I was intrigued when I saw CyberMummy – the conference for Mummy Bloggers – becoming a popular topic on twitter and longed to buy a ticket, but whilst we were scrimping and saving to launch our business it felt like a luxury that I simply couldn’t justify. Then I found Powder Room Graffiti – a new Women’s online community that I’ve actually really enjoyed reading – and entered their competition to go to CyberMummy, never thinking that I’d win. But I did! I won! For that, I’ll forever be grateful to Di and the Powder Room Graffiti team because I had such an amazing amazing time.

The conference was on Saturday and my followers on twitter will have seen my updates as I documented the day. I arrived full of trepidation, with real shaky nervousness and a big shiny face (cheers London for the humidity) going on although I needn’t have worried – I walked through the door to be greeted by the beaming grins of two of my favourite people Amy and Kat and THEN I managed to accost the lovely Rachael for a hug in the queue to get my pass. It was already starting off in a promising fashion when I turned around to see my massive naked boob in the gallery on the wall

which pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day!

Between attempting to take photographs, scoring a mountain of free swag, attempting to listen to the speeches,

actively stealing beautiful bonnie babies like this one (the gorgeous SOA, belonging to Jax:

and trying to catch up with bloggy friends I started to feel quite overwhelmed and so I skipped the pre-lunch session in order to eat a little earlier which turned out to be a genius moment. I had been following the CyberMummy hashtag on twitter on my laptop whilst eating when I noticed this tweet from Kodak:

so I got up, pottered over and said to one of the lassies at the stand, “I’ve to say SHARE to you. What’s that all about?” and she replied, “You’ve just won a camera.” I kind of remember everything going a wee bit wild around me, Amanda figuring out what had happened and also saying ‘share’ to win a camera and then us being filmed. Of course, I was so excited and worked up that I forgot what I was supposed to say, swore and KODAK UPLOADED THE VIDEO. I’m sorry for saying the F word in public, Mum.

The afternoon was a thankfully more sedate affair where I attended a session on working with brands – a subject which I will blog about at length later this week – and then the CrowdSourced Keynote. I have to admit that I was feeling quite bitter that the post I’d nominated wasn’t selected but that passed as soon as I listened to the beautiful prose of these superstrong women discussing a range of topics from Sandy’s post about her much-loved Dad which left us all in tears to Kelly’s post about finding herself, Modern Dilemma’s post about her Mum’s horrific experience of losing five babies before giving birth to her to Jen’s horrendous near-death experience and plenty more. I felt transplanted back to 5th year English class where my poor long-suffering teacher would sigh at my alleged promise whilst returning another mediocre essay. I can and must do better, these wonderful women have inspired me.

I left that night with a swag bag so large I nearly toppled over in Clapham (I thoughtfully took an extra Asda bag and an extra conference bag for my pregnant-and-very-poorly sister), with a head full of memories, advice and information and a plethora of new friends. I can’t WAIT for CyberMummy 2011.

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Carly over at Mummy’s Shoes is running a great cyber Cybermummy meet-and-greet and with only a week to go (eeeek!!) I thought I should probably join in.

Name: Vonnie Sandlan
Blog: Adventures of a Lady in Training
Twitter ID: @blottedcopybook
Height: 5’8″ and unlikely to be in heels!
Hair: It’s what I like to think is a pixie cut but is actually a I-hate-my-hair-hand-me-the-clippers cut. Currently brown with streaks of grey, may be red or violet by next week!
Eyes: Two of, blue
Likes: Babies who don’t vomit or blow out nappies, cake, politics, being a holier-than-thou parent, being right, crafting, blogging

This is me – I can’t wait to see you all there!

(Why yes, I did throw my fully-clothed firstborn into an unheated swimming pool and found it HILARIOUS.)

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MAJOR NEWS FOR US! Our webstore at The Life Craft has been launched! Please let me know what you think and what you’d like to see us retailing!

So it would appear that this week is my lucky week. I had entered a competition on the lovely Leigh Shepherd‘s blog to win one of her really stunning upcycled brooches (seriously, check out her work. It’s so pretty!) and as the luck would have it, I was the lucky winner! So this beautifully-wrapped package arrived for me:

and inside was this amazing brooch which is made using a domino! Isn’t that clever?

I’m really chuffed with it particularly since I’ve been making an effort to accessorise better – and with preference to the handmade market – now that I have short hair, and this really is a lovingly-handcrafted piece. So thanks ever so much to Leigh for this.

So that had set my week up to a pretty decent start, when I was told that I’d won Cheryl’s mediband giveaway. I’m not sure if I’ve blogged here about this, but Erica has something called Atopy – basically she has allergic reactions to a lot of things – and I honestly live in panic about what she’s going to react to next. The big one which makes her mouth swell up is raw pineapple and it’s really important that she’s not given it but she’s now getting to the birthday party age. I’m hoping that these medibands will make our panic mode a little less pronounced! I promise I’ll review them once they’re here.

Two giveaways in a week. I was walking on sunshine when I got an email that literally made me drop my laptop. I’d entered a competition on Powder Room Graffiti to win a ticket to the CyberMummy conference not expecting for one second that I’d be selected, and lo and behold…

I’M GOING TO LONDON, BABY! YEAH!

I’m so SO chuffed because although the tickets were very fairly priced I just couldn’t justify it right now while we’re living off our overdraft and credit cards, I’m also being given £150 towards my costs which means I get to have a little fun too! Poor Bob is being landed with the children and business for three days while I swan off all by myself although I’ve been heartily reassured that this means I can’t whinge about him going hillclimbing with his pals over the Summer Hands up if you’re going to CyberMummy!

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