4/4/14

3 Years

Today is a special day for me, as my blog is now three years old.  I can't believe how many amazing people I've met and opportunities I've had over the past three years, all because of My Creative Life!

I originally started this blog for two reasons.  The first was that an increasing number of Design Team gigs were requiring active blogs and I didn't want to miss out on an opportunity because I didn't have a blog.  The second reason was that I had been doing a lot of blogging for others and I wanted more control over my writing.  I was worried that if any of these sites shut down, the articles I had worked so hard to write would disappear forever.  If you look through the archive of my blog, you'll see entries dating back to September 2010.  Before this blog went live, I added copies of the articles I'd written for others here, then backdated them to when they were published elsewhere.  I'm very glad they're saved here. 

I published the very first post written solely for own my blog exactly three years ago today (April 4, 2011). It was titled Craft Withdrawal and fewer than 10 people read it.


My readership has grown quite a bit since then!  By far, my most popular post is The World's Best Classroom Birthday Treat, with over 35,000 pageviews.


My Giraffe Cake is in second with about 10,000 pageviews.  


Close behind are my Snowman Gift Tags.


All three of these have been very popular on Pinterest and show up high in Google image searches.  They've each been featured on other sites as well.

Most of the traffic to my blog comes from searches about classroom birthday treats, giraffe cakes, and snowman crafts.  I also see a lot of traffic for bunny rolls, Lego pinata, ribbon barrette tutorialid reactions, dollar bill dispenser, and Pinewood Derby designs.
People ask me all the time about my favorite posts.  That's a really tough question, one that gets harder all the time.  But a few do stand out.  Here are 10 of my favorites, in no particular order:

When I started my blog three years ago, I expected a small readership of family, friends, and random scrapbookers.  I didn't expect so many people from around the world to follow the ins and outs of my creative adventures.  I certainly didn't expect to receive job offers as a direct result of this blog.  I didn't expect to connect so deeply with fellow bloggers.  

 To all my readers- thank you.  I am incredibly grateful for your support and the enthusiasm you've shown for my blog.  For the handful of you who have read all 820 posts, a special thank you!  I'm really excited about what the future holds for me and My Creative Life.

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations Cindy! I haven't read all 820 posts, but close, and am so glad you are still having fun.

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  2. Happy blogaversay!
    Good content will always draw readership. Keep up with the good work!

    P/s: None of my family or real-life friends read my blog...they may not even know that I have one. Every reader is someone I "met" through blogging.

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  3. Yay!! I can't believe it's already been three years!!! I totally remember discussing your desire to start this blog in great deal on our trip to CHA that year. I'm so glad you did it and stuck with it -- I love reading your blog!!! And BTW -- thinking back to those conversations, you not only did it and stuck with it -- you totally killed it!! Hope you have many more years of great blogging Cindy!!! :)

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  4. Thank YOU for blogging! I so often find terrific ideas here and I love reading about your family. You really have a super blog and so many fun ideas.

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