We’re only one month away from Spring (well technically) and fast approaching Valentine’s Day. We’ve also had lots great stuff going on this week so let’s get started on the round up.

1) Have you found the perfect gift for your Valentine? If not check out the Best of Squidoo: Unique Valentine’s Day Gifts.

2) Looking to create a Valentine’s Day lens? We’ve got some search terms to get you starterd: Top 7 Search Terms For Valentine’s Day.

3) In this weeks lens tips Tom gave some great tips and advice on How To Get The Greenlight while Kimberly asks…Are you a Hoarder?

4) Susan introduced some New Lensmasters Carving Niches Into Squidoo Lenses.

5) We’ve got Silly Celebrations all around us thanks to Robin. Here are some Silly Celebrations in January and be sure to check out the new quest Silly Celebrations – February. PS – Even if you didn’t receive the “Official” quest you can still create a lens!

6) And last, but not least We’ve added 10 new Squidoo charity partners!

Hope you had a fantastic and fun first week of February,

-Bonnie Diczhazy
Squidoo Community Organizer

PS – Happy belated Groundhog Day!

Image Credit: http://doublemesh.com/wallpapers/february-2012-calendar-wallpapers-for-desktop/

These loveable gifts come your way from 45 of our most masterful writers.  (They’re all Giant Squid lensmasters.)

Stop by 45 Unique Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas today to see the Best of Squidoo Valentine’s Day Gifts 2012.

I bet you’ll be surprised by all of the unique and creative gift ideas you’ll find there for just about anyone on your Valentine’s Day shopping list.

Have you created a Valentine’s Day gift idea lens?  Share the link here.  When it comes to Valentine’s Day, the more unique gift ideas available, the better!

http://www.squidoo.com/monsterboards/valentines_day_gifts

PS… Don’t you just love this photo from Mozzercork?

Related Reading:  Here’s a couple more of our most recent Best of Squidoo MonsterBoards:   Best of Squidoo: Valentine’s Day Love Stories and Best of Squidoo- Winter Home Decorating Ideas.

Congratulations to our new charities!

This month we’ve added 10 new charity partners. These charities have an opportunity to use Squidoo as a way to generate excitement and donations for their organization.

You can donate all or part of your Squidoo royalties to any one of these new charities by selecting their name on the drop down box when you choose how you want to get paid.

Our Place
SSCM Food Pantry
Peaceful Paws Springs Inc. Animal Rescue
Occupational Safety Training Institute
Reach Out To Japan
Love Your Pet Expo Sanctuary, Inc.
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
Promise of Hope
Healthy Child Healthy World
Save The Horses

Are you a 501(c)(3) charity? Then you can apply to be a Squidoo charity partner right here.

For manicnymph it was love at first sight when she met her first metal pillow purse, the one that almost got away. Not only does she share the collection with us in her lens, she relates the story of each individual “lady,” describing the type of metal and its individual features, revealing just where that particular purse came from and when it was added to her collection.

What I like about this lens is, first, the uniqueness of the topic. Next, I love that it’s a personal story. And of course I love all the pictures. I also like that she kept the narrative from getting boring by breaking it up with several polls, a debate module, and even a visual representation of where all the purses came from. The history of metal pillow purses is also a big part of the lens, making the subject even more interesting.

Hey, a girl can’t have too many purses, right? Now I know what kind I want to add to my collection.

How about you? Do you have a collection you’re crazy about? Why not make it into a Lens of the Day-worthy lens?

Related Reading: In case you missed them, check out these outstanding examples of stellar lenses: Lens of the Day: Welsh Lovespoons and Lens of the Day: Primitive Skills and Wilderness Crafts and Lens of the Day: Photos From Auckland Zoo.

Wikipedia lists four general symptoms of compulsive hoarding which can be summed up as:

• Accumulating useless stuff, and not getting rid of it
• Cluttered living spaces, to the point of rendering them useless
• Inability of the hoarder to function physically, socially, or emotionally
• “Need” to gather leads to stealing

You could easily make these fit lenscrafting activities:

• Adding info to a lens that isn’t specifically relevant, narrow, and focused
• Filling a lens with ads and links that make it hard to read
• Inability of the lensmaster to achieve great success, unable to see the big picture
• “Need” to have all the answers leads to plagiarism

Since lenscrafting is so addicting, it’s easy to see how you could become a lens hoarder. Spending time gathering, arranging, and perfecting info and modules for lenses can suck up your time and narrow your vision. The truth is, crafting the lenses is just one part of lensmaking, and the best lensmasters know when to stop crafting and move on to the next step.

If you think you’re a hoarder, what can you do about it? Try replacing your old thinking with new thinking:

• Keep lens content focused to your narrow niche. Don’t add content just for the sake of filling space
• Keep ads, flashy graphics, wild colors and confusing CSS layouts off your lens. For the most part, use the modules to sell products through Amazon, add photo galleries, and keep your palette streamlined.
• Tweak your lens, but not forever. There’s so much more to being successful, like promoting your lenses outside Squidoo, keeping up with SquidooHQ articles, maintaining friendships, and seeing what everyone else is up to.
• You have a specific set of knowledge that allows you to share great things with the world. This doesn’t mean you know everything. Stay away from things you don’t know about, no matter how popular they are, or learn about them enough to speak knowledgeably. Focus on what you do know, and spin it to make it relevant for holidays, current events, and general info.

Learn to embrace white space, short lenses, and simple layouts. Keep in mind that quantity doesn’t translate to quality, and learn when to stop tweaking and start sharing. By refusing to hoard on your lenses, you’ll not only create more attractive lenses, you’ll free up time for building more uber successful pages. Score!

Instead of approaching the lens like a research paper, Janiece has successfully created a bookmark worthy lens that tells her story about finding, adopting, and caring for a bunny in your home. She didn’t have to borrow from wikipedia and pet sites, she has plenty of genuine content, created courtesy of her kids. She didn’t have to borrow images, the bunnies in her home were willing to sit for many photo ops.

When you know your topic well, it’s obvious. You can’t help but tell side stories, share photos, and write passionately about the best products – the ones that really worked – and endorse recommendations wholeheartedly. When you’re stuck on what to write next, start here.

According to Punxsutawney Phil (who just saw his shadow this morning) we’ve got 6 more weeks of Winter, not exactly the news I wanted to hear living in the Northeast.

However there’s good news too. Groundhog Day is a fun holiday that reminds us (despite what the groundhog says) that Spring is coming soon.

So sit back and read all about Groundhog Day from Aquavel an honorary member of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

PS – Be on the look-out for some special Groundhog Day blessing from the SquidAngels. See, I told you it was a fun holiday!

This just in…Staten Island Chuck did NOT see his shadow so Spring should come early for New Yorkers this year.

Image Credit:  http://www.fadedindustry.com/2012/01/31/punxsutawney-phil-coming-to-pgh/

As the result of a recent SquidQuest about wacky holidays and obscure celebrations that take place in January, we received oodles of really fun lenses.  There were just too many to choose a few to showcase here so I prepared a lens that features just about all of them.

Stop by Silly Celebrations – January to have a look-see and to get yourself prepared for some new ways to celebrate during that down time that comes right after Christmas.

It might seem silly to make lenses about holidays during the month they take place and if you’re just looking for attention to a lens right now, you’re probably right.  But…  these lenses will have a full year to marinate, and get tweaked to perfection, before next January when the interest level and traffic to them will be high. Making lenses ahead of time is always a good idea and many times timely lenses get chosen for special honors like Lens of the Day or to be showcased in SquidooHQ posts.

If you were a part of the January fun, stay tuned to your Quest Tab for the February edition of the Silly Celebrations SquidQuest… coming soon! 

PS…  We’re also preparing a special Best-of  Squidoo MonsterBoard that will be showcasing some of the very best silly celebration lenses at the end of the year where many of the January lenses will be making a come back!

http://www.squidoo.com/silly-celebrations-january

Photo Credit

Related Reading:  Don’t miss these other great Lensmaster Spotlight posts at SquidooHQ!    New Lensmasters Carving Niches into Squidoo Lenses and Best Of Squidoo Valentine’s Day Love Stories

Here’s a few popular Valentine’s Day search terms from our Google Analytics account. This means that people are actively using these search terms and visiting lenses that use them.

Here are the Top 7 Valentine’s Day search terms from last week:

valentines day ideas for boyfriend
valentines day 2012
valentines day ideas for him
valentines day ideas
how to say i love you
ways to say i love you
things to do on valentines day

So what does this mean? Apparently finding a gift for your man is pretty hot this Valentine’s Day, as are “ways to say I love you” and ideas for Valentine’s Day. So the best thing that you can do today is create a unique, quality lens on one of these topics. Here’s a few quick tips.

1) Start Strong – Create an over the top amazing intro (with photo) for your lens. Grab your reader’s attention so hard that they are eager and excited to read the rest of your lens.

2) Content Counts – Continue with useful original content that gives your audience a reason to not only read your lens, but pass it on to a friend as well.

3) Review A Product – Create a stand out product review lens for a Valentine’s Day Gift for him. Just make sure that you use original reviews. Also add a Duel Module to get more opinions about your choice.

4) Stay Fresh – Hot Valentine’s Day Gifts for 2012 is going to leap over a lens that mentions 2011 or has not been updated in over a year.

Got a new or updated Valentine’s Day lens that you’re proud to show off? Share it here!

Although he plans to write about “lots of different stuff” on Squidoo, Workout Guru is pretty specific on one of his first lenses. He doesn’t just write about tattoos, or about arm tattoos. He narrows his topic even more by writing about Arm Tattoos For Girls.

alex89 is an avid gamer and has made a lens about one of her favorites, Dungeons and Dragons. Specifically, she talks about the social aspects in D&D, Oldschool or Epic? and how that makes it so much better than just turning on the computer to play a game.

Jercow75 is a part-time father to six children and plans to write more on single parenting and blended families. He has a great start on his niche topic with The Sometimes Single Dad where he talks about what he’s learned trying to be a full-time father with part-time hours.

MichaelCollinson and his wife moved from the UK to Brittany in France in August 2011. When he joined Squidoo, a great niche topic was born. He writes about both entertainment in France and practical topics within the niche, including Driving in France, a very specific and useful lens for those who plan a visit.

SmartyGirlRenee has many interests, among them supporting women in business. How to Think Like a Business Woman is just one of her lenses that provides great advice to that niche group of readers.

Interior designer relish_interiors is carving out a colorful niche on Squidoo. She says that she likes to “help people make the most of their space.” One way she does that is with colors and moods, which she teaches all about in The Color Affect. What does color do to your mood?

Of course it’s fine to write about more than one niche on Squidoo, but making each lens very specific is a very good thing. So, what’s your niche?

Related reading: Read about more new lensmasters and the causes they promote here and don’t miss some of the Best of Squidoo – Valentine’s Day Love Stories.

Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt