Exercise in Inconsistency: Top Ten Posts of 2012

There is this thing that craft bloggers do at the end of each year: The Top Ten List.  Wherein, I am supposed to go through my stats and recant whatever posts people read the most. I am sure you have seen a few. It’s a thing. 

I had never been tempted to do one before because I figured well, if you liked it you already liked it…and if you didn’t well, why would I remind you about that?

But then, for my own sake, I got sort of curious to see exactly what was popular this year. It’s been a weird year here in Blogtown. Sometimes, posts that I spent a lot of time on (thinking you guys will love them) ended up being total flops….while other no-nothing doo-dahs ended up wildly popular. And, what is weird about this list is that I run a craft blog and half of the most popular posts have nothing to do with crafts. This leads me to believe that I am in the wrong business. I need to start a third blog (in case you missed my second blog), devoted to toilet paper tubes and the post-feminist manifesto.

Good thing I have alllllll of 2013 to get on that.  

1. 10 Minute Marker Caddy
To tell you the truth, this was essentially as filler post I came up with during a week I was crazy busy with work. I didn’t think anyone would pay much attention. To date, it has seen more traffic than half of all my other posts combined. Who knew people were so crazy about toilet paper tubes?

2. Why I will no longer be shopping at Hobby Lobby.
Balls. I got ’em. Big ones. Talk about controversy. The comments and emails on this one continue to come in every week…good, bad, ugly. At one point last fall my email address got circulated to a church group who took it upon themselves to send me pictures of dead babies. So that was fun. To date, nobody from Hobby Lobby has ever acknowledged reading this post, however, a couple of their largest competitors have. This tells me that some companies are listening to their customers. All of them. Did this post make a difference in their lawsuit? Doubtful. But I’m glad I said it just the same.

3. 67 Pounds of Paper
“Without fail, my father wrote me a letter every day from when I was age thirteen to the time he died when I was twenty. If I break that down month by month, day by day, it comes out to somewhere close to 3,500 pieces of mail. Most of which are gone now. All but 67 pounds.”  Every Father’s Day I comb through his writing as a way to feel close….this time around, I wrote some something in return.

4. Decahedrom Himmeli
Apparently people like combining plastic straws and a flair for math. Throw in some folk art from Finland and you have a hit. 

5. How to remove candle wax from glass containers
To be honest, I felt stupid posting this in the first place. Then I thought maybe someone would join me in my quest for crystal clear containers. Apparently I was right on that one. Everyone loves candle containers. Everyone.

6. Coffee Filter Garland
Coffee filters + sewing machine = a big, fancy, feather boa like garland that you can use for a party or swag around a door all year long. You need this. Yes, you do.

7. Pantyhose, Chardonnay, and Other Advice From My Mother
My mother liked to give unsolicited advice. In this post, I pulled together some of her greatest hits, such as; 

…on people who tan too much
Don’t trust people who tan too much. Anyone who looks like a rotisserie chicken on purpose isn’t right in the head.

…on jewelry
The most beautiful women in the world never wear jewelry. They don’t need it. Roses do not need perfume.

I love this post for personal reasons, but I am even more fond of it because people used the comment section to share favorite advice from their mothers. I get weepy eyed just breezing through what other people write. I am so looking forward to revisiting this topic in May 2013.

8. The Mommy Card
Want to annoy me? Offer to sponsor a post, then get me to do a bunch of work, then pull out at the last minute because I’m “not a mother.” Given the nature of the #7 post above, it is odd that the eighth most popular post this year was about me being, ahem, not a mother.

9. Fiesta Flowers
I took the most ubiquitous-commonplace-easy-to-find craft project on the interwebs (tissue paper poms) and made enough of them to stick around a doorway. People acted like they had never seen it before. I sure felt like I was wearing some serious smarty pants that day.

10. Paper Plate Magnolias
Paper plates turned into flowery napkin rings. No glue, no fuss. Easy to do. I’m still waiting for someone to show me a whole wedding reception set with these suckers.

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And that’s it! Whoever goes around telling people that the only way to build a blog is to “concentrate on one niche subject” has never met my readers. Y’all are a fickle a bunch.

And I could not love you more.

I wish you and yours a happy, safe, healthy, joyous, chocolate dipped 2013.

Happy New Year!