My Weekend at Spark Sessions

I have had the most interesting few weeks!
There's lots to share, so I'm going to jump right in!
On the 16th and 17th of November Toronto hosted Canada's first conference specifically for Fashion and Beauty Bloggers called Spark Sessions.  It was held at The Centre for Social Innovation on Bathurst. 
What a cool little spot!
As soon as I saw the exposed brick and mis-matched vintage-y furniture, I was hooked!

The agenda was packed with amazing content from start to finish!  First up, however, was Jeanne Beker!
She was a great speaker! Animated, interesting and really open about her life behind the scenes and the struggles to get where she is.  One of my favourite things that come to mind when I think of her is the way she changed the role of women in rock journalism as well as fashion journalism. I'm pretty lucky that I was able to actually see that while it happened!
The panels were bang-on for what I needed.  I'm so behind the game with tech stuff!  HTML, and SEO were not in heavy rotation in my vocab before then.  I'm getting very fancy learning all this!  It's been a big help!
The whole experience has been great for my confidence as well!  I was sure I wouldn't fit in, be too old or not pretty enough.  Within five minutes I met some girls who would make me comfortable and gave me the feeling that I absolutely belonged there!  (Thanks Ladies!!!)
There were so many amazing brands, and PR people that were there, that made getting your feet wet the easiest thing!  Just having a coffee, hanging with the PR Lady from Revlon!  No biggie!
Did I mention how spoiled we were?
OMG, the swag bag was bananas!  A gift card from Smart Set was tucked in there which is burning a hole in my pocket!   As if that wasn't enough, we all left with some of Almay's newest additions, along with some best sellers.  There's a post coming up covering my new toys from Almay and Smart Set very soon, trust!
During that weekend I met some great women, had my first gel Mani (thanks BioSeaweed Girls) and learned soooooo much about blogging as a business as well as an artform!  My only regret is that I had to leave early since I was starting to fall apart after the long day on the 16th.  I missed two panels as well as Elaine Lui from Lainey Gossip!
I have to say that after this conference I have so much rattling around in my head that I hope is going to make An Occasional Redhead a much better experience for everyone who takes the time to visit me! 
That's why I do this after all!
What would you like to see from my blog?

Donna  Xoxo