This time last week, I was on my way to London to attend the two day blogging extravaganza that is BritMums Live. What a weekend! I laughed till my sides hurt, cried buckets, slept alone with no kids waking me up, ate delicious food, drank a fair bit of lovely white wine, and attended sessions to learn more about the mysterious world of blogging.
What I loved…
I really enjoyed spending time with loads of bloggers, including my BritMums buddy Carole Heidi. This year there was a great inclusive feeling of community and I didn’t see any of the cliquey-ness that there was last year. I felt comfortable talking to lots of different bloggers and if I didn’t recognise anyone straight away I do apologise, I am so rubbish with names sometimes! The atmosphere was great and I really enjoyed the social side of things this year, rather than the unease and anxiety I had last year.
I went to the YouTube session and got lots of hints about how to improve my channel and get my videos noticed. It was run by someone from YouTube so it was nice to know the info was coming directly from the horse’s mouth.
The craft den was brilliant. We were entertained by the fabulous singers Elle & The Pocket Belles while we learned how to knit, relaxed with some crochet, and enjoyed some sewing. I made a fabric flower hair clip which I am ridiculously proud of!
Winning beautiful flowers from the Lindemans stand. Not only did they feed me lots of wine, but they had a huge array of gorgeous flowers to admire and I got to take a bouquet home, too.
The Embrace Happy session was fantastic, it was a teensy bit hippy at times but mostly full of joy and happiness. Fun colours, happy hearts, and reflecting & embracing the good things in life.
The Twirlywoos! I met them, had my photo taken with them, wrapped one of them up in toilet roll to get a Guinness World Record, and drunkenly press ganged Northern Dad into having his photo taken with them.
The bloggers keynotes – bloggers reading their posts out loud is incredibly touching and powerful. I cried buckets.
Friday evening’s Brilliance in Blogging awards – beginning with wine and canapés, and then coming together to celebrate a whole bunch of fab bloggers, liberally lubricated with more wine, and brilliantly hosted by Carol Smillie.
Decorating cupcakes with Emily at the SuperSavvyMe stand.
What I disliked…
Not managing to say hello or have a proper chat with all the bloggers I wanted to talk to.
Having to retreat to my hotel room for Saturday evening with painkillers and a book, instead of being sociable.
The Rotolight session. It felt like a massive advertisement for their product, with very few tips on lighting, and expecting bloggers to be able to afford 3 of their lights was unrealistic in my view. I didn’t like feeling like I paid to attend to be heavily marketed to for a whole session.
I wasn’t keen on Caprice’s keynote speech – it felt sexist and a bit random. I got a bit bored and was quite offended by her pronouncement that women should give their husband “what they want” at night even when they don’t want to, it’s only 5 or 10 minutes. In my book, no means no!
Thank you to…
Thank you to…BritMums and the brand sponsors for all the fab goodies I brought home – I was popular with the kids, especially when I presented them with two Twirlywoo headbands, a Milkshake magazine, new cups from Milkshake and a new book each too.
Sweet Dreamers for making it possible for me to attend at all! Thank you so much to Ewan and his friends for sponsoring me to go – I had a brilliant few days, so thank you a million times. I was so pleased to be sponsored by a brand we love, and sang Ewan’s praises all over the place.
I’m giving away one of the new Grey Ewan the Dream Sheep at the moment on my blog, so make sure you go and enter!
So sorry we didn’t get much time to talk at all! There’s never enough time is there? And don’t get me started on Caprice. We’re all in the same boat apparently… x
Always so busy – I found it more of a mad crush this year than last! I’m hoping to attend some smaller blogger events next year instead so it’s not so full on.
100% agree with your comments on Caprice’s keynote. I was actually quite surprised at her comments :/
But it was a good couple of days and I enjoyed my first BritMums 😀
Glad you enjoyed it, I had a fab weekend – if a little (ok, a lot) overwhelming! It definitely took a few days to recover from, physically and mentally!
Lovely to meet you Zoe and Carole, love your photos!
Thanks, Claire – good to meet you too!
I seen you a few times at the event and wanted to come and say hi and thank you for designing my business cards but i never got the chance too. I also went to the light session and found that it was not at all what i was expecting and like a big sales pitch on a product i would not be able to afford x
Sorry we didn’t get a chance to say hi – it was so busy I didn’t get to spend enough time chatting to all the amazing different bloggers there. That’s probably my biggest regret – I wish I had skipped the stupid light session and spent that hour chatting to bloggers outside or something instead!