Dear Readers,
After two weeks of nominations and finals voting, and over three quarters of a million pageviews (double last year's pages), we finally have six remarkable winners to wear the Homies Champion Crown for 2012:
THE 2012 WINNERS
Click to Visit Each One• Best Home Design Blog: Bower Power • Best Family Blog: Rockstar Diaries • Best DIY Blog: A Beautiful Mess • Best Recipe Blog: Munchin with Munchkin • Best Healthy Cooking Blog: The Clothes Make The Girl • Best Food Photography on a Blog: Nom Nom Paleo
WHY THE HOMIES?
There are awards for all sorts of blogs, but no one ever pays enough attention to the home blogs, so we started The Homies. It's our way of surveying the blogosphere each year for the best new home design & cooking blogs and sharing what we find. It's not so much a competition as a celebration of the richness and awesomeness of home bloggers around the world. Join us, share your favorites and check out the ones you don't know.
None of our blogs or past winners are eligible (see below).
THE SCHEDULE
Week 1: Add your favorite home blogs
Friday, February 24 - Friday, March 2 (until midnight EST)
Week 2: Vote on the top nominees
Saturday, March 3 - Friday, March 9 (until 3pm EST)
Winner's Day: Winners announced!
Friday, March 9 afternoon!
THE PRIZES?
The technical prize is $50 to the winner of each category, but the real prize is lots of traffic as we publish the six winners in big congratulatory posts across our network on Friday, March 9th. We want to elevate good home blogs, see who you love and gain awareness for the home niche.
PAST WINNERS
Home Design
2010 Young House Love
2009 Remodelista
2008 design*sponge
Home Tech
2010 Technology Your Way
2009 Ikea Hacker
2008 tie: Engadget & Gizmodo
Kids @ Home
2010 Under the Sycamore
2009 Whatever
2008 Inhabitots
Green Home
2010 A Way to Garden
2009 Maya*Made
2008 Green (Goody)
Home Cooking
2010Gina's Skinny Recipes
2009 Smitten Kitchen
2008 Vegan Explosion
FAQ's
How does it work?
Nominations for the best blogs in these categories are collected all week and you can vote or nominate as many as you like (but only one nomination per blog per person), we then choose the top six favorites, and then you all get one powerful vote starting next week.
Who is eligible?
Any blog, amateur and professional in the homespace in the six categories listed above. Past winners and Apartment Therapy blogs are not eligible.
What is the homespace?
It's the media space dedicated to folks who love their homes, and it concerns decor, cooking, entertaining, raising kids, working at home and a whole host of green issues. We're willing to think broadly, but, remember, we're not concerned with things like cars, restaurants, the stock market and Hollywood gossip.
How many blogs can I nominate?
As many as you wish.
How many new favorite blogs can I discover?
As many as your brain can handle before bursting.
When do we vote?
After a week of nominations, we'll collect up all your input and sort them down to the top six contenders. On Friday, March 2nd we'll post these top six for a week so that you have plenty of time to see them and vote. With one week of nominating and over one week of voting, we should have a good turnout.
Can we vote more than once?
Not in any one category, but you certainly can vote in all six categories.
Can we encourage our friends to vote (for us, even)?
Yes. Not only can't we stop it, we know that the web is a community and word of mouth is how it works.
How do you catch cheaters?
Our ability to catch cheaters, or those who try to stuff the ballot by voting multiple times under different names is managed by closely watching multiple votes under similar names and/or the same IP address. While it's impossible to be perfect, we seek out and remove any serious multiple voting in these two areas. We will also notify the person suspected.We are fully aware that schools and offices often will have multiple votes coming from one IP address. We are very good at this point at differentiating between this and someone who is just trying to hack our system.
Must-See Small Cool Homes: Week Two
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Commercial Flour Sa...
How to Cook Moist & Tender Chicken Breasts Every Time
How To Cook Tender, Chewy Wheat Berries on the Stovetop
I couldn't find where can I add my favorite blogs. Where can I?
@Denizk - Going to any of the categories above you should see a link that says "Nominate a blog!" or if you don't have an Apartment Therapy Community account a couple links inviting you to sign up or sign in to nominate a blog.
If you still have trouble hit us up at help@apartmenttherapy.com.
Hope that helps!
How about a Best Gardening Blog?
Girl & Lamp - click on the links to go to each nomination category and you can see that we're receiving and approving nominations every few hours. :-)
I have never commented on a story here, but couldn't resist mentioning my favorite design blog. The vision she has for random things are pretty unbelievable.
Little Green Notebook
http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/
What a great idea! Going to vote for my favorite now :)
What happened to the Green Home category? As an author of a green blog, Green House, Good Life, I was excited to see this category...but now it seems to be gone.
A question: are previous winners ineligible only in the category they won, or ineligible, period. If the former, then Young House Love should surely be nominated for the DIY category? And - as unfortunately some blogs seem to figure in multiple categories - the Family category?
I also have a question, although OT. Were the winners of the December prize-a-day give away ever posted? If so I must have missed it.
well okay, I voted! Thanks, Apartment Therapy!!!!
I am logged in, but I still can't find the link to nominate a blog. Any advice? Thanks!!!
Can you just post a list we can pull the list of nominations, so I can check out these blogs at a later time?
I tried to cut and paste and couldn't.
If I have several favorites in DIY can I vote for all of them? I just can't choose!
I don't understand how one blog is allowed in two or more categories, isn't that unfair?
I wish the Bowers at Bower Power would remedy their site... I'd read their blog more if it didn't take forever to load and cause me to shut down my computer every time I tried to read it. I've never been able to leave a comment there!
@heidijoe: Everytime I've gone to BowerPower it's mostly baby updates and you're right, can't advance to anything home/decorating related :/
@greenladypants, my aren't we rude and judgey.
I tried to vote (take the survey) on Friday 3/9 at 11 AM EST and it said the contest was over, even though on the website said I could take the survey until 3 PM EST on 3/9. Would appreciate it if the site was working correctly for future interactive things @apartmenttherapy.
Scratching my head a little here.....hmmmm. Each to their own I guess??
Love these awards for introducing me to new blogs each year, but I do feel that they are more like a popularity contest of rabid readers versus a judgement of top-notch blogging, like in prior years.