As a Blogger, you often find your self acquainting with the odd 'flatlay'. You'll know that it's a photography technique in which you lay your subject(s) down, alongside lots of other props, and take an image - usually from above, or at a high-ish angle. Those that do them well make us droll. We could endlessly scroll down their Instagram pages crying into a tub of ice cream at how immaculate their composition is. But, nevertheless, we all persevere and give them a go. And, of course, no flatlay is perefect, and a lot of hard work (and sometimes money) can go into making the best looking ones.
So as far as our friendship with flatlays go: us bloggers adore taking them and are forever aspiring to take the best ones. But, that's mostly what non-bloggers think. We know the truth about that deadly, back-breaking, aspiration-crushing, demotivating, evil photography method.
Here is the truth about flatlays...
Fancy a game of Twister?
I lay on the floor with my left leg stretched out, my right leg behind my head, one arm folded in, and one arm under my leg. I get tangled up on a mess of brown hair, limbs and a camera just to get the right angle.
Natural light.
On a glorious sunny day, the shadows can be intense so you have to make sure that your 'natural light' isn't cursed with that. Then, on a rainy day, everything is just too gloomy. Now, don't even get me started on the 3 minutes of natural daylight that we get in the winter.
Imagine having a mark-free background.
I use a white wallpaper roll and I find myself rolling out about 3 metres before I find a section that hasn't been scarred by previous flatlay attempts.
Carrying your entire bedroom into your best photography 'spot'.
I have actually started collecting things into an overnight bag now and shipping them downstairs.
Taking amazing pictures then realising that one thing is annoyingly out of place
Check out this blog post from back in 2015. This is one of my favourite, most aesthetically pleasing photos that I've ever taken, but there's one thing out of place that REALLY bugs me. Can you tell what it is?
Getting irritated by auto focus and switching to manual.
Focusing - in fact, any camera setting - is the bane of my life.
Getting the perfect focus then slipping and bodging it all up.
Is this just me? Am I just stupidly clumsy?
Feeling proud of yourself for using gorgeous fresh flowers then realising that they've leaked water all over your backdrop.
Going back to having a 'mark-free backdrop', this doesn't do me any favours.
Trying to take photos of something reflective then realising you can see your goofy face and camera in the 'final' edit.
I can guarantee that, when I'm taking flatlays, nearly 100% of the time I will have no-makeup on, my hair shoved up into a messy bun, and probably will be wearing pyjamas, so seeing my face in a reflective object is something that no one wants to see.
Where is that orange tone coming from and how do I get rid of it?
Again: I hate camera settings.
The glamorous camera shadow.
I find this one particularly annoying when you're taking pictures on your mobile phone. That E.T.-like arm, stretched out holding a big rectangle - or at least that's what the shadow ends up looking like.
Trying to make those fake flowers look real.
Yep, real flowers most definitely have no leaves, straight stems, glitter on their petals and a label saying 'fake flowers' on them.
Wondering how the hell people do this?!
It's difficult and the people who do it well and blow our minds are forever admired by me. But, I can imagine that those people also have their moments of self-doubt. Don't ever feel deterred by these irritating flat-lay nags, you're not the only one and we must defeat them.
What are your truths about flatlays?
IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU
Yep, that's right - whip out your inner Sharpay Evans and let everyne know how fabulous you are. Don't get me wrong, no one wants to here you brag on and on about yourself like an angelic goddess, but if that person is reading your blog, they are most likely there to know what you're getting up to or find out your opinions. Embrace it and indulge in the fact that people are interested in you. Don't be afraid to think about Number One sometimes.
IT LOOKS GOOD ON YOUR CV
My CV had a section about my blog, explaining the skills that I have achieved from the experience. Think about it; you gain communication, computer, creative, independent, analytical/statistical, and for the lucky ones, business skills. Employers might really like the idea that you have a modern, creative hobby. The same goes for Personal Statements for Unis. My college encouraged info about blogs to be stated on our PS because, as well as showing skills, it proves that you do more than sit on the bed all day playing on your Nintendo (heh, sometimes).
A PROBLEM SHARED IS A PROBLEM HALVED
Feeling down? Write about it. It doesn't have to be published if you don't want it to. Blogging is a great way to pour your heart out and, as I said, share your opinions. Understandably, sharing your opinions usually has to remain PC but, if you have a problem that you reckon others might be able to help you with, grab your keyboard and get writing because, chances are, someone will do the same for you in the comments section.
YOU LEARN
Believe it or not, you can learn sh*t from blogging. As well as learning how to build a sentence that looks intelligible to readers, you can even get the chance to learn buisness-y stuff. Plus, even if your blog isn't a piggy-bank, you might EVEN end up learning a thing or two about yourself.
IT ISN'T EASY
I'm aware, no advert or persuasive text is ever going to tell you that their product is crap but, with blogging, it's the challenge that sometimes brings a thrill. I definitely feel a sense of pride when I post a blog post because writing a post takes brain work, planning, creativity, the long hard stare at the page when your mind blanks, and the re-read after re-read before you press that little orange 'publish' button. Yes, you're faced with a challenge but it's worth it.
What are the reasons that you blog?
Most people who are struggling with grief have experienced the loss of someone very close to them. I guess, in a way, I'm lucky because the grief that I experience regards the loss of someone that I've never met. But that doesn't make it any easier.
It's a Monday night and a TV show has just premiered on ITV: Diana, Our Mother. Prince Harry and Prince William say the most touching things about their mother, videos play of her legacy, and images of her and the boys. One of the things that really touched me was when Prince Harry said: 'not knowing that it was the last time I'd speak to my mum, how differently that conversation would have panned out'. Despite Diana's death being before my lifetime and not really knowing much about her, she is a wonderful woman, but it's not her that I'm grieving for.
Because, throughout the TV show my eyes continued to glance over to my mum. Every few seconds. Is she okay?
My mum's mother died when my mum was only 17 and for my whole lifetime I've known my mum as in grief. She's strong, determined and independent but, every year, when October (the month her mother passed away) rolls around, things can sometimes feel a bit low. As a result of this, my mum and I have an extremely close relationship and we're both sensitive, meaning we often share each others emotions and can be very empathetic towards one another. This is exactly the reason why I don't go a day without thinking of my grandmother.
I may have never met her and not know much about her, but I guess that just makes it harder. As you could probably imagine, my mum doesn't speak much about her and, while part of me understands that that is just a coping method, I do wish I could learn all about her.
Grief is a sad topic. A taboo. A conversation to be avoided. No body really wants to talk about it and certainly not experience it. But I think that there is one really important message that has came out of my grief: You must respect those closest to you.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a strong believer in showing respect for your mother. While other people may have valid reasons to think otherwise, it is a big part of my life. I've seen people my own age talk bad of their mothers, either behind their backs or to their face and each time it hurts me so much. 'We're so lucky to have our mothers. You don't understand how lucky' I think.
I'm 100% certain that, if my mum could turn back time and keep her mother with us, she would in a heartbeat because her life has been so affected by that loss. And, as Prince Harry said, you don't realise how little time you get until it's over.
So whether you have a close friend, uncle, mother or father, don't waste time being angry, distant or reserved from one another - it does sound brutal, but we never know what is going to happen and when. So we have to make that difference now.
Make memories. Please. Because I was never able to make memories with my grandmother, and that is something that hurts me every day.
When you have hundreds of post ideas, blog deadlines, events and no where to write everything down - a blog planner can be a saviour. The Blogger Crowd recently created a sample for their new, up and coming Blogger Pack and, after a week or so of using it, here's how I've found it:
The three main concepts within this sample were the the 'blog post planner', the daily planner and the monthly overviews.
BLOG POST PLANNER
The blog post planner is a really great idea and something that I reckon would be useful to a lot of bloggers. With this page, you'd require one per post as they are focussed on the one post - I like this because it means that you wouldn't get muddled as to where you put 'that post' or 'this post'; there's a box at the top making it pretty clear which post is being discussed.
The general look of this page is adorable. I'm a huge fan of white backgrounds with simple, modern graphics and this definitely does that. The dots are cute, the colour pallet is cute and the font is cute. My only iff with the layout is that the section about 'websites to link back to' doesn't, for me, need to be so big. It's understandable that some bloggers use the marketing strategy of repeatedly linking their content throughout posts but, for me, I find that my links are continuously uniform across my posts and, aside from the odd link here and there, they're always the same links at the same place; so not something that I feel would even need to be mentioned when planning posts.
I feel that, from this page, I'd like to see the 'notes' section a bit bigger or, alternatively, a section for structuring the post e.g. Intro > Body > Conclusion > Call to action. This would be an ideal feature for me and would be, I'm sure, to many other bloggers.
Overall, the post planner is aesthetically pleasing and showcases the best crucial info such as date/time, post title, and what needs to be done with photography in order to completely prepare for the post.
MONTHLY OVERVIEW
I chose to print and complete the July monthly overview which I found generally faultless. Again, the aesthetic was pleasing and I particularly liked how each month had a different icon in the corner according to the season; e.g. March had a flower, July had a plane, and October had a pumpkin.
The only missing thing is a list for blog posts going up in that month. I guess that blog posts could be added into the 'Notes' section but I think it could go that little bit extra specific.
Overall, with the monthly overviews, I really value the 'Goals' because I am the kind of person to set goals for the month then forget about them and thus not complete them. Due to the fact that I can write them down here, I'm less likely to forget about them and more likely to stay focussed.
DAILY PLANNER
The daily planner has to be one of my favourite pages because it is jam-packed with so many useful features. I'm a sucker for a good, ol' To-Do List, so I got straight on with writing that down. The lines could be a little longer and perhaps the tick-boxes a little bit smaller, but I'm satisfied with that feature.
I love the positive vibes that this page radiated effortlessly at the bottom of the page with the 'looking forward to' section - I guess it is a little bit mindfulness-ish in the way that it controls you to focus on the positive aspects of the day.
Along the side of this page, there is a pale pink box for each 'Morning', 'Afternoon' and 'Evening' which I found useful for sectioning up my day as well as helping to realise whereabouts in the day I was best fitting things in to avoid doing lots of things all once.
This page is my favourite of them all in terms of layout - I love the question at the top, the wavy lines, the fact that there's a lot do to and the fresh colour palette.
As a whole, the blogger pack is really useful to me and I can't wait for The Blogger Crowd to reveal the full pack. The official pack is set to include even more great tools for aiding your blogging process as well as some really exciting blogging related prints. I really recommend that you follow The Blogger Crowd on their Instagram and Twitter because, as soon as the website is launched, Blogger Packs like this one are going to be available for download from as little at £1.50.
BLOG POST PLANNER
The blog post planner is a really great idea and something that I reckon would be useful to a lot of bloggers. With this page, you'd require one per post as they are focussed on the one post - I like this because it means that you wouldn't get muddled as to where you put 'that post' or 'this post'; there's a box at the top making it pretty clear which post is being discussed.
The general look of this page is adorable. I'm a huge fan of white backgrounds with simple, modern graphics and this definitely does that. The dots are cute, the colour pallet is cute and the font is cute. My only iff with the layout is that the section about 'websites to link back to' doesn't, for me, need to be so big. It's understandable that some bloggers use the marketing strategy of repeatedly linking their content throughout posts but, for me, I find that my links are continuously uniform across my posts and, aside from the odd link here and there, they're always the same links at the same place; so not something that I feel would even need to be mentioned when planning posts.
I feel that, from this page, I'd like to see the 'notes' section a bit bigger or, alternatively, a section for structuring the post e.g. Intro > Body > Conclusion > Call to action. This would be an ideal feature for me and would be, I'm sure, to many other bloggers.
Overall, the post planner is aesthetically pleasing and showcases the best crucial info such as date/time, post title, and what needs to be done with photography in order to completely prepare for the post.
MONTHLY OVERVIEW
I chose to print and complete the July monthly overview which I found generally faultless. Again, the aesthetic was pleasing and I particularly liked how each month had a different icon in the corner according to the season; e.g. March had a flower, July had a plane, and October had a pumpkin.
The only missing thing is a list for blog posts going up in that month. I guess that blog posts could be added into the 'Notes' section but I think it could go that little bit extra specific.
Overall, with the monthly overviews, I really value the 'Goals' because I am the kind of person to set goals for the month then forget about them and thus not complete them. Due to the fact that I can write them down here, I'm less likely to forget about them and more likely to stay focussed.
DAILY PLANNER
The daily planner has to be one of my favourite pages because it is jam-packed with so many useful features. I'm a sucker for a good, ol' To-Do List, so I got straight on with writing that down. The lines could be a little longer and perhaps the tick-boxes a little bit smaller, but I'm satisfied with that feature.
I love the positive vibes that this page radiated effortlessly at the bottom of the page with the 'looking forward to' section - I guess it is a little bit mindfulness-ish in the way that it controls you to focus on the positive aspects of the day.
Along the side of this page, there is a pale pink box for each 'Morning', 'Afternoon' and 'Evening' which I found useful for sectioning up my day as well as helping to realise whereabouts in the day I was best fitting things in to avoid doing lots of things all once.
This page is my favourite of them all in terms of layout - I love the question at the top, the wavy lines, the fact that there's a lot do to and the fresh colour palette.
As I've explained to many people before, I visit Edinburgh at least once a year and I have done for a very long time. The reason why it seems to happen every year is because it's such a wonderful city that I seem to never get tired of. This year, visiting Edinburgh was very different. It was the first time I had visited without my family; only my boyfriend and I went. It was also the first time that I have visited as the legal drinking age, meaning there was a lot more that I could explore. Another thing that was different about this Edinburgh trip was that it was a little more challenging. Being on your own in a capital city can be daunting for anyone - specifically those, like myself, who suffer with anxiety. So, this time around, I was a little nervous but, overall, because of how far improvements have come with my anxiety, the trusting company that I was with, and the fact that Edinburgh is such a beautiful, historical city - I managed to succeed and have an excellent time.
So, here's what we did:
Jamie and I were super lucky and got two first class return tickets so Edinburgh. They were booked as soon as they were released meaning they were pretty cheap - especially as Jamie has a rail card. We took advantage of the first class tickets; we chilled out in the first class lounge and ordered plenty of food and drink on board. From where we got on, the train to Edinburgh only takes just under 2 hours and travels closely along the East Coast (meaning there are some stunning views).
After checking into our hotel and dropping our bags off, we went for a cocktail iN a gorgeous bar: Badger & Co. Having never visited Badger & Co before, I was soooo impressed. The cocktails were delicious, the variety of drinks were great and the overall atmosphere was just so pleasant.
On the evening of our first night, we went for a meal in Pizza Express. We were super duper tired from traveling and rushing through the streets in the rain, so we only planned an easy, relaxed evening so we could get our feet on the ground. As ever, Pizza Express was delish and, upon returning back to our room, we got our pjs on and got an early night ready for the next day (Are you yawning yet? Hang in there)
This is definitely where stuff got real exciting. After Hayley recommended that I visit The Huxley, we decided to go there for breakfast. DE-LISH-OUS!! If you're planning to go to Edinburgh, this place is a must-do. It's a lil bit on the fancy side with a bit of a sting on the price labels, but the food and the interior design is stunning. I got a Berry Blast smoothie which was HUGE and jam-packed with goodness, then the most amazing pancakes (take it from me cus I'm not usually a big fan of pancakes). On top off all that, our window seat was perfect for people watching and being grateful for being inside, out of the rain.
More drinks? Another restaurant? Yep, that's pretty much what we were always doing. If we weren't eating, we were drinking. The next visit (after a round of shopping on Princess Street to walk off the breakfast) was to the very swanky Le Monde - a cocktail bar situated on George Street. I got a tasty drink called The Lady In Red which, due to the addition of Disaronno, tasted like a Bakewell Tart dream.
A little time after that, we headed to our first experience in YO!Sushi. Jamie had been begging to go to YO!Sushi for as long as I can remember so, while we had the chance, we finally went. It's easy to say that this places exceeded our expectations and we were so happy with everything. The food was lovely, the service was quick and unique, and we had a crazy cool view of the castle from our seats. I also came away from this having tried new foods - one of them being raw, unsmoked salmon, which really just weirded me out. And the other being Tofu; I still have no idea what it is, but it tastes really nice - especially when covered in Katsu sauce.
This next activity was something that I was looking forward to for sooo long! Maison de Moggy or Edinburgh Cat Cafe. This cat cafe is unlike anything I've been to before because all of the cats are pedigree. From Berman, British Shorthair, Ragdoll, Sphinx and Bengal, all of the cats are unique to their breeds and beautiful for it. It was actually my first time seeing real pedigree cats and I was particularly blown away by the size of them. The Berman, or Pierre, was an outstanding size - and he wasn't even the biggest there. Then there was the unusual Sphinx cat; this kitty enjoyed trying to steal people's cake and chasing toys. When you did get chance for a stroke between playtime, the skin was surprisingly warm and velvety.
Oh and, of course, we went for more drinks after.
On our last night, I wore my pink jumpsuit from Warehouse that I adore. Before we devoured a huge Paella in Cafe Andaluz, we went for drinks (again, heh) in Tigerlily. If you're ever visiting Edinburgh and you're looking for just one suave bar to indulge in, it must be Tigerlily. This place is so fresh, modern and stylish as well as serving up awesome drinks. On our visit, I stepped out of my comfort zone and got a fab 'personalised cocktail'. The talented barman listened to my favourite flavours and my least favourite, and rustled up a beautiful concoction.
On our last day we had breakfast in our hotel (with an A* view), did more shopping, and - *sigh* you're probably tired of hearing this now - went for more drinks. But hear me out!! We went for drinks in The Dome because, to me, it's one of those places that you can't leave Edinburgh without visiting. It's a true landmark on the highstreet and is designed to perfection.
After all of that, we headed home. Our first class train on the way back included, guess what, more drinks and we got home in the evening tired and happy. It was such an amazing trip and I feel fairly proud of myself for being able to let my hair down, enjoy myself and forget about responsibilities - even if it was only for 3 days. It may not be the tropical holidays that you're seeing at the moment but, I believe that it's the sentimental value that can make a holiday really special.
Which location has sentimental value to you?
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