The Paper Kind

Creative living.

My Must Have Blogging Essentials

I am a firm believer that you don’t need to go off and buy lots of expensive equipment and software to have a successful blog. All you need is an internet connection. These are what I consider my blogging essentials.

my most used blogging items

MY BLOGGING ESSENTIALS

I love writing on my Macbook. I can’t explain why, the keyboard is just really nice. But the important thing is the mindset I have while I am using my Mac. While my PC is for playing games, watching YouTube and general procrastination, I try to only use my Mac while I am working on something. I’ve found that this way I am in a mindset to work while I am using it and therefore get more done.

While you can use images found on google you have to be careful that you are not using copyrighted images. A way to avoid this is by taking all the photos you use on your blog. My camera is a Canon EOS 600D. You don’t need to go buying a fancy SLR if you’re just starting out. Any old point and shoot camera will do. The cameras on some phones are now so good you don’t even need to buy a camera.

I like to have a white background in some of my photos. You can buy studio kits on Amazon but I prefer to use pieces of A2 foam board from Hobbycraft, you can buy these for £3. As I only use natural lighting in my photos a piece of white foam board is also useful to bounce light onto the shadowed side of the object I am trying to photograph. You can find an example of this in my A Day In My Life post.

Blu tack is also surprisingly useful while photographing objects. I’ve used blu tack to hold the covers of books shut and stop things from moving around.

I have an A5 flexi journal from Paperchase that I use as my blogging notebook. I use this to take notes, make lists, write blog posts and plan out my posting schedule. Basically anything to do with my blog lives in this notebook.

You can buy lots of books about blogging but I think that Blog, Inc. by Joy Deangdeelert Cho is one of the best. If you just blog as a hobby you will find lots of hints and tricks in it. But it is especially useful if you are trying to turn your blog into a full time business.

I pretty much need a cup of tea in my hand to get anything done. And that is especially true with blogging. I write till I have finished my tea and then take a break to go make another cup. I drink a lot of tea. I also want to point out I don’t normally drink tea that fancy, I just really like the packaging.

Thanks for reading.
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90 responses to “My Must Have Blogging Essentials”

  6. I have an SLR but it takes so much energy getting it out and transferring images that I end up using my phone for all my blog photos. Oops.

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    • I use my camera so much that I just keep it out and set up ready to go at all times. That way I just have to turn it on, take the photo and take the memory card out. I have Adobe Lightroom so that does all the transferring images for me. But yeah I still have problems holding the camera, its not that heavy but I get tired if I have to hold it for a long time. This is where a tripod comes in useful.

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  10. Good list of equipment. And totally agreed: You don’t need a lot stuff to do good blogging. Most important thing is good content.
    Thanks for sharing.

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  14. I tend to agree with your Blog that you don’t need fancy equipment to Blog. All I have here is a HP Laptop that I’m still getting used to using, my Nikon D7000 camera, and try and think of some Posts to put here. With the stupid weather being so darn cold, I don’t get “out there” so much, but come Spring I’ll be back out. Usually I have the radio station playing for company to write. Once in a while I have some coffee, but no tea. Guess the tea thing is more English than over here.

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    • I think tea is very much an English thing. If its too cold to go outside you could always try taking some photos around your house. Maybe try turning it into a challenge for yourself.

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  15. I found this post very interesting and useful, especially the blu-tack tip. I generally try to ‘artfully’ place a finger on my floppy paperbacks which isn’t actually artful. 😛 Your idea is far better.

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  26. One of the things I am really enjoying about blogging is using my camera more. I am doing photo101 but even before that I worked out that taking your own pictures as much as possible is the way to go. Now I take lots of fairly random photos (yesterday daffodils for example) hoping that at some point I will need a random photo of dafffodils for a blog…perhaps I will end up writing a blog post to incorporate all my random pics….

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  29. Hi Emma! Love this post, especially the white foam board idea. I’ve just started out blogging and I’ve been awkwardly sauntering around the house, looking for the least distracting backdrop for my photos. Blu tack too – YES. Thanks for sharing x

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  33. Hi, thanks for your book recommendation and the other sharings. Since I write everyday and I like to hand write, I buy regular notebooks from Target, I like the ones with pink glittery covers , and sometimes I buy Hello Kitty ones, so they don’t feel like school notebooks.
    I’m a tea drinker too.

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  34. Love the post. You’ve really captured the essentials! Your photos look great, and very inviting…think I’ll just go make myself a cup of tea now.

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  36. Tea is essential, and I like your point about that separation of duties between two machines. My work laptop deals with all the general crap but once the door to the spare room closes and the Mac is fired up I try to stick to just writing. Doesn’t always work but it’s worth a go!

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  42. Thanks for the tips – I agree about the tea too! I’m currently taking all my photos on my iphone and sometimes using the Diptic app to “fancy” them up a bit.

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  43. […] My Blogging Essentials. I totally did not expect that post to get as much love as it has. But it was fun to write and I need to do more posts like that. […]

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Hello!

I’m Emma. I am a designer, calligrapher, and content creator, sharing my love for paper goods. Expect pens, pencils, and some really fancy paper!

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