I'm Back

I've just taken the longest blogging hiatus in the history of my blog but it was needed. Lots happened in my life and each time I went to blog, it just didn't happen. I'm now inspired and ready to make this little blog a special place for me to share my thoughts once again and I hope you are all hear to follow along with me again!

This blog is now going to be what I love, and nothing else. So you can now look forward to see my design, photography, ideas, room decor (because that's my favourite thing ever) and maybe some other bits and bobs thrown into the mix sometimes! It will just be anything (that's pretty to be honest!).

I can't wait to fall in love with blogging again and for you to continue the journey with me!!

Lots of Love
Harri xx

my blogging essentials

Hello. I realised that I haven't talked about what I use for blogging for quite a long time. I get asked about my camera and things frequently so here's a post to answer all your questions.

So above in this photo is some pretty obvious, self explanatory things. Notebooks and pens are essential - make your own notebook here.

Photography
Canon EOS 1100D - This is my DSLR camera. I got this for my birthday in 2013 and it's absolutely amazing. It's a great starting out camera as well - though it seems pretty flash to me!

I've talked about using a DSLR and stepping out of auto mode and I made my own camera strap here.  There's lots of tutorials on the web as well and I hope to share some more tips soon.

iPhone 5 - Yes, my trusty iPhone 5 is often used for photography! Most of the blog photos here are taken on my DSLR but occasionally I will have used a iPhone photo as I don't take my DSLR out much.

Go Pro - I got my Hero 3 White GoPro at Christmas time and it's excellent for my outdoor life and for filming videos. I've made a video here on my summer holiday to Waiheke.

Instax SHARE - not technically a camera but it's sister mini 8 is a great camera. The share is a smartphone printer, so prints all my iPhone photos. See it in action here.

Editing
iPad Mini - When I bought my iPad mini, I thought a lot about getting a Wacom Tablet or a similar alternative. For blogging, I use it for all my drawings I show here and any handwriting text overlays I use (like the above photo!)

I have always used my handwriting on my blog so I needed something to be able to handwrite. I ended up going with an iPad because it has so much you can do with it and drawing apps allow me to hand write and then send it to my laptop.

Macbook Pro - My macbook pro is a late 2011 model. I have photoshopp CS6 on it which I use for editing all my photos and adding text overlays that I draw on my iPad. I generally don't use actions, I use the brightness and contrast settings and curves, which I explained here.


I hope this answers any questions you had about my blogging.
If you have any more questions, leave them in the comments and I'll get back to you.
- Harri x

2 years blogging

Well it's that time again! Vanilla Craft Blog turns 2!!! WOW!!!!

It's hard to believe I started out 2 years ago and have been keeping this up for so long.  I certainly never thought I would have over 1000 followers!!!

I thought I would share with you what I learnt from 2 years of blogging. I hope this might help some of your new bloggers you out as well.

When I first started this blog two years ago, the first name didn't work out. I changed, my style changed and 'Cupcake Crafty' wasn't working for me. I didnt want to restart, but I evolved out of that blog and changed the name to vanilla craft blog. I bought a domain name and that helped my traffic a lot.

At times I've pressured myself to post once a week. When I've made myself do that I haven't been happy with the post and wish I hadn't posted it. I've learnt that taking a 2 week break to then upload a beautiful photo filled post is much better than a quick 'currently' post.

I've also learnt that bloggers block is a thing and it's a right pain. But somehow I get through it with a steady stream of ideas. But sometimes it happens,  we get busy with school and other activities. Like currently I've had a massive art internal and lots of sailing training and I just haven't been thinking of ideas. Browsing Pinterest, craft gawker and Instagram feeds usually gets my imagination running again - right now, it's finding time to do this.

HTML and CSS is also a massive thing I've learnt. Everything I code is self taught, well google taught. Forums and tutorial sites are definitely my first port of call and then I work it out from there. As I learnt more CSS I've been able to do more of my own editing. It really does just take practice.

Thank you all so much for supporting me and my blog these past two years. I can't repeat enough that you is why I blog and I love it so much and never want to stop. I hope that maybe what I've learnt will benefit you and your blog as well.

- harri xx

Organize: Blog Post Planning

When I first started blogging, I didn't know how to get ideas and when I had idea spurts (if you can call them that) I had to use them all straight away. I didn't store them anywhere. Then I was reading this post of Elsie's and discovered her binder of ideas..........

1. Sticky Note Binder  I use my blog planning notebook/binder for every post. I have magazine clippings and separate sections for sticky notes in different parts of my blog. Each section has it's own colour of sticky note so I can separate them easily if I misplace half of the ideas.

2. Journals + Sketchbooks My second way of planning posts is to carry journals and sketchbooks around. Once the ideas have been pasted into my binder, I plan them out more in a journal. This journal above, I only got for my birthday, so it's quite new, but I did use other journals to plan instead.

3. Pinterest I use Pinterest to gather DIY and recipe ideas, along with design inspiration

How do you gather thoughts and inspiration. I hope this might inspire you to plan your blog posts more. I find I get more inspiration if I actually look for it. xx Harri

P.S. I'll be back this afternoon, I'm going to share with you some photos that I took on my birthday with my new camera!!!