This is being written from a very precarious position, I've just painted my nails and I'm terrified off chipping this.

I want everyone here to know what this post was born out of procrastination. But not the usual kind where you're avoiding doing a job you need to do, no, I'm procrastinating from relaxing. I'm having a really relaxed Sunday, Mama and I went out for lunch, and I've been on the sofa doing little jobs on my laptop for most of the afternoon. I finished everything I have to do, and I found myself gagging for something to do. I didn't want to switch off and think about nothing. I needed to be totally immersed in something, because if not then my brain was going to go hay-wire. I was caught up on social media, I didn't have any inspiration to finish or start a blog post, all my blog admin was done, my Youtube subscriptions box was dead, everything was impossibly quiet. The horror.

I'm pretty sure this comes from my anxiety and paranoia. If I'm left to my own thoughts, I just end up over-thinking things and before you know it my anxiety is going insane and I'm convinced everyone hates me. So I just avoid relaxing and switching off. I force myself to be busy constantly, always looking for something to occupy my mind. That's one of the reasons I love having a blog so much. Before I started this blog, I'd spend my days on social media, but there was no reason to it. There was no productivity, and when social media was dead, I was left with nothing to do. Now I have my blog, if I'm bored, I can take blog photos, finish a blog post, schedule blog posts to come, do admin, contact brands, sort my e-mails.

To put it simply, it opened up a whole new list of things I could do, and it was amazing; I realise now that it was a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because it gave me somewhere to house my creativity and a way to do something other than scroll aimlessly on Twitter, but it also made it so that my default thing to do when I have nothing else to do is to blog, and now I really struggle to stay focused on one thing. I now am incapable of switching off. Where as some people relish in turning their phones and laptops off for an evening, have a bath and just chill, that sounds horrific to me. The idea of just sitting and being left to my own thoughts is a dangerous concept.

I'm taking baby steps in the whole 'making myself learn to switch off', for example, this afternoon I made myself a cup of tea, closed my laptop and read a book. And guess what? The world didn't end. No one went into panic mode. There wasn't 34564 missed calls from someone in grave danger. Most importantly, no one decided they hated me in that time.

I was a bit apprehensive about writing this post because I didn't want anyone to think I was completely mental, and then I remembered that I don't care and all the apprehension went away!

Saying that, let me know in the comments if you're the same, or you have times when you find yourself actively avoiding switching off for your own good?

I'd love to have an intro right now, really love it, however, I do not, so let's just do this.

Marks and Spencers Frankincense & Myrrh Candle

This is possibly my ultimate Christmas candle. It just smells so amazing and every Christmas Mama orders it from Marks and Spencers and lasts next to no time because we just light it constantly! I don't even know what gets me about it so much about it but I just never get tired of it.

Make-Up Forever 'Spring Flower' eyeshadow palette

Mama got this for me back when she went to Thailand at the beginning of this year, and even though the colours a prettyy af, I was worried I wouldn't be able to use it because there were a lot of colours that were either not going to suit me or weren't really wearable for everyday. I decided to try and up my eyeshadow game at the moment, and I've been using the shades I-544, ME-930 and ME-512 together all the time at the moment.

Incense

It's the small things but I first got into incense through my friend. We'd hang out at her apartment, turn on her lava lamps, light some incense and put on a vinyl. It was great. My dormmate ended up with some incense (I have literally no idea how) and offered me some. I, of course, said yes because I freaking love the smell of incense, and it's literally the most relaxing thing. Incense + fairy lights and lava lamp = total chill.

Photo Wall

This is kind of a random favourite but this is seriously one of my favourite bits of this month. I got loads of photos of my friends printed and I decided to make myself a proper photo wall. It's lovely and I've put a bit of cardboard I found at the back of a frame I'm going to paint and write a lil' sumsum in the middle and it makes me happy to see photos of my favourites everytime I'm in my bed. (Sorry about the photo and how much reflection the photos give off - my window is facing it!)


MAC 'Pro Longwear' concealer

I hadn't used this in a really long time, for some unknown reason - I think it had something to do with the fact that I went really pale all of a sudden and got very scared and disappointed because I thought I bought it in the wrong shade, so I left it to the side and it wasn't touched, in favour of my Urban Decay 'Naked' concealer, but seeing as it is no more, I tried my Pro Longwear concealer and LORDY WHY DID I EVER LEAVE YOU. This is just such a good concealer. It works particularly well for undereye circles and redness.

Benefit 'Benetint' lip and cheek tint

I got this as a mini version in my Benefit 'Life Of The Party' kit last Christmas, and I'd never really looked twice at it because, and I'm going to be honest with you, I was a *bit* scared of it. But since I didn't have my blush in the On The Run palette, and I figured I needed to bite the bullet and give it a go, and turns out it's a bloody amazing blush! It's super pigmented so you don't have to put on a ton and blends like a dream!

Maybelline 'Colour Sensational' lipstick in Red Revolution

I rediscovered this at Halloween, actually, but have been wearing it religously through November. It's perfect if you're looking for something to feel a bit more classy, even if it's just to go to work or to your classes.
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Lil' announcement! I am yet again going to be changing my layout so bare with me if it looks a bit questionable sometimes.

What have you been loving this month?

Today I am going to be sharing my knowledge once again with you guys. Media kits are funny things that are actually quite difficult to do without some sort of guide. It's doable, just it's easier with some sort of template. But what is a media kit? I hear you ask. A media kit is a pdf document that you can send to brands that tells them everything they need to know about you and your blog; what services you provide, your stats and social media platforms, it's basically just jam packed with everything a brand needs to know about you in the shortest space of time.

Most brands (especially bigger brands) don't have time to fuck about reading a 6 page long document with your life story and photos of your dog included. I'd advise making it as short and concise as possible. You can see mine here and here (the second one is the first gen of my media kit to give you an example of another way to present it) so you can get an idea as to what it should probably look like, though the point of a media kit is also to show your originality and personality so make sure to add your personal touches.

Bio

Kind of like a bio on social media, it's always a good idea to introduce yourself and your blog to explain what your blog is about and what you talk about and all that jazz. Be sure to give your name, what subjects you talk about in your blog and it can't hurt to mention how old your blog is either.

A Photo

Again it's in order to personalise the media kit and so the brand has an idea of who they're dealing with.

Blog Banner/Logo

Personally, my blog doesn't really have a logo as such so I just went for my banner. It's a good idea to have it right at the top (if you're using a banner) because it helps start things off in my opinion. It helps say like 'right, this is my banner, welcome to my media kit'... I don't even know, just trust me on this one.

Social Media Stats

I know that social media following is not the be all and end all but from a business point of view, brands look at your social media stats to get an idea of your outreach. They want as many people to see your post as possible in order for it to be worth collaborating with you so make sure to update your stats regularly.

Blog Analytics

Now, I'm not saying you should just put a screenshot of your Google Analytics page on there, generally the main 3 things is your monthly sessions, users and pageviews, which you can find on your Google Analytics page (if you haven't got google analytics set up yet, I'd strongly recomend you do so asap. It's a lot more accurate than the stats page on Blogger or Wordpress or whatever site is hosting your blog). For those who were like me and have no freaking clue what a session, user and pageview is, allow me to explain. A session is the period of time that someone is on your blog. On Google Analytics they show you the number of sessions within the date range you chose. A user is someone who has at least one session within the date range; it includes new and returning visitors. And finally, quite simply pageviews are the number of pages viewed, which counts for repeated views of a page, too.

Demographic

This is equally important, as it shows what kind of person reads your blog. What's good about Google Analytics is that you can see so much info on your audience. Their age, where they come from, what they look at your blog on (OSX, Windows, iOS, Android) and even their browser. You can also obviously see their gender and their age. It's good to show your demographic to show who you're going to be presenting the product to. Bareing in mind that if you're trying to make different types of content, this may hinder you

That's basically all I personally put. Like I said, there's no need to make it a 10 page document, and in my opinion that's all I need to put so that the brand can see the essential.

As always, any fellow bloggers that have some pearls of wisdom to add feel free to in the comments!