Shoe Daydreams 1 Year Anniversary Celebration

Pink Explosions by tzatziki

Today is a very special day around here because today is the 500th post and the 1 year anniversary of Shoe Daydreams!!!

I can't believe that a year has already flown by since I did my first post. Back then I had been reading several blogs and was inspired to try my own. Little did I know how much I would enjoy it.

Part of writing this blog came out of my sheer love and enjoyment of shoes and fashion. North Carolina is a great place to live but, where I am, is not a high fashion capital. And, frankly, I think some of my office mates were getting bored with all the shoe talk!

Online I found some amazing friends who are great writers, hilariously funny and amazingly inspirational all around, not just in the fashion department. Just a few to mention are:

Manolo was very supportive and added me to his blog roll right away. I was so excited.

Miss WendyB has made me laugh my ass off and taught me a thing or two about crazy monarchs, something I already loved but now know lots more about.

Winona has also been so funny it's almost wrong. I've embraced by shiny addiction with Martin's support and learned to fear what five guys could be thinking about some of my crazier choices.

Style Spy is too ready of an enabler and entices me to get more red patent leather in my life... as if I needed more!

Susie Bubble - Her layered masterpieces and overseas selections help me keep my eyes and mind open.

The Queens' style has made me want to add more toughness to my selections. And more adorable jewelry choices.

Lady Coveted's vintage selections make me wish we lived closer so I we could share closets.

And Miss Gala - it was great to meet her in person and I'm glad she's online so I can get my fix each day. I'm sure there are tons of loyal nonpareils who feel the same.

Of course these are just a few of the people who keep the blogosphere running for me. I can't say how obsessively I check back to all of my favorite sites (and Tweets and Flickr) because it might be a little scary. Only their analytics programs know for sure.

I also love love love that you all come by to read my ramblings and listen to me babbling about new shoes or a designer I just found. I love the comments I get on here and via email. It totally makes my day like you would not believe.

To celebrate and to show my love and appreciation for you all, I'd like to give a little a little present back to YOU!

Since I love to hear your stories, send me a story (or a photo or a collage or anything) about your favorite/funniest/most mortifying/happiest shoe or fashion-related moment. You can send it to me either in the comments here or to my email (see up there to the right). I'm on Flickr, Polyvore, and Twitter - so any contact method is cool.

And what sort of a prize will we be having for this Celebration??? Well, you have two choices -

Option A: $50 Zappos Gift Certificate

Option B: Two amazing books - Manolo Blahnik's Drawings and Blahniks by Bowman book of photos.

The Shoe Daydreams Share Your Shoe Story Celebration contest will run through July 20th. I'm looking forward to some fun stories for everyone. I'll have this button up on the left so it will be easy to check back.

If you want to share the contest with anyone, please feel free to do so. You can grab the image here or I can even send you the html code - just drop me an email.

Thank you all again for being here and for making this so much fun. I was asked when I started this if there was really that much to say about shoes and all, I would have to say, resoundingly, YES! And I can't wait to keep going into the next year.

Luv,

Poochie