Christmas Pages, Drawings, Review Cards — and Sections You Can Name

The last couple of weeks have been the busiest since launch. Most of what's new started the usual way, with someone telling me what they wished their page could do. A family wanted a page for the tree ornaments. A maker at a craft fair wanted a way to collect names at the booth. Small businesses wanted to ask for reviews without it feeling pushy. And I kept tripping over my own builder, so I fixed that too. Here's the round-up.

A Christmas page

Any Keeper, Snapshot included, can now be a Christmas page. It's built for the things a family brings out every December:

• Wish lists, grouped by person. Each gift can carry a note and a link. When someone in the family is buying it, they tap Claim this gift and put their name on it. Claimed gifts stay out of sight until a shopper taps Show what's taken, so nobody spoils a surprise by glancing at the page.
• Ornament stories. Who it came from, the year, the story behind it, and a photo of the ornament itself.
• Recipes and traditions, and Our Christmas songs, with the words to the old carols built in and room for your own recording of the family singing.
• The season on the page. A countdown starts in November. Then come the twelve days, and the page rests until next year with "See you next Christmas." You choose whether your season starts in November or with Advent, and whether it ends at Epiphany or Candlemas. You can also set it to Always Christmas.
• Four Christmas looks: Evergreen, Cranberry, Snowfall and Nordic.
• Secret Santa, on a Together page. Type in the names, and each person gets their own private link that shows only who they drew.

A Snapshot Christmas page has the wish lists, the season and the looks. Story and Together add the ornament stories, the recipes and the songs.

There's a finished Christmas example to tap through on the examples page.

Short on room for a tree? This is the piece I make for exactly that. My space-saving ornament tree hangs flat on the wall: levels of reclaimed wood strung in a tree shape, each one drilled to hold ornaments, with a white Corian star on top that I cut by hand, so no two are alike. It shows off a whole collection of ornaments in an apartment, a hallway or a dorm, anywhere a real tree won't fit. I can also set a CraftedLink tag right into the star. Then a tap on the top of the tree opens your family's Christmas page, with the wish lists, the ornament stories and the songs. Just ask for it when you order. You'll find the tree on Etsy and in my own shop, in several sizes.

A sign-up list and a prize drawing

This one is for makers at markets and fairs, and for anyone who wants to give something away. A Keeper can now be a Sign-up & drawing page. A card sits at the top: what you're giving away, when the drawing ends, and an entry form. A visitor enters with their email plus only the questions you choose to ask, like a first name or a business name. You can download everyone who entered as a spreadsheet at any time.

When it ends, you press one button and the computer picks an entry at random. Two emails go out, and only two: one to the winner, with their entry number (when they reply, it comes straight to you), and one to you. Nobody else who entered gets an email from us. It always says No purchase necessary, and the official rules are written for you from what you fill in. You can also skip the prize and use it as a plain sign-up list. A Snapshot page can run one drawing each calendar quarter, and a Story or Together page can run more, with room for more entries.

Ask for a review, fairly

A Keeper, Snapshot included, can now be an Ask for a review page. Think of a tag on a finished job, a counter card, or the box a piece ships in. You add up to three review links (Google, Facebook, Etsy, wherever your customers leave reviews) and a few words of your own.

Every visitor sees exactly the same buttons, first. That matters. Review sites forbid asking only your happy customers, so the page never asks how someone feels before showing them the links. Under the buttons, everyone also sees Something not right? and a way to tell you directly. That message comes to your email, and we never keep a copy. It isn't a filter. It's simply a second door, open to everyone.

Every section works the same way now — and you can name it

This one I built partly for myself. Every section of a page (the photos, the timeline, the list, the guest book, the Wi-Fi and the rest) used to have its own on/off box, worded differently and sitting in a different spot. Now every section opens the same way, at every level:

• What it is, so you always know which section you're in.
• Its title on the page, which is now yours to change. On a review page the photo gallery is called "Our work" out of the box, but if you'd rather it said "Recent jobs," type that. Leave it empty and the page keeps its usual heading. Visitors only ever see the title.
• Part of this page or Not part of this page, with Starts open or Starts closed right beside it. Not part of this page keeps everything you typed saved, so you can bring it back later.

I also fixed something that had been catching people out. The grey example words in the boxes ("Google," "Dishes," "Rose Bakery") looked a lot like words you'd already typed. They're now lighter and slanted, so you can tell. Where an example is worth keeping, press Tab on a computer, or tap Use this example on a phone, and it's yours to edit.

Smaller things you might notice

• Record right on the page. You can now record a voice message straight from the page builder, without making a file first.
• Choose where a tall cover photo sits, so the part of the picture that matters is the part people see.
• Examples by size. The examples page now shows what a Snapshot, a Story and a Together page each look like, so it's easier to pick.

The basics haven't changed. You build your page yourself, free, as often as you like. An account is still optional. The ten years is still in writing. And the Save an offline copy button is still on your page's setup link.

If there's something you wish your page did, write to me. Nearly everything in this post started that way.

— Jennifer