Balancing Blogging and School

{photo credit - weheartit.com but edited by myself}

 

School can be very difficult on its own, homework and revision takes up lots of time and concentration. But when you throw in blogging as well things can get pretty stressful. I don't think people who aren't bloggers appreciate the time and effort that goes into a post, it can take hours of writing and photographing before the publish button is pressed. Being a teen blogger means I have to balance school with my blog and it can be very difficult at times, but I try to organise and schedule everything to help me keep focused and concentrate on the important stuff like exams. I'm going to share with you my tips on how to stay organised with school work and your blog!

Keep a blog schedule

I keep a notebook with a schedule of the date of when each blog post is going to be published. This is really handy because I can plan ahead so I don't fall behind on blogging. I also keep a tick box section on the right of the notebook so I can track down what I need to do for the post. As you can see in my picture of my notebook, I have the headers P E W C S for my tick box. These stand for Photos, Edited, Writing, Checked, Scheduled so I can keep track of what I have/ haven't done so I can keep organised.

Write posts in advance
I also write most of my posts in the holidays or whenever I have a free day. I then schedule them to go up whenever I have set them to. This is helpful because I can easily write and finish a post and schedule it for the future and not worry about pressing publish. Writing posts in advance is very useful and I really advice it! School holidays are the best time to do this.

Homework and Revising comes first!
Honestly, if you have homework to do, do it before blogging! Revision for exams are much more important and I mean this in the nicest way. Your readers will understand if you need some time to focus on your studies, you don't need to worry about getting your post up by 6:00 as your readers wont be mad! I'm sure you would rather not post than failing your exams! Another tip is do your homework once you get set it, I know everyone says it but honestly it is very helpful! It means you can get it out of the way and not pile it up so that you have too much.

Take photos in bulk
When you have good lighting, use that time to take LOTs of photos for your posts, I usually take about 4 posts-worth of photos at once so that I don't need to keep coming back and taking photos. It will save you time as you wont have to keep setting it up for every time you need to take photos.

Take a break if you need it!
Blogging should be a hobby and not a chore. So only blog if you are really in the mood! No one will mind if you don't post one week, your readers will understand. So sometimes it is necessary to take a break. Try to fit blogging around your school work as it should be fun and enjoyable, not stressful!

Blog Photography Tips

One of the main things that I think are important in a blog post are the photos. Let's be honest here, if I stumble upon a blog post and the photos are blurry, over edited, too dark, tiny - you get the point; the chances are I won't follow or read on. This could just be me but I think the photography is what makes a blog. Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert in photography, but I do have some tips to help you if you're struggling with your photos. So here are my top tips!

Equipment

Personally, I don't think it's necessary to buy an expensive camera just for blogging. I see people buying DSLRs specifically for their blog, but they don't know how to use it so the photos aren't any different to maybe an iPhone. I think just use what you've got, whether or not you are using your iPhone or a DSLR camera. But maybe if you don't have anything to take decent photos then by all means buy a camera if you want to. All I'm saying is don't feel pressured to buy one because lots of other more 'popular' bloggers are using one. I just use my iPhone 5 and I think the quality is fine. it's all about how you take the photos, not about what's taking it. Just make sure your photos are in focus and follow the rest of these tips and you're photos should be fine! 

 

 

 

Lighting

I cannot stress enough how important lighting is. You want to be able to see the product you are taking a picture of, there's no point having he photo taken where it's not bright or the photo will come out dark! Take photos away from the light, by this I mean have the window shining onto the product. Instead of taking the photo towards the light. Otherwise it will be dark like in the photos above. I take my photos by a window so they are nice and bright. 

Some people like to use flash in their photos, personally I don't as I feel the lighting is unnatural and over exposed. But if you are happy with the flash you use then go ahead and use it! 

 

Background

Cluttered backgrounds can often look messy, so try to find a nice background that you are happy with. I quite like to put flowers in my photos, they are from ikea if you were wondering hehe. I also put a mini dressing table type thing from Tickety Boo as it looks cute :D It might take a while to find you're style of photography, but experiment with different backgrounds to find which ones you love the most. Personally, I think the cluttered background in the image below looks quite nice as there is only one product.

 

Composition

Like I said about the background, experiment with different compositions to find which ones you are happy with. I always take about 10 photos of the same thing but from different angles. Then I pick which one is my favourite.

Editing

Editing isn't necessary, but if you want to edit photos, I would recommend the app Snapseed on the AppStore as it is free and very good! I turn the brightness up and edit the saturation and contrast a little bit. I think it makes a huge difference but I guess that's just me!

 

So here we have it! All my tips for photography, obviously I am not an expert! These are just my views on how to help your photos look better! Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed this, have a nice day, bye!

Back to School Beauty Preparation Tips

I know, just the thought of school makes you want to bury your face in your pillow and hope that it's the beginning of the holidays again. But unfortunately, school is just around the corner and we have to go back sooner or later. Instead of writing a post about how terrible school is, I thought I would get you excited and tell you my tips to prepare yourself for back to school!

Beauty Preparation Tips

Now you could choose to go back to school looking like you have had no sleep at all and you just crawled out of bed. You might have a school photo so these tips might help to make you look fresh and ready for the new school year. These are some things I like to do before I go back to school.

Skin
- Use a face mask the night before to help soothe, calm and cleanse your skin. This will help to clear out your skin if you are having any break outs
- During the last few days of the holidays try not to wear a full face of makeup, let your skin breathe. Makeup can clog your pores which can cause breakouts and I'm sure you all hate those nasty spots just like me and you wouldn't want them on the first day back!

Nails

- Try to remove your nail varnish around 3-5 days before school, if you remove it the night before the nail varnish might've stained your nails and that takes a few days to disappear. (Trust me, once my nails were stained from a red nail varnish, not a nice sight.)

- If you're like me and you hate it when your nails chip becuase they are brittle and weak, trim and file your nails a few days before so they have time to grow back healthily. If you keep you're nails long and you don't trim them often they are more likely to chip.

Eyes

- I know we all hate going to bed early and waking up early, but if you have been going to bed at 12 every day and waking up at noon, you probably won't be able to go to bed at 10 and wake up at 7 for school. This is because your sleeping pattern has changed, try to go to bed and wake up earlier and earlier each day (around a week before you got back to school) to slowly adjust your sleeping pattern. You want to get as much sleep or you will be haunted with the dreaded puffy under eye bags, well I at least I will.

- This is probably just me, but over summer I give up on taming my brows so I normally just let them grow out and become bushy. So I tend to neaten them up by plucking the odd out of place and mononbrow hairs before I go back to school.

So that is all my back to school preparation and tips. I hope you enjoyed this blog post and thank you for reading. Have a nice day, bye!