Ever sit in a room, notebook in hand and a big fat smile on your face because you’re just so happy to be learning what the instructor is teaching?
I hadn’t either, before attending the Haven Conference in Atlanta last week.
It was like the best two days of school ever, with classes in painting, staining, photography, woodworking, thrifting and sewing side-by-side with blogging classes all about advertising, PR, HTML and SEO.
Best of all, it was two days spent with people just like me, who didn’t ask me why I would spend an entire weekend painting a curbside dresser or trolling stores for the perfect shade of grey fabric. These women asked for details on both and then shared their own home-obsessed stories.
They were my bees!
I didn’t take many pictures (bad blogger), but here’s one with some of the great ladies I met:
That’s Dalila, who’s working on launching a blog this summer, me, Stephanie from Fresh Picked Vintage and Kristen from Pearl Gateway.
I also geeked out a little at getting to see John and Sherry from Young House Love. It was so refreshing to see that they are just as sweet and funny in real life as they are on the blog. Home blogs have a tendency to only show off the “perfect” sides of peoples’ lives, but these two seem about as real as they come.
Clara and Burger were there too, along with Kate Bower, family friend and blogger over at Bower Power.
with Sherry from Young House Love
My head is still spinning from everything I’ve learned and everything I want to try since leaving the conference. I’ll be sharing more of that on the blog in the weeks to come.
Overall, Haven inspired me to have even more passion for what I love to do, and also showed me what I don’t want to do.
I love my home. I love making it a home and living in my home.
I love writing about my home and sharing pictures and looking at all of the wonderful home inspiration from y’all and the great big internet. I love writing about home decor, inspiration and homemaking in general.
What I don’t want to do is get too caught up in growing a blog at the expense of living in and loving my home.
Haven reinforced that priority for me, plus gave me a fresh surge of energy to continue making my home into my most favorite place.
Break out the drop cloths and the paint brushes! This girl has a notebook full of ideas and lots of new home-obsessed friends with whom to share!
Special thanks to the organizers of the Haven Conference and all of the sponsors for wonderful demonstrations and the biggest swag bag I’ve ever received. (Seriously, this PR girl is normally on the other side of that arrangement and I’m so excited to be the one with the goodies this time around!) Also, a very special thank you to those who spoke at the various sessions, especially Kate from Centsational Girl and Chris from Just a Girl, who taught the furniture painting session that has inspired at least 37 new projects, for now.
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