Today’s a very special day for this blog, finally turning two years old!

I know in this kind of posts people go like “Whoa, where’s the time gone”, but although I do think this last year of blogging flew by, I guess in my mind it still feels like I’ve been updating this blog for a much longer time! I obviously have been all nostalgic and all and been browsing through all posts from this last year since a couple of hours now, and it’s making me realize how much I enjoy and have enjoyed blogging, and how precious this small space of internet can be, thanks to all the moments captured and framed somewhere tangible rather than only in our memories!

With this blog I’m being very happy about all the opportunities thrown at me, the lovely comments that allow me to get to know like-minded people, who so kindly read what I ramble about on here, a lot better, the tips and suggestions I get to share on here, whether it’s a product or a real life experience, and discovering my posts can actually help someone, but especially about the mind-blowing overwhelming support of readers and fellow bloggers!

So what’s next on Miel Café? I really hope I can keep posting as much as I do now and I can keep improving my photography and writing each day! I promise I’ll share more recipes and travel posts in the next months, but all in all, although I’m sure one can and should always try and get better at anything really, I’ve reached a happy balance with this blog recently and all I’d like to ask is that it keeps being this fun!

I want to say thank you, because I don’t very often. I’d like to reply to all your lovely comments and I would do it if my days had a couple more hours available to tick things off my to-do lists, but I thought a gift for you could sort it out! It does include pretty stationery… so am I pardoned? Actually, I’ve put together a little package of all my favourite little things to spoil one lucky reader!

So thank you for being this kind to me and sticking with me and Miel Café all this time! Hope you’ll stick around for next year’s adventures too!

What’s included…

Season Paper Jardin Notebook ; Oana Befort Deer Temporary Tattoo ; Iconic A6 Monthly Planner ;
Muji Gel Ink Light Blue Pen ; Yankee Candle A Child’s Wish Tart ; Tiger Animal Clips

Good Luck!

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 24th April, h. 12.00 AM GMT+1. The winner will be announced on Twitter and contacted by email!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

It has been a year since the last time I decided to start afresh with this blog and I haven’t regretted the decision ever since! Deciding to start writing about what I truly love on here has been so lovely and opened my way towards some great opportunities. If you have landed on this page in the last couple of days you might have noticed that things have been changing (I apologize if you have seen error pages way too many times!).

I’ve written a post about why I liked to have a Blogger blog almost a year ago and I still believe Blogger is a great place to start, though at a certain point I started wanting more. I am a coding lover, as you might have noticed, and Blogger just didn’t make the cut for me and my blog anymore. I’ve come to the point to realize I want to take my blog serious, that I want this space to be more than a hobby to me, as well as my passion for web design to be more than a passion. I needed to have certainty in it, and Blogger wasn’t the right place to keep this thing going anymore. It all started one year ago, and maybe I wasn’t completely ready to make the big step, but now things have changed and it was quite about time to make the switch!

I’d never seen a WordPress admin panel before a month ago, but I wanted to take the challenge and start everything from scratch with the design, hence why I was able to keep my “signature” interface for this blog, by putting the theme together from zero to what it is now. It’s far from being perfect and I have a lot to learn, but I’ll take it as a new exciting adventure: I can’t wait to learn more! I’ve almost cried a few times, have had way too many headaches and couldn’t seen an end to it for too many times, but maybe it is why now I feel so satisfied and happy with the result.

I was finally able to put together an archive page like I wanted it to be (it has probably been the main challenge, being new to all the WordPress coding rules), to add a few new features to the design, make it easier for readers to browse through it and redesign what I didn’t love anymore about it.

It’s not only that, I have a few other news in store as well, but I’ll keep you hanging a bit more about them. If you want to be the first to know, don’t forget to sign up to Miel Café’s newsletter by filling up the form under this post or here! I hope you all like the new website and enjoy the new features of the blog design! x

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!

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

Stay up to date!

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; width:90% !important}
/* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.
We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */