Happy As A Clam // Spectrum Collections Event

Last Thursday I was kindly invited to the launch of the new brushes by Spectrum Collections.

Blogging Props

Taking photos of products brings me inexplicable joy - that may well be one of the saddest things I've ever said but it's the truth. I love arranging make up to create a beautiful photograph but sometimes the picture just turns out boring and empty. Editing obviously brings life to pictures but it's always helpful to start with something good and make it better rather than something a bit crap and end up with something less crap, know what I mean? To make my pictures more interesting and add different colours and textures I use 'props'. Over the past 2 years I've created a little blogger corner in my bedroom full of stuff that I use in my pictures and I thought I'd share some of those bits with you. I highly doubt any of them are unique and original ideas but at least it's handy to have a list of them all in one place!

• wooden (chopping) board - for flat lays to add texture & dimension.
• prints - as a background to add colour.
• rings - to fill out empty spaces in flat lays.
• flowers/plants - to add colour & texture. Almost all flowers and plants photograph really well so they're definitely an easy prop to have.
• notebooks/books -  to add height when taking 'landscape' photos, great for backgrounds too.
• packaging or other products - to fill out empty spaces in photos. Taking a picture of a lipstick? Use other lipsticks to fill out the space.
• patterned bowls/plates - again good for flat lays as a background or for adding height and colour, I'm sure you've seen everyone and their mother use that marble tray from H&M in their pictures recently. 
• candles - cute candle holders make great backgrounds as do lit candles, especially for A/W posts.
• magazines - again good for backgrounds. I particularly love stacked Vogue's in the background of some of my pictures.
• wallpaper - buying a single sheet of wallpaper, especially a wooden effect, makes for a gorgeous background. You can also use contact paper that works exactly the same - and you can get marble look ones too.

To be honest most decor items work well as props in a photograph, you can pretty much use anything you have to make a picture more interesting. The only tip I have is don't over do it. Too much can take away from what you're actually photographing so just make sure the product stays the focus. 

I hope this was helpful and if you think I've left anything out, or you use something that I haven't included then leave a comment and let me know.

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How I Blog

It's weird that when you become a blogger you're often at a complete loss as where to start when writing a post. There is a pretty long checklist in the recipe of a good blog post like a nice background, pretty presentation, a unique writing style and the boring stuff such as links, information and of course something to actually talk about.
In the 3 years I've been blogging, and the year before that of religiously reading them, I haven't really seen anyone talk about their blogging process. I know that I'd love to know how other bloggers go about writing and preparing a post so I'd love to see anyone reading this doing one of these. I'd find it super interesting to see if there are any similarities or any differences too - so please have a go at this! Any excuse for more blog post ideas,  am I right?!

I'll use a beauty product review as an example as that is the main bulk of my posts. Usually I wait until I've collected at least 4 or 5 products before I'll actually get them all out to photograph. When I finally do get round to setting everything up to start taking pictures I'm normally quite happy with a white background especially if I have the outer packaging of a product to use as a prop but if I think it's too boring, I'll grab a cute notebook, an interesting print or just put it on the wooden floors in my house to jazz everything up a bit. I also bear in mind that the product needs to be the focus of the photo so I'll always try to keep things to minimum which suits my taste and photography style anyway. Photographing products is the longest part of a beauty post, for me at least, and that's why I like to devote a good few hours to doing a bunch at once, taking pictures everyday gets a little tedious. After taking photographs of everything, most of the time I try to aim for at least 3 per post, I edit them. I'm really inexperienced with editing software so I've just stuck to using my camera settings and it works fine for me so far. I'm considering getting photoshop and taking the time to learn to use it but it seems really daunting. I guess I'll have to learn sometime so there's no time like the present but anyway - after all that, I create a post, upload the pictures and start writing.

I hardly ever write all 4, 5 or however many reviews I have all at once. I generally do 1 or 2 the day of photographing and then finish the rest during evenings later in the week. I post 3 times a week, sometimes more if I have something I particularly want to talk about but that gives me time to work through posts at a much more relaxed pace. I find introductions the hardest part of writing a post and it often takes me a lifetime to get things going so I start by using bullet points of information on the product then that slowly forms into a post and then the introduction and ending is a piece of cake. When a post is complete, I add the labels and then leave it until the day of posting. The day of, I proof read it all to check it's in the right tense, there's no mistakes, the link still works etc and if it's all good then I press publish. My posts either go up at around 1pm or 7pm as that's when I get the most traffic (thanks Google Analytics - which if you don't use I'd recommend doing so, it's super helpful) and then that's it!


I hope you find this as interesting as I do and if you write one of these please comment, or let me know that you have and I'll definitely give it a read.

What's your favourite and least favourite part of writing a post? Do you struggle with anything?

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Being Yourself With Blogging

I found it extremely difficult to overcome the barrier that presents itself when you first start blogging. I'd say it took me a good year to get past that and write as I would if I was typing an anecdote to myself or telling a friend about something - terrible puns and over the top descriptions included.

I think it took so long for me to find my blogging voice because it's hard to open up straight away. Just like when you meet someone for the first time, you try to be the best and most pristine version of yourself but that's not what makes people want to spend time with you. It's all the things that make you different from everyone else that makes anyone interested in you and that is what your blog is - it's you and that can be hard to put on the internet for a bunch of strangers to read.

It feels unnatural to put your uncensored personality, your stories and your life on the internet for anyone to find it. It can sometimes feel intrusive and you have to decide if that is a feeling you can overcome or not. Of course writing about make up products doesn't really give all too much insight into your personal life but the words are yours and for me, I still felt the need to put up a little barrier by trying to be as vague as possible in the way that I wrote a review.

After a while of reading back through my posts I just found them boring, they had no life and I didn't want to be represented that way. So, I made a decision to let go of all the apprehension and write which ever way came naturally to me. I  had so much more pride in what I was pressing publish on and I enjoyed writing so much more and I think that absolutely came across in my posts too.

I actively seek out blogs with personality because that's what is the most interesting to read. I know it is a very common cliche among blogging advice to say 'be yourself' but that is the best piece of advice I have ever received. Having beautiful pictures, a well presented blog and a million followers are obviously great assets to have but engaging with readers and giving them an enjoyable experience when they're reading one of your posts by being completely and truly yourself is much more important to me.

I wrote this in response to email I recieved the other day asking for some blogging advice. I have only been doing this 2 years and I don't have a wealth of experience or advice to give but helping someone is something that I will always happily do, so I hope this helped you in some way.


What blogging advice do you have to give?
Have you struggled with being yourself on your blog?

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