The 2016 Blogger Awards!

Hello everyone!

If you were around last year, you may have known a girl called TheAmbivert123, AKA Ambi, who hosted the 2015 Blogger Awards. It was the most amazing thing, for me, that had happened all year; it brought so many bloggers together and spread positivity. Unfortunately, due to a few things, Ambi had to delete her blog early this year (which, of course, was very upsetting).

A few weeks ago, I received a lovely email from her, asking me if I wanted to host the 2016 Blogger Awards, as she wasn’t around yet still wanted it to continue. After I got over my complete shock and screaming fangirl moment, I accepted: it was my favourite part of last year, and I’m so incredibly honoured to carry it on. Thank you, Ambi!

Right, onto the Awards: if you weren’t here last year, you won’t know how it works, so I will explain. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

There are 12 categories in which to nominate blogs, or bloggers. They are listed below, with a description to help you to decide which blogs fit the award best. You can nominate anybody, and the blogger with the most nominations for that category will win the award. However, all nominees will be recognised.

The Rules (PLEASE READ)
• It is preferred if you nominate one blog/blogger per award, but if you’re finding this difficult, two should be the maximum.
• Post ALL NOMINATIONS on this post, or write a post that links to this post so that I am notified as to who you have nominated. If you don’t know how to make a pingback, you can always ask, or email me.
• If you do not link your nominations to this post in some way, they cannot be counted.
• You must link your nominees to their blog – just writing a name will result in confusion, because there are multiple Em’s to give an example.
• Please tag your blog posts that relate to the awards with the hashtag #2016BloggerAwards. This is so that both the readers and I can keep track of any nominations.
• Results will be posted on 31 December, to allow as many people to submit their nominations as possible.

The Categories
Blogger of the Year
A blogger that you feel has stood out this year as being very inspiring, kind, and who holds many of the qualities that you feel makes a fantastic blogger. This blogger can be one who you aspire to be and who’s personality traits cause them to, again and again, be seen as a central part of your blogging community, both to you and others.

Blog of the Year
Through their posts, the blog which you nominate for this category will have made an impact on the community with their writing. Each aspect of the blog is well thought-out, and their posts are both creative and original. Content, appearance and the effect you think this blog has had on you as a person and other people should contribute to why you nominated them.

Kindest Blogger
Somebody who has always been there with a lovely word if you feel down. They do not judge you, and can always be relied on to say the sweetest things no matter the situation that you find yourself in. Their comments are ones that stick in your mind because of their kind words, and they are nice to everybody and anybody.

Most Approachable Blogger
No matter the time of day or the amount of followers you have, you feel as if you can always talk to this blogger. Whether they have 10 followers or 10000, they do not make you feel unwelcome, and allow you to feel as if your opinions will be listened to. They’re friendly, and their personality makes it so that they are easy to have a conversation with.

Best New Blogger
A person who has, ∈spite not being in the Blogosphere for long, made an impact. This award is for those who have taken blogging in their stride, and right from the beginning, given it their all. They have firmly entrenched themselves within the community, emerging into blogging and not letting their ‘newbie’ status bother them.

Most Positive Blog
The posts on this blog, or this blogger’s personality, lift your mood whenever you are not feeling your best. They could write inspirational posts, or have the personality that allows you to smile when they comment or speak to you; a simple post or conversation with them can make you happy.

Most Helpful Blogger
Somebody who has always strived to help anybody, in any situation. This can be through their posts, or through any contact you have had outside of blogging. They have always helped you when you needed any assistance or advice, whether that would be with blogging or any real life situations, and they go out of their way to offer you this help.

Best Looking Blog
When you look at this blog, it should be obvious that they’ve spent some time on making it look amazing. It can be through the way they’ve organised it, the design in general, the best pictures: whatever element they’ve put into their blog, they’ve done it incredibly well. Remember, beauty is subjective, so don’t feel worried that other people may disagree with you.

Most Relatable Blog
Many of the posts that they write, you find yourself relating to. This can be because of their style of writing, or the stories that they share; when you read their blog, you think that you aren’t alone.

Most Creative Blogger
There are some people who have added wonderfully original ideas to the Blogosphere. These people have contributed awards, tags, challenges and anything else that has been very well created. As well as this, they could be a creative writer, artist or could be a musician – anything that showcases a talent, or brings something never brought before to the blogging world. This is flexible, so you can nominate 2 people if this one is especially difficult.

Funniest Blogger
This blogger will never fail to make you laugh. Through what they say, their posts or how they interact with people, they put a permanent smile on your face and can have you in stitches. They can be unexpectedly funny, can say the strangest things, but the one thing that this person has is a brilliant sense of humour.

The Wildcard
If you think that a blog/blogger should be recognised for an aspect of their blog/blogging personality that doesn’t fit a category on this list, then you can nominate them here, with the name of the aspect that they deserve and a comment. Though no one will necessarily ‘win’ this, those that stand out will be featured in the Results post.

I hope that you all have fun with this. Even if you don’t win, your blog will ALWAYS be valid, always be brilliant, because you’ve put so much work into it. This is a celebration of all the bloggers this year, new and old.

I couldn’t have set this up without the help of Tara – who, though she doesn’t post any more, is my closest and oldest blogging friend that remained so. In addition, L helped me out with the descriptions for some of the categories, so a huge thank you goes out to him as well.

Spread the word, everyone! Remember to tag your posts with 2016BloggerAwards!

Thanks to Ambi, again, for letting me host these awards. It means so much to me, and I can’t believe I’m getting to do this.

From Elm 🙂