2010 in review

Happy Monday Everyone!

It’s been a great year here at Flohaus.  I started off last year thinking that this was just going to be a small additive to my life in the design world; a place that I could share new and exciting things from the Toronto design scene and the international realm. I took you on my journey to cool new stores, we visited cool designers and their studios, I reported on exciting events in the city and enticed you to enter a contest.  We lost “Paint Talk” with Karen Thursby but gained “Flower Power” with Nicola Bishop. I introduced the popular “Blue Sky” fridays and searched out design creators who were focussed on the big picture – making our world a better place. And we did lots more!

Last week, I started a reassessment and told you what the best and worst rated posts were, but I didn’t get into very much detail. And then the helper monkeys at WordPress sent me a breakdown, showing the health of FLOHAUS that I want to share.

According to The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ FLOHAUS gets a Wow!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships. Yahoo!!

In 2010, there were 284 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 331 posts.

The busiest day of the year was April 28th with 1,083 views. The most popular post that day was Ode to the Recliner.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, wordpress.com, twitter.com, mail.live.com, and mail.yahoo.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for flohaus, flohaus.com, colour forecast 2011, magnolia tree, and wall tattoo.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Ode to the Recliner April 2010
24 comments

2

Top Post this Month – The Ultimate Sectional June 2010
2 comments

3

Christmas Tree Decorating! November 2009

4

About October 2009
4 comments

5

Paint Talk – How to Faux Bois Your Walls February 2010
9 comments

Thank you helper monkeys! (I want a helper monkey)

I’m truly thrilled that we are doing so well and deeply appreciative of your visits, comments and suggestions. Your encouragement gives me the energy to strive to make this community a better, more fun experience.  This year, we bring you more of everything – cool products, places, people and more DIY’s too!  I’m so excited!

But I still need your great feedback, so don’t hesitate to let me know what you think of a post or if you want to see more of something.

This week, we will look at trends for 2011 and reveal exciting events coming soon!

Have a wonderful first week of the year!

Cheers!

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Flower Power – Bringing Spring into your Home

Today is the first in a by-weekly series devoted to bringing the outdoors in.  Nicola Bishop has been a florist for many years in the beach neighbourhood of Toronto and currently works in the well-known East of Eliza Flower Shop.  Nicola will share her knowledge of plants and flowers and help you have the most wonderfully, healthy plants.

January and February are known as the two most dreariest months of the year. This is definitely the time when we need to lift our spirits, and there’s no better way to do that than to add some color into our lives with luscious green plants and spring bulbs.

Just by adding some bright yellow primula, purple hyacinth and a beautiful delicate green orchid, you can instantly brighten up a corner, dining room table or tide us over till spring.

Hyacinth otherwise called a breath of spring, can be planted into a glass vase with stones coating the bottom. Simply place the bulbs so that only the roots are in water and you’ll be able to enjoy watching them grow until a fragrance fills your house.  With enough light, warmth and circulating air they will flower beautifully. You can also get hyacinth vases made especially for this at local grocery stores.

When done, keep hyacinth bulbs in a brown paper bag in a cool dark basement, until the temperatures are above freezing.   Then simply replant in the spring in your garden.  But remember, they can take up to two years to bloom again.

Green plants are also a great pick me up, especially the bright green neon pothos. This is an extremely durable plant and the easiest to maintain. Almost any level of light will suit the pothos and it actually likes to dry out between watering. This plant only needs watering once every two weeks, and it will certainly let you know when, when it appears very limp.  A little water, and it perks right back up again!

Pothos is also, an excellent plant for making cuttings. All you need is a cup of water and in no time at all, it will be rooting.

Spring isn’t very far off, but why wait?

Stop by East of Eliza at 1960 Gerrard street East in Toronto, 416-691-8038 where you’ll find a large selection of great pots, luscious green plants and spring planted bulbs to brighten up your home.

Until next time then, when I’ll be showing you how to make incredible flower arrangements,

Nicola Bishop

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