Well hello to you my reader chums! I cannot believe I'm writing a post to celebrate 11 years of my blog, Della Loves Nutella. That's over a decade of sharing my thoughts on my own corner of the internet from my experience of mental health, my travels, and book reviews to lessons I've learnt so far in my twenties.

I've loved every minute of using this blog as a creative outlet, an amazing tool to develop my writing, creativity and build on my digital marketing skills and be involved in the blogging community.

As an anniversary post, I thought I'd share all my favourite things about blogging over the years. I'm excited to see what happens with another 11 years of this blog. It's so amazing to me that I began this blog at 16 and now I'm nearer to 30, turning 28 in June. 

Every time I write an anniversary post, I can't help but feel incredibly grateful that I've got this space on the internet that is mine to share all my thoughts and experiences. 

If you're new to my blog or a loyal reader for years, here are my favourite things about blogging.

Writing about the things that make me happy

Writing is my biggest passion and I love how this blog has allowed me to write about anything my heart has desired. I've shared my mental health journey, my travels across the world, my self-love journey, books I've adored, memories I've shared with loved ones and topics I'm passionate about, such as confidence and budget travelling.

Writing is therapeutic to me and it can help me process thoughts and experiences, such as living with anxiety and overcoming insecurities. I love sharing any thoughts or topics that pop into my mind, and over the years, I've really seen how those interests and passions have evolved.

Documenting parts of my life 

One of the best things about social media is an online log of my life and one of the things I've loved about blogging. Most years, I've shared my goals, lessons I've learnt, where I've travelled and books I've loved. I've also shared mental health experiences, pictures of friends and family, and tips to navigate my twenties. My blog has kind of been like an online diary at times, especially when I first started writing on it as a teenager. I sometimes love going back to my 2013 posts and reading my blogs as I was so innocent and young.

Reflecting on life lessons through my writing

Growing and evolving is all part of being human and having a place online to write about those reflections has been gold. From lessons I've learnt from friendships, and relationships, loving myself and developing my confidence, I've written some amazing thought-provoking articles, processing my thoughts and experiences.

Working with brands I love

I don't work with brands anymore and mainly use this blog as a place to write my thoughts and experiences. However, over the 11 years, I've worked with some brands I've adored and been sent amazing PR packages from brands. I feel lucky that my little place on the internet was significant enough to receive such presents and that brands enjoyed what I have to say. 

Chatting and connecting with other bloggers

The blogging community is one of love and support and I'm grateful I've been a part of it for such a long time. Over the years, I've had the chance to connect and chat with many bloggers, collaborating with them, guest blogging and running competitors. I loved reading other blogs and receiving such lovely feedback from other bloggers. It gave me another motivation to continue blogging.

Improving my writing and digital marketing skills

Having a blog has been a great asset to my digital marketing career and building my freelance business. I ran this blog before I even got my first marketing position and it helped massively in building my creative writing and SEO skills and learning more about content marketing. It's also an asset that has helped me gain jobs as they saw it was a fab project to run on the side.

That I've gained a regular hobby 

Hobbies are incredibly important and I'm happy I've had a dedicated hobby for over a decade and committed to it for such a long period. I've loved how I've always had something to come back to every week.

I hope you enjoyed this post. How long have you been reading my blog?

Thank you for reading <3