Tag Archives: ideas

Dress Shopping and a Fail

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Not the dress I bought, but always like a bit of shiny…

At the start of November I set myself the challenge of blogging every day during the month. I managed twenty-one days continuously… until yesterday. Quite simply, I wasn’t in the mood, I couldn’t think of anything productive to write that wouldn’t take several hours, I had spent most of the day working on another project and I gave up. The blogging enthusiasm went in the bin. To be fair, going from posting three to four times and month to writing every day for three weeks isn’t bad, but I’m still a little disappointed that I fell short of my target. Still, with a week to go until the end of the month I can catch up on the missed post, but sometimes a break is necessary to regroup and get back on track, even if it’s a short one.  Continue reading →

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The Viking Picture Perfect Event: A Photography Masterclass with Elouisa Georgiou

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Last week I was invited to a Digital Photography Masterclass with Viking, given by professional photographer Elouisa Georgiou.

I love taking photos – amassing thousands of images over the years in various folders on my computer and blog – but usually find it easier to use my phone for the ease of taking a quick picture without having to go through the hassle of carrying a heavy camera around and the option of immediately editing and sharing across my social media. However, this masterclass was a great opportunity to develop some of my skills using a DSLR – something that I rarely use – and I asked The Bloke to give me a crash course on the basics beforehand.

The event took place at Dirty Martini in Birmingham, and I was joined by other bloggers in a Christmas-themed setting as Elouisa introduced us to her work and some of the techniques she uses to create different effects on her images.

The Christmas set-up
Elouisa gives her introduction
Elouisa explains the challenge and gives some ideas

Continue reading →

Peggy Porschen Cakes, London

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Visiting Peggy Porschen Cakes, London

Whenever I go to London I always research interesting ideas on Pinterest  for places to visit and experience as I find that tips from locals are always much more useful than some of the bigger travel guides. During every search there is always one thing that appears repeatedly: Peggy Porschen Cakes ‘Parlour’, an Instagram haven with a pastel pink frontage, adorned with gorgeous floral displays that change throughout the year. 

Opened in 2010 by award winning cake designer, author and Creative Director Peggy Porschen and her husband, the bakery is situated in Belgravia, and I discovered that it was in the vicinity of the station I was travelling from on Monday, so I decided to take a little detour and treat myself to a cupcake (for breakfast – why not!). Continue reading →

Boost Your Blog and Social Media with my Management Services and Advertising Opportunities!!

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Social media management, advertising and blog consultation services

Want to boost your blog, engagement, subscribers and stats for 2019? I offer lots of different opportunities for fellow bloggers and authors to gain that extra promotion as we are preparing for the start of the new blogging year.

  • Social Media Management – Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook
  • Blog of the Day opportunities
  • Hour Blog Consultation Slots
  • Canva images for your blog posts – created for any area of social media

Stats

At the time of publishing, Suzie Speaks has received over 1,000,000 views. Here are my readership stats:

WordPress: 11,000 +
Twitter: 8,900
Facebook: 800 +
Pinterest: 9200 +

Of all of the blogging regrets that I have, my lack of knowledge when developing my blog and hesitation when setting up my social media accounts are the biggest. Why? Continue reading →

Traditions

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I love Friday night, particularly at this time of year. When we both worked in schools, The Bloke and I would desperately look forward to it – we would get in after struggling through an often crappy week, order a takeaway, get the blankets out, put the heating on and would spend of the evening snuggled up with the cats while watching a film, desperately happy that we wouldn’t have to get up and go to work the next day. Even though we’re now both in a different situation with regards to where and how we work, we’ve carried on with the weekly routine – we still curl up on the couch under a blanket and watch a film, although the cat now prefers to sleep on his own blanket on the armchair since his feline sister passed away last year.  Continue reading →

Christmas in November? No!

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I love everything about Christmas. I love decorating the tree and displaying the cards. I love the carols and the annual Christmas songs that are blasted out in every store. I love the Christmas market that appears in Birmingham every year (even though many Brummies I know think of it in the same way as New Yorkers view Times Square). I love wrapping the presents, drinks with friends, planning the dinner on the day and stocking up on Boxing Day treats. I love Christmas movies and over the years The Bloke and I have developed our own little traditions of when we watch them. In particular, I love the general festive cheer that the community adopts, making more of an effort to be kind to each other. Continue reading →

All Change

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I live in a row of terraced houses in a suburb of Birmingham with a set of neighbours on each side in the connecting properties. We’ve lived in this particular house for about 3 1/2 years, and while the residents have changed numerous times in the house to the left (which is a rental property like ours), the ones to the right have always been a nice couple that we’ve had a good relationship with.

The biggest problem with terraced housing is that the walls are often paper thin, meaning that even a basic conversation can be heard next door. A year ago I had a little rant about how noisy the new neighbours were – from the evening they moved in the music was cranked up and the parties started, but after having a conversation with one of the tenants he appeared with a bunch of flowers, an apology and his phone number with the instruction to text if they were being too loud. Continue reading →

Home Alone

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Today I found myself in a rather unusual situation. 

I have the whole house to myself. For the whole weekend.

I am officially home alone for three days. 

The Bloke is away on a course with one of his favourite photographers in Manchester. The course and walk-round session on Saturday takes up most of the day, so he is staying in a hotel the night before and after. He’s nervous, but I’m incredibly proud of him for putting himself in a situation that I know makes him hugely uncomfortable – he doubts his abilities as a photographer (despite the fact that his photographs are fabulous) and I’m hoping that it will prove to be a huge confidence boost and a great opportunity to meet some new people. Continue reading →

IKEA: For the Stuff You Never Knew You Needed

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There’s a scene in one of my favourite films – 500 Days of Summer – in which the two main characters lovingly pretend at playing house in an IKEA as they enjoy the honeymoon phase of their new relationship. It’s a beautiful sequence, accompanied by cutesy dialogue, and even though I’ve watched it a bajillion times it never fails to make me smile.

So, it was inevitable that this would be the first thing that would pop into my head when The Bloke suggested an impromptu visit yesterday morning. Despite the fact that we have lived together for years, and have been to IKEA on numerous occasions, I somehow imagined a scenario in which we would flirt our way around, being cute in various home set ups and having a lovely time.

Not quite, predominantly because I forgot how much I LOVE going to IKEA. Continue reading →

Start Spreading the News…

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New York montage

It has been a little while since I last posted, predominantly because I’ve been on holiday in New York. The Bloke and I visited just under a year ago on our honeymoon, but as we were there for just over four days we decided to go back for an extended period of time and try and see some of the things that we missed.

It. Was. Epic.

We travelled by subway, water taxi and cable car. We saw a ridiculous amount of movie locations and sweltered in the intense heat. I ate a Cronut, gay ice-cream, pancakes, slurped on the most amazing pink lemonade and developed a rather worrying Snapple addiction. We missed an appearance by Hugh Jackman and Neil Patrick-Harris at different points, laughed (and almost cried) at Kinky Boots on Broadway and got a crick in our necks from looking skywards for so long.  Continue reading →