1 Year Bloggerversary + Why I Blog?

Exactly one year ago today I uploaded my first blog post, 10 Facts About Me. Over the past year, JustSoElina has changed and grown in so many ways. I have gotten to do collabs with other bloggers and even my first brand collaboration. I’ve begun to find a style of writing I like and I’ve met so many amazing people in the blogging community. This post is to celebrate all of that and what’s to come!

I started my bog when my health first severally declined, at the time my life was overtaken by illness and I was just so sick and tired of being the “sick girl”(no pun intended). It was the best because no one online new I was sick or what I was going through the just new me as well me. I also wanted a way to express my creativity and do something to help me feel productive while I was stuck in bed. JustSoElina started off as a beauty and lifestyle blog, at the time I was obsessed with makeup, mainly because I would wear it most days to help me feel more like myself and look less sick. For a while, I mainly uploaded makeup related posts and the occasional recipes. Around that time I also took part in my first blogger collabs a Travel Essentials post with Suzanne from SurfandForal (who sadly is no longer blogging) and a “Healthy” Muffin Recipe with Mia from Shining Mia.

I uploaded pretty frequently until April, I decided it was best to take a break as I was moving cross country and if I’m totally honest I had fallen out of love with blogging. I was frustrated that my blog and Instagram wasn’t growing like my friends were and I hated all of the posts I was putting out. The only post I did like was the Perfect Imperfections Tag because I had seen the way it had impacted my readers. I realised the reason I had fallen out of love with blogging is that I wasn’t passionate about what I was writing about. Thousands of people were already doing those posts, I wanted mine to be unique and helpful. Growing up an only child I had always looked to YouTube and blogs for advice, I wanted my blog to become a place people came to for advice. I started focusing on what I was passionate about, helping people by using my experiences and empowering them through my writing. Along with that, In July I did a complete blog relaunch stating with changing my main niche from beauty to wellbeing. As well as redoing my entire blog look and graphics. Soon after the relaunch, I uploaded my most popular post to this day, Tips For Living With A Chronic Illness. While I love going advice there are obviously millions of things in life I haven’t experienced, so I decided to create a series on my blog where other people could share their advice on situations they went through as a teen to help any teens going through similar situations. And that how #TeenTalk was started, now every month a new post goes up, there are currently 6 available to read. In August I also reached to a brand for the first time and ended up doing my first ever brand collaboration post in September with GreaterSkies, How To Stay Positive During Hard Times. I still love my star map poster and its such a beautiful reminder of how far my blog and writing has come in the past year. In December I did my spin on blogmas, 12 Days Of JustSoChristmas and I successfully put out a post every second day leading up to Christmas. The most popular posts being #TeenTalk: A Broken Families Christmas and Easy Ways To Spread The Christmas Cheer.

The biggest things I’ve learnt in the past year through my blog would have to be authenticity and vulnerability (and the importance of grammar! lol) although I still have a long way to go with both as I want to be more real online.

So what should you expect from JustSoElina in 2019?

• More advice
• More personal and vulnerable posts
• Some pretty awesome collabs/guest bloggers
• And hopefully the reveal of a secret project I’m currently working on!

– What posts would you like to see on JustSoElina in 2019? Comment down below, I’d love to know! xx