My First Blogging Conference- Bloggy Boot Camp!

Today's post is a little different! Instead of writing about my usual Disney adventures, I am going to write about a blogging one!  It's not Disney themed but I'll include a fun drawing of me in Mickey ears at the end I promise!

This past weekend I was able to attend my first blogging conference, Bloggy Boot Camp.  My friend Mindy from Budget Fairy Tale invited me to come with and I was really glad I did!  I learned a lot and am hoping to eventually apply some of what I learned to my blogging!

For the first half of the conference and lunch there was assigned seating.  I was a little nervous about this
because I can be kind of shy but I'm really glad it was set up that way!  It helped us all get to meet more people.  I was really happy I'd gotten some business cards made so I could share my info.  I'm looking forward to going through the business cards I collected and checking out the blogs of all the talented people I met!

The conference was made up of some great presentations! I won't go into detail of all the presentations but will mention a few of the many highlights!

conference time!

1.  Laurie from Tip Junkie gave us the Top Ten Tips for Blogging Success!  It was very informative!  She mentioned how you should not second guess an idea and that stuck with me because that's something I tend to do A LOT. I loved this quote she mentioned by Vince Lombardi, "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not lack of knowledge, but rather lack of will."

2.  Cynthia of NapWarden talked about blog design and showed us examples of some amazing ones!  I hope to do some tweaks on my blog's design over the next few months.

3. Trina from Gaming Angels talked about Gadgets and Apps to Make Your Blogging Life Easier.  I got to meet Trina before and after the presentation and she was cool to talk to! (She even had a Disney Dooney & Bourke purse!) I liked her presentation because she gave us some tips on blogging on the go.  I don't get to spend a lot of time at home so it was great to hear about some ways to be able to stay "social" while away from that home computer or heavy laptop.

4. Lunch was also assigned seating and I got to meet some more bloggers there and eat a 3 course meal!

This is what bloggers eat- nom nom nom.

5. After lunch for me was the Business of Blogging and the Legal Basics of Blogging, both of of which provided useful info. The last speaker was Elziabeth Jayne Liu who spoke about her own experience getting into blogging. 

6. At the end we were able to attend a wine tasting party where we got to try wines by Mirassou Winery.  I tried the Moscato and stuck to it.  It was a sweet wine that was very tasty!  While there I got to meet more bloggers as well!

mmmmm is for moscato

I started this blog over two years ago and I've always been a bit shy about telling people about it.  I mostly just tell family and friends but I had been nervous about telling others. I've even started two other blogs (Pixie Dust Nails and So Disney! Wedding) since then and have kept rather silent about those as well.  This past weekend I handed out several cards with my websites on it and I think that was probably the most people I've ever told about my blogs at one time. It was different and even a little scary but nice at the same time.  I should push myself to do that more!  All the amazing women who spoke at the conference have accomplished a lot and I noticed that they all had one major thing in common- all their stories started out with the same person believing in them- themselves. They had confidence in their ideas and abilities.  That was one of the main things I took home with me from this conference, the knowledge that before you succeed you must believe you can.

Many thanks to SITS Girls for putting together a great conference!  And special thanks to my friend Mindy who invited me along!

conference break!

I'll end this post with that drawing I promised.  I did a quick sketch of myself and put it on the back of my business card!  Don't we look alike?  ;-)