Hello 2018! Nice to meet you.

Hello lovelies and a warm, happy new year to you all! I hope your festive season was filled with joy and that you are all refreshed for 2018. I know I am and that even though I didn’t go away this December, I took time to reboot and consider my plans for this year.

2017 was a real rollercoaster. I resigned from my old job with big eager hopes that I would easily be able to write for magazines. Within my first month, I saw that it was going to be far more difficult than I anticipated and in fact, to this day, not a single publication has gotten back to me.

I also reached out to a number of people asking for guidance and assistance since I had jumped into this whole freelancing thing head first, and I am sad to say that none of them got back to me. At that point, I vowed to myself that I would assist anyone who needed any help or guidance in life because I know how bad it feels to be ignored when you need help (on that note – if any of you would like any advice please feel free to email me).

Luckily it was also a good year for my modelling and I got to appear in a number of ads which helped pay for my expenses in the year! I have an entire page on my blog dedicated to my modelling (both stills and TV) endeavors which can be viewed here. I have also written various blog posts about what life is really like in the modeling industry.

My photo on the confirmed cast list for the Cell C ad

Me appearing on TV in the Nissan ad

A number of my articles were also published on various digital platforms including Joburg.co.za as well as various PR companies, so it wasn’t an entirely empty period.

I got to travel quite a lot in 2017. I went to Namibia for the first time which was totally incredible as well as Cape Town a couple of times. As for my annual international trip, this time around I hit the UK which was a great adventure. We were lucky to have fantastic weather and I got to purchase a variety of unique and unusual gins.

Dressed up as Pocahontas in the Namib desert

Outside the Houses of Parliament in London

On a beautiful beach in the Isle of Man

Speaking of, I can very proudly say that 2017 was a very gin soaked year.

I explored a number of delicious gins, attended a few gin events and of course my Sipping with Sam videos on my Youtube channel were a great hit.

Monkey 47 gin event

Opihr gin is one of the unique ones I brought back

Drinking gin at the Beefeater distillery in London

In addition to my blogging, this year I am looking at alternative ways to bring in an income. For this reason (as well as my love of gin obviously) I have begun expanding my line of gin steeping bags. I hand make each individual bag and each set is made specifically for one type of gin. I’ve made a few and allowed friends to experience them and they have gone down quite well. These gin bags are bespoke steeping “teabags” that are comprised of particular botanicals that you simply pop into your G&T. Their purpose is to release and bring out the hidden flavours of each gin and more often than not, they end up making the gin a little sweeter which is ideal for extremely dry gins such as the Tanqueray.

Gin steeping bags

I’ve also begun laser cutting some earrings which are for sale on my Facebook page. I am also hoping to create some gin themed ones too, along with a few other gin oriented ventures which I will be bringing out soon so keep your eyes peeled for those...

With the help of my supportive boyfriend, I bought myself a decent camera and have been practicing my photography so expect way better images. I can already see my Instagram feed looks a lot more attractive!

I have a number of different cosplay ideas that I would also like to create this year though for the time being, things are a little slow because I need to take my machine in for a service (and have been doing some things by hand which is not ideal). But do expect some fantastic costumes to be coming soon.

My Halloween Vampire costume

I also turn the big 30 this year and instead of denying it, I’ve decided that I am going to throw a huge themed bash. So there is going to be a lot of work going into that prep over the next two months.

2018 is going to be a big, fabulous and incredible year (I’ve already decided this) filled with a lot more gin, videos, writing and a few surprises.

What are your New Year’s resolutions for 2018? I’m eager to hear what you have planned.

So here is to an amazing opportunity and growth filled year. I hope that your hearts are full and as excited as mine!

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