Updated April 1, 2020
This disclosure regards the following sites maintained by Michelle Grewe operating under the sole proprietorship of Michelle & Cat in West Virginia, United States:
- BloggingLearn.com
- SwankyStock.com
- michellegrewe.com
- michelleandcat.com
For questions about these sites and the affiliate relationships, please contact Michelle Grewe at untouchable.cant.touch.this@gmail.com
All my sites accept forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. None of my sites contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made.
The views and opinions expressed on these sites are purely mine. I will only endorse products or services that I believe, based on my expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.
For realsies, I hand-picked places to affiliate with based on my personal experience and that of peers.
Current List of On-Going Relationships:
Table of Contents
Advertising:
Currently I have no relationships with automated ad systems or ad networks. I primarily operate from affiliate income. That might change, it might not. But if you see something that looks like an ad, it is an ad, but one I put in manually to a company I am an affiliate with. Like this…
Affiliates:
These following affiliates were hand-picked by me. I get paid a small percentage if you purchase from them.
Hosting & Themes
Lyrical Host
This is who I have been going through for hosting, and I am super happy with the service. I can’t recommend anything more. Save 10% with Coupon Code: BeHappy.
WPEngine
These people are the people behind Genesis Framework. I have never used WPEngine as a web host, but if you buy their hosting, you get a free Genesis Framework with it. While the offer of free Genesis is enticing, if I ever opt to use Genesis, I’d buy the framework outright and put it on my Lyrical Host wordpress site. But both options go through this company, and I do think it’s the best option for people
- wanting a website or blog
- who do not want to pay thousands of dollars for a graphic designer,
- but want a site that looks like they did pay a professional to design it
- without having to know wordpress or code
- without spending a lot of time trying to figure that out
It’s user friendly. Stunning. Websites.
Elementor
This is a web-page builder plugin for WordPress to add a drag-n-drop page building feature to wordpress. It works with almost any theme. They have a free option and a paid pro option. It really makes WordPress a thousand times more user friendly.
Bluchic Themes
I just think they are pretty, and a great option if you want a WordPress site without having to use Genesis but still look amazing. I don’t plan on designing any wordpress themes because I’m not comfortable with wordpress php codes. So I needed someone who was up to par with my idea of a good graphic designer to endorse, and these people made the cut. Their landing page templates (that work with Elementor) comes highly recommended by bloggers.
Graphic Design Software
Adobe Creative Cloud
I love all Adobe’s software as a Creative, but if you want to be a professional graphic anything, whether graphic designer or animator, I mean even the people who animate Disney movies, all of the job openings require knowledge and proficiency with Adobe software. I would be an a-hole if I didn’t recommend them.
Canva Pro
Despite having Photoshop Creative Cloud, I also pay for Canva Pro. Why? Because it’s faster and easier for some of the graphics I need to make. Adobe just utilizes a lot of RAM. But also, I wanted to make templates to give away or make part of my membership at Swanky Stock, and the only way to share a template link is to go Pro. I also love some of their features.
PicMonkey
I use Photoshop and Canva, but if I’m trying to recommend something in lieu of Photoshop for beginners who aren’t planning to become professional graphic artists, Pic Monkey is a little more robust than Canva as far as actual image editing is concerned. Therefore, I recommend them for people who don’t plan to use Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom.
Graphic Design Elements
Creative Market
I have been meaning to try to get myself on this website for some time selling graphic design elements because the ones I give away are getting too many to give away, and I think it overwhelms people going in for the free opt-in. While I may or may not start selling on Creative Market, I do buy from them all the time, and I love their freebies. And there are times where I feel like I should be telling people about stuff that’s on their site just to make graphic design easier. Just make sure you pay extra attention to their licenses. Items labeled as an add-on have much more user freedom than the rest of their products. Most of the templates and graphics are primarily for one-time use.
Creative Fabrica
There are several sites that offer graphics, illustrations, brush strokes, fonts, and photos, with $1 deals, freebies, and all that jive… This one is my favorite simply because they are in Amsterdam, and they have a floor in their company that’s a bar and they drink there together once a week during the work day according to one of the highlights to a career with their company. I just think that’s an awesome business model.
Deposit Photos
I buy up credits from this site when they are on sale, (twice a year, they usually offer 100 credits for $40), and then I use them as needed for when I can’t find what I’m looking for for free or just don’t have the time to really search hard. Most of the sites like them are the same thing, like they offer something for everything and often have exactly what you need. But this one is the one I chose simply because they offer a great credit sale (usually twice a year).
Social Media and Email
Tailwind
Oh this is amazing for Pinterest and Instagram. For Pinterest, they provide scheduling and tribes (I’m not comfortable using the word tribe, but that’s what they call them ok). They are in constant collaboration with Pinterest to continually provide the best thing you could possibly do to make it on Pinterest, and I believe they are the only scheduler Pinterest recommends. Instagram, they provide scheduling (will post for you for business accounts, sends notification to phones for personal accounts), and color-coded hashtag recommendations. A lot of “Grammers” really push Planoly. But because Tailwind lets you pay per account, you can easily use both Tailwind and Planoly without losing money. I tried Planoly and prefer Tailwind.
MailerLite
This one is the most recommended I see with bloggers next to ConvertKit. It seems to also have the best free option and the lowest pricing for a quality service. I am slowly changing from AWeber to them.
ConvertKit
They are the top recommended email service provider by bloggers and business owners. Even if you don’t go with them, you should definitely read their blog. They have the best information for people trying to up their email game.
Both ConvertKit and MailerLite has the one feature I was wanting pretty bad and struggled to find, and it was the dumbest of all things but highly important to me from a UX design perspective: a Form Template to let the Data Fields and the Button to Submit be on one horizontal row instead of two or more (which is better for in-text). Like here…
It really is the dumbest thing. I really just want the button on the right as opposed to below the email input. Like why was that so hard to find?
Benchmark
I was thinking of signing up for as many hosting and emails as possible at one point, so I signed up for Benchmark’s affiliate, but then I decided to stick to places I personally recommend. I still like Benchmark’s offering for email, and I’m still an affiliate, but I have not used their product.
Courses
Kimi Kinsey
Kimi is amazing, and her courses are the same. I’ve not taken all of her courses, but I am a member in her learning group that covers a lot that’s in her courses but not all. I also have taken some of her free courses. But Kimi is so meticulous, her websites are above par for perfection, and she’s incredibly knowledgeable of Amazon Affiliate guidelines that I can’t personally recommend anyone else for Affiliate Marketing simply because Amazon has a lot of rules and I’m not sure other people are following them that well. Like I won’t pay for an Affiliate Marketing class unless it’s with Kimi. So I can’t recommend those. She’s also easy to follow, and because she thrives in minimalism with design, she’s easy to learn from. Her courses utilize both video and text.
This was in part written with the help from disclosurepolicy.org
