My May blogging month was another hectic one, not least because I was away for a week in Miami, organised a street party to celebrate the royal wedding and saw my son turn into a teenager!

So the blog side of things hasn’t been as fruitful as I would have liked, but sometimes life takes over and that’s fine. All work and no play would make Lauretta a very dull person.

Still, a few things have happened….

Who I Met

I was at a Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts’ press event earlier this month as part of my job as a travel journalist. We were all journalists there except for just two bloggers which was interesting.

And these two bloggers – Maddie Bruce and her friend Kate (can’t recall her surname) didn’t focus on travel as such, but were beauty and fashion bloggers.

As influencers, each of them would have had a huge following and were therefore invited to the event, but I’m not sure how useful it was for them to learn about Jumeirah’s future plans and developments.

I think a fact sheet and an overnight stay or two at one of the properties would have sufficed and would have been better suited to the way they showcase their lifestyle and ‘sell’ their style.

Maddie/Kate – do correct me if I’m wrong, but it would be interesting to see what you thought….and how you reported on the changes taking place.

Still, I made sure that I told Jumeirah that it’s great how they are beginning to recognise the influence of bloggers and get them more involved in events. I hope there’ll be a time when we see half bloggers/half journalists at events like this.

In The charts

It’s good to be back in the top 100 HIBS chart – but only just! From April to May I somehow managed to climb from spot number 133 to 94th. If truth be told, I think the visits to my competitions page have done the trick.

I’ve had a high number of entries to the competitions with some nifty prizes which has been great. Right now (if you’re interested), I’ve teamed up with Prezzybox to give away a Stars Wars Stormtrooper decanter in the run up to Father’s Day.

Collaborations

I know I mentioned this last month but I’ll mention it again as my brushes arrived – wooohooo! So I’m pleased to announce that I am now officially one of Harris Brushes’ Blogger Ambassadors for 2018!

With a large range of brushes, I’m looking forward to planning some upcycling projects – which is what I long to do in my spare time – the little I get!

I already like and use Harris brushes anyway (just because they are great quality and I see minimum bristle loss) so it was a no brainer to accept their offer.

Another company I’m a big fan of is Whittard of Chelsea. I’m always having a nosy at their site – and I’ve featured them before on social media and in My Favourite Finds.

Anyway, they got in touch to see if I’d like some samples and I jumped at the chance – I’ll be featuring them in my June Favourite Finds again!

Epic Fails

I suppose my epic failure for this month was not writing as many posts as I would have liked. It would be nice to get a post written every week for the month – one travel-based, one interior post, a lifestyle post (e.g. a mini rant) and a parenting post.

I might actually set that as a challenge going forward, but I have a feeling that June won’t be a mega busy month just because I’ve signed up to do a big project at work, meaning that although I get paid for it, my evenings and weekends will be taken up doing that.

Blog Learning

I’ve been getting loads of emails asking for links to people’s sites. And apparently, in return they either offer to promote me via their social media channels or offer a ‘reasonable payment’.

I always reply to these emails asking them to check out the ways I work with individuals and brands by reading my ‘About Me’ page, but as from today, you know what? I’m not even going to bother responding.

As I write this I’ve deleted five requests over the last two days – FIVE!! And just replying to people takes up my valuable time, so if they can’t be bothered to read my blog and how I work, why should I bother to give them the time of day? And that’s my learning lesson for May!

My Vlogging Channel

My goal for this month was to upload more videos for my YouTube channel. I didn’t manage to get one a week done, but I did upload a Dunelm Mill and TK Maxx video though – showing what’s new in both stores right now – have a watch at Dunelm here and TK Maxx and let me know what you think!

Out And About

I didn’t attend any blog events in this month, but I’ve got a couple of events coming up, mostly for interior shows who will be starting to display their wares for Christmas – it’s crazy early I know, but that’s how they roll. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store.

Blogging Month: May At A Glance 

What was great? Getting my brushes for my Harris ambassadorship 😉
What wasn’t? The amount of ‘Can you link to me?’ emails I’m getting!
Goals for June: Given my large work project, I’m not being too ambitious here, so my goal is to upload two videos in June!