They grow up so fast
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It’s been two years since I first hit publish on my What’s In My Makeup Bag post and what a rollercoaster it’s been since. I’ve come on in leaps and bounds. Although I’m still nowhere near where I want to be with my blog, there’s still a lot of room to grow and develop. I just find it crazy that two years have passed and I still love it, a hobby that consumes a lot of my life and it’s still giving me so much joy and pleasure.
It’s only been the last year or so where I’ve actually put a lot of effort into my blog, before I was putting the effort in but not quite 100%. Now I pour my heart into this little corner of the internet. Without my blog I wouldn’t have gotten some amazing experiences that I have and I most likely would still be stuck in a waitressing job (although I’m still far from being a full-time blogger).
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If you want to hear more about what I got up to in my first year of blogging then I highly suggest you go back and read my post Happy First Birthday Aesthetic Obsessed. It’s crazy to just to look back on the post and see how far I’ve already come in another year and I’m so excited to see where the next year is going to go. For all I know I might not be blogging in a year although I double that’ll happen or I might have just recently gone full time with my blog, the possibilities are endless. One thing I know for sure is that my blog has helped me grown and change in so many ways, it’s given me opportunities I’d never dreamed of and it’s given somewhere to be creative in more ways than one.
If you’re on the fence about starting a blog…go for it. You never know what doors it may open up for you. [/pipdig_right]
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Like I said this post is going to be me reflecting back on everything I’ve done in the past year, and it’s a lot. Between university and blogging, I’ve also found love, experienced a proper photoshoot and dropped a lot of money on a new camera…all of which have helped fuel my blog in many ways. While I may not have fully enjoyed my last year at university it did help me decide what topic to write my dissertation on…dance and social media. The fact that I was writing about two things I absolutely adore made it that much easier and enjoyable to write overall, but while I was writing it my blog took a bit of a backseat. This didn’t mean I fell out of love with blogging, quite the opposite. I wanted to blog to my heart’s content but I needed to prioritise. During this time my page views dropped, my mailbox dried up and I was feeling pretty disheartened after a pretty good 10-month run with blogging. It’s taken me nearly 2 months I get my blog back up to where it was and while I’m still not getting 10,000 emails with sponsored opportunities a day I am slowly starting to earn a little bit of pocket money again to help out with the hosting and photography costs.
It was back last summer that I really started to branch out from beauty and product photography. I was getting bored of creating content that seemed to be popular at the moment and instead started to write stuff that I wanted to read about. Obviously, I took into consideration what was popular but for me having a blog is the enjoyment I get out of writing and if other people want to read it then cool, if not then it’s not really a massive deal.
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Two subjects I’ve really dived into writing more is fashion and sex/ relationship related posts. I’d previously dipped my toes into both but wanted to get more serious about them both. Fashion is something I’ve loved since I was a little girl and sex/ relationship is just a topic I love to talk about and think it’s crazy that there’s still taboo around it. Therefore it made sense to include these topics a lot more into the re-birth of my blog in January, and while the name has remained the same I like to think I’ve stepped my content up and a lot more of my personality now comes around in my posts.
While I have branched slightly away from beauty, I was lucky enough to be invited to the Radisson Blu Edwardian for a spa day which is one of my favourite non-party events that I’ve been to. It was a small intimate event and I actually knew 3 of the 7 other bloggers there, which was nice and comforting. I have turned more events down this past year than I would have liked to but sometimes life has to come before blogging and I’m constantly having to remind myself that while I would love to make a career out of blogging, for now it’s just a hobby. Although it has gotten me one step closer to landing my dream job.
When it comes to earning money from my blog, trust me I don’t earn a lot. For me sponsored posts are few and far between but I am super grateful when I receive them as I typically re-invest all the money to my blog and it gives me one less thing to stress about cause ya girl is a poor student. I did recently submit my declaration of self-employment so now I have the fun and exciting job of doing my taxes…I’m really not looking forward to trying to figure out that. Why don’t they teach that in school instead of trigonometry?
Something I’ve recently started to trial is posting more on social media, particularly Instagram and while it does pay off…it is extremely draining. There’s only so many pictures I want to post from each shoot before I think it gets a bit boring and repetitive, and as for product shots, they don’t seem to do as well which is very very stressful as they’re definitely the easier of the two to do in bulk. This has left me slightly unmotivated and as a result, I’ve dropped down to only one post on my blog a week, but I’m hoping that’ll jump back up to two once I move home and can constantly get my mum to help me shoot photos for both social media and blogposts.[/pipdig_right]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AESTHETIC OBSESSED
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Time truly does fly when you’re having fun.
Love you lots like jelly tots x
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Photography
All photos within this post were taken by my myself on my Olympus Pen E-PL7 using the 45mm lens in natural lighting. They were then edited on Lightroom CC.
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