#JoziMeetup: An Elegant Affair

Everything about our latest #JoziMeetup  radiated class, beauty and elegance.  This was right from our informative speakers (who certainly had their own sense of style) to the contents of our lovely goody bags. We had a fabulous selection of both mom and lifestyle bloggers too; plus some great brands added into the mix.

Creating an air of beauty and grace was no doubt elevated by our venue, Cafe Zing, housed in The Regent Hotel. Many thanks to Daddy Blogger Mike for unearthing this treasure. The food was delicious, the beverages warm, and Ansel was fantastic setting us all up for the presentations.

Our two speakers certainly had a lot to teach us about creating a beautiful blog (Roxy)and taking awesome pictures of your kids (Salome).
Roxy oozes her own style, and it is definitely many shades of pink. From the clothes she wears to her pastel shaded blog, her brand is very evident.

She advised us to brand our blogs across fonts (2-3), colours (3-5), logo and photographs. I did not even know that there is such a thing as a Style Guide, but apparently there is; a useful place to record all these things.

One of the ways you can put this brand all together is in your blog post graphics. The key is consistency across similar photos, fonts, and colours. It is useful to pop in your url and logo. It’s easy to create a template in a site such as Canva, which also gives you the relevant image sizes for where you want to post to.

Salome had a long list of very useful photographic tips that every blogger could use. After all, we all take pictures for our blogs, and she has certainly given us some ideas to put into practice.

Some really cool ones that I liked:

-Use catchlights: look for the light in the eyes because it brings the photo to life.

-Lighting: use window lighting: not the harsh direct one, but on the table near to the window, use open shade: use the shade outside – under a tree for instance. Use back lighting from behind. You can use a lightbox if working at night.

-Vantage points:  use different points. So often kids get sick of posing for photos. Rather come from another angle and get a less fake shot. Also get down to their level. I also liked that she said to get into the picture with your kids.

–Salome had us all standing up doing poses of how to stand for a photo. Her trademark “forehead forward, chin down” used in our last meetup was put to use, plus the idea of standing sideways (which makes you look thinner) and putting your weight on your back leg.

-Probably her most unusual tip was to turn your phone upside down to get some better angles. She has even placed her phone this way in a glass to capture an underwater shot.

-Photographing objects was a hot topic among bloggers who receive press drops. Again, using natural light is a winner, and Roxy chimed in to suggest scrapbooking or even wrapping paper as a background. A useful input from Daddy Blogger Mike: brands already have photos on sites or flashsticks: what they want from you is the product in action.

 

We had some speakers representing brands at our meetup. 

One was the Entertainer App which gave us memberships and highlighted the benefits you may gain in all different categories for the “buy one get one free” concept.

The other was Nicole from Autograph PR who gave us some lovely make up items from Dischem. I think what was really useful about her input was the idea about how busy our lives have become and how the items can make our lives easier eg a mosaic eyeshadow that can also double as blush. I particularly like her eyeliners and the liquid one which go on very easily and give my eyes fantastic definition. 

We gave away a lovely ottoman / could be used as toybox from Room Service Co which promises to re-uphoster or change an item of furniture into something else. These ladies also gave us some very cute pink cupcakes.

Rain Africa also gave us some lovely hampers and also provided the bloggers with soap and hand lotion in a stunning little package. Print Wild gave us vouchers and so did Prominent Paints.

We were totally spoilt with our goody bags that I will leave in photographic record so you can see how awesome they were. Thank you to all the brands that supported us.

But most of all I want to say thank you to the bloggers that attended: you are the lifeblood of our community and without which we would not be able to have any of these events. Thank you for your support and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Thanks also to those who posted about the event, you can read more here: Mel’s Postbox and MomAgain@40.

We also have a video from Victoire, thanks so much!

And also about the #CTMeetup here.