Blog Tips, Fashion

3 ways to get your kids to look at the camera

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I took for granted how easy it was to take a photo of my firstborn. All those memes online about first borns, and the children that follow are so accurate. My oldest boy is always a great listener/rule follower. Throw everything out the window when working with more than one of your children to look at the camera. Ha! I can now see why people hire photographers for capturing photos of your kids.

My chaotic ways to get my kids to look at the camera while trying to hit the shutter button as quickly as possible? 1. Bring their favourite snack and bribe them with it (LOL). 2. Bring a toy they haven’t seen in a while. 3. Tell your kids “look at the cute puppy” walking down the trail with their owner. Hey! I didn’t say these were fantastic ideas, but you gotta work with what you have, am I right? Also, when working with kids I now know to keep the timing short. They can’t handle a 30+ min photo session. Pick out your location and where you want the kids to be, and let them be…play around, and snap away.

It was a funny sight to see me trying to bribe my little guy with snacks or toys wiggling above my head as I got these shots. Most of the good ones here were because he saw a person walking their dog on the trail behind me. I love how they turned out regardless, and I love that these colours worked both with their hair colours, and the location.

Speaking of location, I’m not about to gatekeep it which so often many people do. I asked someone one time where they took their photos and they were secretive about it. So here it is, please go there, it’s absolutely beautiful and has many looped trails to walk on.

Guadalupe Oak Grove Park
5982 Thorntree Drive San Jose, CA 95002

 

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Blog Tips, Daily, Fashion, Travel

In-Flight Beauty Routine

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Hello from St. John’s Newfoundland! I have been here for almost two weeks and soon heading back to warm, sunny California. I thought I’d write about my in-flight beauty routine. Kinda different, right?

It’s bound to happen, a 10+ hour flight to now get home to our family in Newfoundland, I’ve become more prepared and organized when it comes to in-flight routines. I also wanted to show you what I wear during a long haul flight. My main goal is to be comfortable.

Airplane-clothesCan you spot the Canadian clothes? There’s two items… :)

Here are a few top essentials I keep with me to occupy my time, or freshen up if need be.in-flight-beauty

1. Dior Creme de rose: perfect for dry lips 2. Face wipes: Because my skin dries out and gets weird. 3. Empty water bottle: After going through security and to avoid costly bottles of water — fill up at a fountain after security to stay hydrated. 4. iPad: for playing games or writing blog posts if you do so desire, and hey — what if your in-flight movie screen doesn’t work? It happens. It sucks. 5. Sony noise cancelling headphones: to tune out the chick snoring next to you, or to zone out and listen to a movie comfortably without ear buds causing aches after hours of chillin’ out in your ears. 6. Hand sanitizer: Because. Germs. 7. Tissue/toilet paper: Crisis averted when the airplane bathrooms runs out of t.p during a flight and you don’t have to resort to wiping with a paper towel. 8. Hair tie: My hair gets gross easily. Why not. 9. Neck pillow: A god send for those long flights when you’re not sharing a row with your beau and don’t want to do the dreaded neck bob to the person next to you. 10. Food: Some flight provide snacks. I get hangry when I’m hungry, so I want to eat when I want to eat. This time I packed crackers, japanese cookies, and a boat-load of pb/jelly sandwiches.

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Blog Tips, Daily

How to stay motivated as a blogger

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>stay-motivated

Like anything in life, it’s exactly the same with blogging. But make sure you are doing it for the right reasons and not because you want to get numbers, comments or products to review. If I didn’t love blogging as much as I do, I probably wouldn’t have had 10+ years of archives under my belt. Clearly, blogging is a very passionate hobby of mine and I find inspiration everywhere and anywhere I go in the run of a week. Sure there are times where I find it difficult to come up with topics to talk about five days a week, but I’m here to help you understand where I’m coming from.

Write for your own reasons

If you start writing what you think people want to read, then you’re not being true to yourself. Don’t blog with the intention of making it a job or getting paid. You need to stay real, stay transparent and your readers will stick around for who you are.

stay-organizedStay organized

If I’m not organized, my blog is going to be empty. Hence why there was a 2 week break in the blog while I was in Newfoundland for over 4 weeks. Currently I have over 90 drafts in my wordpress, each and every one of them with different ideas, topics and things to talk about. Slowly I pick away at them and turn them into blog posts. Like this one!

be-true-to-youBe true to yourself

Write about the things that interest you and the topics you want to read. If your intention is to simply get paid, your writing will show that. Don’t be transparent because you will lose your loyal readers quickly.

dont-worry-about-numbersDon’t get too hyped up abut the numbers

Each month your numbers are going to be different, it’s bound to happen. It can be frustrating to see those dips in page views especially if you’re not sure what you did differently, or wrong so to speak. Try doing something different the next month. Re-evaluate what you did the previous month and perhaps tweak it a bit differently the next, for instance, add more (or less!) images in a blog post, ask questions at the end of the posts.

collabCollaborate with friends

One of my favourite things to do is collaborate with another blog friend. It keeps things genuinely interesting, and taking photos together for the post, bouncing each other’s ideas off one another is so fun!

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