50 Squidoo Lenses in 3 Months

For my first lens, I chose a favourite topic of mine - genealogy. Of course, I didn't really understand about finding a 'niche' at that stage (nor about choosing an effective URL!). If anything, I thought genealogy was quite 'niche' enough. Luckily, it's a subject that interests people and has, I hope, given some pointers to those curious to find out more about their own family history.

Later on, I did find my genealogical niche when I used my experience in tracking a convict ancestor in a step-by-step guide for others whose ancestors had been transported to Australia.

Although the Nintendo DS game Animal Crossing Wild World has been around for a while, I didn't find much helpful information on getting the best from this game. I decided to compile a couple of guides based on my own experience and research.

How-To lenses are an important part of Squidoo, based on the idea that 'everyone's an expert on something'. These two lenses tapped into my own experiences on a couple of very different topics.

I live in Scotland and had been toying with the idea of a Scottish Gifts lens, to showcase the best of products from Scotland or with a Scottish theme. There's so much more to Scotland than haggis!

I followed this up with a lens devoted entirely to chocolate from Austria, which is every bit as delicious as that from nearby Switzerland and Belgium.

By the time I'd made a few lenses and posted a few times on SquidU, I'd started getting my first visits from other lensmasters, which was quite exciting.

I was invited to join the Fresh Wonders group by 'A_willow' (Michelle). This was an opportunity to work with some of the best lensmasters and with other promising new Squidoo members, and one not to be refused! I jumped right in, and created a lens for the first Fresh Wonders contest. This was my entry.

I adore mountains and wanted to celebrate their beauty in my lenses.

The first one I created was put together with some of my favourite pictures from a summer holiday to Zermatt. I love this lens, but can't seem to get any visitors to it.

In the process of making my Zermatt lens, I came across some stunning mountain wall murals and was inspired to make a lens dedicated to the great mountains of the world.

These came about as a result of the second Fresh Wonders competition - to make a selling lens. I wanted to find a niche for this, and decided on Tango Art. The result was a celebration of the passion and fire of this incredible dance.

Right after this, I made a second Tango lens, to showcase all the wonderful books and films out there related to the Tango. Then I got the excellent advice to put the Tango outfits in a separate lens, and so the Tango Dancer Dress & Makeup lens was born.

My Tango lenses also share some interesting information about the dance, including its history, how to get the Tango dancer look, and the Tango in the movies.

How to find a new festive topic for Christmas, when so many wonderful lenses already exist on every festive thing you could imagine. It seemed quite a challenge. But my favourite thing about this time of year is all those Christmassy smells. So I made a lens all about Festive Scents!

Enjoying the Christmas theme, I managed to sneak in a couple of other niche topics of my own!

This month the fab new SquidQuiz was introduced! Robin challenged us to make a local quiz for the Giant Squid Challenge, and I chose Edinburgh. As these local quizzes are pretty tricky for far-away visitors, I followed it up with a more general quiz about Scotland.

Each week the Fresh Wonders and Giant Squid Challenge groups post a challenge to get us to make a new lens. Here are some of the lenses that I've created as a result.

As I've split my lensography by month, I'll just add these here for now. These are my 'everything else' lenses, the ones I made either to tie in with an existing niche or just because.

I had a lot of fun adding to my Scotland niche, and even found I had enough Scotland-related topics to make a Scotland lensography.

It also gave me a chance to learn some more about the history and culture of the beautiful land in which I live.

If you have visited any of my lenses on Switzerland, you will know just how much I love the scenery and nature of the Alps. It was a pure joy to add to my existing Zermatt lenses.

I was an online learner. So I decided to share my online learning tips and strategies.

I have a thing for colored glass. You can probably tell. The nice thing was that when I made these colored glass gifts for the home and garden lenses, I discovered that many others have a thing for colored glass too!

Expect to see more in this series. :-)

With Christmas so close, it was time to turn my attention to Valentines Day. I only have a couple of lenses so far so had better get my skates on here...

These two men are both talented and handsome. I know I'm not alone in my admiration and hope my lenses will please their many fans here on Squidoo and in the wider world.

To finish off, here's a 'pick and mix' of my remaining lenses. These were either made in response to contests or just because they appealed to me.