There was so much to learn, see, do and consider thoughtfully at BlogHer ‘10 in New York City, it seems unfair to give it only one post. For the next few days, I’ll share with you the highlights from my own unique perspective. Maybe you are considering BlogHer ‘11 in San Diego, maybe you weren’t able to attend and just want to enjoy, or maybe you are like I was, and wondering how a craft blogger could benefit from BlogHer.
I flew into New York City with some local friends on Wednesday. Wednesday was designated “travel day” in my book, I highly recommend it. I encountered many bloggers that traveled on the day they had parties and appointments booked. Boy, did they look stressed! Flights don’t always connect the way they are supposed to, things happen, it’s just less stress to have a dedicated travel day if at all possible.
While most of my Wednesday was filled with security, waiting, flying, a nauseating taxi ride (anyone recall the video game Crazy Taxi?), and recovery from said ride, we did have a great time walking around the area, including Times Square, at our own pace.
We stopped in at the Anthropologie store so one of my roommates could do some shopping. As a very visual, crafty, colorful person, I fell in love. One of the great things that NYC has that we lack here in STL is an appreciation of window displays. Anthropologie was beautiful inside and out. My favorite area was in the home furnishings area. I could do some serious damage to my checking account with drawer pulls alone. I found this beauty near the dressing rooms on the lower level:
I’m no art expert, but I loved the way it appears the yarn (or whatever it was) is embroidered through the painting. I’d love to recreate this idea on a smaller scale in my home.
We traveled on, enjoying lots of interesting fashion and displays elsewhere along the way, including a very large paper mache homage to Saturday Night Live. Times Square was fun, although slightly reminiscent of the county fair in terms of people and product. Did you know Spiderman plays the saxophone? Really! We shopped in a 3 story Forever 21 in Times Square until about midnight. (By the way, shopping until midnight is a quite the luxury when you are from Missouri.) Afterwards, we took our very tired tootsies back to the Hilton.
Thursday morning my roommates had to “work” by attending BlogHer Business. After a few hiccups I used my trusty iPhone to map my way solo to Bouchon Bakery in Columbus Circle to meet up with other bloggers for breakfast. I had a lovely chocolate brioche and coffee while chatting with Kate, Amythest, and Tonya.
Next up on my agenda was the Kodak Bus Tour. Now would be the time to point out that nifty little iPhone app that I fell in love with completely failed me. A group of bloggers met in the lobby of the Hilton and started our trek to Caroline’s to meet the busses for the Kodak Tour. I’m not sure how it happened, but people relied on me and my little blue dot as we set the pace to walk what was supposed to be a few short blocks. Sadly, the little blue dot abandoned me somewhere along the way. Blue dot told me I was standing in the middle of Central Park, when even this girl from Missouri could tell I was clearly not. Sorry to Robyn, Tamara and all the others I led astray!
Thankfully despite my tiff with Blue Dot, we arrived to Caroline’s only five minutes late and enjoyed a nice lunch while the lovely ladies from Kodak gave us a quick overview of the Share Button, the key feature of the lovely little M580 cameras that had arrived at our houses a week earlier. (Disclosure here: If you can’t read between the lines, Kodak gifted each Bus Tour attendee with a Kodak M580 camera and a 1GB card to use on the tour.)
We filled two busses full of bloggers and set off for a three hour tour of New York City. We saw lots of amazing things and obviously, took lots of photos. You can see all the blogger’s favorite photos of the tour at Kodak Moments.
One of the best tips from the Kodak session was when Jenny (Kodak’s Chief Blogger) shared with us that one of her most important ‘missions’ is to get moms in front of the camera. Too many times, we as moms are clicking away behind the camera. We are creating great memories, but leaving ourselves out of the picture. Jenny encouraged us to remember to turn the cameras on ourselves every once in a while. When I did as instructed, I captured this treasure:
I love the reflection of the skyline in the lenses of my sunglasses and I choose to ignore all my imperfections in this photo. Never mind that it was 90+ degrees out and we were riding on an open top bus through Manhattan. No one looks their best in those circumstances! I’m really glad Jenny encouraged us to do this, and will do my best to remember it in the future.
I returned to the hotel exhausted, but thrilled. Throughout the day I met several bloggers I followed and many more new ones as well. Sadly, being new to the whole BlogHer gig, I was not as adept at the whole business card swap thing as I should have been, so some of the great ladies I met that first day I have yet to rediscover. Oops! You live, you learn.
Thursday’s fun wasn’t over, I still had two events to attend including the much anticipated Martha Stewart Blogger’s Night Out. More on that fun tomorrow.
We may have been riding on a bus, in the heat, but you look fabulous in all of your blue. Loved meeting you at BlogHer and was so happy to find you (and a few other) craft bloggers in attendance.
Hands down, Apple’s app store wins by a mile. It’s a huge selection of all sorts of apps vs a rather sad selection of a handful for Zune. Microsoft has plans, especially in the realm of games, but I’m not sure I’d want to bet on the future if this aspect is important to you. The iPod is a much better choice in that case.