David Condon Finds

I use Amazon affiliate links on some of my blog posts. Not on everything, and not just for the sake of it, but where a product fits naturally into a post and may be useful to someone reading it. Over time, Amazon affiliate reports used to give me one very useful piece of information. They showed me what products had actually been bought. That might sound like a small thing, but for a small blogger, it was extremely useful. It helped me understand what real people were buying after clicking through from one of my links. Not who they were. Not where they lived. Not their name, email address, full basket, or private details. Just the product. And losing that kind of information makes Amazon affiliate reports far less useful than they used to be. What Amazon Affiliate Reports Used to Show In the past, if someone clicked one of my Amazon affiliate links and later bought something, the report could show the product that was bought. That did not always mean they bought the product I recommend...

When I first started blogging properly, I had no idea where it would lead. At the beginning, the goal was simple enough. I wanted to help my main website gain a bit more visibility, answer useful customer questions, and maybe give Google a clearer idea of what my business was about. What I did not expect was how addictive the whole process would become. Once you start watching Google Search Console, checking impressions, average position, clicks, indexed pages, and little movements in the right direction, it is very easy to get pulled in. A small improvement can feel like a breakthrough. A dip can feel like a disaster. A new post can feel like the thing that might finally push the site forward. And for a while, that excitement kept me going. Reaching the 10 Point Average Phase One of the big moments for me was seeing the blog move towards the 10 point average position range in Google Search Console. That might not sound very exciting to someone outside the world of blogging, but ...

Ireland is not always easy to explain from the outside. Some parts are obvious: the scenery, the music, the history, the pubs, the weather, the humour and the endless ability to turn a simple conversation into a story. Other parts are harder to pin down. Why do Irish people ask “what’s the craic?” as if that is a completely normal thing to say? Why did so many of us spend years learning Irish in school and still feel awkward trying to speak it? Why does the 1990s still feel like such a special time in modern Irish memory? And what does it actually mean to be Irish today, when the country has changed so much but still holds on to so many older habits, jokes, contradictions and traditions? This page gathers together some of my Irish posts in one place. Some are light-hearted. Some are nostalgic. Some are more reflective. All of them come from my own experience of living in Ireland and looking at the small things that shape Irish life. A generated image but it gets my points across. Irela...

Craft supplies can be one of those things you do not think about until you suddenly need them. A bit of ribbon for a gift. A ready-made bow for a hamper. Wedding ribbon for invitations or favours. Stickers for Christmas crafts. Something small to finish a package properly without having to order from three different places or wait weeks for delivery. That is one of the reasons I started writing more about craft supplies on David Condon Finds. Image created for this post to represent the kind of ribbon, bows, stickers and craft supplies I write about. The actual products I sell are carefully selected, good-quality supplies that I would be happy to use myself. Why I Now Supply Craft Products I'm a woodturner by trade, which might seem like an odd starting point for posts about ribbon, bows and craft supplies. But through my main business, David Condon Woodcraft, I also stock a growing range of practical craft items. Over time, I found myself answering the same kinds of questions agai...

Most people think bows are just the final little decoration on a gift. In reality, they can change the whole look of the finished item. A plain box with a neat bow can suddenly look thoughtful, polished, and properly presented. A lovely handmade gift with a messy bow can look rushed, even if the gift itself is beautiful. That is the awkward truth of gift presentation. The small finishing touches often carry more weight than we realise. If you are wrapping one gift at home, tying your own bow might be perfectly fine. But if you are preparing several gifts, hampers, party favours, teacher presents, wedding favours, or handmade products for sale, ready-made bows start to make a lot more sense. So which is better? As usual, the answer depends on what you are doing. Who Am I to Talk About Bows and Gift Presentation? I’m not coming at this as someone who just looked up a few gift wrapping tips online. I’m a crafter, I run my own small craft business, and I started selling craft suppl...