2017 Reader Favorites

This year is quickly coming to a close (what?!) and so we thought it would be fun to take a look back at some of YOUR favorite posts from the year. I’ve compiled this list from each month’s favorites based on page views as well as engagement (like pins, shares, and comments), and it was really fun for me to look back to not only see what you all loved, but also DANG, did a lot happen this year!

One pretty common thing I noticed is that you all LOVE room tours. And we had plenty of those this past year. Elsie gave a before and after tour of her Nashville kitchen.  We actually had a bunch of bathroom tours this year too … I guess we were in the mood to fix up our get-ready spaces. 🙂 I shared a before and after tour of my master bathroom renovation. Elsie shared her home’s master bathroom, her Airbnb master bathroom, and her Airbnb second bathroom. So much tiling this year! Elsie collaborated with her friend, Kacey Musgraves, and shared a tour of her living room and dining room. So fun!Elsie and Jeremy spent a good part of this past year preparing to adopt their daughter (Nova!), so she also shared a tour of her playroom and nursery.

Other than room tours, we shared lots of DIY projects, crafts, and beauty tips/hacks throughout the year that you all seemed to love. Here’s some of your favorites …

I think we all died when we saw the Larson’s soft book they made for their daughter and mailed off to her in China. Part of their adoption process including them sending off a little book with some basic information for Nova. Ugh, so cute!  You loved Kara’s colorful indoor herb garden. You all loved these simple DIY custom nail polish shelves. Also, Elsie’s nail polish collection puts mine to shame. Ha! We shared a lot of natural beauty products this year (we’re all about it!), but one you all seemed to really love was this homemade pink salt hairspray. Hello texture!

We shared a lot of hair tutorials this year (see all our archives here), but one you really fell for was this easy messy updo for shorter hair.  We have some of the very best DIY and craft writers around if you ask me (I guess I’m biased, but still), so I always LOVE seeing what our writers come up with and so do you! One project you loved from Rachel this year was her hand-stitched floor pouf. Maybe the cute kitten helped? 🙂I’m glad you all liked this adorable ice skate pillow DIY as much as me.

We do love to share a few more advanced construction-type projects from time to time, and although this one is a lot of effort for a DIY, it’s totally worth it! How cute is this midcentury playset??? Loved this DIY transformable hairpin leg desktop; so awesome to be able to change the shape and size in case you move or just need to set up your space differently.  This was one of my favorite projects from Mandi this year, and apparently you all loved it too. She’s doing so many beautiful and inspiring things in her new home (and she’s going to share more with you all in 2018), but we all totally fell for this Channel tufted storage banquette.  And here’s another awesome natural beauty post all about what you can do with Witch Hazel.

In addition to loving room tours and craft projects, you all love FOOD. But then again, who doesn’t? Here’s some of our top food posts from the year …

We shared 5 cold brew coffee recipes. You better believe I’ll be pulling this out again as soon as the weather warms up.  Cocktails are always pretty popular with you all, and you especially loved this boozy apple cider recipe.  Make ahead healthy dinners are always a winner, and you really loved this recipe for crockpot butternut mac and cheese. (It’s a high-protein plant-based meal, so it gets extra points from me too.)

This was a fun one! You all loved this tutorial for marbled rainbow bread.  Along with launching our new cookbook, Weekday Weekend, which is all about finding a healthy balance in your diet, we also launched a new series with the two dietitians we worked with on our cookbook. We’re calling it Ask a Dietitian and you all have been loving those posts so far. Hooray!

This was a fun seasonal post you loved: Easter Bunny pancakes!  Who doesn’t love an easy and decadent chocolate dessert? I had so many of you tag us when you made this no-bake chocolate silk pie. Clearly, it was a hit!  Call me basic, but every autumn I just want to bake with pumpkin. Thank you so much for making me feel OK in my basic-ness because you all seemed to love these Pumpkin and Tahini Chocolate Chunk cookies just as much as me. 🙂 There’s still time to make this reader favorite for NYE: Rosé soaked gummy bears.

And finally here are a few more reader favorite posts that didn’t really fit into any category—we’ll call these ‘big events,’ if that’s alright with you. 😉

Our brand Oui Fresh expanded like crazy this year!!!! We launched our own line of natural lipsticks, lip glosses, and also essential oils. We added a natural beauty box subscription, which has sold out every single month since the launch. Thank you! We also added new T-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee mugs, and our bestselling daisy sunglasses! We have some office supplies launching soon and we’ll be bringing back Happy Mail in early 2018 (the first month is already in production). We are so glad that you all are loving Oui Fresh because we are so immensely proud of all the products we are putting out with this brand, and we are so excited to share more with you soon. We added a few new cuties to the ABM family this year. First, Laura and Todd welcomed their daughter, Lola, into the world this year—and my goodness, she is about the most beautiful baby you ever did see. I’m currently trying to convince Laura that Lola should be a baby model—she’s gorgeous. Of course, it’s no surprise, given her genes. Here’s Laura glowing at her baby shower earlier this year.

And the Larsons very recently welcomed their daughter Nova into their lives as they are all back from their China adoption trip.  And speaking of awesome moms, our own mother wrote a really awesome post this year called Raising Creativity. It’s all about lessons from the film Mary Poppins that apply to raising children to be creative, full of love and self-confidence. I am trying to convince my mom to write more articles for our blog in 2018; I’m pretty sure I have an in on that situation. 🙂  And the last two ‘big events’ I wanted to point out from the year based on what you all loved is we updated you all on a few things at our bar, The Golden Girl Rum Club. We recently got new merch that I am STOKED about and we’ll be creating a little online shop for that soon.

Last, we celebrated our 10-year blog anniversary this last summer. So if you’ve been reading for a while and want to take a walk down memory lane, you can see that super long and nostalgic post here. 🙂

Thank you for reading in 2017—we love you guys and love creating content that you enjoy! It’s both an honor and our pleasure. We have a LOT of really fun stuff already in the works for 2018, so happy New Year and stick around. xo. Emma + Team ABM