An Oregon Cottage's Top Ten Posts of 2014

It's time to revisit some of the posts you loved the most this last year! I hope you're not too tired already of seeing "top ten" posts, because I gain a lot of insight by taking the time to see what you all are finding useful from AOC and I hope new readers can see what we're all about here - and my sweet longtime readers can see if your own favorite posts made the list!

So here are the most viewed posts from 2014, which happily represent our three main focuses: recipes, gardening, and diy projects.

Top Posts from 2014

1. Home Canned Pizza Sauce. While I'm not surprised that a preserving recipe made the list (you all love them - they are some of my most popular posts of all time), I am surprised that our humble pizza sauce recipe is number one. Good thing my easy dough recipe made this list so you have something to put all the sauce on!

2. Garlic-Mint DIY Garden Insect Spray. Now this I'm not surprised about at all - except maybe that it's NOT number 1! Why? Because this was totally amazing to me and I couldn't wait to share the results with you all, plus it went a little viral for me, especially over on Hometalk. The before and after pictures of this still blow me away - truly amazing stuff!

3. Flourless Coconut Almond Bars. I'm so happy this photo turned out and that it's helped sell these delicious bars. Grain-free is just one of their attributes - the other just happens to be dark chocolate. Sigh.

4. DIY Tufted French Mattress Cushion. I had planned to make a tufted mattress cushion ever since we made our bench from two old chairs...more than 2 years ago. Well. Better late than never! It made me happy to read recently that a reader linked to this as "the best French-edged mattress cushion tutorial" - wow. Reading stuff like that always amazes me.

5. DIY Flaxseed Warming Pillow Video & Printable Gift Tags. Do you know how much I love that you love these? I kinda think they are a 'signature' project at An Oregon Cottage: quick, easy, useful, inexpensive - and loved by all who receive them as a gift. It's what I aim for in most of what I publish on AOC: do-able things that make our lives better!

6. Sweet & Spicy Canned Onion Marmalade. I've been making this for years, but finally posted it since I find that I use it for so many things - like as a glaze for our holiday turkey. It made me so happy to see it made your top 10 list!

7. The Ultimate Rhubarb Guide. This was the first in a series of Ultimate Produce Guides (that include onion, tomato and asparagus, too), and I'm so excited that one of them made the list, because that means you find them helpful. They take me a LONG time to put together since I want them to be super useful to you guys. In fact, I had plans to publish a lot more of these in the last 6 months of 2014...did I mention they took a long time? Guess what's going on my 2015 goals list? 🙂

8. Quick Homemade Pizza Dough. Can I just say I was blown away by the popularity of this post? Not because it's awesome and the recipe we've used for our family pizza nights for almost 20 years, but because I've posted it 2 times previously. But not on it's own - and not emphasizing the cost savings of making your own easy dough. It's all in the packaging, I guess. I'm just glad it's getting it's due and reaching more people because it was one of my family's first life-changing, easy, from-scratch recipes.

9. The Original Brown Paper Floor Technique - 4 Years Later Video Update. Our original paper floor video remains our most popular - and the one we get the most questions about, even with a dedicated FAQ page - so it was a no-brainer to make a follow-up video. We tried to answer all the questions - but we still get the most questions about this classic AOC diy project. 🙂

10. A Little Weight Update. Your comments, questions, and support of my personal journey and success reaching a healthy weight with real food as been super encouraging to me. Especially that I can be an inspiration for some of you! Humbling, too - thank you so much, friends!
xo,