Based on last year's review, here are some numbers for comparison. In the last year I've made 108 blog posts, 40 of which were published last month alone thanks to my Garden A Day Challenge. June 2018 saw more posts published than in either 2016 or 2017, each of those years only having 46 posts in them!
Google + is still pushing along with 544 followers. Since last year, my YouTube channel has gained over 50 uploads (124 videos) and the views have more than doubled at just over 10.5k! I'm pleased to say that my YouTube channel now has cleared the 100 subscribers mark. The most viewed post in the last year was Season's Greetings in December with 189 views which has a long journey to cactch up to the overall most viewed video from M&M Nursery back in 2015 with 578 views. Since last year, my granddaughter helped to get us connected on social media including Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. I began pushing these accounts in May 2018 and currently have 17 Twitter followers, 40 Pinterest followers and 83 Instagram followers.
Numbers aside, we had many accomplishments in the past year. Most recently was the Garden A Day Challenge, my first attempt at anything like this. I feel like this challenge did a great deal for me personally (cleaning up my garden and allowing myself to be creative quickly and cheaply) as well as helped my online presence (social media numbers grew significantly).
The blog has seen very little of the food garden - which will change - but my YouTube views have really seen an improvement thanks to my edible garden updates. I also attribute a rise in YouTube viewership to a few of my new monthly features including my shopping hauls and unboxing videos. I still don't understand why "the haul" is such a big deal to people but I'm glad my grandson told me they were popular and we have been able to benefit from it.
On the topic of monthlies, we have been doing a DIY fairy garden class each month for quite some time and have slowly begun to add new staples to the blog which I hope you will look forward to. The monthly list includes fairy garden class, My Fairy Folks - a visit to one of my follower's garden each month, Gifts for the Garden - a look at the gifts I receive from followers and family each month, unboxing posts (currently Seed Bank Box and My Fairy Crate which may change in the future), shopping hauls, food garden updates and garden projects that will including repainting and lights as a main feature. Whew!
That's all quite a lot of accomplishments but according to last year's review, our biggest goal was to put together a contest. Unfortunately, we were unable to make that happen in the last year, however you may be surprised to know that planning has been underway for a while! There is a lot that goes in to something like that (especially technical web type stuff that I don't know about), but actual progress is being made on making it a reality. We are hoping to begin the contest before the end of this year and will reveal details soon.
What I'd currently like to announce is the fact that my blog has it's own url now! In March I purchased the name GardenWithGrandma.com and if you type that into your browser now, it will bring you right back to this blog. In the future, it will host our contest and blog posts. I felt this was an appropriate move since it would allow us to possibly make money through ads (which will help continue to fund all things fairy garden and food garden related), allow us to host the fairy garden contest and anything else we'd like to do in the future all under a website name that is easy to remember and access.
If you can believe it, I think our goals for the year ahead of us are even bigger! The previously mentioned contest is our biggest and scariest goal! This is uncharted territory for myself and any of my grandchildren but we are determined to make this happen. I was inspired to do this contest since the one I used to participate in (The Magic Onion) has not been active for years. I felt that there were a lot of people like me who were just hoping to find a similar contest and decided to take it upon myself to just create one. Also on the horizon for the next year is expanding the food garden and adding new fairy garden areas. I plan to make the front garden more kid friendly since my great-grandchildren are getting older and I'd love to have them over more. I plan to visit more local stores and nurseries to showcase fairy garden accessories and hopefully add this to my list of monthly features.
There is talk of getting the fairy garden class back out to an actual location, allowing me to meet up with My Fairy Folks and have a lovely morning of creativity. November 2015 was the last time a physical class was held at Sunshine Growers Nursery in Yucaipa, CA. It is a favorite nursery of mine and they have increased the stock of fairy decor as well as miniature plants since then, so I think we will be setting ourselves up for success upon our return. We have not set a date just yet, but if you'd like to sign up for our email list to stay in the loop, please send me an email with the subject "Fairy Garden Class" to grandmasefg@gmail.com and feel free to make class theme suggestions. We are hoping to get this started before the end of 2018.
My immediate future holds a day trip this week with my granddaughter to participate in a Fairy Garden Class hosted elsewhere. Follow me on Instagram to keep track of Thursday's events and look forward to my review on the location and event later this month. If you have any suggestions for me or would like to say hi, my contact and social media information is at the bottom of this post.
Finally, I'll leave you with this photo of Prince Finn Mac Fidaig, seated in front of our anniversary hydrangea with an inviting setting for tea.
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