How To Find Inspiration For Blogging - Tips and Tricks

When you're creating, what's hopefully unique, content as frequently as we do there's bound to be a time you hit a wall. Writer's block, burnout, blogging fatigue - whatever you want to call it even the best bloggers have had it. So as well as taking some time out, do allow yourself to do that, here are some tips and tricks to find inspiration for your blogposts and give yourself a bit of a push in the right direction. Of course, this is what works for me so may not necessarily work for you but it's worth a try and do post a comment below if there's anything that works for you that I've missed! On with the show:

It's time to get personal

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6  ~ All images from Pinterest.

So for lucky people like me who don't have exams at university, we have six weeks off in the middle of the year. While we could spend it sitting on our arses watching episode after episode of Game of Thrones for the fifth time, which I probably will end up doing despite this post, we could also use it as a time for personal projects. Doing a design degree you're often restricted throughout term time to specific briefs and while you can stretch them to suit your style most often they're not really what you had in mind when you wanted to become a designer. So I've done the Game of Thrones arse sitting for the first week but I've also been scrolling Pinterest which has given me so much motivation and creativity to start some projects over the rest of the holidays. 

Create some greeting cards. 
and also hopefully start selling them. I need to work on my watercolour typography to digital skills a wee bit more first but keep your eyes peeled. 

Put up a print wall. 
I have prints, I have frames for them, I have a blank wall... now all I need are nails to put them up. Of course they'll have to be arranged nicely and all but it's simple right? 

Do some freelance. 
Make some fancy new logos for someone, or blog banners, or blog sidebar icons, or anything. Wink wink readers. 

Paint more watercolour. 
Just do more, practice makes perfect and I'm far from perfect. Maybe we'll start with flowers, I found a great tutorial for flowers so let's start there and practice my flower arranging. 

Spend more time on the blog. 
Tweaking background things, changing images, upgrading things. Sorting out things I'm not happy with and frankly just giving Sofilly some attention it hasn't really gotten these past few months while I've been working on uni projects. 

Technically if you want to get picky I could do most of these while doing the Game of Thrones arse sitting but you get the idea. Let's just spend some time with my craft and creativity and hopefully make myself even better for next semester! 

A Year Of Firsts

I came across this idea on a few blogs I've been reading recently and I thought it was a great idea, last year I achieved quite a few things for the first thing so I thought I would make a list of a few things I wanted to do this year!

Attend a blogging event

For the last few weeks I've been involved in the NZ Bloggers chats and the NZ Brunch Club Facebook page. Being able to chat to loads of bloggers from my country has allowed me to start advertising my blog more and reading lots of other blogs. The brunch club holds an event once a month and I was too scared to attend the February event but hopefully this year I will get over my fear of new people and join one of these events!

Do a zoo encounter

I want to go into the meerkat enclosure at my local zoo so much! I'm hoping for tickets for my birthday so fingers crossed. 

Learn how to use my camera properly 

I constantly tell myself to do this but there's just so much involved that I just put it on hold. I know how to basically use the manual setting but I want to be able to take much better quality photos and learn how to use camera raw. 

Leave more time for art

Over the summer I thought it would get so much time for practicing and improving my 'arty' skills but as it turned out I practiced my 'watching a series a day' skills instead. With uni starting in two weeks I want to hopefully have some time throughout the year to do non uni design and art that I enjoy. Maybe design my own font or design some prints to sell. 

Turn 21

Simple enough, it'll happen I just have to do it in the right way! 

Gain 100 Bloglovin followers

Since joining the blogging groups and chats this has been improving so hello you new followers it's nice to have you around! I'm  not in this for the followers but everyone secretly wants as many as possible and if I can manage 100 by the end of the year that'll be amazing! 

Get an A+ overall grade 

I've gotten quite a few great grades but I have yet to achieve an A+ in an overall grade. An overall grade being an average grade of the paper I've gotten into the habit of getting a really good grade in one assessment and an average one in the other leaving me with a above average overall grade. I just wanna get higher than my highest overall grade of A - its a competitive part of me.

Cook more 

Brad and I have a unsaid deal where I do most of the cleaning and washing in the house and he does most of the cooking with me being sous chef however I'd like to take some of the days off of him.

Get happier with my blog

I've been running Sofilly x since April 2013 however I've not really been happy with it really until now. I've been on and off blogging through the course and lately I've gotten the consistency going enough to be happy posting my links to Twitter hopefully by the end of the year I'll be happy posting my links to everywhere and anyone.

Save some money

Due to some unforseen problems last year I had to use a lot of my savings on extra rent and bills etc so I'd love to save some of that back up again. 

Spend it on the good things

I also want to spend some of that saved cash on myself and others and splurge a bit. Not exessively but chocolate, a night out, a nice present or two wont harm anyone. 

I totally recommend sitting down and thinking about this for yourselves, they're almost like mini new year resolutions or goals. 

Girl online reviews Girl Online

Photo borrowed from Zoella.co.uk

So I jumped on the bandwagon and joined the tens of thousands in reading blogger and YouTube sensation Zoe 'Zoella' Sugg's new book. I do really love Zoe and although there's a lot of rumours and stories going around the internet regarding a ghost writer I still wanted to read it. However as books are flippin' expensive in New Zealand I had to take another route in acquiring this book. I will firstly say that it is a middle teenage book but it did read easily and I got through it in a few hours. I did like it however it was your average 'girl has a gay best friend, girl meets guy, falls in love, gay best friend gets upset, all hell breaks loose' kind of story. I really liked the characters and I commend Zoe as these are confirmed all her ideas, and personally will not buy it but I am looking forward to acquiring the second book she's been planning. Not sure how this will run with the internet/media talk happening right now but I'm wanting more closure for the story than we got. 

I do recommend reading if you like your teen love stories although my advice would be to acquire it from one of the many 80 thousand people who've already bought it. Which slightly breaks my heart having it take over Harry Potter in the number of sales in the first week but makes me cheer for it taking over Fifty Shades of Grey as well!

Tumblration

If you like what you see have a look at my tumblr ahbloodyhell for more and have a follow :)

VCD's ruined you!

Fueled by crispy m&m's and coke I've finally reached the end of the first half semester woohoo! Unfortunately I lost my mind and broke down a few minor times during this time but hey I survived and I've handed in pretty much all my work now. I haven't really had any free time to blog or even scroll tumblr so sorry anyone following my tumblr as it hasn't been as busy as usual. But the good thing is I've actually been learning things, shock horror I've been actually learning things from the university I'm paying to teach me things! From this I hope to turn this blog into a more kind of design blog than a lifestyle blog even though it was already leaning towards design so this means a new layout and new style (just as soon as I go home and have time to sort it). I'll hopefully be able to post more artists and inspiration and also my class work. For those of you who don't know I'm studying Bachelor of Design majoring in visual communication design which pretty much is a mixture of graphic design, illustration, digital media, and advertising.

Happy Blogmas!

Day 01 ~

A few of my favourite youtubers are doing what's called 'Vlogmas' where they vlog everyday of December up until Christmas no matter what they're doing. I decided last night that I would do the same on here although a little bit different. So hello Blogmas! I'm planning on blogging every day up until Christmas Day with Christmassey things I've been doing or watching or reading, hopefully I can keep it up x

A little bit more than just inspiration

| Zoella280390 | 

| SprinkleOfGlitter | PointlessBlog | Jim Chapman and Tanya Burr | Danisnotonfire | ThatcherJoe | MarcusButler |

I cant remember how, when and why I started watching YouTubers but I'm 95% certain it all started with the Fantastic Foursome and mainly Danisnotonfire. If I manage to track my memory back a couple of years I can remember sitting in Science class with my friend Louise discussing our YouTuber 'husbands' and their newest videos. Seven months ago however I got shown this video 'Zoella Does My Make Up' and pretty much ever since then I have been obsessed with Zoe and the rest of the crew. 

I think a few of my friends have noticed how much I love her and Louise from the amount of times I talk about them and Baby Glitter. All 'Zoe this', 'Louise that' and my main one 'oh I like this, reminds me of Zoe's so and so' it's amazing people haven't slapped me yet but hey ho I wouldn't be me without my constant addictions! It was both of them who got me into the idea of starting my own YouTube channel but of course being the person I was that didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. I had a few ideas written down and ready to be filmed but I just never liked how the videos turned out, I'm too much of a perfectionist. I did however then consider starting a blog similar to theirs about the things I liked and loved and months down the line from the idea here it is. 

I totally recommend watching both these girlies and all the other YouTubers named above, maybe you could also get a little inspiration although I don't think I'm brave enough for those disco pants just yet hehe. x