How to Get the Best Blogging Photos With a Compact Camera| My Photo Editing Techniques

Not all of us can afford a fancy camera or get our photos professionally edited however that shouldn't stop us from blogging. It certainly shouldn't stop us from making a professional looking blog. i currently own a fairly cheap compact camera in fact the camera I;'m currently using is a bridge camera called the Fujifilm FinePix Bridge camera. It is a point and shoot camera which I think it means it's good for shooting landscape pictures but terrible at shooting portraits etc.. ok...I'll try and stop myself from making this a camera review post but make sure to stop me if I start rambling on about my own camera. 

So this picture above is a picture that I took of the Christmas lights in Carnaby from the before picture you can see that so many things are wrong with it, in fact I've listed a few below: 

• The focus is wrong- The picture is looking a little too messy
• The picture is too warm making it too orangey

The photo editing tool that I like to use is PicMonkey, it's free and it so easy to use. (no this is not sponsored). In this picture I used the soften tool to blur out the far background so that the focus is on the lights rather than the buildings in the background. I also toned down the temperature and added a blue tone over it using the exposure tool. That's all really. For me, playing around with the exposure settings really helps make a difference to the picture itself. 

This next picture was done at first using the same technique as above, however the blur effect was edited using photoshop. To create the same effect as a DSLR  camera's aperture setting, I layered different blur percentages over on another. To explain this simply what I did was blur the top of the picture with a higher/ stronger blur and then slowly reduce the blur as it got to the bottom of the picture.

Honestly if you want to find out about more ways to improve your own photography skills using a compact camera, NotDressedAsALamb.com has a really good postThere she gives details on what locations and lighting you can use to get a better picture, I'd certainly say go check that out here.

I hope these little tips helped you, if you want a more in depth step by step tutorial on photo editing please leave a comment below. I missed you girls and I've got so many more posts to get up so bare with me.

Whats In My HandBag?

How have you all been? I thought I'd return back with a different kind of post and I'm so excited to show you whats in my bag? don't you love watching all these whats in my school bag / handbag kinda of videos and posts...I know I do! So I decided to jump on this popular trend  and  show you whats in my bag.

The bag i'm currently using is the mini Dinidotty bag from Dune London ... I got it a while ago so i'm not too sure you can still get it but they do have some other bags which are just as pretty. This bag was actually a gift from my mum, who was super sweet enough to buy this for me for last Eid. I have massively downsized from my previous bags which were super big. I  have a habit of carrying my life around, I'm the kind of person who literally carries emergency things for everything...emergency pins (check), emergency first aid kit (check), emergency socks (check...ok maybe not that crazy). So when I downsized my bag, I had no room for all this stuff and considering the state of my deteriorating back, it might not have been such a bad thing! So without further adieu here whats in my bag:

The first thing in my bag is my Filofax (Or Paperchase version of it) , which honestly is my best friend, I'm an organisational freak, I need my diary by my side all the time. I actually switched from a diary to a Filofax because I struggle with the restrictions that diaries have, so with Filofax's inserts I could even create my own tables etc... If you want me to do a  diary organisational post, just leave a comment below.

The next thing I have is my essentials; I have my Nivea  lip balm (I love this so much because its clear and its nice and hydrating for everyday use), my Bath and Body Works handsanitiser, Cath Kidson clock patterned mirror and thats it really.

And lastly I have my essentials essential (also known as the "I can't walk out the house without them essentials") which are obviously my phone and purse. I previously owned a larger purse by Ollie and Nic but had to downsize after getting this bag. The purse i'm currently using is this Primark one, which i'm so chuffed with; it's compact and pretty. However knowing Primark it's likely to not be useable in a couple months so if anyone knows of cute purses let me know.

You can shop my bag here:

Thats all from me, Leave a comment below letting me know what you like to carry in your purse and what purse your currently rocking this fall? 

AA Skincare Review- Lavender & Tea Tree Face Lotion

As you know from my previous AA Skincare review i'm totally loving their natural deodorant (If you missed that review you can check it out here). I'm back with another review of an AA Skincare product this time the Lavender & Tea Tree moisturising face lotion. 

Firstly I thought I'd talk about delivery because I didn't talk about it in the last AA Skincare review; one of the best things about AA Skincare is that they email you exactly the day and the time that they are going to deliver. For me that's a major selling point because the worst feeling is when a delivery man is banging on your door and your half dressed. A++ for delivery!
So the Lotion, because that's what we are here to talk about right? I've been using it for the past week and can honestly say it is one of my favourite face creams of all time. (No exaggeration) . Not only is it  naturally antiseptic but it's been keeping my spots at bay. Usually during autumn my face tends to get dry so using this moisturiser is very refreshing and the medicinal scent definitely clears your nose as well. The medicinal scent does wear off quite quickly which for me is great because I like to wear it for stepping out. AA Skincare also gave me a sample sachet of the accompanying gel wash, which I used to wash my face before putting on the moisturiser. I personally think the gel and the lotion are a match made in heaven and I can see myself purchasing the gel wash to accompany my lotion. 
AA Skincare is certainly become one of my favourite places for natural skincare products and there are so many other products i'm dying to try out such as their Seaweed and Aloe Eye Gel and Mint and Dead Sea Salt Mask. You can buy AA Skincare products from www.amphora-retail.com at a retail price of £6.96. Also AA Skincare were kind enough to give us a 20% discount code (just enter the code BLOG20) so make sure to get one now that it's on sale.Thank you for reading and  I'll see you in the next post. *This post is not sponsored by AA Skincare, although they did kindly send me the product to try. I'm sharing it with you because I genuinely think it's an awesome product.*