Industry Insider

 When I first started blogging a few years ago one of the first things I aimed to do was scour the internet for fellow bloggers to take inspiration/learn from. Sometimes this process can be a hit or a miss but every now and again you find a blogger who blows you away with their design, creativity and content. 

Jemma from Dorkface is one of those bloggers. 

When I decided to reboot the Industry Insider section of this blog and cater it more towards the blogging community as well as those out there in the creative industry Jemma was number one on my list of people to interview. 

Below Jemma gives us an insight into her day-to-day life in terms of her blog as well as some sound advice about what it takes to progress your blog and ensure you provide a quality experience to your reader. 

1. First of all what inspired you to get into blogging? 

I've always loved writing, it's my passion. And after Uni I really wanted a new way to be creative everyday :)

2. Did you take any particular classes or courses growing up that lead to your choice to start blogging? 

I studied Fine Art for years at college and then university; and always wanted to share my creativity. 

3. Can you tell us a little bit about a typical day blogging for you?

I wake up each day and make a to do list for the day. Usually I have a couple of illustration clients, and I try to get them done in the first few hours of the day. Then I'll take a bunch of photographs for upcoming blog posts for a few hours. Then the evenings will be when I write up all my blog posts and finish up any illustration work for the day. My days are busy, but I love them :)

4. How do you manage your time to run your blog efficiently and consistently? 

I stick to a rigid schedule, and I always plan ahead! 

5. Where do you look for inspiration when the writers block hits? 

I usually find painting really helps me, and ideas come to me naturally if I take time to relax. Music and reading really help too.

6. What inspired you to start the #girlgang and the subsequent podcast for your followers? 

The girl gang began because I loved the idea of spreading positivity in the bloggosphere, and reminding people that it's good to spread a little love. The podcast is simply a fun project my boyfriend and I had wanted to try for the longest time, and I'm so glad we did.

7. As I'm a reader of your blog, what do you hope I take away when I read your posts?

I hope you feel inspired and motivated more than anything!

8. Are there certain topics/genres you stick to when you write your blog posts or do you like to write whatever comes naturally at the time? 

Oh no way, my blog is my happy place to share anything I'm inspired by! :) I'm always happy to write about new things.

9. Has having your blog opened any doors or provided you with any opportunities that you wouldn't have had otherwise?

Oh definitely! I now work for myself because of the opportunities I'm so lucky to get now. Writing and illustration have always been a dream of mine and now I get to do each every day :) I also have a whole range of wonderful new friends thanks to blogging.

10. What direction do you see your blog going in now that you've expanded into podcasts and gained quite a large following? 

I've no idea! Haha. I'd love people to feel like they can get to know me more, and so through podcasting I feel like thats a little more possible. I just hope to keep enjoying it like I am now and hopefully it'll grow. As for my blog and everything else though? Who knows! I like to go with the flow :)

11. What advice would you give to someone starting their own blog? 

Try to do the best you can with everything. You'll improve naturally over time, but the most important thing is to let your personality shine through! :) Be yourself and write about what interests you most. 

12. What in your opinion makes a successful blog? 

Something that inspires you, and others.

13. Are there any bloggers you admire or try to emulate?

A good one that comes to mind is Mandy from A Girl Obsessed. She's a great inspiration.

14. As a fan I personally love your blogs layout and especially its bright colour scheme, it gives me the idea that you have this really fun, bubbly personality. Do you feel it best represents your personality and is this something you take into consideration when you look at other peoples blogs? 

Thank you!! Thats EXACTLY what I was going for :) I love a nice clean layout, but IRL I am quite a colourful, loud and bubbly person. I'm obsessed with bright colours and cute prints, so I try to inject that into my blog as much as possible. No matter what Im taking photographs of, I'll always try to get a pop of colour in there :) I do think this is an important thing for bloggers to do. It makes you, your blog and your photos build up a recognisable brand.

15. What apps/purchases really helped you with your blog? Do you have any programmes or items that you use that really help step up the quality of your blogs appearence/content? 

My photography lights FOR SURE. Such a great improvement. I can now take my photos at night even, yay! I got them from Ebay for about £40 and they are amazing. I also love my blog layout, which I bought for a great price on Etsy.

16. How do you balance blogging with the other aspects of your life such as family/work etc? I'm always in awe of people who spend hours replying to people on twitter and wonder how they balance staying in such close contact with followers with everything else thats going on in their lives.

Honestly, it's HARD. It really is. But its a case of planning :) I plan everything as far ahead of time as possible, and it really helps. Plus I'm just pretty much obsessed with social media haha.

17. Finally, if you had one piece of golden advice to give someone with a struggling blog following, what would it be? 

Be as active as possible, and share your personality as much as possible. Your blog, promotions, posts, etc - will only get you so far. People want to see your life, your work, what you do in your spare time, and just you being your true self.

 I would like to end this post by thanking Jemma for taking the time to do this interview and I would also like to say that you can find Jemmas Dorkface blog by visiting

www.dorkface.co.uk

Get the Look - My Night in Hamilton

So last weekend I went out with a friend to Hamilton which is just outside Glasgow to let my hair down because I haven't actually had a proper night out since the staff Christmas night (Last year!) Honestly I've no idea how that happened, usually I'm out at least once a month. 

So I went all out, me and my friend Melly left work and-because it was payday-ran straight for the shops, I got myself a whole host of new drugstore makeup which I used to create this evening look, there's also some of my trusted higher end products thrown in (to see some of the stuff I bought look at the post in my MARCH folder.)

 It took me 2 hours to do my makeup because I was so keen to look awesome for my first night out of the year and it's been so long since I've done a full face of contouring and all the rest of it. Since I loved this look so much I've decided to share with you what I used to create it. 

Now all of these products are available in the UK and the newer drugstore products I bought were all from Superdrug because Melly decided to go in and get her brows done which lead to me browsing the shelves and ultimately a lot of unplanned purchases.

So here we go! 

First of all I primed my skin with Maybelline 8-in-1 BB cream. I love this primer, it's for oily skin which is great, it stops my skin getting shiny and is really durable plus it doesn't feel cakey. 

My holy grail foundation, honestly the staple to my evening looks, again, super durable and non, cakey on my face. Couldn't rave about this enough so for this sake of keeping this blog post short I'll stop. 

Urban Decay Powder, I like this powder but it's nothing I can't get from a drugstore brand. It keeps my face matte and the only reason I had this particular powder instead of any others is because I like the size of the mirror in it for when I'm out and want to check my make up without having to get up and go to the bathroom. 

My freshly bought Make Up Revolution baked highlighter. One of the best highlighters I own, totally affordable and really pretty on the sin when applied right. Packaging is also tough so I won't need to worry about this smashing on a night out. In the photo I've applied it just under the brows and on the upper cheeks. 

New Make Up Revolution Bronzer. This has been applied all over the face bar under my eyes because I like that area to be paler and more contoured. I didn't use this bronzer to contour my forehead and cheeks though, just as an overall cover to make me look that little bit darker because my double wear is quite a pale shade. 

My Beautiful brows palette. My Go-to eyebrow powder, used this everyday since I got it about a year ago, As you can see after a years use I still have loads left and it comes with stencils that I no longer use and it's own highlighter and application brush. 

Make Up Revolution gel pen liner. Loved using this on my eyes for this occasion, got a really precise line thats to its double end with a thick and thin nib for applying the product to my face. I had a really similar product from Maybelline but this is cheaper and much better to use. 

Roller Lash Mascara by Benefit. There's a review of this on the blog in my MARCH folder so go see that and you'll see why I love this. This particular night was my first ever time wearing it although in the above photo I've applied lashes over them. 

For my eyeshadow I used 3 palettes, the chocolate palette was used for my base, crease. I've lost the sheet that tells you what the colours are so I'll just say top row big eyeshadow for base. Second row 1st shadow for my crease blended upwards and the 1st row, 3rd eyeshadow to deepen the crease. 

My self-made Urban Decay Moondust palette 

The first shadow in the palette was used to take my eye look to a more nighttime look. This was applied all over the lid. 

Urban Decay Lip Liner

My Urban Decay lipstick in Shame which is my go-to lippy for a more vampy/autumnal look 

I ended up taking the black shadow from this palette and using it to deepen the outer V of my eyes after the moondust had been applied 

Finally I contoured my forehead and under my cheeks using this sleek palette which is super cheap but my absolute favourite contouring palette at the moment, as you can see it's been used an absolute tonne. 

So that's how I got the look for my night out in Hamilton, if this is the sort of thing you'd like to see more of let me know. I might even look into filming one of these because its a lot easier than just photographing the photos and telling you what I done, it'd be easier to just show you! 

Another Pastel Hair Product Review

So a month later and my obsession with dying my hair pastel colours hasn't let up. 

After a little research into all the ways I could dye my hair I came across a little wonder called hair chalk and immediately bought a pack off amazon for about £8.

The first thing you'll notice is the variety of colours you get with hair chalk. In this pack alone I got 24 various shades and colours with which to style my hair and they're set out in a gradient style which is really helpful because in most cases if you were to pick 4 colours beside each other you'd get really complimentary colours to put through your hair.

My personal favourite 4 colour combo in this photo is the top right 4 which are lovely purples and pinks. 

So the one thing you need to know is that hair chalk is not a permanent hair colouring process. On average if you do your best to keep it in the hair chalk should last about 48 hours and by keeping it in I mean that you do not wash your hair at the end of the day as this washes most of the colour out. 

Application

Putting hair chalk in is best done when wet, I don't know why but the chalk glides onto the hair easier and the colour is more vibrant when the hair is wet. The wetter the hair the better the result as far as Im concerned. 

In the picture below you can see what my hair looked like after I applied 6 or 7 different shades of green, grey, pink and purple. I got my sister to apply the colours to the back. 

I wouldn't be too fussy about where you apply the colour if you decide you want to do your entire head, its better to have the colours blend into one another and for it not to look like a Mcfly 5 colours in her Hair video because you want it to look as though it's natural (even though it blatantly isn't!)

Once you've applied all the colours you want and are happy with how your hair looks, blowdry it to seal the colour. If you sleep with your hair wet your pillow will be an absolute riot the next morning and your parents will not thank you!

Below was my hair after I dried it. 

Now my one criticism with hair chalk which you will probably guess from the picture is that it dries your hair out like crazy. Texture-wise it's very similar to taking talcum powder and going to town with it on your hair.

It doesn't move the same as it would normally either and if you have thick hair like mine good luck trying to get it up into a ponytail. 

However what you need to remember is that it's only really for a 24-48 hour period so it's worth it to look cool and have mermaid coloured hair. I would however advise you to use a good hair mask after and maybe don't use hair chalk on a daily basis because on the end of your hair in particular it can cause a lot of damage. 

Hair chalk is by far my favourite way so far of getting pastel hair, I like the dyes but they just don't do justice when it comes to the length they stay in your hair. At least with chalk you get variety and there's loads in a pack to last you a decent amount of time so value wise I feel this is best way to go. 

I hope this was helpful to those of you reading this who have an interest in hair chalk and pastel dying your hair, I've included a link to amazon for this product if you're interested and I'd love to hear your thoughts on hair chalk and if you've tried it yourselves!

Buy it for Yourself!

New Office Setup

I am super excited today because I managed to set up my little office space about 3 weeks earlier than I initially anticipated. 

Two years ago my little sister bought this little summer house for the back garden and I've been allowed to use it as an office space after the capacity of my bedroom was seriously pushed to its limits by the amount of sewing equipment in it.

My mother is a total DIY expert so the inside is all insulated and complete with electricity, electric fireplace, table etc. You name it, I've now got it.

Sadly, because it's Christmas I'm sharing the space with a bunch of sports equipment and a dolls house we wanted out of the livingroom to make room for the tree and decoartions but right now I have enough room to set up a desk and have a heater whilst I work away watching 'When in Rome' (I had a serious craving for Olsen Twin.)

In the long term I want to use this space as a place to really focus more on blogging, I'm giving myself office hours and everything to ensure I really keep on top of posting stuff in the coming year. I'm also hoping to create a collection in the coming year, just a small one that I can try and sell off online to raise some money and get some experience of working alone to produce collections. I just feel like I have had no space in the last 6 months to really focus on design and now that I have that I want to have a good go at creating something I can be proud of, with the luxury of Youtube and movies being with me at the same time!

Decoration-wise I'm pretty happy to leave the London themed pictures up because that is very much my favourite city and once I have all of the equipment and such removed from inside here I'll be able to get the sewing machine in and all my books in and then I will do a little tour but for now here are a few photos of the little blue summer house and the office space I have set up for myself:

 

1. The little blue office space as seen from outside

2. A view of the desk area I've managed to set up

3. All of my pen/felt tip/pencil storage (all plastic containers come from Ikea)

4. A view of the office space behind me that is yet to be sorted and won't be until after Christmas, I'm sharing with some lovely mannequins and bird cages I managed to salvage from my work!