Blake Makes

Hello Blake Makers and Sooper Heroes (and all my daily new readers)!

A lot of you have been taking advantage of my Say It On Blake Makes feature. See this post for the first people who ’said it’ last time.

Before I let you all say it this week, I wanted to take a moment to publicly thank everyone who’s donated to support the PBDDL Campaign. Even though it’s been a few weeks, I’m still getting donations! Thanks! We’re at 95%, so I’m just beaming! If you participated in the PBDDL Giveaway and would like to donate, show us some love!

Also, we’re taking a week off this week. The Tuesday giveaways take a lot of work, but I don’t want to wear you guys out, wear ourselves out, and just plain get too much of a good thing. We’ll be back next week with something yummy! And I just got confirmation last week on a totally ‘tubular’ giveaway. (More clues to come [and sprinkled throughout].)

YOU Say It On Blake Makes:

Nikki says “So most of my readers should now know about BlakeMakes. If you have not yet checked out his site, you might want to SOON and get in on the fun! Become a Sooper Hero and you won’t miss a beat!”

“I received my free jars of Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche last week and took some time deciding what to make with them. Finally, I used one jar yesterday when making dinner for me and Ben. I had some ham to bake and thought a nice sweet glaze would be perfect to balance out the ham’s saltiness. Boy, was I right! (A first for me!)”

Natalie says it with a picture:

C B says “Dulce De-Stressor Cupcakes: Just wanted to share my PBDDL cupcakes via my blog link! Thanks so much for hosting this giveway! I had a great time! Hope I win the next one. I promise to “bake” something amazing! ::wink::”

Erica says “You Scream, Ice Scream, We All Scream for PBDDL Ice Cream!”

Natalie says “Mmmmmm…..”

Carrie says “Sucre Reviewed: I just put up my post about the Sucre chocolates. Please go check it out!”

Becca says “TCHO- The latest from Blake Makes: I received a package in the mail today. I knew what it was immediately. The latest free food giveaway from Blake Makes. I was thrilled when I was one of the fifty people to receive this particular giveaway. Chocolate.”

We just sent a Sooper Secret E-mail Alert. Check your e-mail (and your spam folders) for this important message. Tonight’s the night. bk

What’s this pineapple doing here? Stay tuned…

Hello everyone. Sorry for the trouble with the badge code. It was working, then it wasn’t. It should be working now (I’ve tested it). Click the “Badges” tab at the top of the page, or click here to get a clever little Blake Makes badge for your blog.

UPDATE: Geggie swooped-in and saved us. She cleaned-up the code. Thanks, Geggie.

People have been asking me for months to create some badges for Blake Makes and Soopz. Well, I’m trying to figure it out. I’ve added a new page to the site with 2 new badges.

If anybody knows anything about blog badges (creating/distributing them), HELP! Comment or e-mail with advice or offers to help.

Quick post because I’m thinking about this right now. It’s no secret that a community (network) is forming around Blake Makes. Last Monday, we had 32 Sooper Heroes. Today, we have over 100 (and getting 5-10 news sign-ups a day).

Oh, and we’re building out the Soopz social network site (think of it as Myspace or Facebook, but only for Sooper Hereos - aka You Guys!). We’re about 60% complete, and I’ll launch it as soon as it’s ready. Stay tuned!

As much as I am enjoying exploring the possibilities for my own use, I want to explore the possibilities of helping all of you (my beloved readers) grow your own blogs and networks. I’m a pro when it comes to social neworking, and everyday I’m exploring new networks that [a] can benefit me, and [b] can benefit you (and your blog).

Two social networks I’m looking at now:

1. Sk-rt
2. Blogged

We can use these networks (and there are tons more like them) to grow our communities. I can show you how, and we can help each other.

I know this may seem a little vague/confusing, but it will all make sense in the coming weeks. I think I’m going to introduce social networks to the community (all of you) with instructions on how to use them. Then, for every person that takes an action to help Blake Makes, I will take an action to help their site.

What does “take an action” mean?

Most social networks are built around a ratings system. The more people that rate or review a site within the social network, the more prominence that site receives in the social network. The more prominence given to a site, the more people will see it and ultimately click to visit the site.

It’s a beautiful circle. You help promote my site in them, and I help promote yours. I will give you prominence on my site (hopefully you’ll reciprocate), so the more traffic I get, the more traffic you get.

Make sense? If not, it will. Stay tuned. bk

p.s. I’m having a meeting today with someone who can possibly get PBDDL onto grocery shelves, or at the very least, help me produce a product that I can sell online.

UPDATE: It’s official! They’re in the mail. Everyone in the U.S. should get them in 3-5 days; 2 are going to Canada and should take 5-7 days; 1 is going to Australia and should take 7-10 days. Thanks to everyone that’s donated! It really helps! If you’d like to help, use the blue “PBDDL Support” widget to the right. Thanks!

Hello Blake Makers and Sooper Heroes. Ugh…my back and neck are a little achy. For the past 3 hours, I’ve been hunched over mini little jars of peanut butter dulce de leche affixing labels, packing them into their little boxes and addressing them. It took some time, but they’re done!

I’m dreading this shipping bill tomorrow. I know each of these little boxes is going to cost me over $3.

All I have to say is thanks to everyone who’s supporting the dulce project. If you’d like to support us (sponsor a jar of dulce), just click on the little PBDDL Support widget to the right.

Donations are by no means required, but completely appreciated!

(Yawn) Sleepy…must go to bed. Blake Makes has been completely over stimulating me the last couple of days.

I do it for you! It’s all for you!

Nighty night. bk

UPDATE: Very good, Blake Makers. I see we have 11 comments on the post on Epicurious.com (as of 2:28pm CST on 2/21). Thanks for the love! If you’d like to show some love, click on the screenshot image below to visit Epicurious and add your two cents.

Hello, Blake Makers and Sooper Heroes. Last night went better than I thought. I mean, I thought all the jars would be claimed, but I didn’t think I would have twice as many requests as I had jars. I’m preparing a micro case study right now to share the numbers with all of you, but you can look at the time stamps on each comment to see how fast the first jars went.

I owe it all to my great community of Blake Makers (and the Sooper Heroes among them). I also owe a big THANKS to my new Nestie friends! I knew my wife (DW) loved the Nest, but I didn’t know there were so many others. Welcome, come back (again and again) and tell your friends!

In all the madness, Epicurious caught wind of us.

Thanks so much to Amy for being a fan of BlakeMakes, and for writing such a great post. Go read her blog, it’s spectacular!

One last thing, you know me, I always love to challenge my community. So, here’s a task:

• Let’s make this Epicurious post mean something!
• Show some BlakeMakes love by commenting on the Epicurious post!
• That’s it!

As always, stay tuned. Tons more on the way!

UPDATE: CLAIMED OUT! (But keep commenting and signing up for Soopz because you never know when you’ll get something in the mail…)

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Comment on this post to claim your jar. If you can’t see the slideshow above, sorry. Having a few last minute bugs.

Hello Sooper Heroes. This is just a quick message to let you know that the Sooper Secret E-mail just went out explaining everything you need to know about tomorrow’s giveaway (plus some extra secret stuff). Check your inboxes (and spam folders) for my message.

Comment on this post with any questions.

Until tomorrow at 8pm (CST)!