Happy Third Birthday To My Blog

It was my blog's third birthday this week! Happy Birthday! But that doesn't mean I've only been blogging for three years. I first starting writing on an older blog EIGHT YEARS AGO. That's kind of crazy.

This past year has been amazing. I put so much more effort into my writing, the presentation of my blog, I started enrolling my boyfriend Connor Cleary for photo shoots, I bought a blog template and personalised domain. I'm so happy with my little corner of the interwebs to write what I want.

In celebration of my blogs birthday, I wanted to talk about the three best things that have happened to me since starting this blog.

~ My Mental Health

This blog didn't start out as a lifestyle and mental health blog. I started it mainly to look at the beauty industry, and my take on it. I didn't know much about beauty ~ I still don't. But I'm glad that I've been able to use my blog as a platform to inform others about anxiety and depression, and it's been a good release for me as well.

By writing about my experiences I managed to find others around me who felt the same. I didn't feel so alone, and it was good to have other people around who understood what I was going through. I don't know how I would've got through the worst of my mental health without my blog.

~ Getting Invited to Events

I made a bath play-doh pumpkin at the Lush Halloween event

Every Blogger's dream is to go to swanky events for brands, and get an exclusive look at products and post tonnes of Instagram stories, and enough Boomerangs to make you feel queasy! I couldn't believe it when I started getting brands reaching out to ME?! My first event I sought out myself and asked to be on the guest list as the event was made public. Then once you've made a bond with that company, they will usually ask you back ~ which is amazing!

So far I've been to Lush events, The Body Shop events, opening night of Pryzm night club with the help of Pompey Bloggers, a complimentary meal with Beefeater, and I've got plenty more upcoming events to share with you all!

~ Networking

L-R Me, Charlie, Charlie's partner and Mike at Pryzm

I say networking like it's really formal, but actually I mean all of the friends I've made over the internet. I never would've imagined meeting up with people via Twitter, but these are the people I speak to on a regular basis and we're all really supportive of our work. It's just lovely, and I'm so grateful for meeting some of my internet friends in real life!

They definitely help motivate me, if I didn't have my friends I'm not sure how far I'd have gotten. Don't get me wrong, I love writing just for me, but I want people to read my posts and interact and bounce off of my ideas. It's always great to have people to proof read risky posts!

Please check out their blogs! Mike, Sophie L, Charlie, Alanna, Sophie E, Poppy and James to name a few.

~

I'm really proud of what I've accomplished so far. I've even had my first sponsored post with Adorli, but my blog is still purely my hobby. I mean if it did become something I could do full time, I'd be more than happy to write for a living. My younger self would be ecstatic!

I'm going to keep growing my blog and my content, as I've got plenty of ideas and I still want to return to making YouTube videos as well.

One thing I have learned about blogging and social media is that it's really beneficial to engage with other bloggers, by commenting on others posts it starts a conversation and gets you more involved with the "community". This also can encourage others to engage with your content as well, the blogging world isn't always "if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours". My mantra is just to be nice to people in the real world and online, as I believe in good karma and I like to be a nice person.

I hope you liked my little blog birthday post! Let me know some of the things you're proud of/have achieved in the comments.

Love Saffron x