It’s official! I’m a fully fledged Blogcadette and I can’t wait to share all the exciting new ideas and inspiration I’ve had from my weekend workshop with The Blogcademy. It was PHENOMENAL. I’ve never been to anything quite like it (the closest thing would have been the Etsy London Summit, which was pretty spectacular in itself), but this workshop had so many levels and layers and other branches of inspiration that it’s quite hard to sum up in just one review post… so I’ll just have to write two then!
My adventure began when I applied for a scholarship spot to attend one of The Blogcademy weekend cources. I’m a big fan and follower of the three amazing women who created the course and run the event, Kat of RockAndRollBride.com, Gala of GalaDarling.com and Shauna of NubblyTwiglet.com, so I’ve been itching to go as soon as I’d heard they’d started sharing their wisdom. But raising and saving enough cash to be able to attend from Scotland was proving to be a little more challenging than I first expected. When I saw that they were offering scholarship spots I decided to take the plunge and give it a go… after all, what did I have to loose? I’ve been blogging for years and had plenty of examples to help share why I’d be worth the investment 😉 Needless to say my hard work and playful giff proved to be worth all the effort, and before I knew it I was on a plane on my way to Amsterdam and (literally) greener pastures!
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Amsterdam, but it is such a great city. The weekend the class was being hosted on also happened to be synced up with the Gay Pride celebrations, making it hugely vibrant and flamboyant – exactly the kind of vibe that made me feel like I wanted to dress up and take plenty of photos – which is exactly what I came to do! At the end of school on Saturday I walked home in confetti filled streets surrounded by people having the time of their lives; what more could a girl ask for?!
We all met at The Thinking Hut which is an uber trendy and instagram-tastic workspace, making it the perfect setting for a creative meet up. The team had decorated the room with Blogcademy bunting, a selfie wall and the most beautiful floral garland archway created especially for us my Cornelia Blom. Instantly there was a great atmosphere that made you want to meet and learn and share ideas, which is hard to create with a room full of people that have never met before. I quickly learned that this would not be like any other class I’ve attended, and it was amazing to find people with similar passions and mindsets to my own. The world of blogging can become quite challenging when you’re not around people who blog themselves; having a hub to meet such wonderful people and spend time with them for the weekend makes this experience worth it before it’s even begun.
So, to take things step by step, when we arrived we were each given goodie bags filled with cute treats and a chance to meet and greet one another. Taking part in the Amsterdam leg of the tour was really amazing because so many of us had traveled from other parts of Europe to attend. Meeting such a diverse group of writers, photographers, makers and adventurers was really special, and needless to say everyone was so friendly and lovely! After a cup of tea and a sugar hit, class was ready to begin. By this point I had already taken a crazy amount of pictures and had started to fill my notebooks with names, urls and a hefty amount inspiration even though the adventure was yet to begin. I started to realise I was going to need more stationery, and fast! If you ever attend any kind of creative / blogger meet ups be sure to come prepared. You’ll need as many business cards and notebooks you can carry and if you’re shooting digitally, make sure that camera’s SD card is totally wiped and ready to be filled!
To begin, we got a great introduction and some background information on each of our Headmistresses. Kat of Rock And Roll Bride (pink hair in photo above) has a lot of experience with publishing as she’s created her own magazine, advertising on her blog and collaborating with one of my favourite accessory makers, Crown And Glory, amongst 100s of other incredible achievements to draw her wisdom from. Gala of Gala Darling (wearing the coolest necklace ever in the above photo) is the trendiest and most inspirational self help guru you’ll ever set eyes on; she’s created her own line of ebooks and mp3s that encourage you to be yourself and be your best and she’s amazing at breaking down the big stuff and making life more manageable. I’m a big fan of her Radical Self Love series, which you simply MUST go view straight after your’e done here 🙂 She’s also had experience creating her own line of jewellery which I’m really inspired by, and I’m really excited to get my mitts on her new book once it’s published.
And last, (but not least,) Shauna of Nubbly Twiglet is a graphic design wizard and the creative director of Branch, a boutique design studio which rocks the most inspiring branding, packaging and web layouts amongst many other things that are so beautiful it brings a tear to my eye. You should check out her instagram, it’s amazing! As you can see from her halo in this picture, she came to educate us on making our blogs look the bees knees on a budget. She did not disappoint!!
So between all three women, the workshop is incredibly diverse and applicable to bloggers of all walks of life. They have created an open, honest and wise presentation that’s incredibly easy to learn from yet full of depth making it suitable for everyone from people wanting to start blogging to those who have been doing it for years.
And as a bonus, for our class they had a wonderful assistant to help run the course – the phenomenal Crown and Glory creator and designer Sophie, who has not only the greatest talent for making adorable headwear, but she also the cutest shade of lilac hair in town! I was super thrilled to have the chance to meet her too – it made my pretty golden glitter ears (a blogcadette’s badge of honour) even more special because now I know the lovely lady who makes them. It’s great to find someone else with The Blogcademy team who has set up her own online store with her handmade products because I felt I could really relate. Being able to chat about being on Etsy and NotOnTheHighstreet.com was a real delight for me; Sophie has such a great work ethic and has become incredibly successful with her company and I can’t wait to see what happens next for her.
So, now we’ve been introduced to the team, I bet you can’t wait to find out what was in store for our workshop… well you’re just going to have to! There is simply too much good information to put all in one post and I don’t want to miss out any of the magic so you’ll just have to tune in again next week. Are you excited? Because with all these insights you ruddy well should be!
Vicky
xox
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