Your 13 Favorite Posts in 2013

2013 was a great year for The Real Thing with the Coake Family! The blog grew and grew and grew this year. I wanted to share with you your favorite posts of 2013.

First, let me tell you a little about how the blog has grown this year. I started the year with 192 followers on Facebook. As of the writing of this post, I’m up to 554! The numbers were the same across all my social media sites and with my pageviews. My biggest growth was on Pinterest. I started the year with 516 followers on Pinterest and as of the writing of this post, I’m up to 2,432! Wow! I started 2013 with 33,000+ pageviews per month and had an all time high of 63,367 pageviews one month this year! I won’t bore you with more numbers (even though I really like them).

The same was true for the income I am making from the blog. Last year at this time I made a little more than $50 for the month. Last month I made $455. Yay! All the hard work is starting to pay off. Of course, I have plans for 2014 and that the growth will continue across the board!

I wanted to share your 13 favorite posts in 2013! You picked them with your pageviews. I had a total of 636,919 pageviews (as of December 26th) in 2013! Over half a million views by almost 200,000 visitors to my site. Ok…I told you I wouldn’t’ bore you with more numbers and I’m doing it…sorry…I like numbers.

Without further ado…. your top 13 in 2013.

#13 – Daisy Petals: Law/Promise & Yellow Petal Activities

We will start things off with Girl Scouts! We love Girl Scouts at the Coake house. I’m a Daisy leader and am so glad my youngest daughter, Pumpkin, asked me to be her leader. It has been so fun and fun to come up with cute ideas for the girls. You obviously like it when I write about my activities as well as most of those posts do very well. Enjoy this cute idea! Daisy Petals: Law/Promise Yellow Petal Activity

 #12 – Father’s Day Gift ~ Glass Etched Candy Jar

I had such fun making this candy jar for my husband for Father’s Day. I ended up making additional jars for my Dad and my Father-in-Law as well. HGTV even featured it on their Design Blog! Father’s Day Gift ~ Glass Etched Candy Jar. Of course, you could easily modify this idea for tons of other ideas…not just a Father’s Day gift. Have Fun!

 #11 – Green Bean Casserole

Our Thanksgiving and Christmas favorite Green Been Casserole dish. It is a whole food version of the iconic recipe. Green Bean Casserole

#10 – American Girl Crafts {Gymnastic Hoop}

I made these adorable gymnastic hoops for our American Girl dolls as part of Snowflake’s birthday party favors. They turned out really cute and the dolls and girls have fun with them. American Girl Crafts ~ Gymnastic Hoop

#9 – Organizing Ideas ~ Office Organization

In the face of piles of papers all over my kitchen table and bar area, I made this cute file holder to help keep the clutter at bay and help keep me on track with work. It used to be located in my coat closet because I didn’t have a desk. The file holder was relocated to my desk when I reorganized and made room in the office for a desk for me. Yay! Organizing Ideas ~ Office Organization

 #8 – 20+ Organizing Ideas and Storage Solutions

Earlier this year I complied a lot of the posts I had done up to that point in a post with over 20 Organizing and Storage Solutions. This post contains two other of my tops posts for the year: Laundry Room Ideas {Storage & Organization} and Organizing Ideas: Entry Storage.

#7 – Apothecary Jars {Tutorial}

I have had such a fun year with the apothecary jars I made. I have changed them out for Easter, Spring, 4th of July, Summer, Fall, and Christmas. Your favorite was my first post about the apothecary jars where I showed you how to make your own and showed you how I filled mine for Valentine’s Day.

#6 – Free Doll Patterns ~ Reversible Tote Bag

Our dolls needed a cute bag to use on their Easter egg hunt this year. I made them these cute reversible tote bags that could be used for Easter or reversed and used any time of the year. I modified the pattern to make the flower removable…LOVE IT!

#5 – How to Make Placemats

While we are talking about sewing, I made reversible placemats this year and showed you how to make placemats as well. They are really simple to make and I think anyone who can sew straight (or mostly straight) could make these placemats.

 #4 – American Girl Doll 4th of July Top {Free Doll Clothes Pattern}

This one goes down as one of my most frustrating projects of the year. I found this darling free doll clothes pattern for something that was supposed to be a dress. It took me so much time to figure it out. The end result was this adorable top for the dolls. I worked out the kinks in the free pattern and have lots of tips and tricks for you along with the additional pattern pieces you will need to make your own. It should go much better for you than it did for me…fingers crossed.

#3 – Free Doll Clothes Pattern – Easter Reversible Skirt

I sure made a lot of things for our American Girl dolls this year…and you sure seemed to like them! I made these super simple Easter/Spring themed reversible skirts for our dolls. I have the free doll clothes pattern for you along with a few tips to complete this easy skirt yourself.

#2 – Wine Bottle Crafts

I love this craft so much! It was so easy and so pretty. Of course, I’ve done other wine bottle crafts this year, but this was your favorite. I just used them again today on my winter mantel…which I will be showing you soon. If you are willing to suffer for your crafting by drinking a bottle of wine, this is the perfect winter or Christmas craft. Wine Bottle Crafts.

#1 – 19 Fun American Girl Crafts

 Your favorite post of the year was written back in February and has remained at the top of my stats all year! 19 Fun American Girl Crafts has been viewed almost 20,000 times. If you were to add the views of just three of the other top posts from the year that are in this post I have had over 40,000 pageviews from this one post alone! Those three posts are not included in these top 13 posts(I thought it would be redundant), but I will include them here for you if you want to take a look at those as well. Free American Girl Doll Patterns: Girl Scout Uniform, American Girl Craft {Valentine Mailboxes}, and American Girl Party {McKenna}.

Thanks so much for such a great 2013! I can’t wait to see what 2014 brings.

Happy New Year to you and your family! Thanks for your support of my blog. It is greatly appreciated!