vlogging

SophieCountsClouds Vlogmas 2020

2020, christmas

Hello!

It’s been a strange year and I never thought I’d close it out the way I started my YouTube channel seven years ago with Vlogmas (2013 – a throwback and a half!). I finished my masters dissertation at the beginning of November and by December I was ready for a new project – something to focus on while I was applying for jobs.

So I thought I’d make a post with all the videos I made for Vlogmas this year – there’s a full playlist on my channel if you fancy a bit of background noise in the limbo between Christmas and New Year!

Vlogmas 1 – Life Update – I’m Doing Vlogmas?

I hadn’t made a video for a while so a little introduction and announcing I was doing Vlogmas was in order!

Vlogmas 2 – Christmas Decorating

A cute little time-lapse montage of decorating our little house with my fiancé! He had a cold so was feeling a bit sorry for himself, but we put up the tree and put window sticker snowflakes in our front window!

Vlogmas 3 – Homemade Snowman (no snow required)

I’ve mentioned my cotton wool ball snowman a few times this Christmas, but I’m so proud of him! I called him Frank and I think he looks great.

Vlogmas 4 – Festive Garden Centre Trip

I’ve been making garden centre vlogs for literally years, 2020 is no different! Even in lockdown!

Vlogmas 5 – Animal Crossing Island Tour

I’ve been playing Animal Crossing a lot in the last few months (wrote a whole blog post about it…) so I thought I’d do a little island tour!

Vlogmas 6 – Crafts and Chats

I love crafting at the moment so I thought it would be fun to do a little series called ‘Crafts and Chats’ – except in this one I was making a Christmas present so I couldn’t show anything!

Vlogmas 7 – My Hogwarts house has changed?

A minor identity crisis where I evaluate and explain why I think I’m now a Ravenclaw rather than a Hufflepuff! Not that it actually matters…

Vlogmas 8 – Hair, hot chocolate and the R number

I just sat down and had a natter because that was the content I enjoyed filming the most and I wanted Vlogmas to be fun to film, easy to edit and stress free!

Vlogmas 9 – House Plants and Planning the Garden

I’ve become quite the green fingered hobbyist this year and my little indoor jungle brings me a lot of joy so I thought I’d talk through my little collection and my plans for next summer!

Vlogmas 10 – Why I Regret My Masters Degree

I couldn’t make a festive video every single day! My masters has been… a ride, so I wanted to put my experience in a video for anyone else not sure if it’s the choice for them!

Vlogmas 11 – Making Paper Chains

Crafts and Chats part 2, but with a craft I didn’t have to hide from the camera! If you could even consider it a craft haha!

Vlogmas 12 – Skincare ‘Routine’

I love all the products I have for my skincare, I just don’t use them regularly enough to quantify it as a ‘routine’… But it meant I actually did my skincare for once!

Vlogmas 13 – All my mid/plus size Christmas outfits!

I got to try tiktok transitions for the first time and I had too much fun.

Vlogmas 14 – Setting up my weekly bullet journal spread

I love bullet journalling, I needed to film 24 videos hence – two birds, one stone!

Vlogmas 15 – not my day

Whilst filming another video, my fiancé accidentally deleted the footage of the video I wanted to upload on this day, so a four minute one-take filler video it was!

Vlogmas 16 – PERFECT Hot Chocolate Recipe

I had to refilm this video as well, but I’ve been loving making my own hot chocolate so I thought I’d make a little video explaining how I do it!

Vlogmas 17 – making a Yule Log

Two baking videos in a row! I tried making a Yule Log and it looked surprisingly good! Can’t say it tasted good though.

Vlogmas 18 – Sleep Deprived Rambling (Crafts and Chats)

I needed to wrap a present so I used it for another crafts and chats! I hadn’t slept well, and this is what came out – enjoy!

Vlogmas 19 – I’m scared of making my first tiktok…

We love a bit of clickbait in the title! I had a ramble about why TikTok makes me feel old and why I’m intimidated to make my first video. Maybe in the New Year!

Vlogmas 20 – Wrap with Me!

Did I manage to wrap two whole presents before my camera battery died? Absolutely, but I still made a video out of it!

Vlogmas 21 – do I still want to make videos?

Having a little crisis about what I want to make… But it ends positively in the end!

Vlogmas 22 – making my own advent calendar (on a budget)

I decided to make an advent calendar for my partner this year so I thought I’d make a video detailing the process! It took a lot of organisation.

Vlogmas 23 – Christmas Eve Traditions

Traditions are just like long term routines, right? That’s probably why I love them!

Vlogmas 24 – Merry Christmas!

And The last one in the series! I made it to 24 videos!

It’s been lovely to have a project to work on this month that was actually fun and made me realise I do actually enjoy making videos and I want to get back into it with the mindset of enjoying feeling creative again!

Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!

Sophie xx

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December Goals

2020, crafting, goals, mental health

Hello!

Somehow we’re on the last month of the year, even though many of us are still mentally stuck in March! This year really has been a whirlwind hasn’t it? If you’d told anyone last year we’d spend half the year cancelling plans, wearing face masks to the shops and constantly being told to ‘think of the NHS’ while the government chronically under funds them and doesn’t value the true key workers in this pandemic, they’d laugh in your face! No way would we believe anything that drastic.

But here we are! The last month of the year; the home stretch!

Personally, I’m still taking things slow – this year has put a massive strain on everyone’s mental health and I need to take things slow for my own sake right now. I’m applying for jobs since finishing my masters and having had the worst luck after my undergrad in 2018 (hundreds of jobs, rejection emails basically every day for months, not a good time) I’m taking a much more gentle approach this time around. Rather than going all out putting lots of pressure on myself to ‘achieve’ by the end of the year, I’m going to try and achieve a better relationship with myself instead!

But as always, I’m setting five mini goals to focus on in December!

  1. Vlogmas! – I started my YouTube channel on December 1st 2013 doing Vlogmas – the challenge of making a video every single day of advent. Many YouTubers make daily vlogs, some do 24 days of content but either way I decided to give it another go this year – this is where it all began for me and I’ve not been making a lot of YouTube videos recently, so I thought a challenge like this will help me figure out what I want the content on my channel to be and can try to redirect some of my creativity into video making. I just published the first video – a little life update – if you’d like to have a look!
  2. Plan New Year’s Resolutions – I love goals and I’ve learnt a lot this year about being flexible with my goals (looking at 1. travel, 2. putting pressure on myself to save money with no income and 3. developing skills I wanted to make myself have, rather than what I’m actually interested in) and I’ve been trying to make much more realistic goals. An acronym I heard a lot from careers departments is setting SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound – to help set goals that are actually a step in the right direction, and not a mountain that seems impossible to climb.
  3. Read gardening books and prepare for next year’s garden – I really enjoyed growing my own flowers this year and my dad bought me some gardening books in the summer that I said I would learn from in the winter ahead of next year’s gardening season! I want to figure out the best vegetables to grow when you can’t plant anything in the ground and go into it with more of a sense of what I’m doing. I might even start a brand new gardening notebook! I’m actually unironically really enthusiastic about gardening!
  4. Christmas crafts! – and from one granny activity to the next, I’ve loved my chilled afternoons cross stitching, knitting and crafting in the last few weeks – from making Christmas presents to fixing some clothes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed making crafting part of my daily routine to make more of an effort to switch off and relax. I want to get some paper chains, I want to sew some festive things and I’ve got a stack of cardboard boxes I saved with intent to craft so I better use them!
  5. Read one book – in the first 8 months of the year I couldn’t stop reading, when my mental health declined I didn’t have the energy and I got out of the habit. Sleeping and my bedtime routine has been something I struggle with recently, so I don’t want to put any pressure on myself to get back to reading every night straight away again, but if I can finish one book this month that would be amazing.

And my other monthly goal is to have a date night with my fiancé at some point! He’s really busy with work at the moment, but hopefully we’ll find some time to get take out and watch a movie or something!

I was really excited about Christmas in November and now December’s here I think I’m more intimidated by the end of the year than I thought I would be. But I’m making the most of not working right now to try and look after myself, any tips are more than welcome!

Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!

Sophie xx

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August Goals

2019, goals

Hello!

I’ll be honest, I’m thrilled that July is over – it was too hot, my finances were stretched to the tightest they could possibly be and I have so many plans that are taking place in August that July was just in the way to be honest.

So I’m genuinely excited to set myself some new goals – this month is super exciting with lots of lovely plans. First up, I’m taking my second driving test and whilst I probably shouldn’t be shouting and screaming about it because that really bit me in the bum last time, I’m feeling good about it – I feel much more ready this time! Then after that there’s volunteering at YouTube convention Summer in the City, a summer bbq with friends and family, a trip to York to see my godmother’s gorgeous family and getting the ball rolling on moving back down to the South!

I’m so excited! These are the five things I’m going to be focusing on this month:

  1. Find somewhere to live – long story short, I’m starting an MSc in Digital Media Production in September and my boyfriend and I are relocating to Reading in early September so I really need to find a property before I accidentally spend the deposit! (I’m joking, obviously… just to clarify!)
  2. Don’t use any savings money – since I bought my car, I’ve had to borrow money from my savings right at the end of the month and pay it straight back on payday. I had the money it just all happened the wrong way round. When I bought the car I borrowed a lot and it made July a really tricky month, at the end of this month I have to borrow a little bit just to pay the last of my bills and in August I want to be clear out of my savings again and back on top of my finances. I wrote a blog post all about how I manage my finances and I stand by that – it’s working really well for me and I have faith going forwards that I can add to my savings more than I take. I’ve saved nearly £500 this year so far so I’m not doing too bad!
  3. Make creative vlogs – and with finances on my mind, I’ve been working pretty nonstop – usually 4 days a week of 9-10 hours and it means that my weekly vlogs have been pretty dull to be honest. But being creative is something I prize myself at being able to do so I need to spend some time brainstorming some creative ways to make my vlogs interesting even when I’m not really doing anything interesting! Making it a new challenge will hopefully inspire me to do something different!
  4. Read one book – one of my goals for this year was to read 12 books – either one book a month or the equivalent. In July I’ve been really struggling to sleep well and it’s a circle of I’m too tired to read but scrolling through my phone before I go to sleep is probably waking me up but with the arrival of Louise Pentland’s new book Wilde Women (thoroughly recommend the whole series, it’s a really well written women’s fiction – it’s like watching a daily vlog!) I’m determined to get back into it. I started this year reading Wilde About The Girl and I’m going to let this wonderful series be my way back into fiction. I’m sure I can manage one book!
  5. Write 40,000 words – I do love a writing challenge! I’m going to write a whole blog post about training for NaNoWriMo later this week, but from July’s 35,000 word challenge (which should be a success – still one day to go!) I’m going straight into 40,000 words in August to prep for 50,000 in November. I’m so in love with writing at the moment and I’m very excited to start redrafting my original novel in November.

At the moment I’m bossing making really effective to do lists that are making me really productive and giving me more free time to play video games and play the Harry Potter game on my phone guilt free!

I might even get time to go out in the nice sunshine if it’s not too hot! I feel like I can’t find the words to really explain my excitement for this month – I’m feeling positive, there’s lots of exciting developments and I’m genuinely excited to see where the rest of the year takes me.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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work work work work work | diary 6

2019, career, lifestyle

Hello!

If you watch my YouTube videos, you may have noticed I didn’t upload a weekly vlog for a couple of weeks (they’re coming I promise, I have a plan!).

And whilst I will be uploading something, my vlogs have been pretty bland recently because my ‘part-time’ job is hovering somewhere between part-time and full-time now and I want all the hours I can get – between upgrading my car and knowing I want to go back to university in September and I need to save as much money as possible, I don’t have much of a choice in terms how much I need to work.

So when I planned to write a diary post this week, I didn’t anticipate it would be in a week where I’m literally working every day and I don’t have anything particularly ‘fun’ to document.

I work for my mum’s business, we leave at 7.50am most mornings, we join commuter traffic into the city near where we live, we sit in an office until maybe 4.30 and then we join commuter traffic again to drive home for about 5.30pm and have dinner. It’s not a bland day – it’s busy, it’s always different and the people in the office are so lovely, but it’s not something I can really blog about and I definitely can’t vlog it.

So maybe the natural step would be to stop doing weekly vlogs or not to write a ‘diary’ post but my channels are for me – I don’t have a ‘niche’, I’m not something to slot into a market, this content is primarily for me to look back on and this is what I’m doing. When I was a student I blogged about student things and whatever industry I end up in I’ll probably end up blogging about that one day too, so this is just a toned down version of that really.

But I don’t need to justify why I’m blogging about it – it’s just nice to document work times as much as it is to document travel or adventures or shaving my head…

I’m still trying to figure out where my blog fits into the blogosphere – I don’t feel like I have the authority to write any kind of ‘how to’ posts because I don’t know enough about anything, I love sharing my opinions on music, books and travel and that’s why my blog is just a little bit of me. The girl that sets herself too many goals and dreams as big as she can.

I don’t know if this really constitutes a ‘diary’ post but it’s what I’m doing at the moment so I’ll roll with it. I hope you enjoy this style of writing! My favourite are the rambly posts that write themselves, like a stream of consciousness.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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creativity?

2017, lifestyle, student

Hello!

I was going to write a post about whether I wanted to have children because quite a few people have been asking me about it recently and I thought it would be an interesting discussion and it just wasn’t. I wrote out about three hundred words and I spent the whole time looking at the word count to see if it was long enough and I just don’t think that’s what anyone wants from a blog post.

I’m having a sort of creative crisis at the moment – I always think of myself as a really creative person who does everything a little bit differently and takes a different approach to things but looking at my blog and my YouTube channel, I show literally none of the creativity I like to pride myself in being. I push myself too much to make content on a very regular basis and that makes it harder to show creativity and flare.

Then I’m faced with the decision of do I upload less frequently and spend more time on posts or upload more regularly and potentially grow an audience (as everyone I’ve seen talking about getting readership on a blog or subscribers on a YouTube channel says you need to upload frequently and regularly) and I can’t figure out what to do.

I’m much happier with where my content is now compared to where it was before Christmas and I feel like I do have more of a focus but I don’t know how to bring creativity into what I do. I’ve got lots of new things I want to try over this summer but with how work is panning out it’s looking like I won’t have time to give them the focus and time they deserve.

I’m at a block where I’d love to make Internet content full time but I don’t have any sort of income and I need a job and I’m just not sure where to take it.

So I’d love some help, some feedback, a contribution event – what do you think shows creativity in blogging? Is it photography, or blog design, or writing about things in a way no one else is writing about them? I think I need to explore new things on my blog, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to carry on uploading three times a week. For now I’m just going to play it by ear, but I would really appreciate if you could leave some ideas in the comments!

Thank you for reading (and putting up with my crisis),

Sophie xx

 

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my relationship with youtube

2017, lifestyle

Hello!

In January last year, I knew I’d planned a big year on my YouTube channel – in 2015 I’d blogged every day for a year and in 2016 I was going to film my life every day and then edit it into these huge monthly vlogs and it was going to be a huge challenge but I was really excited for it. At that point, I had no intention of taking a year off from making any other kind of content on my channel.

Then I uploaded a video that I was ashamed to upload – it was how to make this pasta bake that I used to make all the time and I think I might try to remake that video sometime because I can definitely do it so much better than I did but I uploaded that one video and I hated it. The next Sunday, when it came to making another video, I just didn’t. And the next Sunday the same.

All of a sudden I decided I wasn’t making any videos outside the monthly vlogs in 2016.

And it was the best decision I could have made.

In the two years before that, I’d had no trouble coming up with video ideas – when I was away in Ecuador, I had 9 videos scheduled and I had no problem thinking of ideas or motivating myself to make or edit them. But uni made it more difficult to make videos and I just slumped.

I wasn’t too worried about my channel dying because I was still uploading the monthly vlogs and I was very lucky that I didn’t actually loose too many subscribers in the process.

By June or July in 2016, I was ready to start making videos again. I didn’t at that point because I didn’t want to interrupt the nice pattern of the months I had on my channel so I didn’t rush it. Around August, after I attended Summer in the City (the UK’s biggest YouTube convention!) and at that point I was so ready to start creating again.

I picked up my little YouTube notebook – the same one that I planned my very first video in back in 2013, and I wrote down January 1st ‘why I had a year off YouTube’. Over the rest of 2016, I planned six months of videos, uploading one a week and I’m actually really excited.

I uploaded my first video on January 1st and now I have an upload day and an upload time and it literally makes my tummy do excited flips whenever I think about making more videos over the rest of the year.

One of the biggest announcements from YouTubers I watch last year was Shay Carl announcing he’s taking a year off YouTube – the family vlogger and his wife sat down in their car in the twenty minute announcement video and he said the reason he started was because he wanted to see if he could keep it up for a week, then a month then a year. Now the challenge for him is going to be not doing it for a year.

This announcement really stuck with me, I’m not sure why because it’s the opposite of what I want to do but it really inspired me to be proud of what I make, because I don’t want to upload content I’m ashamed of ever again.

Sometimes forcing yourself to make stuff can really help kickstart creativity but sometimes a break is really what you need.

My new video for this week went up today at 6pm and, as long as I keep on top of things, videos will be going up every Friday for the considerable future!

If you wanted to go over to my channel and subscribe that would mean an awful lot to me, give the video a like and leave a comment to let me know you came over from my blog too!

Comment question for today – are there any ‘smaller’ YouTubers that you’re a massive fan of? Let me know down in the comments! My friend Dean, who I met at Summer in the City, has an amazing channel and I love watching his videos so you should check him out too.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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