Love Style Mindfulness – Fashion & Personal Style Blog
Blogging Tips

How to take the perfect selfie

How to take the perfect selfie

How many pictures are behind the perfect selfie? Precisely 77 in my case. Anyway, we all know that it’s the end result that counts and thanks to trial and error and some pretty handy tips from my sister I’ve come up with a winning combination on how to take a great selfie. I thought I would share the selfie love! Lighting Unlike a lot of bigger bloggers I’m not yet at the stage where I have my own beauty light in my room, some of us have gotta work with what God gave us (insert sassy emoji here). My best tip would be to use natural light only, I would never take a photo (selfie or not) with the light on. I’ve found that it words best if the light is facing you as it’s so much more flattering. If the light’s behind you it blows out the background and casts all sorts of nasty shadows on your face! Background Unless you’re in Paris and want the Eiffel Tower in the background, you generally will want to keep it pretty plain . My bedroom is honestly perfect for selfies, I’ve got a white wardrobe facing a window so it was pretty much made for it! If I’m not at home I tend to try and find a light coloured background as I love the clean and simple look. White space When I say white space I don’t necessarily mean the colour but the space around the subject – you! Use the negative space to your advantage, it can really make or break a picture. I know these pictures are further away but I love a good crop on an instagram selfie. Choose your outfit wisely Now I know for me, when I wear white or light colours my selfies are always better. I mean obviously people only take selfies when they look in the mirror and think ‘oh hi there, you look pretty good today’ but I definitely think that certain colours highlight you’re face and make you look a damn sight better! Try different angles Everyone has their best side, utlise it ladies! I find that taking the photo on a slight angle also accentuates your cheekbones and just generally works wonders. Filter the buggery out of it Lastly and posssibly the most important of all – filters. Use those instagram/vsco filters like there’s no tomorrow! Do you know what I found the most hard about this post? Smiling, not just smiling, but smiling and showing my teeth. Isn’t that crazy?! For years my slightly discoloured teeth have always been somewhat of an embaressment to me and over time I’ve learnt to perfect my smile with my mouth closed. So much so that when I actually wanted to show my tegs off I couldn’t smile without looking like I was in physical pain! This is actually awful and shows that I definitely don’t smile widely often enough! From now on I’m definitely going to make a conscious effort to show of my pearly whites…

View Post
How to build your Instagram following
Blogging Tips

How to build your Instagram following

Seen as you guys were loving my ‘how I edit my Instagram photos‘ post from last week, I thought I would share some more of my tips, this time focusing on some of my top tips to build your Instagram following. Everyone loves a good list so here goes: Have a theme Obviously don’t be too obsessed with this, I mean there’s people I’ve noticed who constantly delete and re post pictures in the quest for the ‘perfect feed’. I do however think it’s important to have a theme for your Instagram. When I look on a feed I like to instantly know what the person is about, first impressions definitely count when it come’s to instagram. If there’s a clear style and I like it then I’m definitely more likely to hit follow! Be active but don’t spam I think there’s a fine line between being proactive in posting on Instagram and being a spammer. I’m not being funny but if you logged into Instagram and all you saw were my pictures clogging up your feed you’d definitely unfollow me right? You do however, still want to have a presence! I’ve found that since I started posting less often (before I was guilty of being a total spammer – I’m talking 6 or 7 times a day) not only have my followers gone up, but my un-followers have gone down meaning the followers I do get I’m keeping. I would say between 1-4 pictures is a good amount, I usually post between 2 and 3. Get friendly Instagram is a social network, so get social guys! You’d be amazed at how far a comment or a couple of likes can go, it’s great for creating a little community and who doesn’t love getting comments? Liking peoples posts and clicking through means not only can you discover some great bloggers but they can discover you too. Again, no spamming guys! When to post Everyone has a different opinion on this, some people say to evenly spread your posts, my sister however says “Americas not up until 3pm”. I mean I won’t not post because of the time but if I have an important post I’ll definitely wait until the late afternoon or evening, lets face it most people aren’t using social media at work so hit them in the evening! Hashtags are your friends Use hashtags! I know it can be cringey when you think about it, I definitely felt awkward doing it to begin with. but just think of it like when people search on google, if they search on instagram fblogger and you’ve added that hashtag then it will appear in the search. It only shows the most recent posts so after an hour I delete mine. Be public This may seem like the most simple tip, but don’t be putting your instagram account on private if you want to show up on any pages. Like I said before, people like to see a preview of your style before they hit follow…

View Post
10 Comments
How I edit my Instagram photos
Blogging Tips

How I edit my Instagram photos

I wanted to make these blogging tips posts a more regular thing so let me know if you have any questions you want answering or you just want to pick my brain – that’s fine! I know I’m no Sarah Ashcroft but I definitely feel like I’ve got at least a little bit of knowledge to share on the subject and as we all know, sharing is caring! I have to say I’m pretty proud of my instagram, I’ve been to-ing and fro-ing for a while about how I want my images to look and constantly comparing my feed to other peoples. When I decided finally what I wanted (this had a lot to do with my new blog photographer and making the connection seamless) I suddenly thought, shit! it doesn’t look like the others, now what am I going to do? I spent some time agonizing over what to change it to then all of a sudden I was like – hey! that’s a good thing surely? I mean how many fashion bloggers let alone instagram accounts are there out there? surely setting mine apart with my own unique style is a good thing?! So anyway, throwing that piece of advice completely out of the window, I thought I would show you how I edit my photos for instagram. I know I just said to be unique but I get a lot of people asking about how I edit my instagram and what tips I have for building a following on instagram (come back next week for that installment!) so I thought I’d share my secrets with you all. Firstly, I try to take all of my photos on my camera (Samsung NX3000) because the quality is amazing and it’s got wifi which pretty much means I can always put them straight on my phone – unless I’m in the middle of nowhere! This does exclude selfies, I do take the occasional selfie on it if it’s for my blog but come on guys, no one wants that kind of detail in a selfie! I used to just edit my photos when I got to instagram but I literally changed the way I did it every time and I was hating how my feed looked. By the way if you’re reading this and you’re not that bothered about instagram you’re probably thinking none of this matters – it does. Then I discovered VSCO Cam, hallelujah! There’s almost too much choice! Once I found a filter/setting I liked I tested it on a few different photos to see if it worked and hey presto I was set. I use T1 – I’ve just realised that it’s called moody and I’m not really sure what that means but I like it! I usually do it to the mid levels between 5 and 7 and then mess around the the exposure, contrast and tint – I only ever go up or down by 1 or 2 dependant on the lighting etc. This is so…

View Post
10 Comments
Blogger Problems \\ Green isn’t your Colour
Blogging Tips

Blogger Problems \\ Green isn’t your Colour

I know I can’t be the only blogger who deals with this and if you don’t then you’re a bloody saint, envy. I mean, don’t get me wrong the blogging community is ridiculously friendly and helpful and everyday I’m astounded at how much people help each other out. There truly is room for everyone and most bloggers are more than happy to share their secrets and help one another out. Despite this, I constantly find myself comparing my instagram feed to someone else’s theirs is so clean! They have so many followers on twitter and more comments on their blog. At the end of the day these kind of thoughts are completely ridiculous and serve only to bring you down, they’re 100% counter productive! I feel like it’s even more obvious for me at the moment when I’m seeing how many people are jetting off to NYFW, PFW, MFW and even to our very own LFW. I often have to remind myself that I’ve not even been doing this for a year and as a wise man once said “don’t compare your beginning to somebody else’s middle or end“. I really need to take my own advice and remember that actually, I should be proud of what I’ve achieved in such a short time period! Go me! Do you suffer from the occasional spout of envy? What do you do to deal with it? Don’t forget to follow me on Bloglovin’

View Post
4 Comments
Blogging Tips : Getting Started
Blogging Tips

Blogging Tips : Getting Started

I already know what you’re thinking, “she’s hardly the blonde salad, whats she got to say?”. Well I’ll stop you right there, I know I’m no expert, but I’ve been getting a fair few emails asking me about getting started. Seen as that’s something I’ve been through myself, I thought I’d give you a little list on my top blogging tips and what information I found most helpful when I was setting up my blog. The Name The name of your blog needs to be consistent with the content, it also has to be easy to say and spell! You don’t want people getting fed up when they can’t figure out how to spell your web address now do you!? Remember that this name is also going to stick with you if you’re in it for the long run, so make sure you don’t rush the name! Once you’ve chosen the name google it, youtube it, instagram it, facebook it, twitter it, basically check, check and check again if this name exists else where. I’ve read advice on just going for the .org or another address if your name isn’t available but I definitely disagree with this. Do you really want someone else blogging under the same name or worse still, selling fishing tackle!? Personally, I go by .co.uk and I also brought .com to make sure all bases are covered, ain’t no body getting my name! The Website I personally went with wordpress, I did my research about getting your blog noticed and found lots of recommendations about how wordpress is great for building a community, whether this is right or not I have yet to find out! However, WordPress doesn’t use HTML which means unless your a computer wizz you have to buy a theme. I bought a theme and still struggled, it took a lot of guilt tripping and ‘I’m just a poor little girl who can’t use computers’ to get someone from work to help me with mine (look it works ok!). Content  The best advice I found on your content is to write as you speak and be true to your voice. Don’t just write about something because someone else is, people will read your blog because they want to hear your opinions which is what makes it unique, which is exactly the reason why you shouldn’t be copying others. Obviously there’s a difference between copying and taking inspiration from, it’s hard not to be inspired by other blogs, after all that’s what blogs are there for! Blog Genre Ok, for lack of a better word, what’s your genre? I think this is the hardest thing, I’ve gone down the fashion route with my mindfulness post’s to make it more personal and incorporate something I feel strongly about. That doesn’t mean that later on down the line I might decide to do a beauty post or post about my holiday etc. Lifestyle posts are a given I think as generally that’s what people love to see from bloggers. People like…

View Post
4 Comments