Upon arrival, we met some of the Haven crew and received our swag bags. There were some pretty sweet finds in the bag, but our favs were definitely the Annie Sloan Chalk paint, Purdy paint brush, Kreg Jig Jr. and a stencil from our go-to stencil girls at Royal Design Studio. Score!
We attended six sessions total, each of them were taught by some blogging bigwigs- do you see that list below? Southern Rhoda, Tracie at Beneath my Heart, Beth from Home Stories A to Z, Sarah of Thrifty Decor Chick, and Myra from My Blessed Life We were SO thrilled to meet these ladies in real life and hear all the stuff they’ve learned through their blogging experience. We also spent time talking with vendors (Monica won 3 awesome paint brushes at the Annie Sloan chalk paint booth), and with business cards in hand, checked out all the blogs we hadn’t read before, .
Rashon Carraway, aka Mr. Goodwill Hunting, rocked the Thrifting 101 session! Remember him from The Nate Show? We had fun sharing stories about our times on the show and how great the staff was to us. Good times, I tell you.
Sherry and John from Young House Love were the keynote speakers, and not only were they adorable, they were so down to earth, full of good tips and witty, to boot. Not fair. We loved their mindset about writing their blog, and their honesty about sort of stumbling into blogging fame.
We could have talked with Sherry the entire night. She’s totally like the otherย best friend we wish we had.
We LOVED meeting so many people with similar passions as ours, and discovering awesome blogs we hadย never heard about. No one truly understands blogging except other bloggers, that’s for sure.
Beth from Free Stylin’ and Jamie from C.R.A.F.T
The highlight of our trip was meeting our blog mentor, Beckie. We’ve been chatting with her on the phone every week for the past few months. We knew she was insanely talented and driven, but we were so not prepared for how awesome she is in person! And drop-dead gorgeous. Her session about advertising had everyone buzzing about her. And for good reason! Love.that.girl.
Monica was really excited to meet her, and I was scared, I guess. Awkward, Jess, awkward.
And I’m sure you’ve all heard of Allison from House of Hepworths, but we were psyched to meet her since we were in the Blogging 2 Better collaboration with her the past 6 weeks.
Layla from The Lettered Cottage, taught a killer session on photo styling that rocked our picture-taking world. How she preps rooms for photos is genius, and even though we learned a lot, we’re pretty sure that she has a creative eye that can’t be duplicated.ย I am a HUGE fan of hers, so was pretty excited that she sort of knew who we were (or pretended to, anyway!)
We also had the priviledge of hanging out a bit with Ashley and Whitneyย from Shanty 2 Chic. These girls make DIYing look amazing. A gorgeous, creative blogging duo.
And speaking of gorgeous-ness…take a look at Ana White building a rolling storage caddy in sky-high heels and tight cropped pants. Fabulous, isn’t it? Makes us feel like we should maybe reconsider our t-shirt and sweatpants attire for DIYing. Or maybe not.

Love this recap! Glad I was able to meet you girls (even though it was very brief!). You both seem like so much fun! Hopefully next time we’ll get to chat more. Looking forward to following your blog! Haven was definitely so much fun and I can’t wait until next year!
-Erin @ DIY On the Cheap
Wish we could have spent more time with you, too! It was SO awesome to see all those incredible bloggers (including you!) in one place.
I love that you got a butt shot of Ana White! Nice recap ๐ So glad I met you two!!!
You absolutely cracked us up in person, and then when I read your recap, I cracked up all over again. SO great to meet you!
Jess (& Monica)
Love this! I met both of my blog crush’s- Julia from Hooked on Houses and Leslie from The Bearded Iris. It was a whirlwind of fun, huh?
Definitely! So many faces and so many blogs! It was a blast- can’t wait to do it again!
J & M
Blog conferences are so exciting! I love reading all the re-caps, AND… now I have much more blog stalking to catch up on. Thanks for sharing!
Oh my word- you’re not kidding. Our blog reading list just became forever long! So much inspiration out there to take in. Love it though!
Thanks for stopping by-
J & M
Wish I could have been there and met you two. Additionally, I have a major girl crush on Katie Bower.
Ha! Did you see Katie there? I just read her Haven recap and she’s hilarious. Sad we didn’t get to meet you too! Maybe next year?
Have a great night!
J & M
Oh I just noticed you said you wished you were there. Oops! Try and come next year- you won’t regret it!
J & M
Ah I loved meeting you girls! You are crazy talented! Was so fun to chat! Xo
Ditto! You are absolutely adorable and so sweet. We felt priviledged to meet you! Hope we get to chat more in the future!
J & M
I totally agree that is felt like a family reunion! It’s humbling (and super fun!) to see so many awesomely crafty, creative people in the same place. So happy to have met y’all!
I know, right? So much fun. We came back with lists of things we wanted to tackle as a result of Haven. We have enough to keep us busy until Haven 2013! Loved meeting you too!
J & M
I felt the same way about ya’ll. It is a privilege to do this with you guys! Thanks for the kind words.
Just speaking the truth, girl! ๐
J & M
So excited to have met you both! Y’all are such dolls…it was fun to get to know you. Thanks for the constant inspiration!
Same to you! We look forward to checking out your projects on a regular basis now. ๐ Hope to chat with you soon!
J & M
It was great to meet you talented gals! We should try to do a PA bloggers get together some time.
Love that shot of Ana White. My feet hurt just looking at it!
Seriously! Ana was impressive, wasn’t she? And we would be thrilled to get together with you sometime. Email us!
Have a great night-
J & M
Fun recap! I was so glad to meet both of you. I wish we could have spent more time together! You both are just so fun. Thanks for sharing the picture of us even though I look like such a huge dork! I hate seeing pictures of myself. lol. Let’s keep in touch even though we aren’t doing the collaboration anymore. You guys rock my socks.
We felt the same exact way! We were like, “When did we start looking 50 years old?” and “What were we thinking, wearing that?” Ugh. Anyway, SO great to meet you too. Let’s keep in touch!
J & M
Wow! This is so awesome. What a great recap. Thanks so much for the shout out, isn’t that homes.com pic fun. Looking awesome even when you’ve got huge felt flowers in your mouths. ๐ Obviously, stalking … er, meeting you gals was among my highlights. ๐
It was so fun to hang out with you, Karah! And look who’s the blog rockstar now: two features this week, Centsational girl & The Lettered Cottage! You go, girl! You totally deserve it. ๐ Just remember us little people when you hit it big. ๐
J & M
Makes me want to be a blogger! Sounds like such a fun conference and such fun people to be around! The first blog I followed was Layla’s, so I’d love to meet her. But you both have such inspiring and fun ideas that I’m hooked on this blog, too!
Thank you, Kim! We’re honored that you read our blog. Thanks for stopping by…and oh yeah, it’s never too late to start a blog. ๐
J & M
found you via the HAVEN recaps around blogland – how is it that I’ve not connected with you before now? craaazzzyyyy! welcome home – looks like quite an adventure! looking forward to reviewing your blog in the days to come!
http://www.NorthernCottage.net
Haha! Just took a peek at your blog, and it’s adorable! Thanks for stopping by and saying hello! ๐
Have a great night,
J & M
Of course I knew who you were, silly wabbit!!! ๐
I’m so glad we got to hang out for a bit and I really, really hope it won’t be a whole year before we get to do it again!
XOXO
Layla ๐
Totally agree, Layla! Wish we lived a bit closer so we could hang out. ๐ It was a pleasure meeting you!
Have a great night-
J & M
It was so good to meet you both in real life! I so agree with you realizing the sheer talent nestled in one room was bursting from the seams! So many creative, wonderful people! You all always bring a smile to my face!
Kim ~ Sand & Sisal
Great recap! It was so good to see you guys there! ๐ I just wish we would have had some time to chat. ๐
Hopefully next year!!
Traci
It was so lovely to meet you girls at Haven a couple of weeks ago! I am glad that we had the chance to chat briefly – I loved hearing your story and look forward to following you as “East Coast Creative.”
xoxo, Tauni
Oh now I love this! You did an awesome job ! Thanks for sharing!