Whenever I stumble across an awesome blog that I fall in love with I'm always so, so, excited to share it with you guys as nothing makes me happier than this awesome online community we're all a part of. I've shared many favourites in the past here and here, and today I wanted to share eight awesome blogs I've stumbled across recently that I think you guys will really love:

It's almost been 18 months since I graduated from university and I think I've grown more as a person within that time than I did during my three years studying for my degree. Even though it was tough at times, I still cherish those three years as a time to be a pretend grown up and find myself a little and where I belong in this big old world. Post graduate life left me feeling lost, anxious, and overwhelmed at the pressure to get my life together and today I want to share five things I would love to go back and tell myself if I could:

With the end of year in sight, I really want to open the floor up to you guys today and have an opportunity to get to know each other a little better. The main purpose behind this blog is to have an online space that builds community, starts conversations, and a place where I can engage with the awesome readers who stop by here. I mentioned in my 5 Things To Do For Your Blog Before The End of 2014 post that I had a reader survey coming soon, and today I'm really excited to get to know you a little better and find out more about your experience with this little online space.

So with just 11 quick questions to answer, ranging from how long you've been reading this blog to what your personal goals are for 2015, I really can't wait to read through your feedback and find out more about you. You can keep it anonymous if you'd prefer, though there's also a question to find out more about your blog if you run one as I really would love to have the opportunity to explore the awesome content you guys are creating around the web!

I've embedded it below but you can also answer through this link here. 

Depending on how long you've been reading this little blog, you may or may not know that I started out my blogging adventure as a beauty blogger, sharing my favourite products and beauty lessons learned along the way. After a year or so though, I was ready and itching for a change and decided to take a leap into the next chapter of what this blog could be. During that process I had to make the big decision - to rebrand, or not to rebrand?

I decided to refocus my content instead of rebrand my blog completely as I wasn't going to be taking a complete u-turn in terms of the voice and tone of this space. It felt like a natural progression for me to start focusing more on freelancing, creativity, and blogging advice while still sharing lifestyle content as well. I also didn't want the hassle and headache that would come with completely rebranding and starting from scratch again and thankfully, a few months down the line, I can happily say that my refocusing period went as smooth as possible.

So if you're thinking of switching things up a little, changing your content, or breaking out of a niche you might not feel suited to anymore, here's my best advice for refocusing your blog:

Life isn’t always easy, things don’t always go to plan, and none of us are entitled to our dreams coming true; we have to work crazy hard and then some to build a life for ourselves that we really love. If things were easy, we’d never learn, and the grit we develop when overcoming obstacles helps us grow as people more than any easy road ever would. 

I was reading Holly’s recent interview with the awesome Kory Woodard where she said “don’t let the struggles hold you back from going after those dreams of yours” and her words resonated with me so much. Forging your own path and building your own creative career isn’t an easy road to take, and whatever the dream is that you’re pursuing I just want to remind you to not give up, even when things get tough.

Ever feel like your days are taken up by those tedious daily tasks and that you don't have enough time left to focus on the work that really matters to you? We're all busy people leading hectic lives and I've been trying to find ways recently to streamline everyday tasks so I have more time to focus on the projects I'm excited about. So if you feel a little stretched too thin as well, here are five ways I streamline daily tasks:

Self promotion and marketing myself is probably the biggest area where I struggle when it comes to running my own business - even with this little blog I've never felt all that comfortable having a marketing strategy in place. With some new business ventures coming in early 2015, I've been spending some time researching some of the best marketing advice around, and whether you're a blogger or small creative business owner I wanted to share today ten of the best resources I've found: 

Last week I shared a post on What To Do When Someone Else Also Has Your Awesome Idea and as always the comments section really sparked some awesome conversations and different ideas. A big thing I took away from it is that in the online world there’s always going to be an ongoing discussion around inspiration, and when and where it’s taken too far. 

In the past few months I’ve had to deal with a few situations where my content was either completely copy and pasted, or plagiarised to the point where it couldn’t be ignored. This was a massive learning curve for me in how I want to handle myself, my business, and my work and also a little insight into a not so nice side of the blogging community. I think it’s quite a personal area where we all will decide our own limits and boundaries, but I wanted to share today some things I’ve learned and my personal thoughts on taking inspiration too far: