Archive for: PR

Jeska Hearne is the creator of Lobster and Swan, a brand-new entry to our ranking of  Top 10 Interior Design Blogs. With dark moody colours mixed with a  rustic style, Jeska brings the colours from outside, inside. We caught up with Jeska to talk about how the seasons affect her content, her favourite collaborations and the one thing PRs should know about her.

How has your blog changed over time?
Apart from the layout and my style evolving, not much. It’s still all about life, interior and home styling with the things I love and find inspiring thrown in too.

How would you describe your style?
Rustic, rescued, romantic and bohemian.

What makes a great interior design blog?
For me, the images need to be beautiful and engaging first, but I love all aspects of interiors!

What’s the split between your own creations/designs and featuring others’?
It’s a good mix of both depending on how much time I have to post. I love sharing new interiors books and small or inspiring businesses. When we manage to finish renovating the older rooms here, or new areas we’ve created, I always want to share them – but it is a juggling act to make time to shoot and style them in between running our online store, The Future Kept, and other freelance work we do.

What’s your favourite room in the house and why?
At the moment, I am totally in love with our bathroom, it is all dark and moody with botanicals and a feeling of calm – on clear nights I can take a bath with the windows open and see the stars.

How do the seasons affect your content?
Very much, we are totally in tune with the seasons here, I love to garden and I love the tones that each season brings, so the palette of my images on Instagram gently follows a seasonal feeling.

What’s your favourite household object/item?
This changes all the time – I love our rustic handmade shelves and our bed is definitely a happy place – so cosy and comfy – but I also love all the different artworks we have collected over the years too.

What one thing should PRs/brands know about you?
I am most interested in beautiful, functional products, made sustainably and ethically, or produced in the UK.

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve recently worked on?
For fast room mood changes I love to re-fresh the paint colour of a room – Farrow & Ball and Cassandra Ellis have been great – I love working with them and their colours. Styling a bench three different ways with Sofa.com was fun, I also worked with Leesa when they launched too and theirs really is the best mattress we’ve ever slept on, we love it!

Do you think bloggers need their own industry association?
Probably, but that sounds stressful!

What other blogs do you read?
My top five in no particular order are: SF Girl by Bay, Apartment Apothecary, Littlegreenshed, Curate and Display and These Four Walls.

Choosing to remain anonymous The Pub Curmudgeon shares their thoughts on all things beer and pubs. Recently ranked in the Top 10 Beer Blogs, The Pub Curmudgeon chatted about about whether pubs are dying out, the best brewery and whether bloggers should have their own association.

How has your blog changed from when you first started?
The biggest change is that a lot of the one-liners and links to articles have moved to Twitter, so it now tends to concentrate on longer, more considered pieces.

What’s your favourite ale?
Impossible really to name just one, but if forced to I’d pick Batham’s Best Bitter, a wonderfully complex, subtle and deceptively drinkable beer.

What’s the best brewery?
One from the select band of independent family brewers that have survived the past forty-odd years and are still flying the flag for traditional British beers, such as Hook Norton and Harveys.

Where’s your favourite pub?
The Black Horse at Clapton-in-Gordano in Somerset, which claims to date back to the 14th century and retains an unspoilt interior of great character. It continues to be a proper local pub and not just an eating house.

Are pubs in danger of dying out?
Not really, but various social and legislative changes over recent decades have made their appeal much narrower than it used to be.

If you were running a dream pub, what would you have on draft?
My dream pub would be aimed at a wide cross-section of people, not just beer enthusiasts. I’d start with Draught Bass and whatever “ordinary” bitter the locals were most keen on.

What one thing should PRs know before contacting you?
The dishwasher. And the dyson. Anything that makes my life easier.

What one thing should PRs/brands know about you?
I have a good face for radio.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
I’ve not really gone in much for collaborations, but one memorable one was last Autumn when Martin Taylor, Richard Coldwell and I had a day out in Leicester and each blogged about it from our different perspectives.

Do you think bloggers need their own association?
No. Bloggers cover a huge range of standpoints and it can’t really be said that they have a collective interest.

What other blogs do you read?
I follow a wide range of blogs, but three I would pick out are Retiredmartin, Tandleman and Velvet Glove, Iron Fist.

Kate Williams is the face behind craft blog, Crafts on Sea, which was recently ranked in our Top 10 UK Craft Blogs. Crafts on Sea has hundreds of ideas for all seasons, from Halloween masks to Christmas gifts. We spoke to Kate about what makes the craft blogger community so great, her favourite campaigns to work on and why you shouldn’t pay her in paint!

How has your blog changed from when you first started?
It’s both more professional and more focused. When I started it was very much that I wanted to do some crafts myself, and use the blog as a way of encouraging myself to do more, but over the years it’s turned into a business as I started looking to what my readers wanted, rather than just myself.

In the early days I had photos in a national newspaper that I took on my dodgy old phone, whereas now doing a craft involves getting my rather large lighting kit and DSLR out!

What’s the craft blogger community like? 
Lovely. Almost every gain I’ve made with my blog has been due to someone else helping me out; explaining Facebook tips, helping with my photography or whatever. I tend to chat with the kid bloggers too – there’s a big international group who all chat and it’s fantastic to be a part of that.

Do you think crafts are more important in the digital age?
Well both my kids have a kindle that they love so I’d say yes – there’s lots of things like Batman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle crafts on my site which are a direct result of me trying to think of crafts my son would actually get excited about and want to do, so he wants to turn the TV off.

Having said that, my daughter loves Mister Maker and is always inspired by him so there’s definitely room for both. As a blogger I spend loads of time online, so acting like anything screen based is bad in front of my kids won’t really wash with them.

Do you have to be artistic to be good at crafts?
I don’t think I’m that artistic, I’m terrible at drawing and wasn’t even given the option of taking GCSE art (although as a dyslexic I was given the option of drawing my dissertation!) A bit of creativity and not being scared to make mistakes works well enough I think.

What’s the easiest craft you’ve made?
A paper plate hulk mask? Well actually my son made that one though, which made it even easier for me.

What’s the hardest?
Honestly there’s nothing difficult on my site that I can think of, my main issue is cleaning the paint off things!

What are the best PR/brand campaigns you’ve worked on?
I’ve loved working with The Big Shot on a couple of campaigns for children’s books. I’ve done crafts for Julia Donaldson, Emily Gravett and Sue Hendra’s books who I adore so it’s been a really fun challenge.

What shouldn’t PRs do?
Offer to pay you in kids paint.

Do you think bloggers need their own industry association?
To be honest bloggers talk to each other. There will always be people who are willing to do a sponsored post for £20 and if someone needs £20 then that’s totally their choice so I don’t think there needs to be set fees or anything. But if you fail to pay someone or treat them badly then it does get found out and talked about. In fairness I totally expect that the same thing happens amongst PR’s if they have issues with a blogger

What other blogs do you read?
Loads! I love Lulastic and the Hippy Shake and obsessively follow Glennon Doyle who used to write Momastery on Instagram and Facebook because she is all sorts of awesome.

Rachel Newcombe is the creator of Fresh Design Blog, which was recently ranked in the Top 10 Interior Design Blogs. Sharing design ideas and how-to guides, Fresh Design Blog gives readers plenty of inspiration of how to bring a contemporary design style into their house . We spoke to Rachel about what makes a great interior design blog, the best campaigns and collaborations she’s worked on and whether it’s time for a blogging industry association.

How has your blog changed over time?
Fresh Design Blog has been running since 2009, so it has inevitably changed and evolved. When it first launched, I wrote short posts every day, but now I tend to publish two or three longer posts per week. The style of posts has changed slightly too, with a better balance of product ideas, décor and how to guides, and freelance journalist Sara Walker now helps by contributing two posts a month.

How would you describe your style?
All the content on the blog focuses on modern and contemporary interior design style.

What makes a great interior design blog?
A well-balanced combination of interesting and relevant content plus quality images. It’s not just about the blog these days either – social media and the different benefits from each channel, plus interaction with readers, definitely helps too.

What’s the split between your own creations/designs and featuring others’?
Fresh Design has always focused more on featuring designs and ideas from other companies, including well-established names and up-and-coming designers. But if I happen to have a project on the go, or am working on a collaboration, then it does of course feature my own creations and photography.

What’s your favourite room in the house and why?
Probably the living room, as it’s the part of the house where we tend to gather, socialise and relax. I love the fact that we’ve got a huge window, which lets lots of natural light in throughout the year, bringing the outside in, especially during the summer months as it leads onto the garden and outside dining.

How do the seasons affect your content?
The seasons have a big influence on content. I love discovering all the latest trends and new product lines throughout the year, as well as predictions for future trends. I tend to find that Q4 and Q1 each year are usually the busiest times on the blog, as that’s when people are most likely to be looking for home decorating ideas, Christmas décor and of course shopping for gifts. There have already been lots of recent hits on our previous Christmas content, both on the blog and via Pinterest. In the past, I avoided mentioning Christmas too soon, but seasonal posts are getting earlier in line with demand.

What one thing should PRs/brands know about you?
I get hundreds of emails every day, and am juggling other freelance writing work too, so can’t always reply immediately to everything. I tend to prioritise replying to the emails that are relevant and properly targeted.

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve recently worked on?
To be honest, I’ve been a bit more selective this year with the number of campaigns and collaborations I’ve worked on, to ensure they’re fully relevant to the blog. I like anything that’s a bit different and quirky. For example, I worked with Dr Beckmann’s Carpet Stain Remover earlier in the year highlighting the work of an artist who created art using the carpet cleaner, which was rather unusual! More recently I’ve discovered lots of tips and tricks for livening up and decorating skirting boards in contemporary ways, whilst collaborating with a skirting board company.

Do you think bloggers need their own industry association?
Given how much the industry has expanded, I think it could be a useful move.

What other blogs do you read?
Loads! When I first started, there weren’t that many UK interior design blogs, so I mostly read US blogs, but now I’m spoilt for choice. I enjoy reading the latest posts on other interior design blogs such as Swoonworthy (love Kimberley’s eclectic boho glam style), The Design Sheppard (Stacey writes great in-depth posts), Dear Designer’s Blog (Carole shares some amazing spaces), Making Spaces (Karen Knox is a talented interior designer and creates wonderful modern decor), The White Approach (where Karen shares her love of all things white in the home) and Love Chic Living (Jen comes up with some good design ideas for a family home).

Antonia Ludden is the blogger behind #tidylife, which was recently named in the Top 10 Interior Design Blogs. Antonia provides her readers with practical advice on how to keep a clutter-free home without losing their personal style. We spoke to Antonia about her own personal style, how she works with PRs and why bloggers need their own association.

How has your blog changed over time?
Quite a lot, actually. When I started out in 2012 I was more focused on upcycling old furniture and finding good storage solutions for my kids’ toys – I even thought about selling storage boxes through the site (hence the blog’s name), but in the end didn’t pursue that. As time went by the blog evolved more into home design in general and, more recently, occasional lifestyle topics that appear to be popular with readers, such as health, fashion and beauty.

How would you describe your style?
I like a variety of home interior styles, which is reflected in my own home – I’ve embraced both the ‘dark side’ with our moody front room that features industrial lighting, lots of wood and dark walls, but I also appreciate a fresh contemporary interior, which is how I would describe our light and bright family room. I’m also quite drawn to nature in the home, so you’ll often find me styling with plants and different textures.

What makes a great interior design blog?
I think one that delivers plenty of straightforward home improvement ideas and advice along with decorating tips and styling inspiration. I like quick fixes and fun ways to refresh a room, so I enjoy magazine type blogs that feature a mix of emerging trends, shopping guides, real homes etc.

What’s the split between your own creations/designs and featuring others’?
I’ve found it increasingly hard to feature my own home regularly, as blogging takes up so much time – all the ‘back end’ stuff and keeping on top of social media and pitching for work. When I’m busy creating content for brands, I’m not getting the time to do the projects in my own home that I’d like to feature on the blog! But this is my job and paying bills has to take priority over the DIY & decorating. Sadly, I don’t earn enough from my blog to pay for professional decorators!

What’s your favourite room in the house and why?
I think our front room is my favourite, due to the features it has – the exposed floorboards, the large angled bay window and the fireplace. However, I don’t get to spend much time in it as it is mainly used by my sons as their gaming space! I will reclaim it one day… fingers crossed.

How do the seasons affect your content?
I love a seasonal change! It’s a great opportunity to refresh the blog and its content. I’m likely to feature lots of cosy homeware items and warm metallics in autumn-winter and lots of plants in spring-summer!

What’s your favourite household object/item?
Probably my coffee machine as I’m such a coffee addict!

What one thing should PRs/brands know about you?
That I will go the extra mile to deliver what the brand or PR is looking for – I like to give added value and exceed expectations so that they’re happy they chose me to work with and might want to partner with me again in the future.

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve recently worked on?
I’ve loved working with BoConcept Manchester recently as we’ve established a nice, ongoing relationship. Because they’re local, I can call in and meet face to face, see their latest collections up close etc – with so much communication online these days, it’s nice to connect with people in real life and I think it can really enhance a collaboration.

Do you think bloggers need their own industry association?
Yes, I would like to see that happen as it is a fast-paced, ever-changing industry and working solo, as most of us are, we have to turn our hand to everything and become experts. Even those who have blogged for a long time could use the support and guidance of a professional bloggers association, I’m sure, so I think it could only be a good thing.

What other blogs do you read?
Although I don’t have loads of time to read other blogs regularly, I dip into quite a few when a feature catches my eye or if I’m looking for decorating or blogging advice, or design inspiration. I like to see what my blogging friends are writing about and the different projects they are up to in their own homes. Quite often I’ll stumble upon new blogs by scrolling through Pinterest. The first blog I ever read was IHeart Organizing and I still like to look at that from time to time when I need any home organisation or storage ideas as I’ll admit I’m not the most tidy person in the world!