Cocktails and cupcakes at the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards

Scary, butterflies, lost, nervous, smiles, cocktails, friendly, giggles, girls, cupcakes, funny, happiness, joy, pride, fun, delight, awe, thrilled. These are the words that sum up my experiences at the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards last night and I’m sure that my fellow bloggers were going through a range of similar emotions too. As you can see from my photos I finally made a decision about my outfit for the awards ceremony and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that no-one was wearing the same dress as me! I went for the blue floral dress from Dorothy Perkins because the fit ‘n’ flare shape was just right for me and as  it was from the petite range it didn’t swamp me or look too long for my limited height! It combined nicely with the Therapy blazer I’d already decided to wear and thankfully the leather of the Apricot clutch bag matched my Hotter shoes (which were comfortable all evening!) perfectly!

It’s always a wonderful feeling when bloggers get together and meet each other ‘in real life’ because these are a group of people who really understand each other, who rarely get to talk to other people who do what they do and who ‘get’ each other. I love meeting bloggers because most of my writing happens alone and I rarely get to talk ‘shop’ to people who understand what I do so I think of these people as my ‘colleagues’ (and kindred souls!) before we’ve even met.

Jacket from Therapy at House of Fraser, floral dress from the petite range at Dorothy Perkins, stud clutch bag & cuff from Apricot, shoes from Hotter & Charnos tights from UKTights

And when we do meet I realise that I’m not alone and my new friends totally get it (and agree!) when I talk about loving what I do, the over-whelming desire to blog every minute of the day, and how our websites are our own online portfolios of our work. They understand how blogging takes over every facet of your life and we chat about how they too can’t walk past a pretty scene without thinking about the instagram-ability of it! It’s basically a support network and I am so proud to call these girls friends.

Loads of fun with Natasha from Graphique Fantastique, Victoria from I Heart Fashion, Abi from Kemples.co.uk, Megan from The Briar Rose, Katie from Miss Enchanting, Abigail from Abigail Alice and many more! 

The best thing is that we are so happy for each other to be there because we read each others’ blogs – yes, I actually subscribe to all these blogs! – and know how much time and effort has gone into producing their work. And we are all thrilled for the winners of each award. I was particularly chuffed for my Blogstock companion Megan from The Briar Rose Blog (above) who won highly commended for Best Established Fashion Blog and the winner in the Lifestyle category was the blog that I check in on most Fitness on Toast so I was absolutely delighted for Faya too. And for the rest of us to have been shortlisted from 47,000 entries (I couldn’t believe this figure when it was announced at the awards ceremony!) down to the top handful of blogs in each category is a really big achievement in itself!

The evening was spent in a whirlwind of chatting, eating, drinking Cosmopolitan cocktails (what else?!) and getting pampered by the fabulous hair and beauty brands who had set up shop at the event. As a thrifty blogger and lifelong user of affordable make up brand MUA I was delighted to see their makeover stand and I went skipping over to try out some of their new releases. They gave me a vintage eye makeover (I wish I could do eyeliner like that!) using their new sparkly purple palette and now I can’t wait for this to be launched in the next couple of weeks – I just hope I can get my hands on one because new MUA products always seem so popular!

The London Dolls completed the look with a set of their fluttering eyelashes that gave me eyelashes so long that I felt I might be making a breeze every time I blinked! Keep an eye on my Twitter feed on #FreebieFriday to win a brand new set of these gorgeous lashes later this week 😉

After a having a giggle about the great British Bake Off with the girls from Remington – yes, we even compared photos of our bakes on our phones! – I headed over to the nail bar, where iZ Beauty of London gave my nails a fierce makeover with gold decals inspired by my Apricot stud clutch bag!

My highlight of the evening was chatting to Louise Court, the editor-in-chief at Cosmopolitan. I never believed that I’d have the chance to meet Louise in real life, let alone have her ask me what I liked and didn’t like about the magazine. Thankfully, as a subscriber, I had no end of good things to say about the columns and regular Cosmo features and it was so interesting to talk shop with this famous magazine editor.

This evening certainly got me dreaming of a career as an article writer and I know I’d love to be involved in more Cosmopolitan campaigns and events in the future. The whole event was amazing from start to finish and I don’t think I’ve ever smiled so much in one evening – you know you’ve smiled a lot when your cheeks hurt if you don’t smile! – and I’ve met loads of simply amazing bloggers who I’m sure will be popping up on this blog again in the future . You haven’t heard the last from us, haha!