Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts

THE PERFECT WINTER WALK: KEW GARDENS

Sunday, 6 November 2016


It may sound as though I'm 25 going on 85 but I am a sucker for a Sunday morning stroll. I'm lucky enough to live close to some incredible lakes, gardens and country houses and when I woke up this morning to blue-skies and sunshine it was a majority decision in our household to bundle up and head out for a nice winter walk.

We opted for Kew Gardens which is home to Royal Botanic Gardens (a fancy word for lots of gorgeous trees, plants and greenhouses) just outside of London. During the winter which is classed as Nov 1st onwards entry is £10 including a donation to Gift Aid and you definitely get fantastic value for money here, it makes such a great day out.

There's plenty to do here (as well as of course just wandering aimlessly around and just taking in the gorgeous scenery) including a Treetop Walkway which gives an awesome birds-eye-view of the park a giant badger sett and amazing indoor greenhouses and buildings to explore.

It was the perfect opportunity to take some photos and if you live nearby then I would 100% recommend taking a trip here as it makes for a perfect backdrop for blog photos.










WHAT'S ON MY IPHONE?

Wednesday, 19 August 2015


Since I bought my iPhone 6 last October it survived a trip to both Florida and New York before I managed to drop it while trying on clothes in H&M earlier this year, resulting in a cracked screen. Boo. So, I won't be showing you the front of my iPhone but as you can see from the picture above, the back is very pretty indeed!

Now, I do a lot on my iPhone, mainly listening to music, editing Instagram photos, browsing the web and reading blogs and of course keeping up to date on Twitter and Facebook. I also WhatsApp almost 24/7! In this post i thought I'd share what's on my iPhone with you, not my selfie graveyard where all the rejects end up, no, not that. Instead I'll be sharing all my favourite apps for music, image-editing and social media etc. I hope you enjoy!

Recently I had no choice but to organise my apps into neat little folders because I have a weird thing about having to swipe across too many screens, I just don't like it, I know, I'm weird. So let's begin with a little folder called Lifestyle.

Lifestyle

  • Pinterest - The holy grail of all inspiration and motivation. I am a Pinterest fanatic and am constantly using this app for all kinds of inspo, I actually wrote a blog post dedicated to the app and featured all of my latest pins and obsessions so check that out if you're also a serial Pinner.

  • Paypal - Much less interesting than Pinterest but crucial none-the-less. I love me some eBay selling, especially towards the end of the month when I've spent 95% of my wages and realise there's still two weeks left until payday and having the Paypal app on my phone really helps me keep on top of shipments and payments.

Photography

  • Afterlight - Instagram's filters just don't cut it for me anymore and since downloading Afterlight I have a huge range of beautiful filters and effects to choose from. I also use this app to edit the brightness, contrast and saturation of my Instagram photos.

  • Whitagram - This app is pretty simple, it adds a neat little white border or box around my images. I also use the awesome Aviary feature on this app for any editing on photos, ie blemish removal etc cos no-one wants to look at my zits when I'm suffering from a breakout. I certainly don't!

  • Diptic - Although Instagram has now included a feature like this, I really like Diptic for creating photo collages and grids. There are so many to choose from and I haven't tried them all yet as I tend to stick the standard old 2x2 grid or something similar but it's perfect for that and you can import straight to Insta if you need to.

  • Pixlr - I use the full web version of this app to edit all of my blog photos and I'd never edit them on anything else but the iPhone version is okay for when I need to edit something on the go for Twitter or Instagram. It's useful to keep around just in case!

Music

  • Spotify - As a Vodafone user I opted to upgrade to Spotify Premium for free and now I never use the iTunes Music - except when I want to listen to Taylor Swift cos you know, she wasn't about that Spotify vibe. I've created so many playlists, usually filled with terrible (read: freaking awesome) music from the early 2000's.

  • Shazam - I am always on the look out for new music and if I'm in a shop/restaurant/watching TV then I will always Shazam songs to see what they are. I think the last time I used the app was in Argos to find out the name of an old Carly Rae Jepsen song that was playing and you know what it's like, I wouldn't have slept soundly that night if I'd been left wondering 'what is that CRJ song?!'

  • Netflix - I watch enough Netflix to know it's not music at all but I have nowhere else to store this app and I rarely use it on my phone as it drains the battery so this is where it shall stay. I'm sure I don't need to explain Netflix to you guys, I'm sure you're all on my pizza-loving, Netflix-watching level, am I right ladies? I like to keep the app on my phone for when I'm hooked on a series and want to go to the loo while watching Orange Is The New Black or something equally unladylike.

Social

Of course I have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in this folder but there are a few other apps I use on a regular basis.

  • Snapchat - I never send snaps but I follow a few awesome people; Joe Sugg and Arielle Vandenburg for example and I don't like to feel like I'm missing out so every now and again I have a little peek at what's going down on SC.

  • YouTube - I am an avid YouTube-watcher and will always watch a video or two before bed and in the morning before I haul my butt up to get ready for work. I do watch on my iPad sometimes but usually I'll just lounge in bed like a potato and watch loads of videos on my phone.

  • Hootsuite - I've only just downloaded this app but if you don't know about Hootsuite, it's a platform for all your social media accounts, so you can access multiple platforms at a time in one place. For example, you can check your twitter mentions, schedule tweets and update Facebook in one place.

Tell me about the apps you can't live without below in the comments,  I'd love to know what's on your phones in a totally non-creepy way of course. Apps only people, apps only.