all - time top and bottom five posts -- part one

The Blogger "stats" layout is a really handy way to feed my obsessive compulsive tendencies. I can check on how many hits per day/week/month my blog is getting, what countries the hits are coming from, and what URLs are referring people to my blog. I can also see which individual blog entries are drawing the most (and least) traffic.

This is both interesting (to my stats-obsessed mind) and informative (in that it lets me know what readers might be interested in, how they're finding my blog, and where I should focus more/less of my time and energy).

So here's a little glimpse at my top and bottom five all-time posts, and a little of my thought process into figuring out why certain entries are doing so much better than others.

#1: Skyrim Birthday Cake

This is a fairly recent blog entry featuring a birthday cake I made for my husband's birthday last fall, based on a video game (Skyrim) he was playing frequently at the time. It shows up pretty high on a Google search for Skyrim cakes, but I know the cake everyone is really after is this one by Charm City Cakes. It's also of a dragon perched on a rock, but their dragon is incredibly skillfully made and detailed, whereas mine is . . . well, you know the saying about how if you can't say anything nice, don't leave any blog comments? Yeah, me too.

#2: Spoon Sunburst Mirror

I completed this project for the Young House Love/Bower Power Pinterest challenge back in August, and they're still my number one and two sources of hits for this project. Pinterest is right up there in the top five, as well. I've checked recently and this project has been repinned in the neighborhood of 40 times (to find out what's being pinned from your website or blog, use this:

http://pinterest.com/source/nightgardendesign.blogspot.com/

replacing your URL for mine).


#3: Delusions of Grandeur

This one is all about the Vault Boy cake. For certain. Because I always have "Vault Boy Cake" and "Fallout Cake" pop up on my list of Google searches that direct people to my blog. Again, my cake posts get a lot of traffic, but not many comments. But I hope they're inspiring some people, despite that trend!

#4: New Year, New Things to Love!

Due to the overwhelming popularity of those matryoshka measuring cups , and the single solitary sale on yardage for my shorts design, I'm calling this one for the Russians.

#5: Lampshade Re-Do with Upcycled Milk Jug

This one is still one of my favorite projects and blog entries, and has also made an appearance on Pinterest. I think it's been popular because of its use of plastic milk jugs, and because it's a lighting project (which tend to do pretty well across the board).

So there you have the top five all-time blog entries on the Night Garden Blog! Stay tuned for an entry coming up about the bottom five all-time blog entries. Guaranteed to show you a few you haven't seen yet!

(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)