Top 10 Blog Posts of 2021

Curious about the most popular blog posts on Honestly Modern this last year? Have a look!

It’s fun and funny to look back on the blog posts that were the most popular each year. After writing over 800 posts, a few rose to the top as the ones that readers most seem to most enjoy. Here are the top 10 blog posts, according to Google Analytics, from 2021.

30+ Fun Adventures For Families To Do Together

Family adventures are a great way to spend quality time together and choose experiences over things. This post snuck up on me and became popular just in the last few months.

Read it here.

How To Create A List of 100 Dreams

Years ago, I wrote my first post about creating a list of 100 dreams, inspired by the idea from Laura Vanderkam’s book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think. When we are intentional about how we spend our time and what we prioritize, we will probably have more opportunities to make time for the things we love and enjoy.

This post has been popular for several years. It garners traffic from all over the world. I’m not quite sure what people love so much about it, but they seem to really appreciate it. Have you ever made a list of 100 dreams?

Read it here.

How To Clean and Reuse Glass Jars For Everyday Use

My eco-friendly living tips are alive and well in this post. This one got popular right after I wrote it, and it continues to be of interest to many people. I love that I still receive occasional comments from readers with their helpful tips and tricks to make reusing glass jars and bottles even easier.

Read it here.

30+ Ways To Responsibly Dispose Of Old Books (Sell, Donate, & Recycle)

Throwing away old books (or even new books we no longer need) feels like blasphemy to me. I hate throwing them out. I set out to find several alternatives to rehome or repurpose books our family outgrew. In many cases, we simply check books out from the library so we don’t have to dispose of them. However, we do acquire books over time. If you’re looking for ways to declutter your bookshelves, head over to this post for a whole bunch of ideas.

Read it here.

On a related note, you can also use old books as decor. Recently, Reese Moore shared this amazing holiday tablescape centered around repurposing old books including using pages as a DIY table runner.

How To Make Homemade Bath Bombs With Kids

This post was my first post that garnered significant traffic from Google. It has waned in popularity in recent years but still attracts lots of eyeballs each month. And my boys still love to use this recipe to make their own bath bombs. It’s a blog post to which I return with them several times a year.

Read it here.

An Unpaid Review of the Vitamix FoodCycler FC-50

No one did a deep dive on reviewing the FoodCycler, an indoor electric composter. So I did it. With a fairly steep price tag, many people want detailed reviews of how it works, how well it works, and all the different ways it makes sense for someone looking to reduce their food waste. I really love this post and have been building out more information related to it, like this carbon emissions analysis of the Vitamix FoodCycler FC-50.

Read it here.

How To Create Easy Video Montages For Your Family

Sometimes a post gets really popular, and I’m really not sure why. I guess it’s because it’s a topic that few others cover. I’m really not an expert on creating family videos, but I guess I learned enough to help others make sense of the applications and programs one might use to make simple family videos on their phone or computer. I really ought to go back and update this post.

Read it here.

12 Great Brands For Sustainable Kids Clothes

Most posts I find about sustainable clothing brands include primarily expensive and niche brands comprised styles my boys won’t really wear. I put together this post to help other parents with kids like me find better brands at reasonable prices to outfit their growing children.

Read it here.

12 Questions To Find The Perfect Gift For Everyone On Your List

I kind of hate gift guides. I used to really hate gift cards, but they have become somewhat more specific in recent years. This post grew out of my dissatisfaction with gift guides full of candles, scarves, and slippers. I don’t use any of those things, and certainly don’t want to buy them for most of the people in my life. Instead, I prefer to purchase gifts I know they will truly love and use. These 12 questions help me find great gifts for just about everyone in my life.

Read it here.

Please Don’t Make Banana Peel Compost Tea Fertilizer For Houseplants

Several months ago, my Instagram feed started to fill up with posts about banana peel compost tea. Through the magic of microbes, banana peels enclosed in a jar full of water would magically turn into nutritious compost tea for flowering plants. Given my knowledge of compost and the decomposition process that takes place to break down food scraps into finished humus, I called bologna on this oversimplified sustainable hack.

This post is by far the most popular post of 2021. At the beginning of the year, Pinterest predicted that banana peel compost tea would be a popular trend. They were right. However, a small part of me wonders if my post, which lives in the number one spot on Google right now for banana peel compost tea, might have put a bit of a damper on this silly trick. Probably not, but it’s fun to wonder.

I receive so many comments on this post, many of which make me laugh. Some are uniquely helpful while others are especially negative, harshly informing me that I’ve missed the memo and banana peel compost tea definitely works. If there’s one thing that indicates you’ve made it in online content creation, it’s mean comments on your content. And based on this post, I think I’ve made it. Haha.

Read it here. (And if you’re looking for the mean comments, I delete the ones that aren’t helpful or are particularly unkind. I’m all for constructive criticism, but I’m not making this space open to nasty trolls.)

Do you have a favorite Honestly Modern post from 2021? Tell me what you liked in the comments (or let me know what you’d like to see more of). I will definitely take note when planning for 2022.

Jen Panaro

Jen Panaro, founder and editor-in-chief of Honestly Modern, is a self-proclaimed composting nerd and an advocate for sustainable living for modern families. In her spare time, she’s a serial library book borrower, a messy gardener, and a mom of two boys who spends a lot of time in hockey rinks and on baseball fields.

You can find more of her work at Raising Global Kidizens, an online space to help parents and caregivers raise the next generation of responsible global citizens.

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