Online tools for bloggers & business owner

I've been blogging since a while now, and also am running a small business at the same time, but only recently I've found a great routine to plan, schedule, write, work, publish and create, all of this while also staying organized. Most of it is thanks to some great (and mostly free) online tools, websites and apps that help me schedule, promote and plan ahead, while also staying updated with my website's analytics. Here I've written down a little list of favourite tools that are especially awesome for bloggers and small business owners!

Stay tuned until the end for a free printable weekly planner!

Buffer - As much as I like to publish authentic content on social media too, sometimes scheduled tweets are the only way to go for me. I usually only schedule tweets to promote my blog posts, usually 4/5 times spread during the day. You'll be able to pre-schedule standard hours for your tweets, so it's great to look at when your followers are more active on Twitter and strategically plan ahead when to make your tweets go live.

Sunrise Calendar - I usually plan my blog posts a month or so ahead, so it's great to have a nice calendar app where to plan ahead when those posts are going live on my blog. Sunrise Calendar has a lovely interface, and it allows me to use different colours for different typologies of posts (like food, beauty, style, etc.) to be able to never publish the same type of posts two days in a row.

LikeBtn - See that little hearts/likes counter in the footer of my posts?! I know there're a tun of plugins to install it for free on Wordpress, but it's not that easy to find an aesthetically pleasing button that works fine on Blogger too, but LikeBtn is doing the trick for me. It's not always free, but is very inexpensive and a great way to see what your readers actually like.

MailChimp - I'm new to newsletters, but I'm really into building a mailing list to stay connected with people that is really interested in my blog content and business and MailChimp is super easy to use (even without following a guide) and it's great because there're plugins for Wordpress and Squarespace, and easy form codes to implement anywhere in your template.

Coffitivity - This is so great! If you're one that likes to work in coffee shops but can't really be in one everyday, Coffitivity recreates the sounds of a café to make you feel like you're there whereas you're actually in your boring office. It's a boost for inspiration, plus you can pick the sound you most like!

Mapbox - Great for lifestyle and travel bloggers, Mapbox allows you to create maps of your favourite cities to place a mark where your favourite shops, bakeries, restaurants, ect. are located to suggest them to your followers. It's a lovely idea to add to a page of your lifestyle/travel blog, as you can also add links to your own content in the description of the place to reindex your readers to your reviews or photos.

Twitter Cards - Did you know you can create cards on Twitter to make it super easy for your followers to visit your website or subscribe to your newsletter without even leaving Twitter? You can create lead, website, images or app cards for free, but to me these are extremely lovely for promoting and incrementing my mailing list!

Pinterest for Business - If you're using Pinterest already, you'll know its a great one for inspiration. If you're looking into inspire your following, it must be the place where to promote your products or content. Sign up to Pinterest for Business to see the stats of your Pinterest account and see which pins are more popular and even how people pin from your website. Take a look at this amazing guide if you're new to promoting your blog/small business on Pinterest.

Google Analytics - You'll know Google Analytics better than me, but if you've not yet signed up, you really need to take the step. The tricky part is setting it up, but once done, you'll see all the stats of your blog in one place, even the demographic of your readers, which is not only interesting to know, but also important to understand what kind of people is interested in your blog/small business.

Rich Pins - These add extra informations right under your pins, and make it super easy for your followers to see what your recipes, places, products pins are about!

What about your favourite online tools for creatives? Do you already use all of these? x

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My Blogging Tools.

It has been a while since I promised I would have talked about my blogging kit more in details in my Top 10 Photography + Editing Tips, and even though I know there are lots of posts similar to this one available online already, and that I'm never confident enough to share tips and suggestions as I'm no expert by any means, I think it's quite fun to share the behind-the-scene of the blog a bit more often instead, especially if this can come useful to someone else (or even if not, I always find posts like this such an interesting read!).

I feel I need to clear out that it's not mandatory to have a blogging kit if you're a blogger, or to own all of it just because it seems everyone else is using it. I haven't felt the need of purchasing a tripod until a few months ago and I've got one only when I started realizing I truly needed one for certain typology of photos. I still don't own a studio lighting kit and always shoot in natural light (which I also favor), and I probably will never need one - even if everyone seems to need one.

That said, this is what I've found useful during these years of blogging and what has actually stuck around so far in my blogging kit...

CAMERA + LENSES :: My camera is and has always been a Nikon D3100. As I said in my photography post, it is a good camera for being so inexpensive and so far I'm not feeling the need to upgrade. Instead I think a great way to get better use of your camera is, firstly get to understand manual, and secondly invest in a new lens. My kit lens was okay but for my pictures to have a bit of character, I started feeling the need of a new one almost an year ago, so I invested in the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G Lens, which (again) is very inexpensive for being such a good lens to me: I've seen a huge improvement in my pictures since then, and even though one should first start using manual and then buy a new lens, I've found purchasing it a huge push to actually get to understand my camera better.

TRIPOD :: I haven't needed a tripod for years of using a camera, until I started being serious with my blog photography and wanting everything to be extremely perfect. I have the Hahnel Triad 30 Lite Tripod and I'm completely happy with it, even though I think this is definitely an extra and not something essential if you have just started blogging and/or have already invested in something else. As I said, I've taken my pictures without a tripod for years and even though it is such a life savior and a great helper to finish up the job in a quarter of the time you'd spend shooting sometimes, I think this is something there's no need to invest in unless you're taking certain type of pictures (like photos of yourself or food photography) - for that it's a huge helper indeed.

REMOTE SHUTTER :: Something I've lived without for even a longer period of time is a remote shutter. If paired with a tripod, it's a serious game changer: it makes life so easy when you're trying to take pictures of yourself or at you using your hands at something else, and it helped me taking pictures I wasn't ever able to shoot before. However, as for the tripod, I think this is an investment that can be safely put off - cameras have self-timer and that's what you use if you don't feel extremely sure about investing in a remote shutter!

Some are very inexpensive on Amazon though, but I had to order two different kinds before finding a good quality remote shutter for my camera. If you have my same camera, I highly suggest the Kaavie Wireless Remote Control.

PLANNER :: I've always planned my blog posts and fixed my editorial calendar online (and I still use the Sunrise Calendar for it) but I've just recently discovered how practical and inspiring having an actual (made of paper) journal at your desk can be. I've got the Frankie Journal 2015 and I'm so happy with it: it's such a beautiful layouted, inspiring journal to write on and there's no better way to note down deadlines or the contacts you need to take note of than a beautiful and colourful paper, right?

NOTEPADS :: I've always been a to-do lists fan. There's something so satisfactory in the act of ticking things off that I can't even explain. For blogging, notepads are essentials to me, especially to write down blog posts ideas or things that I have to get done the current or next day. The Muji Notepad is minimal and lovely, such a great helper to me to brainstorm my blog posts ideas and to keep things on track with my blog, life and business.

HARD DISK :: My boyfriend has spent days of his life explaining to me why an hard disk is important. I still rarely remember to save a backup of my files on there, but if one thing is for sure, investing in a hard disk is always a good idea, not only for blogging, but for everything you do really!

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That's it, everything I need for blogging in a nutshell. I'd love to get to know what other fellow bloggers use on a daily basis! x

Miel Café is one! + Treats Pouch Giveaway

One year ago Miel Café was born after long years of exploring the blogging world and finding my own path. Miel Café has been a project, sometimes something even bigger I ever thought it would be, and opened my way to exciting opportunities and helped me discover my way through photography, writing, baking and crafting! As cheesy as it sounds, all of this is thanks to the readers that have found this blog helpful or interesting, that have commented my posts and supported me during this journey, it's thanks to all the people that believed in this project and helped me keep going and keep this blog of mine alive this long - and it never really happened to me that a little hobby like this one lasted that long!

To celebrate Miel Café's first birthday, I want to thank who really made this happen, YOU! I've put together a little pouch filled with cute stationery, treats and a few of my favourite little objects to spoil one of you and say thank you for being so supportive, encouraging and lovely to me! Here is to a lot more years of blogging, exploring, discovering and sharing new passions, recipes, clothes, craft projects and all that comes with having a blog and being engaged with such an awesome readership! Thank you!

Petite Mila Party Pouch ; Yankee Candle Lovely Kiku Tart ; Muji Green 0.38 Gel Pen ;

Ikea Notepade and 4 Ikea Cards ; Cat Bangle.

The giveaway is international and to enter you just need to follow the Rafflecopter form below! You'll need to be a follower of my blog and leave a comment right below to unlock some other entries! The giveaway starts today and ends on Saturday 25th April, h. 12.00 AM GMT+1. The winner will be announced on Twitter and contacted by email.

GOOD LUCK!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Let's catch up!

With this blog of mine and my little design business coming to one year of existence in less than a month, I'm so enthusiastic about how things turned out for both of them. I've been extremely busy designing blogs, headers, creating illustrations and coding templates this past months that either I can't remember when I started nor I can see an end to it, and it's just amazing if you ask me! An year ago I had this few ideas in mind that I wouldn't have ever thought they would have become what they are right now! But working from home everyday can be overwhelming sometimes, especially if you forget when the working day starts and ends and that your lunch should be in the kitchen and not at your workspace.

Blessing yoga for its existence! Even if I only take an hour for myself, it totally makes the difference! I'm so into this challenge - I'm at day 25 - almost over! - but if when I started I thought I would have been tired of it by this time, I'm actually so enjoying it right now that I already worry about what I'll do when it's over! I guess I'll re-start it or practice what I've learned so far... And to treat myself for all the hard work, I might or might not have bought some yoga gear that was on my wishlist for a very long time!

Since I have your attention, I wanted to ask you a little favor! You know how I love to cook and bake and share my recipes, and how hard I try to make them be as healthy as I can and yet delicious and nice looking in my posts, so I'd be extremely grateful if you could nominate Miel Café at the Saveur Blog Awards 2015! They reward blogs that talk about food in all its forms and nominations close tomorrow! It'll totally make my day if you have two spare seconds to nominate my blog!

What are you up to lately? Let's chat in the comment box! x

My Top 10 Photography + Editing Tips

Many years of blogging mean that I had to discover the reality of photography and photo editing quite a long time ago; things have changed quite a lot from when I began, from my kit to my editing softwares to even my personal taste. My photography is still evolving and I'm still trying to get better at it and sometimes it still feels frustrating not to be able to take the perfect shot I figured in my head, but every time it's worth trying hard, and step by step photography is becoming everyday more fascinating and intriguing to me that now I don't only want to take pictures just for the sake of putting some kind of images in my blog posts anymore, but instead everytime I have my camera on hand, I'm loving to learn something new, improve and get better!

Some of you asked a few times about my photography and editing process and so I thought it was finally time to put together a photography tips post. Just to note it somewhere, I'm no expert by any means and what I'm writing is all self-taught, I'm still trying to improve my photography, define my style and surely I know nothing about professional photography but what I talk about is only my own little experience from blogging and photography for leisure! I think tips posts are not to take too seriously, everyone needs to find his/her own niche in everything in life, but I do love reading about other bloggers creative processes and sometimes I also find it quite useful and helpful, so here you go!

• My Photography Essentials •

You'll find a myriad of photography blog posts that'll tell you it's not the kit that makes a good photographer and his work respectable, and I do agree, I still use my very old iPhone 4 to shoot pictures for my Instagram, but I do also think it has a lot of limits and I am aware I can't snap a nice picture with it in bad lighting conditions! As well as I'm aware I won't obtain a nice blurred effect in my the background of my pictures with my old compact... Yes, even my current DSLR has limits and there will always be some better tools than what we own, but I personally couldn't do with a compact anymore.

My tip would be to invest wisely on what you really need. I've lived without a tripod until a few months ago, and yes, it now makes me life so much easier, but I have always took pictures even without it! I can't complain though, the tripod + remote shutter combo is making my life comfortable! I have a Nikon D3100 which is a good camera for being so inexpensive, and as much as I liked the kit lens, I think an additional lens can do all the difference. I have the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G Lens that again, even being very inexpensive, is exactly everything I need. It's a great one for the blurred background effect - if you were asking! I noticed a huge change in the quality of my pictures and now I feel totally at ease with my current lens and the final result! But I'll talk about my blogging kit again and more in detail soon!

Lighting? I always shoot my pictures in natural light! Try to find a nice lighted spot in your house and stick with it. However sometimes even if the room seems a little too dark you can get very nice pictures in there too with the right settings!

• My Photography Tips •

To me photography is a big part of blogging and only recently I started realizing that what draws readers to a post at first are surely pictures and not words, and this is why I decided to make an effort and bring nice images to everyone of my posts. This has began by adding a few more pictures to my posts instead of going for only one (just for the sake of having one!) and this not only helped me a lot at finding my photography style, favourite angles and spots where to shoot, but also required that I got a bit more creative with my backgrounds and poses to add a little something special to each and every snap. It's been a very long process, but here's what I've learned...

1 :: DEFINE YOUR STYLE
I was seeing pictures everyday on blogs and social medias and there's a time in every blogger's life when you feel like you could do a lot better and your blog could have a lot nicer pictures, so I tried and inspired to my favourite pictures from other blogs. There's no need to feel like you're "copying" that photography style or "wrongly emulating" that other, because briefly you'll find a mix of things you saw from others and things you discovered yourself from your own pictures, is what you look for in a shot and what define your own style. It will evolve with you, probably everyday it will be different, but that's totally fine!

2 :: GET CREATIVE
As I said when you try to shoot different pictures for one post of maybe only a few objects, only one outfit or one recipe, you'll find yourself trying to *not* make them look all the same and boring several times.

I love playing with different backgrounds: I've built a wooden board from scratch that is great to fake white floorboards, wooden table or surface. If you don't have a white surface where to take your flat lays, no worries, paper exists! Create your background with different textures, use blankets, paper, towels and objects that look nice in the context!

3 :: EXPERIMENT
One thing I think it's truly important is to start shooting in manual, experiment with the settings and get to know your camera. With photography I've learnt there's always something new to discover everytime and there's no magic formula, just take some time to set your camera and get to deeply know its full potential! It will totally up your photography game! Also try different angles! I'm definitely a fan of flat lays recently, but I do like to experiment and each and everyone of the pictures I take has at least one almost identical sister taken with a slightly different angle. It is important to experiment and try even what you thought you'd not like that much, it could surprise you!

4 :: BE IN YOUR PICTURES
Maybe it's only a personal preference, but I have noticed since when I started to be present in my blog pictures I feel more engaged with my blog and my readers, and I personally love seeing other bloggers do the same. Even if it's only a hand or a pair of feet, it totally makes the difference to me!

5 :: TAKE YOUR TIME
Taking pictures is not a thing of 5 minutes. Shooting for only one post can take me even two or three hours - usually cooking posts! - and I won't be completely satisfied if I'm on a rush. I like to set a day when to shoot my pictures for a few posts, so that I know that day I have time and space to do it with my own times. Taking pictures at a few products might seem quick, but it can take up to an hour to get those perfect angles expecially if you are in the pictures!

6 :: PUSH YOURSELF BUT DON'T BE TOO HARD
I'm very pretentious with my photography (oh I can't even remember how many times I have nearly cried - I'm exaggerating - because I wasn't able to shoot in my ideal conditions of light! And my poor boyfriend knows something about it!) and I like to have a set idea of how I want my pictures to be, from the background, the positions, the angles. It's nice to have goals and reach them, but sometimes it's also right to accept your work and don't stress too much about it. If the lighting it's not perfect, that's where the editing comes into play, if the pictures is not symmetrical or straight, you can always rotate and crop it afterwards. And sometimes your work is beautiful even if you can't see it yet - but others will surely appreciate it!

• My Editing Tips •

For years I've used Adobe Photoshop to edit my pictures and it still is an essential to me but I've discovered Lightroom a few months ago and since then I'm not going back! I thought it would be a pain to learn a new software after so many years of using Photoshop, but Lightroom is just the easiest to use, it's very intuitive and yet super effective and I've seen a huge improvement in the quality of my final pictures since when I started using it instead of good old Photoshop. I do still use Photoshop to add text and maybe effects to my pictures, but only after editing them on Lightroom!

7 :: FIND YOUR STYLE
As with photography, editing is all about defining your own style. To me it's all about the bright neat pictures, but others like their pictures to be smoky, darker, soft, warmer, cooler, it's all about your personal taste!

8 :: PLAY WITH YOUR IMAGE EDITOR
Take your time to discover your image editor full functionalities and you'll be surprise by how good your pictures will look afterwards! I started thinking I wouldn't be able to get anything nice out of Lightroom so I went for the preinstalled filters for a long time, only to realize I could do a lot better and something that suited my tastes a lot more only with a few adjustments.

9 :: EVERY PHOTO IS DIFFERENT
Do not start thinking "well, I can create a filter and apply it on all my images, that's it!" - every image is different, maybe shooted in different light conditions or even not but still slightly warmer/cooler than the previous. Yes, it's good to create a consistency between the colours and brightness of all your photos, but always remember to take time and make the adjustments needed to every one of your pictures.

10 :: DO NOT RESIZE
I like Lightroom because it doesn't even give you the option of falling into the temptation of resizing the pictures, but if you use Photoshop or other editors, do crop all the way, but never resize. Resized pictures will lose all the definition and the quality will be a lot worse. I can definitely see the quality of my post pictures is ten times nicer since when I stopped resizing them!

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And that's a wrap! This was kind of a general chat about photography and I know I didn't go into detail about my blogging kit or why I like a lens instead of another, but maybe I'll write about that another time! I don't feel very confident at writing this kind of tips post, but hopefully this was some sort of helpful! Let me know what are your top tips in photography! x

14 from 2014

In this very moment I'm tucked into bed with two thick blankets and a hot-water bottle piled on my belly reflecting on what my 2014 has been and what I want my 2015 to be, and I feel so lucky and blessed to be able to do what I do, to spend my life with the ones I love. Of course I have lots of goals and plans for the New Year but this one want to be a little recap of 14 favourite posts I've written in the past year on here, a few of the most popular and others that I think you might enjoy reading if you missed them! Here's to a new year of blogging consistently because blogging has definitely become my new happy place! ... and a very very happy New Year to you all lovely readers as well! x

check out my entire 2014 on Miel Café here!

OUTFITS ::  MIXED PRINTS // THE FIRST SNOW

RECIPES ::  AUTUMN POTATO SOUP // HOMEMADE GINGERBREAD LATTE
MIDNIGHT BROWNIES // CARAMEL HOT CHOCOLATE

LIFE ::  PERFECT ME TIME NIGHT IN // BE A SAFER BLOGGER
WHY TO STAY ON BLOGGER // MY CURRENT WORKSPACE

LIFE :: ON BEING AN INTERNATIONAL BLOGGER // BRING THE GYM AT HOME
WINTER VIBES // ONE YEAR TOGETHER

A Very Christmassy Treats Box Giveaway!

a christmas gift for you! ;

Everytime I think of this little blog of mine I feel so lucky to be able to do something so different, creative and special on a daily basis, but something even more special is being aware that there's people out there that share my same passions, that like to talk and interact with me about all thing beauty, style, food, life related that I share on here, and that I can somehow inspire someone else and document everything I like about what I do with a smile on the face thinking of all your lovely comments and support I've received during these past few months! As cheesy as it sounds, a blog can't be made only by a blogger, but there's much more behind it and readers and comments are the biggest motivation for me to keep it going and it's most probably thank to you, to the inspiring blogging and online world, that my creativity and inspiration stay always alive and I want and can share more and more contents over here!

I might sound sloppy at this moment, but the very first Christmas gift that I've put together this year is for you! It's to say thank you once again, to share the Christmas spirit as well as to give you back a little something for all the times you have stopped by my blog, maybe just to have a quick look or to leave a lovely comments. You might remember my first Giveaway's prize was a box full of treats, well I thought to bring the Treats Box back but this time I've put together a rather Christmassy one, including festive stationery, a little Yankee Candle treat, together with a few beauty and style picks.

Swarovski Elements Round Earrings | Yankee Candle Snowflake Cookie Tarts Wax Melts | Tiny Christmassy Scented Sachet for wardrobes & Drawers | Sweet Cecily's Mojito Flavour Lip Balm* |

Tiger Secret Diary | Heart + Roses Notebook | Naturelle Vanilla Almond Soap | + a litle tartan box!

The giveaway is international and to enter you just need to follow the Rafflecopter form below! You'll need to be a follower of my blog and leave a comment right below to unlock some other entries! The giveaway starts today and ends on Sunday 21st December, h. 12.00 AM GMT+1. The winner will be announced on Twitter and contacted by email.

GOOD LUCK! a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Treats Box | A Giveaway

TO SAY THANK YOU

There's no special occasion for this giveaway but only to say thank you to all of you who read and comment my blog and chat with me on Twitter, these are the things that make blogging one of the best things that happened in my life! My blog just recently hit 1200 followers which is crazy if I think it had less than half the number only a few months ago. I love this little space I've created and I'm everyday more and more proud of it. I wanted to do a birthday giveaway or find any other excuses for doing it, but instead I decided to just do it with no occasion at all, because this is just to say thank you and you don't need an occasion for that...

I put together a little Treats Box containing a few of my favourite beauty products and some cute little stickers that made me smile, plus the tartan box is obviously reusable. Hopefully this will make you smile too and one lucky winner will be able to bring them all home!

Paiandpear Stickers (Set of 4) | Caudalie Polyphenol c15 mini set of Serum* & Face Fluid* | Maria Galland Cream Eyeshadow 181* | L'Oréal Paris Ever Riche Absolute Oil Precieux | + a little tartan box!

The giveaway is international and to enter you just need to follow the Rafflecopter form below! You'll need to be a follower of my blog and leave a comment right below to unlock some other entries! The giveaway starts today and ends on Wednesday 24th September, h. 12.00 AM GMT+1. The winner will be announced on Twitter and contacted by email.

GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

On being an international blogger

As many of you would probably already know, I am Italian, live and blog from Italy. This may sounds nice and intriguing to some of you, but this also means I'm an international blogger, which has its long list of pros as well as a lot of cons. Being an international blogger it's a whole different story and there are times when I wish I was British, not kidding... but here is a list of pros and cons on being an international blogger!

PROS

. You can write in two languages, even though this is not my case! I decided to start writing only in English because I wanted to keep this blog always updated and it was difficult to write 4/5 posts a week when I had to manage two different languages in every post (which means double the work I do right now). Knowing two languages can be a pro and if you can manage to write in two languages your blog will for sure be open at more opportunities and maybe followers (not really sure about that though), but it's such a hard work!
. You have a completely different story to tell: something I love about reading lifestyle blogs is to get to know different cultures and habits and being an international blogger can make you more interesting as you might eat different food or have different habits than every other British blogger which is nice to share. And you know deep down people it's very curious...
. You can snap different places and probably people would be very interested in that as well because they can see places they don't usually get to see only by browsing your blog. However it's not as interesting as discovering new places where to eat or go and explore that are way closer to you...
. You have access to different products & brands - this can be a pro because it's nice to blog about your local products, however we have not access to a lot of interesting brands that everyone talks about and that's such a shame! Blessing the existence of online shops that ship internationally!

CONS

. You may feel excluded. Sometimes being an international blogger sucks: a lot of times I can't take part to chats or events due to the different timezone or location. Also I don't know the language as well as a native and not even close which can penalize me in the world of beautifully written blogs.
. PRs might reject you and this is sometimes that happens to me all the time. They write me emails about working with them and reviewing their products, and as soon as I reveal I'm Italian they simply don't ever get back to me or, in the best of the cases, they apologize but they don't work with bloggers that aren't based in the UK and it doesn't matter if the majority of my readers and visitors are British. This sucks and I always feel excluded and disappointed about these behaviors but it's our reality as international bloggers and since the majority of the times things go this way, you somehow get used to it.
. This can make you feel like your blog lacks in something but it's not true and I just recently learnt thinking this way. As soon as you get rejected by PRs or get criticize because you are not that good in English grammar, you'll feel like you lack in something and you won't ever see your blog growing as many others. But this is not true and if you're an international blogger, you can still have a successful blog and I like to think I'm growing with it everyday as well, because I get to practice my English and learn new things about me, writing, photography and a lot of other stuff like any other blogger do. And if PRs reject me, they simply don't know what they are missing...
. You won't be able to meet other bloggers, go to events or have access to all the most popular brands that everyone blogs about. If you live in a different location, you will for sure be penalized somehow. I had contacts with Italian PRs that keep also international well known brands when I was still writing both in English and Italian and that way I was able to take part of some blogger events (and I was very lucky because most of them were in Milan and I live there), but as soon as I quitted my own language, I've lost all of those contacts and of course I can't take part of events based in Britain being that I live in Italy. Also I have not access to a lot of brands I would love to try but that are not sold here in Italy.

Even though being an international blogger can be difficult sometimes, if you're an international blogger you will get used to it at some point. There are a lot of pros and cons and sometimes I find myself wishing I was British, but I love blogging and this is something I will keep doing even though I am aware a lot of other bloggers have a lot easier life! I don't like to get discouraged because of being international, I love my blog and what I do and what matters is that I'm proud of my contents and I always find blogging a way to grow a lot of my skills. And if you're an international blogger and are having a tough time to spread out your voice, you shouldn't ever get discouraged because your blog and work is worth like any other! You shouldn't feel constricted to write only in your own native language but you can really spread your voice internationally and learn a lot from doing it!

Why to stay on Blogger

More and more bloggers decide to make the big step of switching from Blogger to either Wordpress or Squarespace everyday. More and more bloggers post about how to migrate to another platform and why you should really do it. I started on Blogger and still have a Blogger blog and have always thought Blogger has its big big limits but only recently I could actually see how it's still pretty versatile and so decided to stick with it until I will actually really need something more. So I thought to write down a few points on why staying on Blogger isn't always a bad idea...

IT'S SUPER EASY!

Blogger is the way to start for a reason and it's because it very easy to manage, to understand where and what to do to simply write, add pictures and customize your blog as you like. For this reasons I think Blogger is so appropriate for beginners but not only them, since as you start becoming more expert, you can really start to enjoy it and customize your blog completely which to me is one of those things that come first.

IT'S FREE

Other platforms can have their several pros, but they come with a price and we all know it. With Wordpress you have to pay a web hosting service as well as your own domain to have complete control over your blog, while with Squarespace you still have to pay a fee per month. Blogger is free but again you can get so much out of it either with your posts as well as your blog's HTML which is almost completely customizable.

YOU CAN HAVE A UNIQUE BLOG

I think one problem with Blogger blogs is that all those minimal templates seems to look the same after a while and a no expert with HTML and CSS and other coding stuff can be penalized sometimes. However there are a lot of resources online for getting a more unique blog, one of them is Xomisse Blog which is full of beautifully explained and easy to follow HTML tutorials (and not only that...) that help you to do anything really. Or you can still select a blog designer you trust or you find that does more unique works and hire him to get a beautiful template. Forget the scheme of the basic Blogger "Simple Template" rule: your blog can really go so much different from that, it can seems it isn't a Blogger blog anymore, so find the good blog designer that can actually do that for you.

IT CAN BE SEO FRIENDLY

Maybe turning your Blogger blog into a SEO ready blog can be a little bit more difficult than if you're on Wordpress (but I actually don't really know) and you can be more limited with it, but you can still optimize your blog and make it SEO friendly and even simply buying a template that is SEO ready can be a good start.

RESPONSIVE IS POSSIBLE!

Sometimes people migrate to Squarespace or Wordpress just to have a responsive and mobile friendly design of their blog, but you can do it on Blogger as well and you can really customize it as you like. Again try to go for the designer that can bring you also a responsive Blogger design and that would do the trick.


I know Wordpress has a lot of amazing plugins that make things a lot easier and it must be the heaven for someone like me that works with HTML, JavaScripts and CSS for having all that freedom to create. I know sometimes you would love to have a flawless looking slideshow in your homepage that works wonders and have the coolest fading effects on it, or that on Blogger you can't have your own rating system (but you can still have your Like Button actually) or customize all the different pages with a different HTML, but what I want to say is that I actually don't earn anything with my blog at the moment and that's not even in my plans, but I can't justify to spend some money for my blog I can't get back through my blog. I do have bought a custom domain and other little things, but am not ready for the investment that another platform can be and I think a lot of you are in my same position, especially small blogs that still have to stand out. Investing in a good responsive and SEO friendly Blogger design can be a lot cheaper and easier than migrate, and for now I think it's just fine for me to stay here on Blogger and continue to experiment with it (because there's so much to learn and nothing is really impossible on here as well!). It just works fine with me at the moment and this doesn't mean it will work for everybody, but maybe a lot of you can still find some pros in a Blogger blog as I do. It's all about priorities!

I might will migrate to Wordpress in the future, but it's not going to happen in the foreseeable future and hopefully I was able to bring a little more information on Blogger blogs and dispel a few myths with this post.

What is your thought about migrating to another platform?

Blog rebranding

You may have noticed from my tweets or just visiting my blog the last few days, that Miel Cafè had a complete makeover and it's now all changed and prettier. I was planning to redesign my blog completely for a few months now, but I had no clue what to change for a while since I actually decided to sit down and concretely do something.

This wasn't my original project by any means, I actually didn't have a real original project if not some ideas and HTML codes and JavaScripts I wanted to use. Thanks to my boyfriend which had the major idea for this beautiful blog design, I was actually able to put together the blog design I'm most proud of and, yes, I'm super proud of myself for being able to do such things without any external help if not my boyfriend always suggesting lovely ideas to make it better. I can actually say this is the result of everything I learned during these past few months of designing other bloggers blogs, and it's so nice to see I could put every beautiful thing I learned into one blog design. I know, it feels like I'm talking of my wedding dress, but if you can get the most beautiful design you can put together it must be special and need to be the one. I don't think I would ever had asked something more or different to a more professional web designer than myself, so I'm super happy about it!

Up to the actually blog design, it was definitely inspired by the idea behind my blog of being a safe and comfy place that reflects my personality and the contents I like to produce. It wants to recreate a comfy Café's atmosphere and it's really personal being that every illustration and picture you can see in the design were photos taken by me of things I own and live with everyday. My primary requirement was to achieve an easier and nicer navigation experience, and I think the sticky navigation bar as well as the new pages appearance and the neat disposition of every gadget really make it so simple to find anything a reader might need.

I wanted my blog to have a face you can remember and enjoy, something that made it really special and different from any other, and the only solution I find was to actually inspire the design to myself as an individual different to any other one, with things I like and colors I love. Hopefully this will give its very own vibe to Miel Cafè, which is what I always look for.

You might want to take a look to my new Archive, the redesigned About Me & Miel Cafè page, the quicker Contact Form to ask me any questions you may have, as well as the new responsive and mobile friendly appearance of my blog (check it out here!).

Hope you enjoy the new Miel Café's interface!

{Weekend Discount} Only a few hours left!

Just a super quick mid afternoon post to remind you can still have a chance to claim your 20% off all the ad spots from my sidebar and sponsor my blog this month for super cheap: the small spots comes at only £3,5 and the large spot at only £9 this weekend only - only first 8 users until Monday h. 10am! Use the code OPENINGTHESIDEBAR at checkout to claim your 20% off! Also I still have a few free swap spots to be filled for the next month - find all the listings below or here...

Opening the sidebar (20% OFF)

Miel Café is growing pretty quickly recently and I'm so happy about my blog right now, I never felt so passionate about something like with this little space online, and being that I work on it and my little blog design business full time, I decided to open my sidebar to some sponsors.

Not that I think my blog will be the biggest in a few months, but recently I'm all about thinking about spamming and sponsoring your own blog and what it means to me, and I think it's so important to have a chance to stand out even if you're on a budget, have a little blog or business and can't stand out by your own between the sea of blogs nowadays. I do appreciate when big or small blogs give you the chance to advertise and place a little banner of your blog in their sidebar to drive you some traffics, especially when they think about bloggers on a budget. I also love swaps and think it's a great way to support other blogs you like while they are supporting yours.

Many and many blogs are opening their sidebars to some sponsors today, which with me is totally fine and I like to support them sometimes when I can especially blogs I really like. I don't really want to make my blog a business anytime, don't judge me, it's just that I work on it practically 24/7 and I just like the idea of helping others while others are helping me. This is a pretty scary step actually, I've been thinking about opening my sidebar from a while now and finally decided to just do it hoping you can appreciate. So I created a few packages which you can find here or here, and which include three swaps, eight small and one large ads per month. Hopefully you can find something for you between them whether you're looking for a free swap or a super affordable ad!

You can get 20% off everything from my sidebar this weekend (until Monday 30/06) using the code OPENINGTHESIDEBAR at checkout - ONLY first 8 users!

Here is a little summary of what I offer:
. Swaps - free little banner space at the bottom of the sidebar which still ensure visibility. Three places available per month, two displayed a time on rotation. This is completely FREE, all I ask for is my banner in your sidebar in return! I love swaps and I hope to find some good matches to my blog!
. Small - this is a super affordable ad space for blogs and business on a budget. Displayed in the middle of the sidebar eight a time with rotation for fairness, hopefully this will attract some of my readers which may will click on your banner. Coming at only ~ £4, I tried to make it the more affordable I could to help any blogger really!
. Large - coming at only ~ £11, I decided to offer also a large advertising spot, which will be accurately selected if there will be more options in order to fit with my blog. This will have a large ad space on top of every other banner and there will be only one available per month. This advertiser will have a dedicated q&a post and two #ff on Twitter per month - it's the best and affordable way to increase your traffic!

- FIND OUT MORE HERE -

In May...

I'm so happy May is finally over as I had a really unlucky month and I just want to move on and hopefully June will be better. Through thick and thin though, the blog is still here and had a few of my all time most popular posts this month, so here is a quick roundup of what happened in May...

One of my all time most popular posts went up at the very beginning of May and was my Asking For Beauty Samples feature, which gave you some tips on how to get a foundation/concealer sample according to my experience. Again on the beauty front I also shared my thoughts on the Tangle Teezer, written down a list of my combination skin heroes, had a tour inside my handbag and my on-the-go skincare staples, and took my first skincare diary. Not to mention the monthly beauty favourites are back and you can check out what I loved the last month here.

I had a really fun time baking and cooking this past month and one of my favorite thing to bake has to be my Lava Cake for two which is such a lovely dessert, but I also enjoyed sharing my super yummy Non-Dairy Tofu No-Meat Meatballs. Something a bit different was sharing a video for the first time here on the blog on my Whole-Wheat Pizza Muffins recipe which combines pizza and muffins together so you need to check it out if you didn't already!

I wrote down my first Life Snippets post in May and I really need to start sharing more posts like this in June, but for the rest two of the most exciting posts to write were my Gardening feature and my Relationship Memories Album post where I shared two super cute hobbies of mine. My all time most popular post was about my Be a Safer Blogger tips I've learned from the unlucky experience my blog had this most of being deleted by someone and being rebuilt from scratch by me.

As you can imagine, seeing your blog being deleted was a pretty unlucky and tough experience, but I'm over it now and am super excited about what June will bring me and my blog. So hopefully this fresh new start will only bring beautiful and exciting news in the upcoming future.

What were you up to in May?

Be a safer blogger

As some of you may already know, last week I experienced a super unlucky day waking up to the news someone stole and deleted my Google account. This go beyond losing an email account (which I used for three years and contained a lot of contacts I still could need anyway) and if you have a Google account yourself you may know everything Google related is connected to your account and if the latter went lost, you'll lose everything with it. This is exactly what happened with my blog, seeing it going was heartbreaking but, as someone said in my The Positive Side Of Being Unlucky feature, everything happens for a reason, and to me it was understanding how bonded I am to my little blog and how passionate I feel about it right now. Rebuilding it from scratch made me realize a lot of beautiful things and feelings I have for this blog, but I also learned I was very unwary with my account and I could had avoided all of it if I knew things don't always only happen to others and I needed to be a safer blogger since the beginning. Someone asked me for tips about how to be safer and how to secure your blogs, so I thought to share what I learned from this unlucky experience.

Some of this tips can be useful only to people who use Blogger or a Google account, but I think some of them can be adapted to any blog and platform out there, so hopefully there can be something for anybody. I learned that prevention is always better than a cure, so here are a few tips to prevent losing your blog:

• I was used to write my posts directly from the Blogger website and this means 1) things are a lot quicker as you don't have to copy and paste anything but also 2) you only have one single copy of every blog post and if you lose your blog for any reason you will lose everything with it. Download something like OneNote or Evernote on your computer and any other device you use for writing your posts and start writing from there as this not only is super easy and helpful for organizing your notes and posts and will allow you to write from any device, but will also keep your posts safe and you'll have a copy of every of them anywhere you are just in case.
• Something to do periodically and that I never ever did and maybe someone of you don't even know it's possible, is downloading a backup of your full blog. This takes only a few minutes but would have save my entire blog or part of it if I have ever done it. It's super easy: if you use Blogger, just go to Settings > Other and Export Blog. This will save a copy of your entire blog including all your posts with links and images and you can import this file any time to any other blogs if you need to.
• As you can export your blog posts you can also export your blog template by going to Template > Backup/Restore and chose Download Full Template. Being a blog designer myself I always suggest to download a backup of your current template before installing a new one, even if you still have the original template file with you, just because you may have added some javascripts, codes, CSS preferences that can go lost if you forget to download an updated backup. Of course if for some reasons you lose your blog, having a backup of your template comes super handy as all you have to do is reupload a single file and don't think about it anymore.
• Am I the only one who always ignores websites when they suggest to add and verify your phone number? Well, never do that. I've lost everything also because I didn't have a verified backup phone number. I know it can be a bit boring, but it actually takes only a few minutes and you won't have to do anything else until you change your phone number for any reason. This is super important as it's almost impossible that someone steals your account and your phone the same day, so you'll always have a way to fight it. Assign a backup phone number to any service you think is important to you, whether it's a Twitter account with a good amount of followers you are proud of, an email adress with important stuff in, a Paypal account in which you do keep your money.
• Use a good password. I know this sometimes is not useful at all - I had a super difficult password I never told anyone of but they still managed to steal my account - but sometimes could also save it all. Use letters, numbers and signs, uppercase and lowercase and make sure you use different passwords for every services as if you always use the same one and someone discovers it, he can steal everything.
• If you have a Google account, use the 2-Step Verification which is actually the best Google can do for protecting your account asking for a double check by tipying the right password and a unique code received via text on your phone which is different everytime. This is a bit of a pain if you use a lot of devices, but once you do it from your main computer and iPhone (or any other device you use regularly) it won't ask you to do it everytime if you tick that device as secure.
• Check if your backup phone number and email are updated and if not, remember to update them whenever you change your phone number or email adress. They are your only resource to recover a deleted account!
• Having a custom domain can be super helpful in these situations as if you just trust your free blogspot domain (for example mielcafeblog.blogspot.com) and your blog is deteleted for any reason, you can't ever have your domain back and all your readers who may remember your domain and type it for visiting your blog, will not be able to come back automatically. If you do have a custom domain, you can maintain it and use it on another blog/website if your original one goes lost, and you can then import your blog and have everything as it was before. Prices aren't that excessive at all, so you don't have any excuse!

A huge thank you to that boyfriend of mine which actually not only helped me in writing down this post and finding out the best ways to protect my new account and my blog, but also suggested me the best way for not losing everything I created and keep calm and start recreating everything with the minimun effort possible. Also a huge thank you to everyone who supported me during this unlucky experience and who tweeted me or commented my posts with such kind words. Hopefully these tips can come helpful to anyone who didn't know of how easy it is losing your beloved blog in only a few seconds, so that we can all be safer bloggers now!

Do you have any other tips or suggestions?

The positive side of being unlucky

Recently it was a very unlucky period of my life, in a week or so I fell down the stair and now I'm bounded in bed with a bandaged foot, someone deleted my Google account and my blog with it, more than 200 blog posts and a three years old blog went lost in only a few minutes and with them all my sample blogs for my design business. It may sounds nothing to a lot of you, but when blogging is part of your life whether is a business or a passion, whether you just started it or you passed a few years of your life building it step by step, seeing it disappear in front of your own eyes really makes you feel sad.

I don't know what is going on with me recently, but I still can find some positive aspects in all of this unluckiness I'm experiencing, I feel like I'm a lot more a positive person recently, and I'm so passionated to my blog and my little business that I can't let someone lets me down. I immediately started rebuilding all my design's sample blogs, saved the most recent posts I uploaded on my blog and reuploaded all of them one by one by hands, redesigned my blog and fixed everything else. It took me two days of work but I'm finally back blogging and I couldn't be more happy about that! I can't have my entire blog back as it was before, but I can still blog and speak to all of you, so it can't be so bad, right? Anyway I thought I could share a little list of positive aspects of experiencing this unlucky period, hoping to bring some positivity in your life as well.

- Losing your blog even only for a pair of days makes you see how passionate you really are about it and I discovered I live my little blog like if it was an extension of myself, I just can't imagine it to do not exist anymore and it never crossed my mind to use what happened as an excuse to stop blogging.
- At least I have no more embarrassing old posts written three years ago.
- Last year I was one of those bloggers who uses way too many labels with the result that I recently didn't even know where to start to decimate them, but being that I have to start from a brand new blog, I now can manage them more wisely.
- While rebuilding my design's sample blogs I had the opportunity to fix some coding errors I couldn't see before.
- Being bounded in bed for ten days is not that bad if I still have a blog to write on and paper, brushes and watercolors to paint something nice and be creative.
- It's super lovely when you realize people really love you and would do anything to make your worst days better.
- I'm reading a lot of beautiful written blog posts and discovering a lot of new blog I love.
- I reached 800 blog followers this week, and this is amazing, thank you!
- I have so many supportive followers and I can't thank enough anyone who commented on my last post What happended to Miel Café? and who tweeted me about my blog's unlucky experience.
- Right now I'm writing this post in my garden with birds tweetering in the background and a super nice warm spring weather, so I can't really feel unlucky at all.

Being aware of who I am, I would say only a few months ago I would had cried seeing my blog being deleted by someone so mean to take me away something I love so much, I would say I may had let him let me down and never restarted my blog from scratch like I'm doing right now, but now I feel so positive and passionated about this little online space of mine that I can't let everything simply disappear, so Miel Café is still here and I'm still blogging as usual no matter what it happened!

What happened to Miel Cafè?

My blog Miel Café has been deleted by someone who decided to play me a bad joke deleting my Google account. I luckly could transfer my domain to another blog, but now I've lost all my blog posts, template, comments. Please bare with me while I reupload my most recent posts and my design, then I'll start post as normal again!