HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Lots of the home-arts blogs in my Google Reader carried posts this week reflecting on their “most popular posts” for 2011. Now understanding that they put a lot of effort into building traffic for their blogs and I… well, I don’t really do that on this blog… I decided to go ahead and do a Most Popular round-up anyway. Because even if I don’t get thousands of visitors like they do, I do get dozens, and I sincerely appreciate each and every one of them :) So here are the five posts that my dozens of visitors (*smooch*) clicked on most in 2011! (Be sure to click the post titles to see the full post!)

#5 – Quick, Cute Centerpieces

#4 – Aqua Round-Up

#3 – Sweet & Simple Easter Dinner

#2 – Vintage Pillowcase Toss Pillow

And the NUMBER ONE most popular post… as clicked by DOZENS of fab, friendly readers:  My Favorite Cupboard: Heart of the Home!!

Even if I don’t have the scads of blog traffic that others have, it’s nice to know that folks do stop by. So – THANK YOU for checking out my projects and sharing my adventures in 2011! Here’s to much more inspiration and fellowship in 2012!

More soon,

New Years Eve Day and the rest of my family is enjoying the zombie apocolypse on television (“Walking Dead” marathon – ick!!) so I decided this was the time to paint up my 2012 weekly planner that I use at work. I had brought it home a couple weeks ago and sprayed the black surface with a soft green base color, and had to practice up a little on my “one-stroke” roses. I am terrible about laying out any kind balanced pattern/design, but I think it turned out okay. Here are a few pictures…

Plain green cover, with paints ready to double-load the brush.

Started with the leaves, which fall into the background.

Added roses and “filler flowers,” and an attempt at numerals signifying the year in the upper corner. Waiting for the clear coat to dry.

Finished roses!

I’m linking this post to “Show And Tell Friday” over at My Romantic Home, and the Creative Bloggers Party & Hop at the Homemaker on a Dime blog. Please click through for hundreds (!) of great ideas and projects!

More soon!

Sure hope you had a lovely Christmas – we were blessed this year to have my husband home from the hospital (18 days, for an appendectomy and many resulting complications!) so we kept things simple; I even felt like I was able to slow down and actually enjoy things rather than rushing around at the last minute to make things impossibly perfect. And you know what happened? It was perfect all on its own!

One of my favorite parts of our little family Christmas is making our lunch on Christmas Day. This year I decided I was going to dress up the table a little bit (highly unusual in this neck of the woods), but I didn’t think things through soon enough to purchase a centerpiece. So I decided to just make one from materials I had on hand. Here’s what I came up with, after picking a stray piece of left-over garland from the craft box and a few ornaments off the tree, plus my lavender candlesticks and tapers, all on-hand:

I’m linking this little project to Frugal Friday over at The Shabby Nest. Please click through to see all the wonderful projects and ideas on Wendy’s wonderful blog!

More soon!

I’ve been making a more conscious effort to participate on Twitter lately – I often come across some interesting links worth following, and frankly I enjoy the challenge of expressing myself within the 140-character limit. But, something is missing from Twitter – something that would make my experience a lot more convenient, enjoyable and valuable.

Twitter needs a “Like” button.

And here are four instances where I’d use it:

1. Someone says something really clever, or “right on,“ but it’s several hours before I see it. I want them to know I liked their thought, but I don’t want to compose a whole tweet referencing “that thing you said 14 hours ago.” (Because that phrase in itself takes up 32 of my 140 characters!)

2. And even if I see it right away, I might want to acknowledge that I saw it without a re-tweet (RT) and without remarking on it.

3. Someone replies to one of my tweets, but it’s several hours before I see it. I just want to acknowledge the fact that they spoke back to me, without rehashing the point.

4. Someone posts a link and I want them to know I liked it, even though it’s not something (for whatever reason) I would RT to my own followers.

In all of the instances above, I just want to be able to acknowledge something someone tweeted without getting into a conversation about it and without making it a “favorite.” (Favoriting a tweet hardly EVER makes sense to me – except maybe when saving links.)

So how about it, Twitter – give us a LIKE button!

A little late to the game – it has been a very busy week here what with my first week at a new job and THEN a wonderful weekend… BUT, I did want to say Happy Mothers Day to everyone!