A Year in Review....for Poshed Up

This year has flown by.  I feel like every year older I get, the faster time goes by.  I remember as a kid that it felt like what I thought was an eternity between one Christmas and the next and now I feel like I blink and it's here again.

So much has happened for Poshed Up this past year and I am so proud of what the business has become.   This business started as somewhat of an experiment to see if it could really be profitable.   The business started on July 21st of 2011 and the first year was primarily Halloween bags and stockings.   This past year, 2012, was the business's first full year and it was a GREAT one!!!   I was lucky enough to sell

35 Beach Bags in 3 months

20 Superhero Cape and Mask Sets and 3 Superhero Bags

33 Halloween Trick or Treat Bags between August and October

63 Christmas Stockings and 1 Tree Skirt

and I was lucky enough to make a bunch of other custom orders for local friends including these bags.

All in all for the shop's first full year in business, I am more than THRILLED with its success!  Thank you to each and every one of you that supported the shop this year!   There are tons of new items planned for 2013 so if you love monogramming and handmade items, stay tuned!

As for this blog, well, I started out strong in January with my Operation Organization posts which you can re-visit:

Operation Organization Part 1
Operation Organization Part 2
Operation Organization Part 3
Operation Organization - The Kitchen
Operation Organization - The Linen Closet

and that carried me until February 9th.  Then Valentine's Day was quickly approaching and I shifted to the 10 Days of Valentine's Day which you can re-visit starting HERE.  Then the holidays came so quickly...St. Patty's, Easter, etc. and I never made it back to Operation Organization.

I did my best to keep up on it, but life was busy this year.    Here are a few of my top posts for the year though in case you're wondering what others are reading on this blog.

Even though my son's Superhero party was in 2011, it is still one of the top posts on my blog.

It's a bird...it's a plane...no it's a SuPeRHeRo PaRtY!

Another popular post was from my daughter's birthday last year that I didn't post until this January.

A birthday party for a certain 10 year old....

Some of the other top posts were from Valentine's and Operation Organization.   So... I think that tells me that I should continue the Organization series for 2013 and share some new Valentine's ideas!!

The cool thing and semi weird thing about blogging is that you don't always know who will land upon what you write and share.   You also don't know how they find you, whether from a Google search for a specific topic or from clicking through from another blog.  In my blog's case, my traffic comes primarily from other blogs.   I'm not quite sure how, but I think it's awesome!!

Here are a few of my top referring blogs.... 

Kelly's Korner - One of my FAVORITES....

Life in the Green House - One I haven't read much, but plan on visiting now.

Life Sweet Life - Another blog I love and the one that prompted me to participate in The Turner Silent Auction.

I have also had visitors and readers from 10 different countries this past year including:

United States
Canada
Russia
United Kingdom
India
Australia
Germany
Philippines
Czech Republic
Poland

I have totally enjoyed everything about blogging except that I don't have enough time to share as much as I'd like.  This blog quite honestly started as a place to capture some life moments, but also a way to share some fun ideas for those out there that enjoy decorating and crafting as much as I do.  I never expected to have people actually read it...lol

As of this morning this little ole' blog has had 13,203 page views.....thank you to each and every one of you who have read it and hopefully enjoyed it!  I hope to add more fun content and unique ideas in 2013!!!

Happy New Year and much love and health for 2013 from my family to yours!!!

Poshed Up

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere we go....

We have really been trying to get into the Christmas spirit at our house.   We spent a night at ToysRUs making our Christmas lists with the kids and visited Santa...well by visited I mean waved..lol   My kids are not much for taking pictures with him anymore.    When my husband told my son that Santa was watching, his response was, "no he's not Daddy, he's at the mall giving out autographs."  Love that kid, but it shows you what he thinks about the whole "be good for Santa" thing.

We ventured into NYC for the day to see the Radio City Rockettes.  This was their 85th anniversary and my first time.   It was amazing.  Of course on our way to the show we stopped by the giant ToysRUs in Times Square which was crazy and we stopped by the Rockefeller Center tree for a peek, but it had not yet been lit for the season.

Such a beautiful place!

It was a very festive day and we all enjoyed the show.  It's truly magical!!!

I have been busy working on getting our fall decorations down and Christmas up around the house.  So far, I have tackled the mantle (or at least the 1st round of it).  Yes I'm nuts and I change it in mid December.  Really because I have so many decorations and I love them all.   Here are some pictures from last year.

First round -- I went with my glittery fruit theme last year.

Second round-- As always, this is when I put up our family stockings.  I don't know why, but I didn't take a picture of anything but the stockings last year.

And here was our tree last year.

And this is the first round this year which I am loving.  I love all things red and snagged these decorations at Target this past week with a great coupon.  Not that I needed any new decorations!!

Here it is during the day....I love the red berries, the flocked garland, mercury glass and pine cones.  My favs for sure.

And here it is at night....sparkly...

Our yet to be decorated tree.

And our tree is a work in progress...so far just twinkly lights which I love at night.   I love candlelight, twinkly lights and low lighting in our house at night.  Weird, but I love it!!

Of course our North Pole elf has returned as well.   We seem to get a different one each year and each year we take turns letting the kids name them.  Last year he was named Jaden after the red Power Ranger and this year my daughter has named the poor thing "Honey  Boo-Boo".   Most families have sweet names for their elves...not us.  TV influence all the way.   

My husband and I take turns and obviously have a different sense of humor.

His humor...

My humor...

The kids are more in line with my husband's humor though which is to be expected.  Honey Boo-Boo is up to much mischief already this year.  

I have a lot of work to do to finish up the decorating this weekend and a crazy weekend ahead on top of it. Thankfully I am done shopping.  I am crazy person when it comes to getting my shopping done so that I can relax a bit towards mid December and just wrap presents.

I have been just trying to get the house together, finish up stocking orders at the shop and get ready to celebrate my daughter's 11th birthday!  Not sure how she grew up so fast, but I guess I have to just be ok with it.   She and I are going to see Carrie Underwood and Hunter Hayes tomorrow night and we both couldn't be more excited.  Being able to enjoy these types of things with her is the ONLY perk of her getting older.  

Speaking of being busy with stocking orders--- tomorrow is the last day to order custom monogrammed stockings via the shop if you are interested.  I have decided this year to cut off orders so that I can wind down by mid-December and just enjoy the holiday.  Last year I was working way too late into the month and resented it.   I have been SO SUCCESSFUL this year with orders and I feel very blessed so I have made the decision to cut it off as of December 1st.  Here are some pictures of some of the orders I have filled so far.

If you are interested in ordering, please message me from my shop which you can visit by clicking HERE.

I have been a Pin-aholic lately and have found some creative and very fun ideas for Christmas that I will begin sharing on Monday.    I am going to try my best to do a them each day up until the 24th...we'll see.   I have enough things to share to do it, but we'll see if I can keep up.

Until then...

Poshed Up