Confessions Of A Beauty Blogger Tag

This has been floating around all over beauty blogs over the past 2 or so months so I finally decided I'd go for it. I don't usually do so many of these tags, but I guess this is pretty relevant as recently I've been getting lots of tweets about how I started and how long I've been blogging ect.

When did you start your blog?For a while I counted my blog birthday in May 2011 however a few weeks ago I was frantically trying to find the password to my Bloglovin' account in my emails when I stumbled across the first verification post for A Is For Ayla which was sent on the 2nd of June 2011. So I guess my actual blog birthday is the second of June, although I read lots of blogs for a few months before then.

Have you had any past online presence before (other blog, YouTube)?
Not at all! I knew nothing of blogs or Youtube accounts back. It was meerly a stroke of luck when as a 13 year old I came across a fashion blog through a Google search and the entire idea of a blog pretty much took over my life!.

Why did you start a blog?
I feel like people always have such heart-warming stories about how blogging helped them to overcome social anxiety or bullying however truth is I started a blog purely because the idea interested me. I'd always been pretty good at getting my words down on to paper so to put them on a blog was a new idea for me at the time. I was originally interested in fashion back as a 13 year old but eventually A Is For Ayla evolved in to a beauty blog as I learnt more about makeup.  

When did you become serious about starting a blog?
Its hard to define what a 'serious blogger' is. A money maker? somebody who posts everyday? somebody who puts their all in to their posts? If a serious blogger is somebody who tries to write frequent posts that they know their readers will be interested in or that will help people, then I guess from about the start of 2012. At first it was a place just to jot down a few thoughts, mainly for myself. I wasnt interested in followers (hence why I had 32 followers for about 4 months) but when I did start becoming more interested in stats and followers then I guess thats when more and more beauty came about and I started getting serious in my dedication to my blog.

What was your first post?
I dont actually remember. I deleted a lot (were talking about 50) of my posts a long long time ago, much to my regret now. No doubt it was probably something really cringey covered in stockfiles!

What has been your biggest challenge about blogging?
I'd say getting addicted. Sounds odd but it got to one point where I was constantly checking my stats, my followers number and comments. It was around the time my blog started rapidly increasing in size so I guess it was out of excitement. Around this time I almost forced myself to write a post a day, my earlier followers will remember the bombardment of post after post after post! It was really difficult to maintain and I'd almost be annoyed at myself if I wasnt posting at least once a day. Thankfully I'm over that now though!

Where do you see your blog in one year?
Its hard to say! In the past one year I've gained over 400 followers, worked with numerous companies and met lots and lots of blogger friends (I mean one year ago I didnt even have a blog Twitter!) all of which I never predicted. I guess I'll probably just carry on growing. I wont be leaving any time soon I can assure you that!

What is the most rewarding thing to you about blogging?
I'd say comments. Each and every comments always makes me smile, purely because I know how uncommon it is that I write on peoples blogs (probs my biggest blogger fault) so to know that other people have actually put that effort in to comment makes me really happy, more so when the comments are personal, naturally! I love talking to you all too, without comments 600+ followers wouldn't really be imagineable, I like to put faces there rather than a number!

What is the most discouraging thing that happens to you?
I'm actually so lucky in that I've never once had a nasty comment (I'm saying that now, someone probs will now just for the laughs) which has really helped. Blogger is mainly a happy place for me, infact whenever something outside of blogging has put me in a bad mood, A Is For Ayla is always a bit of an escape where I can just log on and talk to all my Blogger friends.

What's your lasting inspiration or motivation?
I'd say most of my inspiration comes from other Bloggers or my followers as, as mentioned before, I'm more about writing for other people rather than myself (which I know a lot of people disagree with). Second to that I'd say general life as often if I see something interesting to me It'll provoke me to write a post related to it. I openely admit to walking around shops and thinking "oh ... from #bbloggers would love that" or "that looks like its come straight off ...'s blog", insane!

Have you done the confessions of a beauty blogger tag?