Do you read Handmadeology?

Then you should! It's great for handmade businesses and gives lots of practical advice for your online shops (if you have them) and has some good tips for photography. I don't always follow their advice as I don't have much time to spare but you certainly should!

One of their recent posts about copycats struck a chord* with me and gives a new perspective on something that can make your heart sink. Well worth a quick read :)

*My work isn't rocket science but it still hurts when people copy it - boo to copiers who have no imagination of their own!

Do you read Kat Got The Cream?

Well you should! Her blog is lovely and she is addicted to vintage finds and charity shops just like me :) Oh and I am also one of her sponsors for December and I made the advert all by myself!

See? Evidence of advert above :) It's not the worlds best advert but I made it and with no help from Matt - well maybe a bit of advice about resizing!

Kat is also hosting lots of giveaways over the next 7 days so go and enter - although not the Bettys tea one as that is for me to win :)

Screaming

Image from We Heart It

I can't be the only one who is mightily annoyed at the new word verification on blogger. The number of times I have given up after trying to type out the two words multiple times! So I figured if I was struggling then others might be too. So I have switched the word verification off BUT your comments will now have to be moderated so it might take a while for them to show up on the site :) Also, did you know that there is a new spam filter on blogger? I didn't and found that two genuine comments had been put into my spam folder - so check your spam filter regularly. I found it by accident as I didn't realise it was there.

Right so who is going to be first and leave me a comment to see if I've set this up correctly?

A bloggy review!

It's getting to that time of year where we all tend to look back on what has happened in the past 12 months and of course I am no exception. Over the past 12 months I have had 35,605 page views which seems quite a lot to me! I've gone through my analytics and have found the most popular blog posts over the past year. Most weren't written this year but they have been popular over the past 12 months!

Not surprisingly the top spot goes to the post that describes how to make your own padded envelopes. It's not surprising as it has been shared on lots of blogs!

The second spot goes to my post about a local fabric shop. Maybe it's because you can get fabric there for £1 a metre?

The third spot goes to the easy peasy jam recipe using a microwave. Very, very easy!

This next post is from 2007 and isn't it amazing to look back at your progress over the years? It's for a brooch tutorial and I think it was the first ever tutorial I did. I was going to delete it (as it's a bit naff) but if it's the 4th popular post looked at over the past year then it can stay!

Another tutorial and this one uses old Christmas cards to make garlands ready for next year! A good bit of reuse I think!

This post was all about a fair in Clitheroe and showed off my new chicken packaging too!

The next post deals with the raffle I held with Jo on behalf of the Japanese people affected by the earthquake and resulting tsunami.

And the last post (I could go on and on but I'd better not) is all to do with fashion - or my version of fashion anyway! It seems that people agree with me about red and green not being seen together!


So what have I learnt from this? That people like tutorials certainly so hopefully there will be more of those in 2012 :)


Come back tomorrow for a little look at my favourite makes from 2011.

Blogs I love

I have 221 blogs in my blog reader so I often have lots and lots of blogs waiting to be read but there are always some that I scroll through to read first. You know the ones - lovely images, great words, the life you want to lead, etc :) Here are just some of my favourite blogs* and you might find some new ones to browse or some old favourites too.

Linda Should be Painting

My Cardboard Life

Meet Me at Mikes

A Life in Lists

A Thrifty Mrs

Ric Rac

Kootoyoo

Owlet

Dropstitch

Dottie Angel

CurlyPops

My Paper Crane

Nikkishell

Punky and Me

Soule Mama

And my favourite blog at the moment is

Foxs Lane

*In no order of preference at all - just which ones I happened to click on first! Do tell me in the comments if there are other blogs you think I should check out!

My bedtime reading........

.....is not going to be books for the next few nights. I *think* I might try and make my way through the 1000+ items I have in my google reader instead!

That will teach me to go away on a holiday with no internet connection, no phone signal and no work sewing! Actually it won't as it was lovely :)