6 TIPS AND 1 HACK FOR INSTAGRAM STORIES

I’ve been doing Instagram Stories for about 2 months now! I feel a little late to the party, but truth be told I’m loving it and I wish I had started sooner. It’s so much fun interacting with followers and I’ve started some great conversations on there about business and mama-hood. It’s such a great business tool so if you aren’t doing it, I hope your start!

I’m not perfect at it and have a lot to learn myself but I do have some tips for those who are a little hesitant to put your life out there in such a vulnerable way!

1. JUST START SHARING

   START! As Nike says, Just Do It! Start today!

2. MIX IT UP

   Stories should be a good balance of personal content and business content. Share stories about struggles. Share about new things happening in your business. Don’t just show the same things all the time, mix it up! Show behind the scenes to get your audience excited about your business! On the personal side, share your workout or morning routine. Share what your kids are up to, your weekend plans, or show us some pretty pics while on vacation!

3. make IT DAILY thing, BUT HAVE A STRATEGY

   This goes along with #2. I like to do stories everyday, it’s become part of my natural routine! It’s smart to have a strategy of curated content though! I like to look at the day ahead and decide what parts of my day I’m going to share. Am I working on dying new ribbon colors? A visual design board for a bride? Or are flowers arriving for an upcoming wedding? These things I will definitely be sharing as it shows my business and gets people intrigued. I also like to think of some personal things happening that I’ll share. Caroline playing, or a new house project. Things like that. It’s natural too for something to come up during the day that you want to jump on and share and I say go for it!

4. HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER

   Make your stories worth watching by having something to offer! This can be in the form of advice in something of your expertise, sharing an item you love, or a fun giveaway! I’m not saying to bride your audience to watch, but make it worth their time!

5. USE THE TOOLS

   The polls, the Ask Me Anything button, the Gifs, and stickers! Use them to your advantage to make your stories more interactive and entertaining! Ask questions to get some great feedback on what content your followers want! They’ll tell you!

6. BE REAL

   Let’s be honest, stories isn’t the streamlined and oh so perfect Instagram feed. It’s a real life view at things in your world and I love that! My favorite people to follow are the ones who are so real! Especially the work from home mamas. It’s ok if your day is a messy and hard, share anyway. It will help people relate to you on a human level. Don’t be afraid to stumble over your words, or mess up a thought either. These quirks are what make people relate to you so no need to be self conscious, friends! Don’t forget to respond to your direct messages too!

7. HASHTAG HACK

   Ok! So how do you add hashtags to your stories without it looking awful? Nobody wants to watch a story with 30 hashtags on it…nope! Here’s what to do!

   1. Record a clip or take or upload a pic

   2. Type out your hashtags just like you would in your IG caption or comment thread.

   3. Pick a color from your clip or pic that you are posting. Let’s say you are wearing a green sweater.

   4. Change the font color of the hashtags to the same or as close as you can get color as the color you chose from your story.

   5. Using your fingers, shrink the hashtags down as small as you can get them

   6. Move the now tiny block of hashtags over to the object of the same color.

   7. Boom! They are well hidden! Amazing, right?!

Well there you have it! My newbie tips for Instagram Stories! Hope you enjoyed!

Warmly,

Michelle

Fall Bucket List

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! October-December are truly magical and I patiently (unpatiently) wait all year for this season to get here! Thankfully it’s finally cool outside! Caroline is 15 months old and just getting to the age of going out and doing fun things so I have lots on things on the family calendar! Can’t wait for Caleb to get a little older to experience fall fun next year…all in good time I guess.

So what’s on our fall bucket list?

1. Pumpkin patch

   I mean this one’s a given, but I can’t wait to pick out our pumpkins!

2. Backyard movie night

   This will be the first time we do this and I’m so excited! We have the perfect backyard setup for a big blowup movie screen and smores over outdoor fireplace. We’re having a few friends over and we’ll have a bunch of blankets and pillows and chairs on the lawn to watch the big screen. Lots of lanterns and candles too. Not sure what movie we’re going to play yet, but definitely a scary one!

   3. Get back to working out!

3. I recently signed up for a gym membership and I’ve been longing to get back to regularly working out! Once wedding season winds down, I plan on being back!

4. Mama and Caroline date!

   I bought tickets to Disney on Ice and yeah, she may be a bit young for something like this, but tickets were cheap so if we only make it half way, that’s ok with me!

5. Girl’s nights!

   making new mom friends! Terrifying but so needed in my life! So definitely getting so girl’s nights on the books! Hooray!

6. Halloween costume contest!

   This Saturday is Caroline’s Preschool’s Fall Festival and they are doing costume contests! Since Chris’ beard is long and “beast”-ly (insert eye roll emoji here) Caroline and him are going as Beauty and the Beast! Hilarious. I’ll be sure to post pics on Instagram stories!

7. Carter Mountain

   This one’s a given. It’s our favorite Charlottesville spot. The best apple cider donuts and beautiful views.

8. Trick or Treating

   Another given! Can’t wait to dress Caroline up and go the the neighbor’s houses.

9. Bake a pie.

   Like an actual pie. From a recipe. Yikes.

10. Continuing making our house a home

If you follow me on IG stories you’ll know I’ve been behind on decorating our home that we’ve lived in for a full year. I’ve been slowly doing things here and there, but have lots on this list this Fall. Slowly but surely it will come together.

Happy fall y’all!

Warmly,

Michelle

DIAPERS, DIAPERS, DIAPERS.

If you've been following along on Instagram Stories the last week or so you'll know I'm on a diaper search! 

To recap quickly- My most favorite diapers are Pampers Swaddlers- LOVE them. Literally never had one issue with them for the 14 months that we've been using them. But are the cost of them worth it? We have 2 in diapers and will for the next 2 plus years. So looking to save on diapers has been a mission of mine the last 2 weeks or so. 

For the record, I know there a many other brand of diapers out there so my search after this post may not be over. This blog post is comparing Pampers Swaddlers, Target's Up&Up brand, and Mama Bear from Amazon. 

I am mainly looking for a well made diaper, great coverage, no skin irritation, and a great fit. I'm looking for diapers that I can easily pick up or order which is why I've only experimented thus far with Amazon's brand and Target brand. I have heard great things about Costco brand and Aldi, but those places aren't too convenient for us. So I started with what makes sense for our family. 

PAMPERS SWADDLERS & Pampers overnights

What do I like? 

The softness

The fit

The leak protection

Honestly? Everything.

Ability to buy from multiple places 

What don't I like?

The cost!

Regular diaper cost- $.26 per diaper/$48 per month per child 

Overnight Cost- $.43 per diaper/$13 per month per child 

Total Cost using exclusively pampers per month for 2 children- $122 ($1,464 per year)

UP&UP BY TARGET OVERNIGHT

The first day I put her in an overnight from their Up&Up line. Disaster. Caroline completely leaked through everything. Such a disaster that I sold them on our local marketplace page the very next day- so it's safe to say they are a no go with us. I wish we had better luck as I know they work for a lot of people. 

What did I like?

The cost! 

What didn't I like?

Pretty much everything else about them. (Insert crying face emoji here)

I can only buy from Target- duh 

Up&Up Overnights cost- $.21 per diaper- $7 per month for one child

UP&UP BY TARGET REGULAR

The next day I tried the regular Up&Up brand diapers. After 2 hours wearing her first one Caroline leaked through it- GAH. What a mess. We went back to Swaddlers for a couple of days after this

I tried them again, however. Not bad the second time around. No leaks, no skin irritation, and overall they were fine. We tried them for 2 days while using Pampers Swaddlers at night. 

What did I like?

The cost! 

No leaks 

No skin irritation 

Good overall fit when dry

What didn't I like?

The plastic feeling of the material 

Very saggy when wet- I feel like I may have to change them more frequently.

I can only buy from Target 

Up&Up cost- $.13 per diaper/$22 per month for 1 child 

Using Up&Up brand exclusively for 2 children would cost the following

$58 per month ($700 per year)- Half of what Pampers cost. 

Using Target regular diapers with Pampers Overnights for 2 children would cost $70 per month ($840 per year) 

MAMA BEAR BY AMAZON

Then we moved on to Mama Bear diapers from Amazon. Amazon released their diaper line last Fall and I have heard nothing but great things! Caroline has been wearing them during the day since Monday and I really really like them! No leaks, no sagging, a great fit on her too. 

What did I like?

The fit

The leak protection

softer than Target 

What didn't I like? 

plastic feeling of material 

No overnight diaper available 

Mama Bear Cost- $.21 per diaper/ $31.50 per child per month

For 2 children Mama Bear would cost- $63 per month ($756 per year) 

Using Mama Bear with Pampers overnights for 2 children would cost $89 per month ($1,068 per year) This is $228 more expensive per year (Or about $20 more per month than using Target with Pampers overnights.

HOnestly, I think that's worth it. 

The cost difference between using exclusively Pampers vs. Mama bear and pampers overnights is $396 per year or $33 per month. 

So the question is, is that worth it? $400 a year, that's quite a bit if you ask me.  I think our game plan right now is to use the Mama Bear with the Pampers overnights. Caroline is a champ at sleeping through the night so I would be crazy to mess with that. Chris thinks we should try the Mama Bear brand at night-but I'm not too sure about that-stay tuned! 

I'll keep you updated, friends! Thanks for all the feedback on Instagram! 

Warmly,

Michelle