A Spotlight on…… Daniella from Madame Gourmand

A Spotlight on…… Daniella from Madame Gourmand

Hello Lovelies, 

It’s Friday and that means one this… it’s this weeks Spotlight feature!

Today I would like to introduce you to a fantastic blogger who crops up every now and then on my site. The ever rocking Daniella from Madame Gourmand


Madame Gourmand aka Daniella not only runs her mouth wateringly informative and tantalising food blog – www.madamegourmand.co.uk, she also has a lifestyle blog, Madame G’s lifestyle over at her .com address too as well as making awesome kitsch jewellery (more about that to come soon!), a mother AND a full time student!! 

Not only is she a kick ass blogger, Daniella has become a very dear friend inside and outside of blogging as we are always on the same wave length, have pretty similar style and when sharing an afternoon tea.. she eats the sandwiches I don’t like!! Chances are, if you find me wandering round Newcastle or at a press event, I’m usually there with Daniella. A blogging partnership in crime!



Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Madame Gourmand….

Q : Tell us a little bit about your blog(s) and why you started it /them 

I write two blogs my first is Madame G’s Lifestyle which is a mix of beauty, fashion and general life, I’ve written many similar blogs over the years but got bored of them in the past, I now treat the blog in the same way I would treat a friend which may sound strange to some people but it means I am free to discuss all issues with honesty. My second blog is Madame Gourmand which is all about my own personal food journey, I post reviews, recipes and general food and drink chit chat.

Q : What is your favourite part of blogging?

I don’t have any one favourite part of blogging, I’ve met some great people who I would never had met without my blog. I never used to read blogs before I started to write my own and I find that not only does it cause me to spend more money on products but it actually saves me money on items that I would have previously bought but now don’t if many of the blog reviews are bad.

Q : What is your least favourite part? 

My timekeeping has probably got to be my least favourite part of blogging, I start off with good intentions and life often gets in the way meaning that although I have lots of things to blog about I don’t actually have the time to write about them. My readers have been very understanding thankfully.

Q : If you could go back to the time you started your blog, what would you do differently?

If I could go back in time I would probably have kept my original blogs and learnt from them rather than starting a fresh one each time over the years.

Q : What advice could you give to new bloggers just starting their blogging adventure?

Read other blogs, engage with other bloggers, don’t be afraid to ask for advice. Use social media, it’s a fantastic tool. Try and find a niche, a lot of blogging sectors are oversubscribed and it’s very difficult to find new readership in these sectors.

Q : What’s your shopping style – Budgeted, splurge or frugal? Do you ever shop solely with your blog in mind?
I was a high end splurge spender with a bit of high street splurging thrown in for good measure. Now that I’m a full time student I don’t have as much expendable cash to throw around so with the help from some friends I’m changing my spending habits and budgeting more. I never shop for my blog, I shop for myself, if it fits in with my blog that’s great.

Q : What are your favourite brands and why?

My favourite brands are Makeup: Chanel (I love the packaging and product quality) MAC (The colours are fantastic and it’s cheap) Illamasqua (The colours and packaging draw me in, I can’t go past the beauty stand without making a purchase) Clothing: All Saints (I love the graphic tops and scarves) Urban Outfitters (Great for cheap staples) Topshop (Great for cheap Tops, scarves, shoes and underwear)

Q : Do you take inspiration from the media or do you go it alone and rock your own style?

I prefer to dress in my own style, I take inspiration from people rather than magazines. I still love the rock chick look with skinny jeans and graphic tops for daytime and like to take a Hollywood glamour approach with classic or vintage style dresses for an evening.

Q : What would you say your ‘signature look’ is, whether that’s make up or fashion?

I don’t think I have a signature look (I’m sure my friends will disagree) **I disagree with this – Katie ** in my make up or fashion style, I change my look to suit my surroundings.

Right… now on to the more interesting questions – The personal ones. These are the ones I always wonder about bloggers!

Q : How old are you?

I’m 32 so compared to some bloggers I’m really old!

Q : What do you do? Student? Work? Profession?

I’m a full time student and mother which is a job in itself!

Q : What do you like to do when you aren’t blogging?

When I’m not blogging I like to cook, socialise with friends, read books, watch films, go shopping and my guilty pleasure is playing computer games.

Q : What kind of music do you like?

I have a very eclectic taste in music I like everything from Swing to Thrash Metal, if someone found my ipod they would probably be quite shocked at some of the bands I listen to.

Q : Happy to be seen bare faced or do you always wear make up?
I always wear makeup even to bed thanks to the Bare Minerals night treatment powder.

Q : What do you love most about beauty and fashion?

I love how diverse the beauty and fashion world is, blogging has alerted me to so many amazing brands that I would never have heard of before starting my blog.

Q : What do you hate most about beauty and fashion?

My greatest hate is the sizing of fashion garments, I yo-yo between a size 12-14 and 18 meaning at my heaviest I can’t buy items from my favourite shops because they don’t make my size, sometimes when I’m a size 14 I need to buy a 16-18 in some stores due to the bad sizing, it’s a problem that needs to be addressed. My greatest beauty hate is the fact a number of brands don’t let you try before you buy, I have eczema and sensitive skin and I don’t like paying £25+ for a product that may not work on my skin, having a product tried on my skin at a counter is not enough as it often takes a couple of days for my skin to react.

And finally… the biggy…..
Q : If you had to invest in 1 designer piece… money no object…. would it be a pair of shoes, a handbag or a dress? I want to see pictures!!!

Alexander Mcqueen is my favourite designer and although I own a number of pieces I really need the Serpent Skull Karung Knuckle box clutch which costs a whopping £1150 



So, this week you all met Madame G, my hard rocking amigo, so please go follow both of her blogs!!

As ever, if you would like to take part, please feel free to get in touch with me via the Contact tab at the top of the page.


  Photobucket

Twitter | Facebook | GFC | Hellocotton | Bloglovin | Bloggers
Share:

A bloggers guide to photography

A bloggers guide to photography

Hello Lovelies, 

What a treat I have in store for you today! 

In conjunction with the awesome Sarah from Little Dot Photography, we have brought you a great 4 part beginners guide on blog photography!

As an aside, Sarah and I have known each other for over a decade now (I think) and she knew me waaaay back when I thought short hair and a visor were the ultimate style for me.. as well as wearing jeans so wide and baggy you could hide small children in them! Yep, we were teenage hippies but I think we’ve both out grown those days now…. if not grown out of the piercing malarky yet!

After each weekly session, you can use the comments section of this post to ask Sarah questions and she will do her very best to answer them. 

So now I will hand you over to Sarah….


A point and shoot photography guide for bloggers


Are you a blogger in photographic despair!? Fret no more, you can take your own decent photos….yes you can!

Do you enjoy updating your blog with your latest fashion purchase or your newest make up range? Do you love flashing your new sneaks to the world wide web but never quite feel that your doing them any justice? Well don’t fear, the ‘how to’ guide is here. Whether you’re a brand spanking new beginner at picking up a digital camera or a seasoned amateur, my aim is to point you in the right direction to take some pretty decent shots to flash on your blog and show off your beloved items as best you can!  

Over the next four weeks there will be a new nugget of information for you to digest and master in your quest for photographic wizardry!


Week 1 – How to get good lighting: 

Lighting is the most important thing in photography. No light equals no picture. Try to take your photographs in natural light. If that shot of your favourite mascara or book can wait until daylight hours, then do it. Positioning your subject in front of a window is the easiest way to get as much natural light onto it as possible, however make sure the window is also behind the camera otherwise the window will look great, your subject however, will look like a silhouette! 

If you do need to take a photograph in darker situations, then you can use the flash on your camera. I would strongly recommend that you tape or hold a piece of white paper over the flash to diffuse it. There is NOTHING worse than a portrait taken with on camera flash, it definitely wont do you any justice and you will end up with a lot of harsh shadows!



Lastly, don’t set your camera to night mode to try and take the photograph in darkness. Unless you’re taking a picture of something very still and your camera is sitting on a tripod, and you have it set to self timer, it just isn’t going to work…trust me!



Do you have a question for Sarah and her photography know-how?





  Photobucket

Twitter | Facebook GFC | Hellocotton | Bloglovin | Bloggers

Share:

What Katie Did #22

What Katie Did #22

Hello Lovelies, 

Have we all had a good week?

The weather has been a bit crap hasn’t it?! The only downside to living in the middle of the countryside is flash flooding of country roads! Boo! Luckily me and my cars can swim! Ha!

View Post

Share:

Spotlight On….. Helen from Just Nice Things

Spotlight On….. Helen from Just Nice Things

Hello Lovelies, 

The first rule of blogger diet club is never to talk about blogger diet club. Oh bugger. Blew that one.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll have probably see my weekly motivational & supportive tweets with a few other fabulous bloggers on their Slimming World journey too. One of those lovely ladies just happens to be the kick ass Helen.



Helen is one half of the blogging duo behind www.just-nice-things.co.uk which for a while, I had to stop reading because Mr Tramp found out how much money i’d spent on pretty nail varnishes and NARS that I had fell in love with on the blog! Ooops!


If you don’t already follow Helen & Sheenie’s blog, I suggest you do so now… and kiss good bye to your pennies!


The interview is behind the cut….




Q : Tell us a little bit about your blog(s) and why you started it /them

I am one half of http://www.just-nice-things.co.uk which was born in February 2009.

I’d always really liked nail varnish even though I was banned from using it as a child after spilling a bottle of hot pink Cover Girl nail varnish over my mum’s prized cork-topped coffee table (hey, it was the 80s). It finally dawned on me that I might have an issue when I was shopping one day, brought my wares back home to show my flatmate, who then looked at me strangely and asked why I had bought a load of bottles of nail varnish that were the same colour. I explained (to deaf ears) that they were not the same colour at all and then for some reason, Googled the collection I had just bought (the OPI Russian collection). All of a sudden these wonderful sites opened up to me, like Scrangie and Vampy Varnish and I did nothing for the rest of the weekend other than read these blogs in their entirety.

Fast forward a few weeks and I realised that there were very few UK beauty blogs (hard to believe these days I know), especially those focussing on nail varnish and I thought I had something to offer the internet. I approached Sheenie, who is a qualified makeup artist, and asked her to get in on the act
and add her thoughts on things other than just nail polish. At the time, we had never met in person as we got to know each other through a fan group for The Apprentice on Facebook so in hindsight, it is all a bit weird, but still one of the best things I’ve ever done. And I am pleased to say that Sheenie and I
have now met up (a million times) and we get on famously, although there was an in-joke in the beauty blogging world for a long time that we were actually the same person as we weren’t seen in a room at the same time for about a year.

Q : What is your favourite part of blogging?

Without a doubt the random things it has led me to. I’ve seen streets of London that I never knew existed, drank champagne in some of the most amazing penthouse suites, been howled at by a tribal Wolfman, met the one and only Suzi Weiss Fischmann from OPI, and been interviewed (in the pool at
the Thermae Bath Spa) by Michael Portillo for a BBC2 TV series. Honestly.

Q : What is your least favourite part?

The expense. I still buy 99% of the stuff that I review and it is an addiction that I need to break. Rapidly.

Q : If you could go back to the time you started your blog, what would you do differently?

I would cut my nails sooner! I got a lot of grief from internet trolls about my long nails. I might also be tempted to start out on Blogger rather than WordPress. I don’t like the Blogger platform as I find it clunky and awkward but Google is king and the removal of Google Friend Connect from non-Blogger
blogs has meant that we have kissed goodbye to a readership that was at 3,000+ before the switch.

Q : What advice could you give to new bloggers just starting their blogging adventure?

Don’t expect attention to drop in your lap the moment you register your URL. Have fun with it. Don’t apologise for not blogging – in the nicest possible way, people probably haven’t noticed. Whilst I miss our readership, I’m still plugging away with it and trying to build it up again in the same way as I would if we were starting out from scratch. Also, be wary of joining media and advertising agencies – you can often create your own opportunities just as easily. Remember that any revenue that you derive from your blog via advertising or sponsored posts needs to be declared as a second income as you don’t want the tax office coming to find you… (I am so middle-aged!)

Q : What’s your shopping style – Budgeted, splurge or frugal? Do you ever shop solely with your blog in mind?

I used to shop with the blog in mind all of the time and at that point I knew it was getting out of hand.

I have several hundred nail varnishes & bits of make-up in colours or formulas that I don’t like and will never wear that I bought “for the blog”. Don’t do it, folks. You can have a blog sale but you’ll never recoup it all back.

Clothes wise, I’m a splurger as well. I like shopping. I don’t have an expensive designer habit though so I guess there’s a limit to how much splurging you can do in places like Matalan and TK Maxx. Thank god.

Q : What are your favourite brands and why?

OPI. I was introduced by my mum, who had discovered OPI via QVC and I still have more OPI polishes than any other brand. I like the colours, the longevity of them, and yes, I like the names too. Makeup wise, I love Illamasqua, who are the first brand I really built a relationship with, by attending one of
their makeup masterclasses in Selfridges (way back in the day before blogger events were invented) and my heart also belongs to Nars. I love the pigment and the creativity in all these brands’ products.

Q : Do you take inspiration from the media or do you go it alone and rock your own style?

I have my own style (or lack of). I’m too old to be faffing about with dip-dyed hair, leopard print leggings, Aztec nonsense or pastel jeans.

Q : What would you say your ‘signature look’ is, whether that’s make up or fashion?

Basically, a truck load of eyeshadow. I’m a bit scared of lipstick so tend to steer away from them. Fashion-wise I am a bit of an 80s rocker at heart so it tends to be basics with a slight gothy edge. You will never see me in floral print tea-dresses. Nails are always pristine, with no chips, naturally.

Right… now on to the more interesting questions – The personal ones. These are the ones I always wonder about bloggers!

Q : How old are you?

Thirtymumble

Q : What do you do? Student? Work? Profession?

I work in recruitment. But I don’t like telling people that as they tend to look at me like I belong under that rock with all the estate agents and car salesmen.

Q : What do you like to do when you aren’t blogging?

I have a rather strong and enduring relationship with Twitter. I also love watching films, reading novels and cooking. Stroking my antique & hard to find OPI polishes.

Q : What kind of music do you like?

Hair metal. Motley Crue, Buckcherry, LA Guns and so on. I am also beside myself with excitement that Faith No More are doing a UK tour this year.

Q : Happy to be seen bare faced or do you always wear make up?

I try and have a day off if I’m not leaving the house. I’d happily go bare faced to the shops or whatever but if I stand a chance of being “seen” by people I know then I will make an effort. It’s for the viewer’s benefit really, honestly it is.

Q : What do you love most about beauty and fashion?

I like how good you feel when you have something new to wear, or rediscover an old favourite item in the back of the wardrobe / makeup kit. The feeling of pulling off that perfect smokey eye is an addictive one.

Q : What do you hate most about beauty and fashion?

Sheep. Why do people all want to look the same? Baaaaaaaa.

And finally… the biggy…..

Q : If you had to invest in 1 designer piece… money no object…. would it be a pair of shoes, a handbag or a dress? I want to see pictures!!!

I wouldn’t choose shoes, a handbag or a dress. I would march straight into Boodles and buy this. 

I go and gawp at it in Harrods occasionally but oddly I am yet to find the £36,000 that it costs. I wonder if they’d accept a few old bottles of nail varnish in exchange for it instead??


Thanks for taking part Helen, even if you are afraid of the North South Divide!

If you would like to be involved in the upcoming Spotlight On…. features, please get in touch using the Contact Tab.
 
 

 

Share:

What Katie Did #21

What Katie Did #21

Hello Lovelies,

Have you all had a good week? It was a nice short one thanks to the Jubilee celebrations! Shame I had to fit a full 5 days work in to 3, in both my jobs! eeek!

This week has been nice and quiet and all about focusing on work and being healthy. Lots of exercise and a whopping 4.5lb loss this week which sees me smash even closer to my next stone mark, closer to my goal and even closer in to those slinkier outfits!

There’s no better feeling than buying smaller clothes and thankfully I love the shape my body is (there’s just too much of it) and as I don’t carry my weight in a weird way, as i’m losing weight i’m retaining my shape which means clothes are starting to look absolutely fab on me!

On Tuesday, we thought we’d visit a very local museum that Mr Tramp hadn’t been to before as he’s not originally from Durham and I hadn’t been since I was a very small child. The Durham Light Infantry museum is quite small but it is full of interesting facts and artefacts from WWI and WWII.

On Friday this week, I launched the first installment of my great new series called ‘A Spotlight on….’ in which I will show case my favourite bloggers and beauty insiders. I’ve already got a list of great spotlights scheduled but I am always looking for more so please use the contact form to get in touch or pass this on to your fellow bloggy friends to join in too!

Yesterday, thanks to the torrential rain, Mr Tramp and I took ourselves off for a good old traditional afternoon tea at the infamous White Monk Tea Room in Blanchland, near where we live. If you are in the local area, I wholeheartedly recommend you go, it’s fantastic and quaint! While Mr T had the full on traditional tea, I had a (pretty healthy) bowl of steaming pea & ham broth and a glass of water! Healthy living!! We managed a brief stroll before the rain caught up with us.

Today, we took a visit to Tynemouth & Whitley Bay as Mr Tramps family live at the coast. After a short run along the Fish Quay, up the huge steps and very bravely resisting all the amazing fish & chips, we did make a naughty stop for Ice Cream. Archers Ice Cream in Jesmond is just amazing. They make the tastiest ice cream ever! I had a double scoop, a peanut and a cherry while Mr T had tiramisu (mm!) and mint choc chip! I’m just jealous of Daniella as it is in her neighbourhood and miiiiiiiles away from me – HOUSE SWAP!!

In the coming week, I have 2 events to attend so I will try to take as many pictures as possible!

 

Share: