Be Inspired: Top Tips

For my recent giveaway I asked you to share your top tips for baking, style and blogging, and I promised I would share the best ones. So here we are, just to inspire you…

Baking

To prevent getting greasy and buttery scales weigh your butter on top of the dry ingredients like your flour or sugar!
Fully follow a recipe the first time you try it. Baking is an exact science and every part of a recipe is there for a reason. After you’ve tried something once, it’s easier to adapt!
To check to see if the inside of your cake/muffin is cooked, stick a skewer/chop stick in the centre. If it comes out clean, it’s ready.
When you are doing writing in icing, use a small baking parchment icing bag rather than a large one. Being able to apply a constant pressure to the bag helps keep the icing smooth.
Use an ice cream scoop when dividing the batter for cupcakes to ensure an even amount in all cases. Making a consistent batch!
Don’t be scared to experiment! My favourite ever cookies were the ones I dropped a dash of Baileys into! And my favourite banana cupcakes were the ones I swirled nutella into! Stick to ingredients you know you love and very often you’ll discover amazing new recipes that are unique to you!

Style

To enhance my lashes without putting falsies on, I give my eyelash curlers a blast with the hairdryer to heat them up. It’s like a heated blow wave for the lashes! You will definitely see a difference!! But be careful not to overheat them, give them a quick check with your fingers to make sure they are not boiling!
My style tip is to be confident! If you believe you look awesome, other people will too.
If you’re going tight on the bottom ( e.g skinny jeans, tights or bodycon skirt), go flowy and loose on top, and vice versa. If you’re wearing a skater skirt, opt for a tight tank top! Balance is key!
Invest in a few retro scarves – wear them in tons of different ways around your neck, in your hair, tied to a handbag or as a belt! Can really make an outfit!

Blogging

Don’t compare your own blog’s success to other people’s blogs. By all means it’s fine to look to others for inspiration but everyone’s blog follows a different path. It might take a week, it might several years, who knows! But comparing your success to other people’s and becoming disheartened just doesn’t make sense, after all you’re not on the same path as them!
Quality over quantity! Write posts that you yourself will enjoy.
Connect with your followers as much as you can – it will make your blog more enjoyable for them, but also more enjoyable for YOU! Do this by being down to earth (photos throughout posts help) and reply to as many comments as you can – it keeps followers interested and makes you approachable.

And we have a winner….

The lucky winner of the pretty retro bow headband, Orla Kiely address book and very cute owl pocket watch pendant (selected at random using random.org) is Charlotte! I’ll be in touch shortly!