Post Comment Love & Blogger Showcase 2-4 June 2017

Hello there and welcome to another Friday and another #PoCoLo - if you were here last week it was great to see you again. If you're new here this week, then welcome, both Morgan and I are sure you'll find some great posts to read and we encourage you to read and comment on the posts that resonate with you, as it's nice to have some love for our posts isn't it?

It's been a tiring - and aching - week for me, as this week I learnt I'm not cut out to be a labourer. Two days of carrying rubble and other heavy items have left me with tired, aching arms and the 30 day press up challenge I started is quite rightly on hold while my arms recover, which is a shame as I was doing so well. I'd started at twenty press ups and had increased that to around forty within a ten or so days, something I never thought I'd manage.

I celebrated my birthday - thank you for all your kind wishes - and there's a new loo series on the way from the Tandoor Chop House near Charing Cross where we went for dinner.  It was a busy weekend and we had some real successes as well as some challenges, I'm hoping to write another post on that and publish that later today, so I'll save that for then.

The garden is coming on well and we're currently on Cherry-watch, and your guess is as good as mine as to whether or not we'll get to the ripened cherries before the pigeons will - wish us luck! 

cherries in the sun- but will we beat the pigeons to them?

Blogger Showcase: Clair from Crohn's in the City

1. Who are you?

I am Clair, a 24 year old from Scotland who is battling with Crohn's Disease, and I blog at Crohn's in the City.

2. How did you discover blogging?

I discovered blogging when trying to learn more about my illness and looking for places to eat (I am a bit of a foodie!)

3. Why did you start blogging?

I started to try and raise awareness about Crohn's. I have also started blogging about experiences to push my own self to venture out and not let Crohn's hold me back.

4. What do you find most challenging?

Getting my blog out there and learning the blogging jargon!

5. What is your favourite topic to write about?

That's the embarrassing situations I end up getting into. I think this would be helpful to other people with Crohn's or Colitis - a bit of light heartedness between all the doom and gloom of the disease.

6. What's your blogging goal?

My main goal for blogging is to raise awareness about IBD.

7. What's your favourite thing about blogging?

Blogging has been great fun for me. My favourite part of it has to be interacting with readers who have Crohn's or know someone affected by it. I have learnt a lot more about the disease through blogging!

8. Have you been to a blogging conference?

Sadly I haven't, but I would love to.

9. What are your 3 best posts?

These would have to be:

  1. Crohns & Colitis Awareness week 
  2. Feeling the love 
  3. Domino's is a no no

10. Describe yourself in three words

Hmmm... happy, sensitive and ill.

11. Are you a tea and biscuits or coffee and cake person?

Can I be awkward and go for coffee with biscuits?

12. What's your perfect night out?

A perfect night out for me (when not flaring) would be a few cocktails, a little bit of dancing and ending the night with a take away for the walk home - simple pleasures!

13. Your perfect night in?

That would have to include fresh jammies, a Netflix account and the biggest pizza I could find.

14. What would your OH say is your best quality?

I think my best quality would be that I am funny, but not sure my other half would 100% agree.

Thanks Clair, coffee and biscuits is fine - please do grab your "I was featured on #PoCoLo" badge.  If you're reading this wondering how you can be featured, please get in touch.

Connect with Clair here:

Facebook  -  Instagram  -  Twitter  -  

Post Comment Love: 26 - 29 May 2017

Hello there and welcome to this week's #PoCoLo. If you were here last week, thank you it was great to see you and it was great to have Morgan back too, I'd missed her as my co-host.  If you're new here then welcome, I'm sure that you'll find some great blog posts, and blogs, to read and both Morgan and I hope you become a regular linker.

I've had the best kind of week; not only have I had a couple of days off with the sun shining, but I've been able to satisfy my planning needs! And thrift, that's featured too. Before I went to work Monday I'd ordered, paid for and arranged delivery of the sleepers for another of my garden projects, and our gabion baskets arrived Wednesday as well. I love it when companies deliver on what they say, on time and without fuss, it makes such a difference.

I've also had some gumtree success finding two people locally who have rubble to give away. Yesterday we collected twelve sacks and later today we're collecting twelve more from someone else.  This is great news for us, as we have a cubic metre gabion basket to fill pretty quickly so the new pizza oven - which is due to arrive later today - has somewhere to go.  

I may still buy some bricks to add a decorative touch to the baskets, but the advice I received from ITV's Love Your Garden presenter, Katie Rushworth has been a big factor in getting myself sorted and ready to sort out the problem areas in our garden once and for all. That's the post I've linked this week, so you can read more about my chat with her.

She really is lovely and clearly knows her stuff. She started in fashion design but moved to designing gardens as she loved being outside and surrounded by nature, and that enables her to use her creativity in a different way, although there are similarities with the use of shape, form and texture.

My photo this week is of the helicoils, spring-like fixings, which we'll use to bind our gabion baskets together. Already I've learnt a new language, having laced the baskets together on Thursday assembling them. Later today there'll be some bracing, to add strength and well who knows. But everything is starting to come together!

A close up of the helicoils which we'll use to secure our gabion baskets

This week Morgan and I care keeping the linky open until 11pm on Bank Holiday Monday, so there's a bit more time to link up if you're out and about this weekend. Monday is my birthday, quite a significant one, and I'm hoping there'll be some treats along the way.  Have a great Bank Holiday weekend, and don't forget to check out some of the other posts linked up.

Blogger Showcase: Sir Leprechaun Rabbit from multiple blogs

Well, this week's Blogger Showcase is quite a character and has many blogs including , he says he's everywhere and that definitely seems the case. He was discovered by blogging rather than the other way round and with three blogs, he writes for fun and says blogging is a lot like gossip, in that you can control how much (or how little) of a secret you can tell.

Wise words indeed, pop over and take a look at the full set of answers on Morgan's blog, I'm pretty sure you'll find out more about Sir Leprechaun Rabbit who says he's much more than just a long-eared wordsmith!

And don't forget to connect with him on social too:

Twitter   -  Google+  -  Pinterest  - Instagram

Post Comment Love and Blogger Showcase 19-21 May 2017

Hello and welcome to another Friday and this week's Post Comment Love. If you were here last week, thank you, it was good to see you, and I'll be over soon, I'm not sure where the time has gone this week. If you're new here this week, welcome, it's great to have you along and you'll find us a friendly community and Morgan and I can guarantee you a whole host of interesting posts to read.

As I've mentioned already it's felt like a week where time has disappeared, although I'm not sure where. We spent most of the weekend outside completing more of our landscaping project and then trying to reclaim our allotment from the poppies, not weeds, for a change. There's been an evening of sowing seeds and a couple of nights out as well. And then there's been the rain, hasn't there?

My photo this week is a nod to the weather, but only a small nod, because let's face it a picture of the amount of rain we've had in the past couple of days wouldn't be pretty at all.

Raindrops, not on roses though

The BritMums Brilliance in Blogging awards opened this week in the blogging world, and if you'd consider my blog then I'd be very pleased and flattered. I don't expect to win, but a nomination is always welcome. Here's the categories, if you're stuck for which category I'd suggest Photo or perhaps Readers' Choice, but who knows you might have different thoughts, and that's entirely fine.

Blogger Showcase: Samantha from A Thousand Yellow Daisies

1. Who are you? 

I am a freelance creative blogger and designer. I write articles for my own blog and guest pieces across a range of topics in the creative industry from fashion & creative space to creative start up and product/service pricing. I am also currently writing a series of small creative business features and a piece about art therapy.

As a designer I run the company A Thousand Yellow Daisies, we offer some corporate graphic design services but our main focus is pattern design, illustration and hand lettering which are produced onto a range of homewares, stationery and fabric etc. with a new range of wedding stationary due to be launched soon. 

2. How did you discover blogs/blogging?

I have been blogging for myself for years, I always enjoyed blogging and found that a more interesting way of showcasing my design work than a standard online portfolio. 

3. Why did you start blogging?

I took a break from blogging as I reached the final stages of my degree as it was too much to manage at once. I lost touch with blogging for a while at this point and picked it back up a little as a way of promoting my new company. I remembered how much I love blogging and creative writing so started hunting for opportunities to blog more. I found a position as guest blogger with a fabric print company, I had such a positive experience and great feedback with the owner suggesting I should start taking up more paid blogging roles. 

4. What do you find most challenging?

Currently my biggest challenge is finding enough paid roles. Most of the roles in my area of expertise are unpaid guest roles. I love writing and rarely turn any of these opportunities down, but it does make it difficult to find enough work as I am aiming to be able to become a full-time freelance blogger and designer. 

5. What is your favourite topic to write about?

I love writing about anything within the creative industry. I have such a passion for creativity and find that even topics that are outside my personal experience and expertise such as fashion are fascinating to research and so interesting to write about.

6. Are you blogging for fun or do you have goals?

I would love to be able to blog as part of my career. I plan to always keep designing, but the two fit so well together while being different enough to give a lovely variety of work. I aim to get to the point where I can be designing and blogging full time.

7. What is your favourite thing about blogging?

I love the writing, having to consider your thoughts and find a way of getting your thoughts, opinions and knowledge onto paper (or screen!) in a way that is relatable while informative and understandable to an audience. I have also always loved to learn, for my entire life I have loved academia.

Blogging gives me the opportunity to do that again. I research my topic for pretty much every article, no matter how well I think I know the subject, you can always know more. With every article I write I get to learn something new, and I realise how much I knew about the topic without having even realised, which is always very fun!

8. Have you ever attended a blogging conference and if so, what did you think?

No I haven't. I do think that would be an amazing experience though.

9. What are your 3 best posts?

I am immensely proud of my first guest blog as I got amazing feedback, reached a much larger audience than they usually do and felt I covered the topic well despite knowing nothing about fashion when I took the project on! It's also the piece that made me take blogging seriously and want to get into it as a career. 

The second and third pieces I am most proud of are a three part article for Print and Press about how to price for product, service and freelance. I am also writing a series of feature pieces on my own blog.  I've used their stories to find a theme to each feature and am very excited to start releasing these. 

10. Describe yourself in three words!

Creative, passionate, motivated.

11. Are you a tea and biscuits or coffee and cake person?

Coffee and cake everytime!

12. What's your idea of a perfect night out?

A couple of my closest friends in a bustling (but not loud and cramped) cocktail bar, chatting and people watching over a couple of drinks...with maybe a little dancing! 

13. Your perfect night in?

A home cooked dinner over music and candle light then snuggled up warm with a good book or tv show for the night.

14. What would your best friend/OH/mum or kids say is your best quality?

I asked my boyfriend and the response I got was my willingness to make others happy!

 

Thanks Samantha - what a great blog name, thanks for sharing more about yourself, please do grab your "I was featured" badge. If you're reading and wondering about taking part, then please do, we'd love to feature you in a future edition.

Connect with Samantha here:

Facebook  -  Instagram  -  Etsy