This week, the schedule has been released and so we all have the difficult decision to make about which session to go to. They all look amazing, so it will be hard to choose – just when I think I’ve chosen, I think ‘ah, but I would love to hear about that too’ and I have to start all over again! The keynote speaker this year is Grace Bonney, founder of Design*Sponge and the title of her keynote is ‘The Power of Fear: how to embrace what scares you and use it to grow your personal and professional life’. How brilliant does that sound?!

I’ve ordered myself some more business cards from Moo and will be swapping those like mad on the day! One of the main things I’m looking forward to (other than listening to amazing speakers, obviously!) is meeting other bloggers and hopefully starting new projects with many of them. Networking is really important and it’s going to be great to meet people face to face. I will also be pitching to Thomson on the day and took part in the webinar on Wednesday evening with Kat Molesworth and Christian Torres (head of the Brand & Creative team at Thomson), which was really interesting and inspiring! I hadn’t really thought about pitching to them before Monday of this week, but it’s a fantastic opportunity to travel and blog for Thomson, so I really hope that my pitch stands out! Fingers crossed

There is a Pinterest group board for all attendees, and people have been uploading links to their sites and introducing themselves in advance of the event. This is such a great idea as it gets people talking before next week, and we can try to spot each other when we’re there! There’s also a lot happening on Facebook and Instagram, so if you’re still undecided about getting a ticket just head over and check it out. I think they’re in single figures now so you’d better be quick! I’ll be posting photos throughout the day on Instagram (follow me @hellohoorayblog) so if you can’t make it you can see more there or use #Blogtacular to follow the action…Can’t wait!

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So firstly, my new blog name…I must point out that despite my musical connections, it isn’t named after an Alice Cooper song of the same name! I actually didn’t even realise that there was a song called Hello Hooray until I was Googling potential blog names and it came up. I have since listened to the song, and it’s not the worst song I’ve ever heard but it isn’t really my cup of tea to be honest! So I just wanted to clear that up As I said in my original post, the main reason for changing my name was that when I started blogging a couple of years ago it was just for fun, and I came up with the name because that’s how I felt about crafting at that point – I had so many things that I wanted to make, but had no time at all to do any of them! But that’s all changed now since I’ve gone part time in my day job, so the name didn’t really make sense anymore. I also realised that a blogger in America had a blog of the same name, so it was important to me to have something unique. Thinking of a blog name is really tough though! You think you’ve come up with the perfect thing and then you find out it has been taken. Argh! I wanted something shorter, something that sounded friendly and welcoming, and something less specific so that I can take my blog in any direction I want to. So Hello! Hooray! was born!

The direction of my blog has changed a bit since I started blogging a couple of years ago, and it has become such a big part of my life. I could never have predicted that! I love being a part of the blogging community, and it’s great to connect with people all over the world. I enjoy blogging so much more than I thought I would, and would love to make the jump from being an English teacher to full time blogger. Whether that’s actually a realistic possibility I have no idea, but I’m determined to make a go of it! So that’s one of my main goals – a long-term one, obviously. In the meantime, I’d love to get involved with other blogs and have guest posts on my blog too, so get in touch if you’re interested! I’m also keen to try out new crafts and have lots of projects planned, so stay tuned…Another thing that I have considered is selling a few of my makes, but I don’t know if that will be possible/practical/worth it. It’s something that I would love to do at some point, so maybe I’ll add it to my list of long-term goals for Hello! Hooray! and focus on building up my site for now. Who knows where I’ll end up…

In order to start working towards my goals, there will be a few changes on my blog. I guess the main one is that I’m going to be signing up to Affiliate Links to be able to place some adverts on my site. I know, I know, adverts are everywhere – but I need to start somewhere if I’m going to build things up! I don’t want them to take over, so they will be in the sidebars only and I’ll be picking and choosing the content that I feel is relevant to what my blog is all about. I may have some affiliate links in my blog posts, but I’ll be pointing them out to you so you know where they are. I’m also going to be trying to post more frequently – I do this as often as I can at the moment, but I’d love to have some brand new content for you every day. This is one of my mid-term goals, because I don’t think I can do it straight away but I’ll get there one day!

Although I’ve been working super hard to update everything after the transfer, some of my old posts from my So Many Crafts, So Little Time! days still need updating. I have over 300 posts now, so it’s taking a little time to get through them all! Some of the formatting was lost in the transfer and the majority of my photos on older posts are watermarked with my old blog name (I would NEVER do that again, but you live and learn!). I’m trying to update things as I go along, but please bear with me as it’s going to take some time…There have been a few other teething problems, but I have been trying to fix those too and learning a lot along the way. My Twitter feed should now appear at the bottom of the page rather than just a blank box, and the follow by email widget is now up and running again too – yay! This still doesn’t look like the prettiest box, but that will be fixed at some point.

The community feel of my blog is also really important to me, so if there’s something you’d like me to make/feature then do let me know. I love hearing your comments so you can always leave me a message on a post (good or bad!) or get in touch via my social media (links on the left and in the footer). It took me a while to find it (despite it being in an obvious place!) but if you’ve enjoyed reading any post on my blog, you can also let me know by hitting the ‘like’ button. It’s underneath the title of each post, as shown here:

I think that I have finally covered everything that I wanted to say – hopefully I won’t think of another 10 things later on… It’s actually very strange for me to have written a post without loads of photos, so I hope I haven’t rambled on too much. The final thing that I’d like to say is a big ‘Thank you’ to everyone who reads my blog – I wouldn’t have got this far without you reading it and it’s wonderful to have your support! Have a super dooper Saturday, whatever you’re doing

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