If you follow me on social media, then you are going to be hearing and seeing a lot about Haven throughout this weekend, so I thought I’d fill you in really quickly on what it’s all about. Haven is a conference for home/design/DIY bloggers, and my awesome husband purchased one of the highly-sought-after conference tickets as my birthday present!
On Thursday I’ll be hopping on a plane to Atlanta where I’ll get to spend the weekend gathering with other design and DIY lovers, listening to speakers that include HGTV’s Chip Wade and Mike Holmes, meeting with representatives from brands like Home Depot, Ryobi and 3M, and attending sessions to learn more about blogging and how to improve my DIY skills. I am so excited {and all kinds of nervous}!
I’ve attended lots of different conferences in the past, and in my life as an attorney I’ve even helped to organize and speak at a handful of conferences. But attending a conference where I know no one…that’s way out of my comfort zone. Ironically, I’m currently reading the book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts” for my book club, so on the plane to Atlanta I’ll be preparing to be a “pretend extrovert” for the weekend so that I don’t miss out opportunities to form friendships and make valuable connections! {This means that if you are at Haven and you see me standing alone in the corner, I probably need your help :)}
In preparation for Haven, I’ve designed my first set of blogger business cards. I am pretty stinkin’ excited about how they turned out, and I especially love the silver foil on the logo!
I’ve also been making some upgrades to get the blog Haven ready! Some of the upgrades to the site are merely cosmetic {the new background image that matches my business cards, and my new profile picture, so that people might actually recognize me at Haven}, while other upgrades are aimed at making the blog easier for you to navigate.
Along the navigation bar, I have added two new links: “Five Minute Friday” {where you’ll find a growing collection of all of the five minute projects I feature on the blog} and “Link Parties” {where you’ll find a list of all of the blog link parties I participate in, with a link to each host-blog}. But the biggest improvement you’ll notice is the “Most Recent Posts” links, which are located right below the navigation bar. I realize that most of you likely don’t visit the blog every day {gasp!}, so you’ll now be able to find a thumbnail image of my five most recent posts, giving you a quick overview of what you may have missed. When you place your cursor over any of these images, the full post title will appear. Simply click on any image to be automatically directed to that post! No more having to scroll down endlessly to find posts from earlier in the week.
I am also getting ready to launch a full home tour! For months I’ve had a “Home Tour” link on the navigation bar, but when you clicked on it you just got a page that said “coming soon.” My blog stats indicate that this is one of the most often clicked links on the blog – so I’d say it’s about time that I get it together!! Today I have added a photo of the outside of our home and uploaded floor plans for all four levels {with all those stairs, you’d really think I’d be in better shape!}. Tomorrow I’ll be taking you on a full tour of the second floor, and then next week I’ll begin with tours of each room on the first floor. If you are like me and love to peek inside people’s homes, then you’re not going to want to miss these home tour posts!!
Keep an eye on my Instagram fee throughout the weekend for lots of photos and updates about Haven!
