Top Five Posts of 2019

Another one come and gone.  Year that is - another year is over.

As I get slower the years go faster.  Wasn't it just a couple years ago we were worried about some terrible computer thing when the clock struck midnight and the date changed to 2000? Whattttt that was 20 years ago?  Hmmmm.

Whatever.  I don't alter my life over predictions and I have pretty much quit making New Years resolutions -  both for the same reason; neither usually happens.

But before I move into 2020 I did some reminiscing of the projects past here at the ranch and picked the top 5 fan favorites.

As I looked back on the Bliss Ranch happenings I realized I spent more time outside sprucing stuff up in 2019 by working on little outdoor projects.  I also enjoyed the completed things I spruced and the quiet time painting outside in the sun was nice.

I'm not a statistic checker for this blog, although at the end of each year I get curious what projects readers seemed to like the most.  Sometimes I am surprised by that, and sometimes not.

This year it's a sometimes not. The most viewed posts are probably my favorites from 2019 too. 

There were not any large projects that took place since much of my husbands free time was spent helping one of our sons build his own house.  I'm hoping in 2020 a couple home improvement projects will happen on our wish list too.

So what projects did the Bliss Ranch readers enjoy the most?

The #1 viewed post was a little vintage school chair that got a makeover in September.

The inspiration happened when I realized that the name of the school I attended in 2nd grade was in fact called Vintage Street School.  A cool school name needed to be memorialized in paint for the rest of time.

I cleaned up the old chair by refreshing it with some stain and paint, then found an appropriate quote and painted it on the seat.

Basically I created a keepsake for myself.

It seems 2019 was also the year of making over tin and metal at my place.  The next four most popular posts involved buckets, metal antique milk cans, and an unused tin.

The #2 fan fav was an honest to goodness fresh flower door wreath.

A great way to use the blooming bounty from my first year as a new dahlia gardener was by making a fresh flower door wreath.

I created the wreath from pallet wood, with an Old Sign Stencils pallet pattern, and I was then able to use my garden flowers through their whole growing season. 

The flower water could be changed out from the water container that was hidden inside the tin, so this door wreath was always fresh.

I'm looking forward to another dahlia growing season, and if you click over to the dahlia wreath post you can read how my little flower garden came to be, with flowers started by a couple of folks no longer around.

In the #3 spot was an updated version of a couple of metal milk cans that were put out to pasture and then revived with Fusion Mineral Paint.

Two old rusty crusty antique milk cans  were refreshed.

I painted the cans black, then used two different Old Sign Stencils (Bakery & Antiques) to give the cans some charm.

The cans went to my front porch to hold plants for the summer and were by far better looking and more useful than they were when rotting in the woods.

#4 and #5 popular posts go to buckets, and my December holiday posts also involved buckets and/or metal and were hugely popular.

#4 is painted, stenciled, old galvanized buckets that were hung from a very long soffit along our garage. 

The buckets previously hung in a barren sea of cream stucco for a few years, and to give the long wall some color I decided to paint them.

Old Sign Stencils were mixed and matched with words you would find at a summer vacation spot.

As a test I planted hostas in each of them.  We have an over abundance of those and they grow well here, so rather than spend all that money on flowering plants that I am known to kill, I opted to see if the buckets would sprout each spring and produce fresh hostas.

The hostas lived successfully all summer into fall, so we will see what happens in spring of 2020, if the bucket hostas come back to life like the ones do in our yard.

Last on the list of top five fan favorites, is another bucket that I amused myself with.

#5, Dear Liza's Bucket. 

You know that old song "there's a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza".... well I've got her bucket.

The vintage bucket came in a box of stuff from an auction.  I'll plant some flowers in it for spring, and because there really wasn't any hole in the bucket, I will probably drill a few in the bottom for drainage since it didn't take long for those lovely Fall mums to drown at our mudroom door from the Fall rains.  Sad, but true.

And there 'ya have it, the top 5 fan favorite posts from the Bliss Ranch Blog for 2019.

There wouldn't be any fan favorites with out what has turned into thousands of people who stop in to take a peek at what I'm up to.  So to those folks, along with the handful that take the time to leave comments, thank you!  I appreciate all of you.

Quick Links:

Vintage School Chair

Fresh Cut Dahlia Flower Wreath

Antique Stenciled Milk Cans

Old Galvanized Buckets

Dear Liza's Bucket