A YEAR IN REVIEW / 2016

So 2016 has been quite the year for everyone I think - most of it actually quite worrying for the world, but when I think back on the past 12 months in terms of my life, I'm actually pretty proud of the direction it's taken.

Obviously the best thing that happened to me this year was getting my kitten Luna - who has brought more joy and happiness to my life than I ever thought a cat would! She makes me laugh all time time and I love her more than I can say 😻


However you're here to read about the Disney aspect of my life so let's talk about that. Well another quite obviously amazing thing that happened to me in 2016 was my boyfriend surprising me with a trip to Walt Disney World for Christmas - I've never been before and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am! We're heading out on the 1st May for 2 weeks, and I'm having so much fun planning everything that we're going to be doing. In the lead up to the holiday, probably starting in February, I'm going to be running a WDW Series on here, with quite a few different posts planned from What's In My Bag: Park Edition, to how I've planned my first ever trip to Disney World. I'll be ending the series with a number of giveaways on my Instagram involving items I'll be picking up whilst I'm there which will be exclusive to the U.S. parks - to give you guys throughout Europe a chance to get items that otherwise you'd have to pay a small fortune for through eBay.

Looking back on 2016 though - I can't quite believe how my little Instagram account has grown. I'm pretty sure I started the year in January with under 1000 followers, and yesterday on New Year's Day I hit 17,000. Running the account is honestly my favourite thing - I love planning what pictures to post - and making sure I'm happy with every photo I take. When I started the account, it was called tsumtsumlucy (in August 2015) and the only reason I made it was so that I wasn't flooding my personal account with pictures of Tsum Tsums. It just seemed to grow and grow throughout last year and eventually led me to launch this blog in May 2016. I've always been really into bloggers, youtubers etc but my background is mostly in fashion - there are already so many established bloggers in those fields so I knew that was something that I didn't want to do. 

When my Instagram account started to grow early last year, a Disney blog was the natural progression for me, hence Disney In Particular was born! I've so enjoyed growing this blog, and since it launched it's managed to gather over 55,000 views - which I'm so incredibly thankful for! I was quite nervous when launching as to whether anyone would actually want to read anything I have to say, and I'm so pleased that you guys have been supportive towards it.

From my blog spawned my shop, which currently operates under Shop Disney In Particular - I think I mentioned this when I launched it, but eventually I want to stock non-Disney items as well, that still sit well along all the current items, and launch it under its own brand name - but that's quite a way off yet! I actually had the stock for quite a few months before I launched, because I was so nervous about telling everyone about it. I announced the shop in September, and honestly I'm still overwhelmed by the response! It's so exciting to see that you guys feel the same way about the stock that I do - and I can't wait for you to see all the new items I'll be adding this year! 

I think my favourite achievement from 2016 was running the Finding Dory competition on my blog and Instagram in collaboration with the Disney Store who provided the most amazing prizes, which actually came about from someone stumbling across my blog and my Finding Dory review through my Instagram. I do get asked get quite a lot about how to collaborate with brands, and my advice would be just to work really hard on your content, and stay active on your favourite social medias - and brands will come to you. 

Another favourite moment of the last year was receiving the beautiful Snow White bag from Danielle Nicole, and getting all of you guys excited about the QVC launch of her collection - I already cannot wait for the next launch on 10th January! I really do pinch myself over the amazing people that have been in touch with me over the last 12 months, and at the beautiful items I've been very kindly gifted. I'm so excited for what 2017 has in store! Obviously the thing I'm most looking forward to this year is Disney World in May - I've pretty much got the blog series planned now, so here's a little run down of the posts I've got in mind at the moment:

WDW SERIES:

1. Trip Overview - when we're going, where we're staying etc

2. Useful Planning Tools

3. Tickets - what we've booked, why we booked them, who we booked with

4. Travel checklist

5. What's In My Bag: Park Edition - everything I'll be carrying with me whilst in the parks

6. Flight essentials - what I'll be taking in terms of bookings, confirmations, and my Disney travel documents

7. Disney World Wishlist - items that I'm hoping to buy whilst I'm there

8. Disney holiday essentials - Disney items I've bought/received specifically to take with me

And I'll be ending with a series of 5 mini giveaways once I'm back - each a week long, and each one will be an item from WDW that is exclusive to the US parks.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and are just as excited about 2017 as I am.
Thank you all again so much for your continued support, and thanks as always for reading.