Since it’s nearing the end of this year, my fiance Navid and I went for a nice dinner together last weekend to chat about our achievements from this year.
We did this last year too, and these dinners are great opportunities to reflect on what we love doing, what and whom we appreciate in life, and how fortunate we are. 🙂 It’s too easy to forget these things in our busy daily lives.
We both have websites where we teach and share what we love doing – me: belly dance costume making and Navid: playing the Oud. And we put a lot of time into these websites. So naturally, we discussed the growth of our websites and people we were able to help through our activities.
For Sparkly Belly, our highlights were:
- The launch of the Belly Dance Costume Workshop
- Some of the highly popular blog posts (you’ll see more in a minute)
- Each one of the newsletter subscribers
- Sparkly Belly has become a business
For me, this business component of Sparkly Belly was quite significant, because this allows me to actually fund supplies for creating tutorials and create higher quality resources and help more people. Although it’s still not enough to pay for my time yet, I love what I do here on Sparkly Belly, and that we were able to launch the workshop and the students are loving it inspires me to keep going! 🙂
I, of course, could not have run this Sparkly Belly website single-handedly, and I thank Navid for his love and support for all the content that we produced for Sparkly Belly.
And of course, I feel very grateful to know that you are reading this, right now, and that we have thousands of email subscribers supporting Sparkly Belly, learning from it, and being part of the community. The number of members in Sparkly Belly’s Facebook group has also grown significantly this year, and I really appreciate the creative and helpful community we have there.
So no matter how you participate in Sparkly Belly, thank you so much! (sending big hugs to you!)
Best of Sparkly Belly 2015
So here I’m going to showcase some of the most popular posts on Sparkly Belly this year. If you missed any of these, now is a good time to catch up and start planning new projects for the new year!
How to Make a 5-Panel Mermaid Skirt
This mermaid skirt post has become the most popular post on Sparkly Belly and on my YouTube channel. Lots of people have told me that they made their own mermaid skirts using this tutorial. 🙂 (I want to do a showcase of their photos one day!)
DIY 10-Minute Tribal Overskirt
This super easy overskirt has become the popular post #2 on Sparkly Belly. Beginner friendly, and really, if you want to skip stitching (I’m talking about just a few stitches), you can use safety pins as a short cut 😉
How to Make a Circle Skirt
I created this circle skirt tutorial in November 2014, but it remained consistently popular throughout 2015. Circle skirts are simple to make, super versatile, and you can layers them to create the custom made costume look!
27 Ways to Wear a Belly Dance Veil in 5.5 Minutes
This is a fun video showcasing 27 ways to wear a veil. If you need some ideas or inspiration, have a look 🙂
How to Make a Belly Dancer Harem Pants
I love these harem pants. They are really easy to make, so great for beginners! Comfy & poofy 🙂
DIY Belly Dance Body Stockings
This item was requested many times before I finally made the tutorial. This picture always makes me wish I had decorated the body stocking before taking the photo! The clean canvas makes me want to decorate it with sparkles 🙂
DIY Shrug for Dancers
The fabric I used for this shrug is my favourite print of the year! Gorgeous flower patterns against navy blue background. Some dancers have made this shrug and the above overskirt out of same fabric to create a matching set for their practice wear 😀
Belly Dance Costume Making 101
This is a free course I put together as a guide to starting costume making, and over 600 people have already signed up for it. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you check it out from here 🙂
Which post was your favourite this year? What kind of post would you like to see on Sparkly Belly next year? Let me know in the comment section below! 🙂
Happy Holidays!
P.S. Did you have an awesome holiday performance? Share a photo of your performance with me by email mao@sparklybelly.com before next Wednesday, December 23. Your photo may be featured in next week’s post 😉
Want to make more costuming bits yourself?