SHIN SHIN 1 year!

SHIN SHIN is one year today! What a year it has been! Thank you everyone for visiting my blog. Please feel free to join me to celebrate. There will be special presents to all to follow :) 

My first ever blog post was this. I started without knowing anything about the blogging world, but just wanted to try out in order to gain my creative life that has been hidden away for a long time. Now it has become an important part of my life. What does your blog mean to you? How did you start? I took baby steps each time. Learning every time. Not sure if I was doing any good. I was also skeptical about the virtual existence itself. Are you or were you? If so, I would like to say that actually there are lots of positive aspects of blogging that could make you happy. It can even change your life, you never know? To me, there were endless things that made me happy during the first blogging year, things like these...

• Meeting artists in real through the blog connection. The moment that the skeptical virtual connection has become real. All were fabulous experience and I got so much buzz out of it. Thank you for your time Kat, Adam, Claire, Mizuyo and Moyra. (I also posted here and here)
• My work was featured by kind bloggers. Thank you Veronika, Flora, Kate and Hitomi. 
• My longing dream pottery studio has been completed! Your encouraging comments certainly helped me move forward and make things happen. Thank you!  
• I did my first ever public show! Again your support helped me through this. 
• Simply being me! This was the biggie! 
• Success in my first fundraising project! So so so many people kindly linked my project to spread the words. Honestly, without your support, this project has not been completed like it was. Also I was pleased to know people liked my creation, too. Thank you so so much!  

Your comments have always been the greatest part. I love reading every single comments and they certainly boosted me. Sadly I am not very good at replying to each comments and although I tried as often as possible, it has not been successful. So, as it’s an anniversary, I would like to give you something back. Not just one giveaway to one winner, but ‘thanks back’ to everyone. This is how I go about it. 

thanks back 1: 

I would like to hear what you think of SHIN SHIN. Any questions or suggestions? What you like about my blog? Any post particular? Or absolutely anything you want to write to me, please leave that to the comment space below. I WILL make sure this time to go back to your link and comment back. I will follow each one of you, too. (unless I am already a follower.) I remember how grateful I felt when I first got followers and comments (and I still do!) after worrying about “who cares about my blog???” It is always nice to know there are connections out there, don’t you think? Thought this might be a good return to start with. Please don’t forget to leave your link, too.

thanks back 2: 

I would like to send a special SHIN SHIN postcard with my written message to you, anywhere in the world. Images on the postcard (as you can see above) are all from my blog post and work that I made. If you would like to have one, please email me your name and full address to makikohastings@gmail.com

Of course, you can do both 1 and 2. Feel free to join or not. Totally open to you. Thank you agin for your support on SHIN SHIN. Looking forward to hearing from you. xm