How do I become an Elf?

Easy peasy: Just fill out the form at the bottom of the Be an Elf page.

OK, I signed up to be an Elf. What now?

I try to respond to all new Elf sign-ups within a day or two. I will send you an e-mail with a URL, username, and password so that you can logon and write your own posts. But if it’s been a week and you haven’t heard anything, definitely e-mail me to make sure that I received your application and that I haven’t completely spaced. Also, if you received an e-mail from me but never received the URL, user-name, and password, then definitely let me know. Every now and then the system hiccups and I’d hate for you to be sitting there wondering what’s up.

How long will it be till I receive my cards?

I try to send out cards within days of receiving an application, but sometimes life gets in the way (and, let’s face it, sometimes I just plain forget). If it’s been longer than two weeks and you haven’t received anything from me in the mail, be sure to let me know.

When can I begin Elfing?

You can begin absolutely right now, this very second. You can make your own cards, or do whatever you like: Every Elf is a free agent who gets to decide when, where, who, how, and why to gift; this site is really just here to facilitate you and help make it easy and fun.

What is Elf Chat?

Elf Chat is a place on the site where Elves can chat back and forth, giving and getting ideas, and generally sharing in the fun of Elfing. The truth is, though, with hundreds of messages (and counting!) and with me not knowing how to break it into more than one page, it’s getting to be ridiculously long and a bit hard to follow. Because of that, I’m encouraging Elves to share their fun and giving experiences in posts rather than on Elf Chat. You will get more attention in a post, and not risk being lost on a super-long and somewhat confusing page.

I’d like to write my first post. How does it work?

YAY! Woo-hoo! Hooray! I’m so glad!

Posting is easy, and if you have blogged yourself you’ll already know what to do. If you are new to blogging, you will want to scroll down and read the instructions at the bottom of this page. When you finished your post, just e-mail me to let me know it’s ready to go. It really is easy, I promise! That said, if you find the idea of doing it yourself to be too intimidating, feel free to simply e-mail me your story and I’ll be more than happy to post it for you.

I submitted my post but it didn’t appear on the site. Is something wrong?

Nope, nothing is wrong. Posts don’t go live until they are “approved”. Basically, that means I read them over to make sure they’re legit (not spam) and then I add the little flower thingies, and maybe a picture or photo for fun. One small annoyance with this system is that I am not notified when a new post is submitted. So you have to e-mail me when you’ve submitted a post, otherwise I don’t realize it’s there, and it never goes public.

I keep seeing references to “Elf Tuesday $50 winners”. What’s up with that?

When I first launched the site I used to do a weekly giveaway, awarding a randomly chosen Elf with $50 of giving money. It was really fun, but after a few months I started to burn-out a bit. So I’m keeping things far more low-key and slower-paced now, and while I may still gift an Elf from time to time, it will be random and private rather than something I do every week and post about.

Instructions for posting

Go to the following URL:

http://www.abundancebymagic.com/wp-admin/index.php

Enter the username and password that you were e-mailed after signing up. Your username will be the same as your Elf name. If you’ve forgotten your password, there’s a link that says “I forgot my password”. Click that, and the site will e-mail you a new password.

Once you are logged in, you will be brought to a screen that looks something like this:

To write your post, you’ll want to click “Add New” under “Posts” on the left-hand sidebar. You can also, if you wish, add a signature to the bottom of each of your posts by clicking “Signature Options” under “Profile” on the left-hand sidebar. (There are lots of other links and categories in the left-hand sidebar, but I’m pretty sure that they don’t actually do anything, except maybe give you something to read. Feel free to explore, though, and let me know if you find anything interesting.)

When you click on “Add New” under “Posts” you will be brought to a screen that looks something like this:

You can add your title where I wrote “Test” and your text where I wrote “testing 123…”. There are lots of other things on the page but it’s all ignorable. You can, for example, do things like add tags, but I’ll do all that for you before I make it live, so it’s not something you need to worry about. I’ll also do things like add the little flower thingies at the top and bottom of the post, and maybe add a picture if it seems relevant, so you don’t have to worry about that. That said, definitely feel free to add a photo of your own choosing to your post: I think photos and pictures add so much to the flavor and appeal of a site. If you’re not sure how, you can always just send the photo (or the url of the photo) to me and I’ll add it in for you.

Once you are ready to submit your post, click “Submit for Review”. That will send it into the queue where it will be marked “status pending” until I’ve approved it. Be sure to e-mail me to let me know it’s there so I can make it public.