EcoScrapbook's Top 10 Posts of 2014

Wow, 2014 has flown by! This has been such a crazy year! From losing Tabby and bringing home Bane to hubby's ankle injury, moving and everything in between, I'm looking forward to a calmer 2015 (fingers crossed).

For the first time since I started blogging in 2010, I actually took a blogcation over the summer and just started to get my groove back this month. To keep me even busier, I'm now Mama Meow at WherestheCat.com, a Toledo area events website and in the early stages of starting another blog for eco-conscious children.

In the mean time, let's have a look back at my crafty year in EcoScrapbook's top 10 posts of 2014:

1. A Very Recycled Scrapbook Page

2. Tutorial: No Sew T-Shirt Bag

3. Saying Goodbye: Pet Memorial Scrapbook Layout

4. Mini Eco-Friendly Scrapbooks

5. The Saddest Story I Ever Told

6. Digital Scrapbooking with the PicsArt App

7. Painting Roses With Celery

8. From Picture Frame to Dry Erase Board

9. Pet Memorial Scrapbook: It's Finished!

10. A Creative Blog Tour

Thanks for being part of my year! Wishing you the best in 2015! ~Danielle

Picking My Brain

I'm not sure where to start. This feels like trying to get re-acquainted with an old friend. It's been 10 weeks since my last blog post and I was meandering thoughts of leaving it that way. I've enjoyed a summer without structure, fun with the family and how my days started after 9:30 a.m.

School is officially in session, my husband is back to work after his February ankle injury and we're now getting ready for some big changes in our lives. I like structure (most of the time), but don't like waking up at 5:20 in the morning (coffee, please). And as I recall, I do love to blog and I'm not currently working, so here I am.

What to blog about? Do I still want to focus on eco-friendly scrapbooking and upcycled projects? Should I include more posts about green living? How about the environment? And when should I blog? Weekly? Wednesdays? Whenever I feel like it?

Those are the questions that have been going through my mind as I've been on my blogcation and I still don't know all the answers. I would like to mix things up here and turn EcoScrapbook into a blog (book) of eco scraps - snippets of life through the eyes of eco-conscious people in our world. What do you think?

I would love your help as I make this transition. If you see any interesting stories, projects, people, or communities being "green," please share them with me. And if you are making your own eco-conscious choices, let me know, I'd love to hear about them! 

Find me here or comment below. ~Danielle

Related:

DIY Laundry Soap for Sensitive Skin

Tutorial: No Sew T-Shirt Bag

A Very Recycled Scrapbook Page

2013 Highlights & What to Expect in 2014

Happy New Year! I'm back from a two week break and ready to get things rolling for 2014! Hope your holidays were happy and you're as excited for the new year as I am. Before we get into EcoScrapbook of 2014, let's have a look back at 2013.

The most exciting event of 2013 was the release of EcoScrapbooking: Crafty Ideas for Eco-Conscious Scrapbookers, a collaborative eBook by creative minds:

It's free to read online or download. If you haven't done so already, check it out and get eco-inspired this year as you scrapbook!

Another accomplishment was the completion of three Layout A Days, including one where I was a featured scrapbooker. Click the links see the layouts from February, May and October. You can join me for the next one in February as we discover ways to break all those scrapbooking rules! Click here to view more details

In 2013, a few of my projects became famous! Check out my googly-eyed Easter eggs on the Reader's Digest website! Then there was this rainbow craft project from 2011 that has been pinned and recreated countless times and brought in a ton of traffic from Facebook:

The biggest hit of last year, bringing in over 10,000 visitors in March, were the toilet paper roll Easter bunnies I made for Glue Dots:

I also took a road trip and taught my largest class at the Memories Scrapbooking Expo in Columbus:

visited the Jillibean's store:

and set up a table at a school's holiday gift shop:

Another cool thing of 2013 was when I shared my old scrapbooks with you. This one was from 23 years ago:

And here's a scrapbook from a few years later:

Now that we reviewed the old, what's new for 2014?

I've always wanted to incorporate stories about people, particularly from the younger generations, who are making a difference in the world by being "green."

I will continue focusing on eco-friendly scrapbooking and crafting as I dig into my stash of saved goodies. And I plan to experiment with more alternative ways to scrapbook. Like my 2012 Instagram scrapbook, I will make a 2013 book of square prints, but this time it'll be Smashing! I've briefly played with a Smash Book previously, but haven't used one as a scrapbook yet.

Finally, I will memorialize my dog in a tribute post, as well as an entire scrapbook dedicated to our beloved Tabatha. New Year's Day was a sad one for our family when we discovered our 12-year-old dog unexpectedly had gastric volvulus, commonly known as bloat, and one of the main health concerns for German Shepherds. So look for that in the near future.

I don't have a plan set in "digital" stone yet as I've done in the past. Blog posts may even be limited as I wish to focus more on the world of publishing. We'll just have to wait and see what 2014 is really all about. Cheers to a new year! ~Danielle

Ways to Stay in Touch with EcoScrapbook

Do you have a favorite social media outlet or simply prefer corresponding through email? EcoScrapbook's got you covered! You can connect with me right here at EcoScrapbook.com, as well as a variety of platforms. Here's where I'm most active at:

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What Have I Accomplished in 200 Posts?

Since I launched EcoScrapbook over two years ago, I never stopped to celebrate a blogiversary or even a my 100th post. Now that I have 200 posts under my eco bloggy belt, it's time to look back at my accomplishments and give myself a pat on the back.

I created a minimalist scrapbook layout to celebrate and used clothing tags for the journaling:

"Accomplished" 12x12 Eco-Friendly Scrapbook Layout

Supplies: cardstock, black and white pens, two Instagram photos, clothing tags, alphas (Jillibean Soup, Bella Blvd., Thickers).

Read more about my top accomplishments from 2011 through now:

• The EcoScrapbooking eBook became a reality. What started as a simple idea turned into a scrapbooking eBook featuring ten scrapbookers from around the world and plenty of eco-friendly ideas. I was the mastermind and gave it away for free!

• I was featured on the local news. WTOL contacted me last April and asked me to share a Mother's Day project. I was nervous, but managed my way to the studio and scrapbooked LIVE on the morning show.

• You can find EcoScrapbook on YouTube. I only made one video about organizing paper scraps and plan to make more (even though I said I was going to right after I did the last one...I have ideas, just need to make the time).

• I started a newsletter! It's called The EcoScrapbooker and you can sign up over in my sidebar. I've only sent out one email so far and just need to find my groove of writing monthly updates.

• I'm a Zutter Certified Instructor who's qualified to teach all things Bind-it-All. Check out some of my projects here.

• Speaking of teaching, the Memories Scrapbooking Expo in Columbus, Ohio welcomed me and my eco-friendly crafting abilities as I taught the Recycled Scrapbooking class in March.

• My projects have been featured on some big websites like the Reader's Digest, HGTV, and LuxeFinds.

• I was also a featured scrapbooker during May's Layout a Day and shared several sample layouts with over 400 participants.

• One of my scrapbook layouts was published in the eBook Your Story Matters.

• I made handmade paper!

• As a Glue Dots Dottess for almost three years, I've created plenty of project tutorials on this blog and my old one, but once I started EcoScrapbook, I focused on eco-friendly crafting. There are 38 upcycled craft and scrapbook projects right here that use Glue Dots.

• All of last year's Christmas cards were handmade thanks to participating in the Jingle Belles challenge.

• I designed The EcoScrapbooker Manifesto. Check it out if you haven't done so already. Pin it, print it and try to scrapbook by it.

• Sharing the love - one of my favorite blog series was called Scrapbooker Saturday where I featured different scrapbookers and their eco-friendly tips.

• And I almost forgot about another favorite series from 2011 and then a blog hop in 2012, 12 Days of Eco-Christmas, which showcased several eco-friendly Christmas projects.

• Let's talk blog traffic. I don't completely ignore it as I do like seeing visitors on my blog, but it's not a priority. It makes me feel good to blog every week and I must admit seeing over 11,000 visitors in March felt pretty dang awesome. My most popular post features three cute Easter bunnies made from toilet paper rolls. Who woulda thunk?!

There are plenty of other accomplishments, but I think I've covered most of the big ones. I'm glad I did this post and had a chance to review the past two years. I'd like to suggest you do the same.

What have you accomplished since you started your blog? If you do your own post, shoot me an email, tweet me or link up your post in the comments. ~Danielle

10 things I learned from blogging every day

From September 7 to October 6, I blogged every single day for thirty straight days. Below are ten things I learned from my blogging experiment. (This is my first time participating in Shimelle Laine's 10 Things on the 10th and I'm a day late.)

Source: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com on Flickr

1. Scheduling posts is the bomb-diggity (I actually use that phrase at least once a month) and the only reason why I was able to post every single day for thirty days.

2. My old blog (which I haven't posted on since the end of August) is getting twice as much traffic as this blog, so I must have great SEO on several posts (people love my pregnant belly and baby scrapbook layouts) over at Snap.Scrap.Blog.Tweet.

3. Subscribers and traffic have more than doubled over the past thirty days. So, hello there, new readers (and those of you that joined in from my old blog)...yep, I'm talking to you, welcome to my online home. 

4. My top posts: for comments was We have the power to change how the world scrapbooks while Scrapbooker Saturday: Zaira brought in the most traffic. Your fans love you, Zaira! (I didn't count the blog hop for these two categories.) 

5. I love to blog. It gives me a chance to share my thoughts and projects with the world. Blogging makes me feel like I have a voice in the scrapbooking community and allows me to connect with other crafty people. Although I already knew these things, a blogging challenge like this one helped refresh my memory.

6. I don't like to blog every day. At the beginning of the thirty days, I was feeling balanced by exercising daily, juggling mommy and household duties, blogging and writing every day, but I was soon worn out. Something had to give...and it did! I was finding it hard to keep up with everything and feeling like I slacked in several areas of my life. Now, I need to find a new balance (not the shoe kind) and try to stick with it, plus I want to write a children's book (a long-time passion of mine that I keep putting off).

7. Blogging every day made me come up with creative post ideas and series. I had thought about starting a new blog focused on living a better life, but was able to integrate that idea into my Words of Wisdom posts. I also started Scrapbooker Saturday, which I had been wanting to do for a long time and said "What the heck! Do it now." If you want to be featured here, read this post for more information.

8. After my 30th post in a row, the Life's Celebrations MemoryWorks Blog Hop, I was proud of my accomplishment and looked forward to a day of no blogging the day after...so what did I do? Start a new blog. Well, sort of. It's actually a one-stop source of what I do and where I moved my ScrappinMemories4U.com domain so I didn't have to redo my business cards for an upcoming crop. (That's the actual name of my business and I say it like I'm a gangsta because I'm a dork. There is a story behind the name and let's just say that I like EcoScrapbook.com much better.) I have no plans to blog there though.

9. Speaking of the blog hop, I remembered how much I love to play with paper. I've been so busy blogging and trying to learn digital scrapbooking that I ignored my love of making things with my hands.

10. Finally, I learned that I have many supportive friends and readers (YOU!) that want to be a part of my life as much as I want to be a part of your lives! Thanks for sticking with me as I experimented with 30 days of blogging.