Just a couple of notes before we go into the holiday season, which in North America is super crazy.

The last two weeks in December are going to be a vacation for the The Handbag, the writer, not the entire blog. I will be taking some rest and relaxation, although I may pop in on Christmas Day to pontificate about the British Royal Family at church. You know I won’t be able to help myself ; ). The other Hofdames have queued up some some fun retrospective posts for those weeks. We will also have some Open Posts for the community to post royal-related information.

Speaking of the community – at the Handbag, we consider our community an integral part of the team, and we understand this site would be nothing without the participation of every one of you. You aren’t just readers, you are substantial contributors to our collective royal knowledge. In addition, we are honored that we have several members who volunteer their time to guest author posts. We have added the link to the Guest Authors to the header, so their posts can be more easily found.

If you have authored a guest post and want me to edit your entry, please contact me at lilibetshandbag@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.

General Handbaggery is now also on the header. At that link, you can delve more deeply into the world we have all created here over the past year. Our vocabulary, our nicknames, the doodles and Lil’s Photoshops can all be found at that link.

Thanks, everyone!

The best laid plans often lead to the least desirable outcomes, right? We have found that using the Contact Us form was full of glitches, and that we were missing messages. So we have replaced it with our email address – lilibetshandbag@gmail.com. You can find that address in the “Contact Us” section on the sidebar.

We find ourselves the lucky recipients of lots of messages. We are humbled by your overwhelmingly positive response to this blog. Since we are volunteer group, we regret that we might not be able to reply personally to every message. We read through them all and do consider your suggestions. Please keep your eyes peeled to see some of your contributions in future posts. Some of the links to articles that you have submitted will also show up in Bits and Bobs.

If you are interested in writing an entire guest post, please email us. We will follow up with those requests. In fact, we have a guest post coming up shortly that we know you will all be *very* interested in!

Finally, we have moved the Blogroll from the sidebar to the header, per a reader suggestion. Also, we have slowly started adding some official websites, also per a reader suggestion. Thank you, all, for your contributions, and for making this a better experience for all of us.

First, a hearty thank you to all of you who support us. We are coming up on six months of blogging, and it’s been a great ride. We have been building this bridge under our feet as we go, so we appreciate everyone hanging in here while we figure out what works and what does not.

What Works

1. Open Posts – We get great participation, and they have really gone a long way into making this a community.
2. Interactive Posts – We love that you jump into things like the ROYGBIV posts. We have as much fun as you do!
3. Polls – We love them. You love them.
4. Defense of the …. – These have really generated some great discussion, particularly LuckeyGirl’s tiara posts.
5. Royal Retrogravures – The community appears to love walking down memory lane.
6. Spam a Man – Do we have to explain why it works ; )?

What Doesn’t Work

1. Long Trip Recaps – They seem to occur too late, and do not generate much discussion.
2. Royal Recaps – We suspect people read recaps on other blogs (which is GREAT, we do too) and they may be superfluous here.
3. Anything too long, too “lecturey”, anything that doesn’t invite your participation.

Going Forward

With all that in mind, we are dropping the Royal Recap feature and instead adding a shorter “Bits and Bobs” feature, that will run on Monday most weeks. We’ll drop in a few things we missed during the previous week, with some links for those who are interested in pursuing the information. We ask that you add whatever you want to talk about (royal-related only!). If there is no Open Post that week, we’ll sticky it so it stays on the home page for the week. If something special is going on and we have an Open Post, that will take precedence.

For royal tours of great interest, we will provide an Open Post. Jump in and add relevant information, as long as it relates to the tour! We’ll update those as quickly as possible.

We’ll end the week with OrangeChia’s regular feature on Thursdays – yes, she is extending her ROYGBIV – and LuckeyGirl’s Defense posts on Friday. Unless there is something special going on, the weekend is a place of rest here at The Handbag.

The rest of the week is pretty fluid, but you’ll be happy to hear that lovinlorne has a GREAT new feature coming up. I won’t spoil her surprise but I think you’ll love it. LuckeyGirl and I have been working on some wedding posts that we hope will enliven the dog days of summer.

Again, thank you all. This place would simply be a boring corner of the internet without you.

The Handbag hofdames are pleased to announce that we have grown exponentially in the past few months. We would like to extend a hearty welcome to our newcomers and a “thanks for sticking with us” to those who have been with us since the beginning.

With so many new commenters, it seems like a good time to review our mission and expand on our comment policy. Our goal is “Royal Discussion Without the Drama”. To that end, we ask that you follow these guidelines for commenting.

Comments

Be candid but remain respectful. You will not always like what a royal wears, or a piece of royal jewelry, and you should be candid if you don’t. Critiquing the outfit, not the person, is perfectly acceptable.

Provide additional royal-related information. If you have additional information on the topic under discussion, please go for it. We love to expand what we call our “royal intel”. Enlivening the discussion with related information is just fine.

Avoid personal conversations. We cannot host extended personal commentary. Many commenters know each other from the Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor blog, and we don’t deny that a huge part of the appeal of that community was the camaraderie, the “we’re a family” feeling. We love that you retain the royal-related banter that we had there. How personal can we get? Hello, welcome, “have a great weekend” are perfectly fine, but if you find yourself in a conversation about your house or children, or more than two comments deep in a personal conversation, that’s too far. Please remember that we also have commenters who were not part of that group and make sure we treat everyone, new and old, as friends.

Refrain from political conversations about current events. Specifically, we ask that you not mention American politicians, political wives or families, or American policy. In general, the contemporary political climate across the globe is fraught, so we ask that you stay away from debating current political issues. However, we do talk about constitutional monarchies, so if you are providing political or historical context for royal behavior or apparel, that is fine. In fact, it’s highly appreciated.

Stay away from discussing family feuds. We want to stay away from speculating about the relationship between Meghan and Kate, or Harry and William. We don’t know what is going on, no one on the vast internet really does. The only people who do know are not likely to comment here.

Avoid body critique, including pregnancy speculation. Stick to discussing the outfit, not the body housing it. Also, let’s wait for actual happy announcements rather than speculating about possible pregnancies.

Maintain a drama-free atmosphere. We can’t cover everything, so we point people to other news sources and blogs frequently. Please also feel free to do so in the comments. Anything that increases our royal knowledge is great. We do ask that everyone refrain from discussing any drama that occurs elsewhere here. We are the fun zone.

Have fun! We want everyone to have fun here. Keep your comments lighthearted and primarily royal-related and everything will be just fine!

Open Posts

We have a series of Open Posts coming up for several events in June. Keep to the topic as close as possible. All the above guidelines apply to them. The only caveat is that you could add inquiries about other royal-related events to them. For example, it’s fine to ask on the Open Post for the U.S./U.K. State Visit if we will also cover Ascot with an Open Post (the answer is yes.)

Moderation

We have some moderating tools in place, which means some comments will end up in the moderating queue. It is easier to review comments on the front end rather than delete them after they are posted. These tools are not precision instruments, so at times completely innocuous comments will get flagged in them. If this happens to you, hang tight. We monitor the queue several times daily and will release comments that meet the guidelines as quickly as possible.

We sincerely thank you for joining us, or for hanging in with us while we build this blog. We appreciate your support and contributions. We couldn’t do it without you.

Hey there Handbaggers! Your Hofdames need your help one more time.

Do you hang out on Twitter or Instagram ? So do we! Don’t forget to follow us on both platforms, then help us by sharing or retweeting our posts! On Facebook? We’re not, but you can shoot your pals a PM with our info if you think they’d have fun here. Not on social media at all? Tell your book club! Your church group! Your sister-in-law! Anyone who shares your love of royal fashions, jewels, or just royals in general! The more the merrier, right?!

Anything you can do to help us spread the word would be fantastic. We want to make “Lilibet’s Handbag” the best accessory ANY royal watcher could ever add to their outfit.