Oh my! I knew I wanted to go back to Haven Conference after last year, but I forgot how much fun it was! From the moment I got there through the very last evening, so much talking, hugging, and giggling!
I was surprised to walk into a hotel room and hear music playing… but when I looked around to see where it was coming from, this is what I saw.
The room was fabulous! So luxurious and roomy.
I picked up my swag bag and name badge as soon as I got to the Hotel. The Ballard Designs bag came in handy throughout the 2 day event.
Ana White was the opening speaker on Friday morning. She’s just so darn cute, and oh so smart! I have followed her from the beginning, and she thanked me for that on Thursday night. Yeah, I was smiling from ear to ear while talking to her!
Ana had tons of tips, mostly comparing our blogs/sites to brick and mortar stores. Things like “keep your shelves stocked”. Meaning, have great content on your site, always restocking with more great content. She also compared comments to real life – saying you would never ignore a verbal compliment and just walk away, so why would you do it online?
One of the first sessions I attended was the Advanced Painting with Marian and Shauna.
The room was all set up with supplies at every table. I sat with some new “friends” and got my “paint on”.
I learned some things from these two gals! They really worked well together, you can tell they are of the same mold.
We painted on three different pieces of trim.
After this point, I got so busy, I didn’t take any pictures of how my pieces turned out. I really enjoyed using all of the great ASCP and MMS products. MMS has a great new “white” wax that I fell in love with! Serious love at first site.
I have to tell you that it’s so fun for some random sweet young lady to say… “you don’t know me, but I KNOW you”. Say hello to Candace from Vintage News Junkie. I’m so glad to have met Candace, I wish we would have had time to chat more.
I was so happy to finally meet this lovely lady. I have been emailing with Laura for a couple of years now. She’s the rep from HomeRight that I work with. If you were there, and had a chance to meet her, I don’t have to tell you how sweet she is. Even though HomeRight sponsored me to go to Haven, I would still say nice things about them even if they didn’t. I love their products. If I happened to have been in the booth when you passed by, I’m sure you felt my enthusiasm as I talked about my favorite Finish Max. LOVE it, I tell ya!
You can see that all of my photos are from the second day. The first day I was just so busy catching up with everyone and visiting all of the vendors/sponsors.
I had a lot of fun hanging out with Catherine from Freddy & Petunia. I first met her earlier this year as she was traveling through Louisville. We got together to have a bite to eat and do some thrift shopping.
Diane from In My Own Style—she’s a great friend. We’ve ran into each other several times over the last year and a half.
This wonderful lady was so kind to me at dinner at Haven last year (as was Diane). You see, I’m such a picky eater, and we went as a large group to a mexican restaurant. She was so helpful trying to find something I would eat. Thank you so much Cindy (My Cottage Love) for being so friendly and accepting!
So, I told you I took the Advanced Painting Session. What other sessions did I take? It’s a blur! The best session I took was for bloggers, it was Google Juice with Brooke and Court. I didn’t know either very well before last weekend. They are brother and sister, and as cute as can be! Not only cute, but VERY smart. I’m trying to remember and implement many of their tips. What I took away from them?
- Do NOT ever delete pictures from your blog. EVER. (oops, I’ve done that!) If you want to update an old post, add better (larger) or watermarked photos. Collect all of those original photos and put them (as small thumbnails) at the bottom of your post. The reason? They are logged into google image searches. People WILL find your blog through them. Delete them, and lose possible traffic.
- More picture tips—Don’t have your picture clickable so that it opens up in the dreaded BLANK window. How many times have you clicked on a pin and been taken to that type of page. If you have a clickable image that does that, someone will pin from it. (In windows live writer click the picture to turn it on, then look in the tool bar it will probably say “link to source picture” change that to “link to none”.
- Meta Descriptions—huh what? Yeah, that is the little snipped that google shows when you are googled. Google will take the snippet it feels holds keywords, but you can write your own description (in wordpress) I’m not sure about google. It’s sort of the hook that actually gets folks to click on that link and actually visit your blog. It’s your time to invite them, and tell them why they should visit. PLUS- I just noticed that FB pulls up the meta description when you leave your link on your fb page or someone else’s. BONUS!
- Anayltics-If you see “not provided” in your traffic, it’s because it was someone who was signed into Google (blogger, gmail, etc)
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- To get lots of great tips, follow Court’s site
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- That’s my Haven 2013 wrap-up! Thank you HomeRight for the opportunity to rub elbows and share hugs and giggles. If Haven 2012 on a scale of 1-10 was a 10, Haven 2013 was a 15. Stay tuned with MRL and HomeRight as we move forward in our relationship!
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- Please visit my friends at
- when you’re looking for a great product to improve your DIY!
- gail
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- I’m sharing this post in a link up at
- —check out all the other great roundups from your favorite bloggers there.
- Disclaimer: I’ve made no secret that I work with HomeRight and they sponsored me to Haven 2013. I truly love their products and feel comfortable recommending them to you. Your experience may vary.
Hey Gail! So happy you were able to attend the Haven Conference! Homes.com & ForRent.com enjoyed sponsoring the event and hope to connect with you even more! Be sure to take a look at the photos from the event on Facebook, tag yourself & share with family/friends! https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151682489139086.1073741827.280285049085&type=3 🙂
Haha! Candace! I’ll have to send this to her to make sure she saw it! Good tips at the end, too.
Hi Gail
Great post! I wish I was there!
Thanks for the links to Court’s site. I found lots of useful content, especially tips on using Google AdWords and the free ebook on SEO for creative bloggers.
I would of been in those pictures 🙁 Oh well, maybe next year?
I love hearing all this fun stuff about Haven. Thanks for sharing the great photos and tips! It sounds like you had an absolutely fabulous time!
I love reading your blog. I read everyone of the posts! and am so glad to have been the winner of the HomeRight Finish Max Fine Finish Sprayer. It arrived today (a lot quicker than I expected!) and am just giddy. I will have the whole weekend to play with it. Happy Happy Happy!
Gail,
I so appreciate that you reply to comments on your blog. I understand that some blogs are so big and the bloggers get hundreds of comments and it would take hours for them to respond to each comment. Keep up the good work and I am so happy that you have this wonderful down to earth blog.
It looks like such a fun time meeting up with so many fellow bloggers and friends. Love the idea of the white wax, must try that.
so glad you had such a fantastic time and experienced it all!!
Hello from Lexington! Looks like you had a great time at Haven. I’m new to blogging, so I’ve never been to a blog conference – someday maybe. Love this post and can’t wait to check out all the link ups from the conf. Love your blog.
Tried to send private e-mail but don’t see a way to do that. Just wanted to let you know I unsubscribed because of the video ads. They play automatically when your site loads and are very intrusive.
Tamara,
Nobody spends more time on my site than I do. I understand that the video ads can be annoying. What you might need to know (in case you run into this again on another site) is that if you MUTE the ad on the player, it will stay muted always. I had the ad people set the volume to the lowest possible setting (5%) volume. Because my blog is my job, and the majority of my measly income, I must monetize and go with the ads that pay the best money, just like shows do on television. If it weren’t for the commercials, we wouldn’t have network t.v.
I appreciate you letting me know why you unsubscribed. I’m sorry you couldn’t find a way to memail me, my “email” button is right on the top of the blog with my other social media icons.
wishing you a beautiful day!
gail
It was so great to see you again, Gail. Haven 2014, here we come! 😉
Great info, thanks for sharing and I am so glad you had a great time. 🙂 Have a blessed day!
Great write up! I love hear about other blog conferences and the experiences others have. I think they are so valuable to attend – I went to my first one this year and can’t wait to go back.
Looks like you had a great time! Thanks for sharing!
Sounds like you had a blast…truly sounds amazing~
It was so great meeting you in person! What a treat for me!
PS……Guess I should have said the first photo you posted here…..Thanks.
Enjoyed reading this….and I have a question for you. In your Advanced painting session….what kind of paint and what color is the board at the bottom of your photo? I LOVE that color.
Doris,
The deep blue? It is ASCP Aubusson Blue. I actually have that color. I used it on a chalkboard frame last year. I didn’t use a dark wax over it because I loved the color so much. After we applied the Aubusson Blue, we top coated it with MMS French Enamel.
gail