A Flannel Friday Celebration!

Welcome to a super-special Flannel Friday!

I am celebrating this week because one year ago this weekend, on January 21, 2011, I posted the first-ever Flannel Friday on Mel’s Desk.

So today I have FOUR Flannel Friday posts: this celebration, an invitation, a giveaway, AND I’ve got the round up!

A Little Flannel Friday History

I came up with the idea for Flannel Friday as a way to make sure I posted regularly to my blog during a more-than-usually busy patch last winter. (I was co-teaching a class on Early Childhood Library Services at the University of Denver for the Early Childhood Librarian project, in addition to my regular full-time job. Very fun, but BUSY.)

It worked just as I hoped; I reached into my files and put up a new idea every week from January to March. That pretty much got me to the end of the quarter, so I met my personal goal and I was happy.

But then something really cool happened that made me even happier: On March 18, Anne at So Tomorrow and Mary at Miss Mary Liberry decided to post Flannel Fridays on their blogs, too!

All three of us posted the next week as well, and Anne went into overdrive on Twitter talking it up, and on Tuesday, March 29, I posted to PUBYAC with a general invitation for anyone with a storytime blog to join us, and the first Flannel Friday Round Up went live on April 1.

A big shout-out to Katie, Mollie, Nicole, and Sharon, who dove right in and joined Anne, Mary, and me that day.

What a ride it has been!

Flannel Friday Milestones

We started using the hashtag #flannelfriday, not realizing we were sharing the tag with a fashion trend.

From the beginning, Anne has generously donated her time and management skills to maintain our post archive list and the host schedule, as well as some tips for hosting, at her blog So Tomorrow.

At the end of July, we fell in love with Pinterest and set up a Flannel Friday account to index all our ideas there.

I finally created a blog button for us in September, and I can’t tell you how much fun it is to come across it when I’m surfing blogs for ideas.

Mollie started a Facebook page for Flannel Friday at the end of September!

Sharon announced 6 months of round ups on PUBYAC on October 1!

Now here we are in a new year and Flannel Friday is still going strong!

Flannel Friday By The Numbers

Flannel Friday Round Ups: 40, as of last week

Flannel Friday Round Ups with At Least One New Participant: 19

Total Flannel Friday Ideas (I’ve probably missed some): 533

Average Ideas Per Round Up: 12.9

Number of Flannel Friday Hosts: 14

Total Number of People Included in the Round Ups: 41

Highest Number of Ideas in One Round Up: 22
A TIE between 11-4 and 12-2. Thanks Anne and LQ for hosting those days!

Members of the Facebook page: 174, this morning

Followers on Pinterest: 661, this morning

Total Number of Twitter Retweet Support from Flannel Friday Readers: Uncountable!
Thanks to everyone who promotes Flannel Friday on Twitter!

People Who Have Been Inspired By Flannel Friday: UNMEASURABLE!

Who knows how many people you have reached, and helped, and inspired? You are all rock stars.

Thanks for reading my Flannel Friday Celebration!

Don’t forget to check out my invitation, and my giveaway!