Wednesday, August 26, 2015

15 Things You Must Do During Your Baby's First Summer ♥

* This is a guest post written by the very lovely and very talented Amber from Goblin Child, who is mum to two gorgeous and adorable twin boys, Balthazar and Lysander - how amazing and unique are those names, I'm in love! When Amber revealed that she'd like to guest post on this little blog of mine I was both amazed and delighted as not only is her blog absolutely wonderful but her photography skills have me in absolute awe every time I see her pictures! Please do pop by her beautiful blog and share the love. Amber's post below had me welling up remembering my very first summer with Tyler Lee and hoping that I get to experience all the summer firsts one day again with another new and precious babe. Every parent MUST do these things during their baby's first summer, they are just the sweetest and are sure to make treasured memories for years to come.*

1. Learn to babywear.  Summer, when you can almost safely venture out
of the house without an umbrella, is the very best time to master
babywearing and take your little one on adventurous walks about the
neighbourhood and beyond.

2. Dip his toes in wild water!  I'm not necessarily advocating for the
beach if you're miles away but do find a lake or stream or even a
puddle if you're desperate, pop a waterproof nappy on him and get
those toes wet!

3. Experiment with ice.  Give it to him to hold and explore, make ice
lollies for him to taste (blend vegetables in with fruit, or mix fruit
juice with water to reduce the high sugar content).

4. Take him camping.  Ok - I'm mostly only advocating this one because
I don't want to be the ONLY nutter who took their baby camping -
although even if you do try this I'm already more of a loony than you;
I took twins - but actually, if you make sure to wrap up warm and camp
somewhere with an accessible loo, it's super fun to get back to nature
a bit.

5. Cultivate a baby sunhat collection and then despair because you
cannot convince your child to keep one on for longer than five
minutes.  Scratch that - two.

6. Take advantage of the brilliant golden light at sunset and take
some unofficial family portraits.  You'll treasure them in later years.

7. Invest in a paddling pool and try to make a little time for
splashing fun every day.

8. Take your baby to his first festival.  Trust me on this - it's
easier to wrangle a baby at a festival than a toddler.  The younger
the better, and bonus points if he can't yet crawl.

9. Let them eat grass.  Babies LOVE eating grass.  Try to find
somewhere that can't have been sprayed with chemicals or weed on by
dogs, and then plop baby down to amuse himself for half an hour whilst
you enjoy your book.

10. Blow bubbles.  I have yet to meet a baby that isn't fascinated by bubbles.

11. Draw chalk scenes on the pavement and put baby in the centre of
the action for instant adventure shots.  If baby is old enough to sit
and wave a piece of chalk let him 'draw' too but watch for nibbling!

12. Enjoy outdoor picnics.  Spread a blanket, put a selection of foods
on paper plates and let your little one go to town.  Baby-led weaning
at its finest!

13. Spend as much time skin-to-skin with them as you can cram in to
the day.  Yes, really.  Embrace the chance to go topless.

14. A summer barbeque with all of your friends and family so that they
can meet and/or spend a day with the baby properly.  This is super for
winter-born babies where you've only been able to cope with guests for
an hour or so at a time.

15. If you have friends with babies of the same age and they're all
mobile, host a Baby Sports Day.  Trust me, as the mother of twins,
there is little more entertaining than baby races.  Add an obstacle
course if you're feeling wild.

*A big thank you to Amber for guest posting. Did you or do you plan to do any of these sweet activities with your baby during their first summer?
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Monday, August 24, 2015

Purple Haze | Jersey Lavender Farm ♥

Last month we went on our annual family holiday to Jersey in the Channel Islands, and we're actually returning their again tomorrow - yay! One place on the island that Jacek and I really wanted to visit Jersey Lavender Farm, not only to actually visit and see the sights that the farm has to offer but to also capture some beautiful pictures of our boy amongst the purple flowers and to also pick up some lavender and oil to help us in getting to sleep (I find it so hard to drift off to sleep and actually now rely on my little lavender pillow to help me get to sleep each night.

I visited Jersey Lavender Farm as a child with my grandparents and was really looking forward to seeing it again, this time with my own child in tow. I dressed him in his beautiful Peter Rabbit yellow vintage romper - the colour being a perfect contrast against the purple blooms. I absolutely loved the images I captured of my son. At first he was apprehensive about going amongst the lavender and just wanted to stay with his father and I, but after awhile he became more adventurous and even went so far as to pick some heads of lavender, before trying to put it back on the stem! They had two lovely, old-fashioned swings hanging from trees in the farm and of course my boy had to have a go on the 'see-saw'. He looked so sweet sitting on it with his little sailor doll which we picked up in the gift shop on our way into the farm (yes we do things backwards!).

It was such a lovely calming spot and I really could have sat there all day watching the butterflies and bees buzzing amongst the blooms, there were so many of them and the fields were a hive of activity 0 I may have to revisit the farm on this visit to the island, if the lavender is still in bloom, I must look that up! I was so glad we visited and I added lots of these pictures to my sons travel journal, which was very kindly given to my son by my dad's ever thoughtful girlfriend Shirley, she really does have a heart of gold and it was such a sweet sentiment. It's lovely for him to be able to have things like this to look back on from his toddler travels.

If you ever find yourself in Jersey I would highly recommend a trip to the lavender farm, it's such a beautiful spot and in my opinion, it's worth a trip just for the photo opportunities alone.


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Saturday, August 22, 2015

A Penneys Homeware Haul | My Office Decor ♥

If you've been following my blog lately you may have read my post about my dream office and how I would decorate it in a pink, turquoise and gold theme, with floral lights and prints adorning the walls, colour coordinated storage and clean white spaces to do my blog photography. It's a work in progress at the moment but it's getting there and you can imagine my delight when I went into every Irish persons beloved store - Penneys (gurl!), the Irish version of Primark by the way, just for my fellow Europeans who have Primark stores in their countries, and saw that they had lots of suitable things for my office, not only in their new range but in the sale too, yay! I was only able to pick up a few things for the office, much to my dismay, as I was short on funds and was actually supposed to be there buying gifts for people - oops... but I did get some lovely things and they were all bargains so I really can't help but share.

The first thing I spotted and had to pick up was this really fun canvas with 'believe in your #selfie' printed on it, quite appropriate for a blogger's office I thought! The pink chevron and the hints of turquoise in the print really tie in well with my colour scheme for the room. This was a total bargain at only €3!

Next to the canvas I found these really pretty pink floral LED lights. I still have to pop batteries into them to get them to light up but they'll be gorgeous with their subtle glow once the long nights set in and my autumn/winter blogging sessions begin. I draped them over the canvas to create a little feature above the desk and used to hooks just to secure them at the ends and not just have them hanging straight down - I really love how it turned out. These lights were only €4, another total bargain!

I really like having things to hang on the walls but to also use as photo props and when I saw this pretty, floral decorated hanging heart I had to pick one up. This was €3 and I haven't hung it up yet but it actually looks quite nice just sitting on the chest of drawers too.

I thought this metal sign was quite fun and upbeat, plus, who doesn't like cupcakes?! It's nice to have some positive quotes and messages hanging around the office as, after all, it's my work space and I want it to be my 'happy place'. This sign was another total bargain at just €1 in the sale!

One of Penney's new ranges for autumn is full of copper colours and it's actually really beautiful. One of the things I spotted was this cushion which is really ambiguous in colour, Jacek and I are convinced that it's gold as it appears that way in the light but it may have some copper tones in there too. I thought this would fit in well with the golden element of my colour scheme for the room so I picked it up for the chair. This was €6. I saw some other gorgeous cushions which I hope to pick up tomorrow when I visit Penneys again, I swear I have a cushion obsession, they're everywhere in my house!

I've also reclaimed my fairytale bookends from Tyler Lee's room to prop up all my blogger and blogging books. I've got a nice little collection now and am currently working my way through them. I think they look lovely next to my White Rabbit London porcelain lamp.

The room is nowhere near finished, I need to remove the tall thin, bookcase and get a new white one, I also need to remove the current desk and get a white one which has built in storage in it, I've spotted one and it's only €69 in Argos and I have a €5 voucher so it'll be a total bargain.  It's most definitely a work in progress but the space is becoming more and more how I want it and I am loving the changes. The room is now lighter, brighter and a lot less cluttered. I can't wait until it's finished (and to get back to Penneys tomorrow to pick up some more pieces!) so that I can thoroughly enjoy the space and have my own, perfect little office and writing nook.

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Friday, August 21, 2015

My Daily Blogging Schedule | How I Get 25,000+ Page Views A Week ♥

* I have since published an update on my daily blogging schedule, click here to read about how I get 42,000+ page views a week with my new schedule and methods.

I've been blogging for almost two and a half years now but it's only recently that I've stopped resting on my laurels and stepped up my blogging work and my promotion of it to begin getting my words and photography out there to a wider audience. I wasn't going to write this post, but after noticing how many page views my blog was averaging a week and sharing it on my personal Facebook page, some blogging friends were curious as to what I do daily to achieve these results.

I'm not going to lie, achieving these views takes a whole lot of work and I probably spend way too much time blogging than is probably healthy! I can't help it though, my blog is my passion and I'm completely obsessed with it - if there's such a thing as being a workaholic then that is definitely what I am with my blog, however, I really enjoy it and don't see any of these things as a chore and that's why I think it's been a success for me.

This is what I do every single day for my blog, even at the weekends. As I said in a previous post - you need to work for your blog, you can't just let it work for you.

I can't believe how successful this process of post promotion has been for me. I've seen my blog jump from 40,000+ page views a month to 94,000+ and these numbers seem to be growing every week, it has been absolutely amazing! By nine o'clock every morning my blog has gained over 1,200 page views and it's great to know that so many people have been reading it over night.

This is my own, self-made marketing strategy and it has been a complete success for myself and the other bloggers who partake in the reciprocation threads. It's great that us bloggers are all supporting each other and making each others posts available to a wider audience, gaining a reach that we'd have never have achieved alone and lets be honest, no blogger has the funds to boost every Facebook post or tweet of theirs, I find it ridiculous you have to do this anyway when you've built up a following on these sites.

My desk is where I spend the majority of my morning, noon and nights but I'm enjoying what I'm doing and trying to make it a success so I think it's important to put in the hard work and graft along with my determination. I don't want to be internet famous, I just want to have a popular space to air my views, thoughts and loves with the world. Blogging gives me another sense of purpose in life, apart from being a mother of course, but this is for me, it's my hobby, my passion, my own thing and I want it to be a success. There was a time not so long ago when I felt useless and down on myself, blogging has given me a new sense of purpose. It's like my second baby and to see it thrive is one of the best feelings ever.

What I'll also point out though is that Twitter, Facebook and the other social media sites aren't even my top traffic source, my SEO and Google prominence seems to be really good and my most popular traffic sources every week come from people stumbling across my old posts via Google searches - which reminds me to update the awful photos in those posts!

I've added the above blogging schedule to this post as an image just in case anyone would like to download it and follow these steps themselves. Of course, not everyone is interested in blog promotion and that's perfectly okay but if you're someone like myself who relies on their blog then I think promotion is a necessary thing to do.

You can read my other posts about how I tripled my blog traffic in one month - where you can also find the names of the Facebook groups I use for promotion and my post on whether or not blog promotion actually works - where I share my post stat results over a two week period.

I hope this post has given people an insight into my daily blogging schedule and just how hard I work on this little blog of mine, all of which I thoroughly enjoy. It's absolutely amazing to see your hard work paying off and to see that people are interested in your blog and are reading your posts, admiring your pictures and engaging with you on social media. It means an awful lot to a writer or blogger such as myself and I am forever grateful to those who take the time to stop by my blog and for all the opportunities it has given me.
 
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Thursday, August 20, 2015

National Dream Day | 9 Mind Blowing Facts About Your Dreams ♥

If you read my post yesterday about making your own DIY dreamcatchers you'll know that National Dream Day is taking place on August 27th and  for one am interested in all things dreams - well they don't call me a dreamer for nothing! To celebrate this lovely day of all things dreams I've prepared this post full of 'did you know?' facts, some of which blew my mind. I love learning new things, especially about dreams, their meanings and what people dream about - as you can see from all my dream books above, and I hope you like learning these types of things too...

1. If you live to be 70 years old, you will have spent six years in dreamland.
Isn't this just unbelievable? Spending six years of your life in essentially an imaginary state of mind, I actually love that because sometimes dreams can be the best part of my day! That’s two to three hours a night - just under a tenth of your life. This might seem like a waste of time until you hear what dreams can do.

2. You can solve problems in your sleep.
When we are trying to solve a problem we tend to develop what psychologists call a ‘mind-set’. This makes it harder to see unexpected solutions but when we sleep our brains work differently, meaning you can wake up with the answer. I always knew a good sleep was all I needed to solve all of life's problem... this is most definitely also the reason why people use the expression - "let me sleep on it" or "everything will be better in the morning" - which it does always seem to be.

3. Art and inventions come to people in their sleep.
This is connected to the mind-set idea, but things have been developed by an unconscious mind, such as the idea for Google, the model for DNA, the sewing machine and even the periodic table - amazing right?!

4. We have more, not less, brain activity at night.
If your dreams sometimes seem a little bizarre and unregulated, that’s because mostly they are. When we dream, our brains continue to be active, but our regulatory capacities are lowered. This results in a lot more brain activity.

5. People over 60 are more likely to dream in black and white.
Remarkably, studies show this to be true, while people under 40 rarely do. This has been attributed to the switch from black and white to colour TVs. I think this is one of the funniest facts, I wonder if our children will dream in HD from all the HD televisions, computers, etc. Will the dreams of the future be different again?!

6. You can’t read in a dream.
Perhaps you’ve experienced this: you’re reading an exam paper and find yourself scanning text that is meaningless. This is because it is almost impossible to both imagine a finished page and read it at the same time.

7. The first known dream dictionary dates to around 1275 B.C.
The Dream Book is an Egyptian papyrus from the time of Ramses II, housed at the British Museum in London. Like many people today, the ancient Egyptians believed dreams could be interpreted. One famous example says, ’if your bed catches fire in a dream, it means you are driving your wife out of the marriage’ - aren't dream interpretations some of the most bizarre things you've ever read? I know they are for me.

8. Nightmares happen more to kids than adults
Nightmares are a bad dream that often occur in many children, however they are most common in children aged 3-6 years. At this age children tend to develop normal fears and a child’s imagination can be very active. There are many things you can you do to reduce the occurrence of nightmares in your children’s lives including creating a cosy, safe environment for them to sleep in. My son isn't three yet but I have lots of nightlights for him which project stars onto the ceiling and play lullabies, these make him drift off into a peaceful sleep, the sea sounds of one even make me fall asleep! There are many things you can do to help your child have a peaceful nights sleep, from reading them bedtime stories to investing in a children’s midsleeper cabin bed to prove to them there is no monsters under the bed, plus those types of beds are so cool looking too and great space savers!

9. Some people can engage in lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming involves the regulatory part of the brain responding to the random stimuli that make up dreams and shaping the events as desired. Lucid dreaming can be very pleasant, as the dreamer still feels the dream is coming to them rather than from them. And good news for everyone - you can train yourself to do it, although I'm pretty sure I already do this as sometimes I can wake up and be confused as to whether I was dreaming or if it was reality!

Did you know any of these facts before? Are you also someone who's interested in dreams or dream meanings?

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Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Happiness Boutique | Ivory Flowers Statement Necklace ♥

I was recently contacted by Happiness Boutique and was very kindly asked if I would like to receive one of their beautiful statement necklaces for feature on the blog, I of course obliged being a big fan of jewellery. I absolutely love their website, it's fresh and just exudes a sense of cool, it kind of has an Instagram vibe (does this even make sense to other people?) to it and I love how it appeals to bloggers too, with pictures of gorgeous fashion bloggers adorned their fabulous outfits with Happiness Boutique jewellery - love!

I spent ages browsing through their stunning range of statement necklaces, falling in love with pastel coloured gems and vintage inspired pieces but the necklace I just couldn't forget about was the Ivory Flowers Statement Necklace and I just had to have it as part of my ever-growing jewellery collection. I think it's my love of daisies that made me fall in love with this piece, the design just reminds me of those dainty little flowers and it's so pretty. The ivory colour of the flower petals is just perfect for pairing with all manners of outfit choices, I've regularly been wearing it with my navy blouse and it looks so pretty, the perfect piece to adorn the neckline. The petals on this necklace are movable too, which I think it a rather fun touch and I find myself playing with them a lot during the day. I love the chunky bronze chain of the necklace, it's quite a contrast to the dainty look of the flowers but it's a fab combo and the bronze of the chain is mirrored in the bronze gem in the center of each flower, I love the attention to detail. I'm so glad I chose this particular necklace because it really is something quite special.

Happiness Boutique offer free worldwide shipping, a fact I wish I didn't know because now I need to go and order some more pretty trinkets! They also have a customer rewards programme (I'm all for the rewards!) where points can be earned by purchases and reviews and then used to buy jewellery or clothing from the site.

My Ivory Flowers Statement Necklace is now the perfect accessory to my outfits. It's lovely to have some embellishment on my neckline and it's gotten so many compliments too - it's too pretty to miss!

The Ivory Flowers Statement Necklaces is €26.90 and is available to purchase here.
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Monday, August 17, 2015

A Beginners Guide To StumbleUpon ♥

 Since writing my post on how I tripled my blog traffic in one month I've had a lot of questions and emails from fellow bloggers who are wondering just how certain websites I use for blog promotion work - namely StumbleUpon and Reddit, so I've decided to put together a little beginners guide to StumbleUpon, a website which I've been using since 2010 and one which has driven a lot of traffic to my two blogs. If used correctly StumbleUpon can be a great traffic driving tool for websites and blogs, but some people find the website difficult to navigate (I'm not going to lie, I found it hard to get my head around when they changed the layout) and hard to work out what's the best way to achieve maximum success from it, so I'm here to help. This is my step to step beginners guide to StumbleUpon and hopefully the screenshots and my explanations will help you get your head around this amazing traffic driving tool and get maximum exposure for your website or blog.

1. The Layout of StumbleUpon
The number one thing people have commented to me on is how they can't for the life of them, figure out the StumbleUpon layout, it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. As you can see, in the top right hand corner is a link to your profile, clicking on this will bring up a tab which is where you can access your settings, saved likes, interests, lists and friends. This is also where you can sign out of your account and add a page - more to come on this below.

The thumbs up icon adds the page you have 'thumbed up' to your saved likes. Doing this means that more people will see that page and the more people that give it a thumbs up the more traffic it gets. The thumbs down icon works in the opposite way, pressing this means that StumbleUpon will show you less posts like that page.

The red Stumble button is used to find new pages and this is generally what drives traffic to pages via StumbleUpon. The more you press this button the more pages you will find from your interests. It is said that giving a thumbs up and then stumbling generates even more traffic but I don't know how true this is - it's worth a shot though!

2. Adding Your Pages To StumbleUpon
Now to the part which everybody wants to know - how do you add your page to StumbleUpon? You simply click on your profile image on the top right hand corner, then on the tab screen press 'Add a Page', this will take you to a new window where you can add in your post URL, state whether it is safe for work or not (i.e. is it family friendly), add tags and any comments you want.

Make sure that the posts you are adding have their own domain (.com, .net, etc.). StumbleUpon doesn't allow blogs or websites such as those which end in blogspot.com or wordpress.com, this is to stop the site being spammed.

Above is an example of what I include for my posts. I never write a comment and it has never had any negative effect on my additions. I try to include at least three tags and a relative category or 'interest' for my post. The particular post above was about tips for taking photographs of your children so I of course added it to the Photography interest. If your post covers makeup or beauty I would simply choose the 'Beauty' interest. Travel, Interior Design, Photography and Beauty have been my best performing interests. Sadly, parenting doesn't give me many hits but I used the 'Babies' interest recently and I did get hits from that. It can be hit (pardon the pun) or miss with the interests but it doesn't take long to see which ones give you traffic or not.

3. Seeing Your Saved Likes and How Well Your Pages Are Performing
If you click on 'My Likes', as shown in the tabs screenshot above, you can access your StumbleDNA, this shows how many posts of a certain interest you have liked. You can also see how many likes in total you have saved, how many comments you have made, how many people follow you and who you follow and screenshots with links to all the pages you have liked and saved.

Underneath the screenshots and links you can see just how many hits your likes have gained from StumbleUpon. As you can see, two of my posts from Fawns & Fables have gotten hits, one has 63 and one has 50. If you click on the number of views it will take you to another page where you can see just how many people gave your post a thumbs up and you can also follow those people from here too.

From my experience, not everyone who has liked your page will show up here. I don't follow people on StumbleUpon, I don't really see the point and once again it hasn't had any negative effect on my pages but if you do wish to follow people simply click the 'follow' button under their picture. You can access this on posts by clicking on the post views number as shown above.

4. Stumbling Your Own Page
Above is how your own blog or website page will look when you stumble it. It will have the StumbleUpon toolbar on top for navigation to and from the site. To stumble your own page simply go to 'My Likes' on the tab screen accessed from your profile image, click on the post you submitted to StumbleUpon, this will take you to the page on your blog or website via StumbleUpon. You cannot give your own page a thumbs up as this automatically happens when you add a page to StumbleUpon, by doing this you are, of course, liking it and recommending it to other users. Remember to press the red 'Stumble' button after this too to take you to another page and generate more traffic. It is recommend that for every page you submit to StumbleUpon that you stumble ten more, so get clicking that thumbs up or down icon on pages you either like or don't want to recommend to others.

5. Remember What StumbleUpon Is About
I'll make it very clear that I would only recommend you add pages to StumbleUpon that you think people will be interested in reading, after all, the site is for, in my opinion anyway, things that are out of the ordinary, touch a cord with people or that will make you go "wow" - hence why photography is such a popular category on there. I would only add pages that have good photography - a blurry or poor quality image is never going to make anyone interested (same with Pinterest). I'd also make sure that your blog has a clear and uncluttered look to it as it just makes it easier for people who are stumbling to read posts. I don't submit personal posts about my family to StumbleUpon because the audience there won't be interested in that, I do however submit my photography posts, personal posts about parenting issues that other users may resonate with, beauty reviews but only on products that are unique or look great, my travel posts as there are travel readers on there and my interiors posts because the image mood boards always grab people's attention.

Following the above points should help you to generate traffic to your site but remember, like with all these social sharing sites, content is king, you want to engage those who are stumbling. The interests can be hit or miss and can generate little or no traffic if you get it wrong but for a two second submission I think it's worth a punt, don't you?

StumbleUpon is the biggest traffic source on my photography, travel and inspiration blog Fawns & Fables and has sent 210 views to this blog already today - it does work, if you get the formula right.


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