cooking nightmares you blog about!  I have finally mastered boiling water! LOL!  What’s your specialty? 

 I can heat up a frozen corn dog without setting fire to the kitchen..usually.

Interviewed by Contributing Writer, Bridgette

on my last piece of cheesecake I was just getting ready to eat. I’m supposing that means I cant eat it. Right?

We are already running a free blog makeover contest, but this one is for the BOUTIQUE ladies. Have you ever wanted to run a boutique but were unsure how to get a design or couldn’t actually afford all the nice ones? I know how hard it is. I went through picking a design and hiring someone and honestly, my designer really got me on my feet with my business.

I am SO SO excited to offer this to an aspiring mom out there. MJGraphics is offering us a FREE PREMADE TEMPLATE for a boutique to give to a mom starting up, or wanting to start up, or even wanting to overhaul, their current image.

Pick your pleasure..Luscious Chocolate Rasberry for an upscale children’s boutique, Sweet Dotalicious for maybe a hair bow mom, or maybe something bright and funky, like Summer Dayz. (and she has more too-pick from any of her premade templates!)  Check out MJGraphics beautiful portfolio and how she has helped launch countless moms be independent on the web and take an Ebay business to a web business and a dream to a reality.

You must have your own hosting (I use Pappashop, i recommend them) and your own domain name (i use dynonames, its cheap) and she can install your template for you.

If you already have a template, go to her site and check her out anyway..she does matching business cards and hanging tags and can also set you up with a business logo!

I am a huge advocate of helping moms start their dream, so to enter to win a FREE BOUTIQUE TEMPLATE, just leave me a comment and tell me how this would help your business idea or how you want to take your business to a new level and change!

We want to know why this would make a difference for your start up. A second entry can be gained by letting others know about MJGraphics if you think she would be helpful for your users.

This contest ends on August 4th!

Trisha