Colorado & Denver Blogger Exclusive Meetup | Planning And Hosting An Event

Danielle Greco July 28, 2016

I truly believe the world would be a better place if more women came together, supported each other, built each other up, encouraged one another, and cheered each other on. So often we see women get caught up in the catty, gossip cycle that is driven by insecurities and comparison. Every woman would be lying if she said she hadn't done that at least once in her life. It's unfortunate that in our society sometimes women compete with each other more than encourage each other. One of my strong passions in life is to break down this mentality, create strong bonds between women, and be a good example of women empowerment. I am not perfect at this, but I am extremely passionate about bringing women together and creating those bonds.

I started blogging in October of 2014. One of the main reasons I wanted to start a blog was because I loved reading so many other women's blogs. I found them creative and inspiring and it lead me to want my own blog. After a few months of blogging I found myself feeling so lonely. I had nobody to really chat with about blogging, nobody who knew exactly what blogging was, how it worked, etc. I wanted so badly to have friends in the blogging world. Ones I could run ideas by, share blogging struggles or successes with, and learn from. I started to search for some sort of blogger meetup or networking event. It was almost impossible to come by. The only one I came across was not open to everyone and it seemed a bit cliquey. I figured, if there wasn't an event where I could mix and mingle, and create great bonds and new friendships with bloggers in Colorado... then I should probably just create one! And the idea was born. I decided that I wanted to create an event where ladies all around town (or men, but let's be honest most bloggers are women) could meet up, have a great time, make new friends and chat blogging.

The most amazing thing about the event was how lovely everything fell into place. The first and best thing that happened was my blogger friend Lauren (LadyPlanner), agreed to create and host the event with me! This was so great because planning something you've never done before can be a tad intimidating, but doing it with a friend makes it more fun and less scary. She too agreed that Denver was in need of an event like this and she was just as excited about it as I was, which was a huge blessing. The next thing that fell into place perfectly was the venue. I had been attending Denver Style Magazine (DSM) events for a few months at this point and I had also written a post for their blog before, so I asked the ladies at DSM for their thoughts on the event. They thought it was an amazing idea and offered to help promote it and also offered their venue for the event! That too was such a blessing. At this point I felt like the event was meant to happen since it was coming together so well.

The next two things that fell into place was the collaborations. We had Froozer, a company that makes delicious frozen fruit treats, agree to work with us on the event and provide free samples to all the guests. That was such a treat, to read more about their product head over to this post I did on the perfect post workout snack. The next collaboration we locked down was a photographer to shoot the entire event. Lauren got in contact with Corey from Corey Anthony Photography and he agreed to shoot the event and provide amazing photos for all of the bloggers to use. He takes absolutely stunning photos (as you can see below) and we were incredibly honored to have a photographer of that caliber take photos of our event. He did such a great job and it is such a treat to have these memories of the event. Check out Corey's Instagram, it's so inspiring!

Lauren and I took care of the snacks and drinks. There was white wine and rosé, because what's a girl's night without a little vino?! We also made some "blogger bites". I made caprese salad skewers, and cake pops, while Lauren made some delicious watermelon, basil and feta bites, as well as some cucumber sandwich bites. I must brag and say it was all so delicious and incredibly darling. It looked as though Pinterest had exploded all over the blogger bites table! We also brought the decor. For the decorations we had a gold sequins #, a banner that said "Blogger Love", a pink tassel banner, an "Eat Sleep Blog Repeat" sign, some pink paper pom poms around the room, and of course a marble slab to display the wine on.

We also put together an activity to get the ladies chatting with new people. We created "Blogger Bingo" which was a simple bingo game but each square had something related to blogging in it and the ladies were to try to have other ladies sign their sheet where it applied to them. I know that's a bit confusing, but for example if it said "lifestyle blogger" I could sign on that square for them. Make sense? Anyways, everyone had a blast playing the game and it really got all the women talking and making new friends. We had five prizes for the first people who won. It was a really great ice breaker.

At the end of the night we all went on the rooftop and took photos! That was such a blast and the view of Denver was stunning, especially since the sun was setting. Corey, the amazing photographer, took a lovely group photo of all the women (pictured below) and then he graciously took beauty shots of the women who wanted them.

Overall I am so pleased with how the night turned out! I made so many new friends and it felt so great to see the women bonding and making new connections. It was a lot of work to plan this event but I am so glad Lauren and I did because it was a blast and it brought so much value to the blogger community here in Colorado. If you are a blogger reading this, I absolutely encourage you to either attend a blogger event (if it exists already in your city) or to plan one. Trust me, it's worth the effort!

I want to say thank you to all the ladies who came that night, it was so great meeting you all and I had a blast! Also, thank you Corey, Emily from Froozer, and the wonderful ladies at Denver Style Magazine, you all made the event so special and I appreciate your time and resources! And of course, thank you Lauren for having the courage to plan this with me, I'm so grateful for you!! Thanks everyone :)

Lessons From The Lord | Writing For Lane Of Roses

Danielle Greco June 29, 2016

Lane of Roses is a non profit organization that provides women amazing resources on faith and living a Christ centered life. On their site, it says that their purpose is to encourage millennial women to live out their God-given potential. They reached out to me and asked if I would be open and willing to share my story with their community. The topic being, how God has taught me something that changed my life and how I live it. I so quickly wanted to turn down collaborating with them and writing this post. Not because I didn't think what they were doing was powerful and glorious, but because it is difficult sometimes to reflect on your journey with God. To truly be transparent, open and vulnerable about the moments in life where I have struggled, the thought of sharing all that scared me a lot. I emailed her back saying I would pray about it and let her know if that was something I wanted to share. I started praying and the first thing that popped in my head was control. I started thinking about all the times in my life where I thought I could have a better life if I took full control of everything and gave God control of almost nothing. The "I can do it myself" attitude. "I don't need God to work in my life"... I loved him, but I didn't NEED him per se. Man, was I wrong. A few years ago I found myself stressed out, never satisfied (no matter what our results in life and in business were), so addicted to the idea of success that I forgot to be grateful for all the blessings our lives had already. I was stuck in a cycle of comparison. Comparison became my primary motivating factor. "Their life is better, I must work harder to keep up" "They just got engaged so I need a ring like that ASAP" "Their business is growing faster, I must push harder to prove myself". That is a dangerous way to live your life and a few years ago I really realized that and made a decision to let go of control and work on my faith. When they say "comparison is the thief of joy" they're not kidding. My self worth was based on performance and results, and I wasn't happy. I had to shift what motivated me in life. My reasons and my drive had to start coming from a different place. I knew I needed to make the shift from being motivated by earthly things to being motivated to glorify God. I knew the only way I would have pure joy and happiness in my life was if I learned to count my blessings everyday, let go of control, and in dark and in light have faith that God has a plan for me and is using me in His way.

Prior to embarking on this faith filled journey, I would either try to control the chaos in my life or I would drown in it, but either way I was pushing God away and having no faith. I once heard somebody say that the opposite of faith is comfort. If you are comfortable it requires no faith. I found comfort in trying to control everything, thinking that if I worry and stress about things that it would lead to a more efficient life, instead of trusting in God to provide and work in my life. I had to learn to let go of control and have faith, pure faith. I was delirious in thinking I was in control or thinking that I knew what was best for me (instead of God). We all hear the "let go and let God" talks, and before I might write it off as a cliche, but really that's what I had to do. I had to put real trust and faith in God, for my life. We have to realize that if we live our lives in fear and worry we are minimizing God and all that he can do. If God is good, and he is, how can you live your life in fear? How should that even be possible unless you believe God is powerless. You can't hold two opposing views in your life at the same time. Either God is good and He will take care of me (Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:26) or He isn't therefore I have to do everything myself. I used to live my life through worry and fear, I was minimizing and underestimating God's power. Now my primary motivations are to glorify God and live a joyous life, and I now realize my worth is from God. "So you are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority" Colossians 2:10.

With letting go of control, I also had to learn patience. Having patience is having faith. When I would try to force everything out of the fear of what we didn't have, it would take me further from God and further from my goals I was striving for. I was caught in a cycle of working hard for the wrong reasons. I was working out of fear. Fear of losing what we already had and fear of not gaining what I wanted. I did that in my relationship and my business. This is hard for me to admit and also embarrassing, but I was seriously so consumed and obsessed with the idea of getting engaged about four years ago. I was seeing so many friends get engaged, and thanks to my comparison nature I started putting the pressure on Nick. I had ring qualifications and time requirements that if he did not meet I was not going to be happy. WHAT?! Looking back I see how ridiculous and sad that is. But I'm telling you, I was so detached from wanting God to work in my life that I just wanted to force things to happen. Now don't get me wrong, I love Nick with all my heart and am so grateful we got engaged and are now happily married, but I rushed him into it. He felt financially stressed to provide what I was asking for but I was being selfish and pushed it. He and I both would have enjoyed it all a lot more had I not been so controlling, been at peace with being patient, and waited until the timing was right in God's eyes.

I was doing similar things in our business too. I wanted more sales, higher ranks, more results so bad that I would work like a crazy person just to prove myself in business and out of the fear of not getting what I wanted. I still love winning in life, and I still love working hard. However, now I remind myself everyday that I am grateful for my health, my loving husband, my supportive family, our thriving business and the freedom I have to pursue things I love. By reminding myself that everyday I am in a state of gratitude which allows me to feel peace, give up control and work my booty off to give all thanks and glory back to God. The one who truly deserves all the glory.

I am not perfect, and when I call it a journey I mean it is one I am still in and will always be in. It is a daily discipline to practice faith and letting go of fear and control. I still have days where I struggle to have faith, but I can honestly say, the majority of the time now I feel at peace and very grateful. When you shift your mind from the results you want to the blessings you have, and let control go, you'd be pleasantly surprised at the blessings that pour in. It makes me think, maybe I wasn't receiving more blessings because I didn't even appreciate the ones I had already. It makes sense. In searching for happiness, I also found a huge amount of peace in my life. I am constantly reminding myself of the powerful lessons the Lord has taught me in the last few years, and when fear creeps in and I want to rush or control my life (ex: having babies, buying our first house, etc), I just remember that God's timing is perfect timing. And God's plan is a perfect plan. I could not, have not and will not ever create a better plan for my life than the one he has designed for me. I hope my experiences and lessons can help someone, anyone reading this. I pray that my journey and being vulnerable in writing this will help someone else in their walk with God.

Top 10 Sites & Programs Every Blogger Should Know About

Danielle Greco May 12, 2016

I started my blog on October 13th 2014. You can learn more about that here in my one year blogging anniversary post. When I started blogging I had No Clue what I was doing as far as setting up the site, growing a following, and creating great content. All I knew is I had a desire to be creative and have a space where I could share about the things I love and connect with readers from all around the world. I have a mentor that says if the desire is strong enough, the how does not matter. Well, that's the truth here. My desire was strong enough to create a blog that the "how" all fell into place because I was determined to figuring it out.

It is now May of 2016, so I have been blogging for about a year and a half now. I have learned SO much and still have a lot more to learn. There are so many amazing programs, sites and apps that have helped me to make my blog what it is today. Some of which I didn't discover until a year + into my blogging career. I wanted to create this post to hopefully help a new blogger figure out how to get going. Here are some programs that will help you a ton! Good luck!!

| 1 | MAIL CHIMP

Mail Chimp is an email program. You can connect it to your blog to keep track of your subscribers, send them all emails, and my favorite is you can send RSS emails that go out every time a new post is live on your blog. The program is free. Wanna experience it? lol put your email in below to be part of my email list and receive weekly blog updates!

| 2 | CONVERSIONS BOX

Conversions Box is super simple and free. It is a site that allows you to enter a facebook page URL and it will create code for you to add into your blog for a simple pop up. Something along the lines of "Like Us On Facebook".

| 3 | SOCIAL FABRIC

Social Fabric is a place that connects brands with bloggers. If you want to make some money through blogging, this is a great site.

| 4 | CHIMP FEEDR

If you use #1, Mail Chimp, for RSS emails then you will need this. Chimp Feedr is a place where you can enter a bunch of RSS feeds and they will mash them up into one master feed that you can then use for RSS email campaigns. RSS is extremely confusing and if I'm gonna be honest, I'm no expert. But these programs help a ton and once it's set up you don't have to stress about it.

| 5 | PICMONKEY

This is something I use ALL the time! See the photo above? The one I'd love for you to PIN ;). Haha, well I made it using PicMonkey. This program is free or you can pay to upgrade like I did so you have access to everything. I used it for free for a long time and it worked awesome without upgrading. This is a photo editing site. As far as I know they don't have an app yet, which is sorta a bummer, but the site is great. You can do so much through here as far as editing. Go play around with it!

| 6 | BLOGLOVIN

This is a sort of social media platform to follow other blogs and share your own blog. I don't use this program a ton but it is really awesome and I know a lot of bloggers who swear by it and gain a ton of traffic to their blog from it. Here is According To D on bloglovin!

|7 | ICONOSQUARE

One of my favorite platforms on social media is Instagram. I love how visual and creative Instagram is and I focus on growing that platform a lot for my blog. Iconosquare is a nice tool to help you track your analytics. This used to be free but now it costs money, it's either $29/year or $150/year depending on the plan you get. I do the cheaper version and it helps tons. It lets you know a lot of stuff about your Instagram, from what time of day is best to post to receive the most interaction, to what filter your followers like best. You can also receive "snapshots" of your IG content. It will tell you things like where your followers are from (68% of mine are from the U.S.), or what your top posts have been. You can also create a "profile cover" through Iconosquare. Here is an example of that ( I edited it a bit in PicMonkey). It will say something else, which I covered and put my blogs name.

Through Iconosquare you can also create Instagram widgets for your blog. I LOVE this because they give you colors to choose from and you can make it more personal. Here is an example:

| 8 | STOCK PHOTO SITES

I have linked a blog post that gives a long list of free sites where you can find stock photos. Now, I personally don't use a lot of stock photos. Especially for my travel posts, I like to use my own photos. However, there are some situations where the post doesn't require a lot of pictures (like this post) and stock photos come in handy. Like the photo I made to pin up above, the actual photo is a stock photo and I edited it with text. Simple. Pinterest is an amazing search engine for bloggers. If you are looking for stock pictures, search free stock photos in the Pinterest search and a ton of blog posts with information will come up. For bloggers, sometimes Pinterest is a better search engine than Google.

| 9 | PIN GROUPIE

This is something I discovered a few days ago! I wish I knew about it sooner. It's a site that helps you find group Pinterest boards. You can then contact the creator of the Pinterest board and ask them to add you to the board so you can pin on it. I have been doing this recently with travel boards, ones that have a TON of followers. I have noticed SUCH a difference. My blog content has been getting re-pinned like crazy and my blog's page views have gone up from it!! Super excited about this and I'm going to keep working on this, joining new group boards and spreading my blog's pins. If you want to see some of the boards I've joined, click HERE.

| 10 | AVIARY PHOTO EDITOR

This is an app I use on my phone to edit my photos. I have tried other photo editing apps but I find Aviary simple to use. I like that it has whitener, I use this a Ton for white backgrounds so they are super white and pop more, I also use them to whiten my teeth at times. No shame here lol. Here is an example of a picture I took, this will show you the before and after editing with this app.