Name: Laura
Age: 30
Location: Reading
Blog URL: www.kneadwhine.co.uk
What is your blog about? It’s mostly food based. It started off focusing on my new breadmaker purchase but has now morphed into a lot of propoints recipes for the Weight Watchers programme. There is still a little bit of bread and my three year old son, D, features regularly too. I’m a vegetarian and I like to get D involved in cooking as regularly as possible.
Is this your first blog? Yes it is. I started it a few years ago and then life got in the way and I lost interest. Now I’m really giving it the attention and love it needs and am so much prouder of my content now than those earlier posts.
When did you start your current blog? My first post was late 2010. I properly rebooted it at the beginning of June 2013.
What made you do it? Lots of different things to be honest. I have very good friends who love blogging and each time I heard about a new blog it made me think back to my own little corner. I also wanted to work on my photo editing skills, HTML and social media – because I’m a media teacher also.
What was your first blog post about? My breadmaker.
What do you think is the most useful tool to you as a blogger? Twitter and Facebook, without a doubt. I’ve found so many helpful people with excellent posts that have really helped me to move my blog on. I’m also a bit of a fan of picmonkey.com. Although I really need to spend a lot more time on Photoshop!
Do people in your “real life” know about your blog? Yes. A large proportion of my likers on Facebook are friends and family, although that is moving on. It’s a nice way to move a little more beyond the quick updates that either Twitter or Facebook provide.
If yes, has your blog helped you career wise? It’s helping me to learn more about the practical side of Media Studies, which helps my job.
What has been the one thing (blog post, project, etc) you’ve been really proud of? I’m actually really pleased with the front page of my blog – it’s involved a fair amount of work. However, although the actual recipe wasn’t so successful, I love the photo on this post.
Where do you see your blog in a year? Bigger I hope. I’m starting to include a few restaurant reviews as well. I suspect that the focus might shift a little as I’m pretty close to goal at WeightWatchers now. I hope to be able to start working on a few more artisan breads and to engage D in more and more of the cooking.
What do you wish you knew when starting your blog? There are many things that I’ve learned through sweat and a few tears – mostly around the comments feature which were a bit of a mess through Blogger. I’m using IntenseDebate now which is brilliant. I love that it shows up the most recent post that people have made.
What do you wish you know about now? I still feel like I have a lot to learn on the photo front – I’m struggling a little with the light at this point but I’m working on it.
How do you keep motivated to post? I’m a really fickle cook – I don’t like to cook the same thing very often. I spend a lot of time looking at other people’s blogs, cookbooks and several recipe websites and adapt as much as I can to suit us. As a result, there is lots of content out there. I’ve actually had to slow myself down a bit – I’ve got about twenty posts in preparation at the moment.
Anything else you’d like to add? I love speaking to people on Twitter and finding vegetarian recipes and craft ideas on Pinterest. I’m KneadWhine at both places – I’d love to see you there!
