Design & Wine

Last week I received an email from iYellow Wine Club inviting me to their +Design Series being held at West Elm. The evening promised to be filled with a gorgeous store, West Elm; delicious wine, Crush Wines and yummy snack, Mildred's Temple. Let me tell you, the evening didn't disappoint.

We (my friend and I) arrived around 8 and were immediately greeted with two wines glasses to be filled at any of the Crush Wine bars set up around the store. We spent the next hour walking around, sipping wine and drooling over everything West Elm had to offer. Here are some of my favourite things at West Elm.

How great are those shower curtains!

I was obsessed with everything on this cart. I need to go back and buy one of those glass cake stands, they are amazing.

I love everything about this display. The colours wouldn't work in my house but I'd be willing to change the whole theme for a few of these pieces.

Happily, I came home with two pieces that I love.

How adorable is the owl - I love it!

One of my favourite things of the night was chatting with a few fabulous bloggers! You can check out their blogs here, here and here!

Have you ever attended a iYellow Wines event? What's your favourite West Elm piece right now?

Blog Podium 101... Through My Eyes

If you follow me on Twitter and read my post on Friday you know that I attended Blog Podium yesterday. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit nervous going into yesterday event, with being around all of the fabulous people with amazing blogs and all.

First off, I need to mention how great the space looked. I walked in a fell in love with the centerpieces We Create Hoopla created. I also adored the Blog Podium pencils in the rice jar - definitely something I'm going to do in my office.

The event was headlined by key note speaker Nicole Bach from Making It Lovely. Nicole spoke about Monetizing Your Blog and boy was it a great presentation.

Via

Here is some of what I took from Nicole's 40 minute presentation

- Anything I'd want to read on another blog is what I'd put on mine.
- Different avenues of advertising on your blog: Sponsored Posts, Affiliate Links, Direct Sales, Networks, Google Ads.
- Determining rates - Chat with fellow bloggers and see what they think is reasonable and is working for them.
- 10,000 page views per month is a good start for advertising.
- Offering free ads is a good way to get your feet wet.
- Blog Networks - most offer a page view minimum
- Placement of ads matters - above and below the fold
- "There's a good match for everyone"
- "Brought to you by....." Sponsored posts has worked for Nicole.
- Don't be shy to propose ideas that make you comfortable and feel right for you.
- Going out there, getting what you want and giving exposure.
- "Always experimenting and seeing where to go next"
- Business & blogging can co-exist. Don't blog about your daily business, blog about what your customers are wanting to hear.
- Contacting trades and how to go about it.
- Making your blog look bigger than it is.
- Make sure your comfortable for what's right for you.

After Nicole's inspiring presentation we moved onto the Business Of Blogging. The Business Of Blogging portion of the event was a panel discussion with four influential ladies and a great moderator, Leigh-Ann Allaire Perrault.

Lindsay from Little House Blog

Christine from Bijou and Boheme

Cheryl from Gluckstein Home

Laura from Tribal DDB

The above panel covered some interesting topics with great banter.

Here is some of what I took from the panel discussion

- Set a goal
- Don't be too specific when contacting companies
- If I'm getting something for myself I try and get something for my readers too.
- Don't do giveaways too often or you'll become to giveaway blog!
- How are companies (people) finding you? Chicken & egg scenario.
- Brands are always looking for content
- The concept of working with bloggers is still new - Companies find bloggers intimidating.
- Good content, knowledge, attractive, identify yourself as a Canadian blog.
- Twitter lists - I must look into this!
- What the companies are looking at
- Your blog has the ability to open avenues and opportunities you wouldn't have otherwise.
- Make sure you're commenting on the blogs you're reading - time consuming but necessary.
- How much to charge for ads & a minimum amount of months
- If you tweet about a sponsored post say it's sponsored!

And that's only the information I was able to quickly write down in my fabulous new Blog Podium notebook.

A big thank you to the amazing sponsors of Blog Podium!

 Last but certainly not least, a big thank you to Lindsay & Jennifer for putting on such a fabulous, inspiring and educational event. We're lucky to have such motivated women in this great blogging community!

One Year Anniversary.....

I realized yesterday my 1 year blog-versary was a few days ago. I can't believe I've been writing here for 1 full year already.

I'm so grateful for all the blogs I've come to know and love through having my own. This blog community is oh so supportive and wonderful; one I'm proud to be apart of!

Via

Thank you for reading and being apart of Adding The Finishing Touch!