Blonde Vision Turns Two! Reflections and Musings on What Makes a Successful Blogger

So this weekend, my tiny slice of the internet turned TWO YEARS OLD!! A pretty incredible feat knowing my track record. I love my blog now more than ever so I thought it was a good time to firstly say thank you to all of your for your support, but also consider everything I've learnt about blogging in the past two years. 

How to Cook a Healthy Greek Dinner

If you hadn’t already noticed by my incessant tweeting about it, I’m currently on a pre-holiday diet. This is how I feel about it -_-

I love food, but all the food I love, is bad for me. I’m a massive emotional eater; I eat to celebrate when I’m happy, and eat to console when I’m sad. Having food that tastes good, and that I enjoy eating, is really important to me, so I’m always on the lookout for recipes and meals that taste as good as all of my junk food, that also don’t require a stupid amount of complicated equipment/processes.

Part of my new ‘Food and Drink Simplified’ series on Blonde Vision, with inspiration taken from Greek influences, I recently cooked a low fat, massively filling meal for Luke and I, which included, homemade flatbread, grilled chicken kebabs, tzatziki sauce and a Greek salad, so I wanted to share the recipe with you guys!

How To Make A Simple Passionfruit Martini at Home - Cocktail Series

There’s something about cocktails that make me sublimely happy, other than just the fact that it’s alcoholic, I think it’s also the sense of occasion that comes with drinking them, and in addition the fancy glasses, decoration and more than likely, fabulous company. When I look back to times I’ve had cocktails, I’m reminded of happiness, laughter, friendship and holidays, and you can’t get a combination better than those!

The problem I find with making cocktails at home is the sheer amount of ingredients usually needed to make it like they do in bars and also the equipment. All this fancy sugar and sugar syrup, it’s not stuff we would usually have lying around the house, and it’s not even stuff we can get from our local supermarket which is even more annoying, and don’t get me started on the zillion utensils needed to make something that seems so simple.

As part of my new 'Food and Drink Simplified' series on Blonde Vision, and because we all deserve to be able to make quick and easy cocktails at home, this recipe will only use utensils and ingredients you can buy in your local supermarket and make yourself – without being an expert mixologist.

Nair Nourishing Argan Oil Collection Review

Whilst we’re all feeling the excitement that spring is finally in the air (just about), wardrobes across the UK are being overhauled and big jumpers are being replaced with summer dresses. My first thought relating to this annual occurrence is YES, OMG MY SUMMER CLOTHES ARE AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL AND SUMMERY AND COLOURFUL AND MORE FLATTERING. My second thought, guess I can’t get away with not shaving my legs any more. Come on, I know I’m not the only one here…

I’m always on the lookout for products to make the whole ‘de-fuzzing’ process quicker, cheaper, easier and basically less agg, because, in my opinion, it takes up more time than I care for it to, and I have better things to do, like scroll Twitter. 

So, introducing Nair’s new nourishing argan oil collection. Four products to make the hair removal process, easier than ever whilst leaving our skin not only silky smooth, but moisturised too. The collection is infused with moisturising Argan Oil and Orange Blossom, containing natural softening agents which can boosts skin’s radiance, sooth, nourish, detox and heal. Sounds great right?

The Best Home Workouts with PopSugar Fitness

Since starting #FitBunniesChat in January of this year, the question comes up most weeks about everyone's favourite ways to work out. Without a shadow of a doubt, mine is with PopSugar Fitness YouTube videos.

Through my life, I've owned most workout DVDs going from the beginnings with Rosemary Conley, to Davina and Ministry of Sound Danceacise but I always found them so boring, repetative and very 'dancey', so I simply stopped buying them.

It was a couple of years ago that I found PopSugar Fitness on YouTube and literally haven't looked back since. Most of the videos are in either 40, 30, 20 or 10 minutes sessions, which means you can mix and match, making your own workout programme.

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Amba Hotel Marble Arch Review; Have they created London's best hotel bedroom?

Co-creation. A concept so brilliant, it’s hard to understand why every business doesn’t implement it, in some way, into their business strategy. Whilst the idea of co-creation isn’t brain surgery, nor is it a new idea, it still astounds me when a hotel (or anywhere for that matter) has so obviously used the approach to create a product to not only meet their customer’s expectations, but also firmly plant themselves above and beyond their competitors. 

The Amba Hotel Marble Arch (formerly Thistle Marble Arch) is currently just finishing a multi-million refurbishment. If you saw it pre-refurb, you’ll know it was most definitely needed, and having visited the hotel before and after, it was without a doubt, money well spent to give the hotel a much needed, brighter, fresher, more modern look. However, I won’t go into depth on the whole refurb of the hotel as I wanted to specifically concentrate on the bedrooms in this post.

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Bperfect Fake Tan Review - The Miracle 10 SECOND TAN!

I will hold my hands up to admit that in the last year, I have become a fake tan addict. I went through a stage of getting constant professional Fake Bake fake tans, spending a fortune because

1. I’m lazy 

2. I thought I’d be rubbish at tanning myself – it seemed like a LOT of effort, and 

3. I was so scared of fake tan disasters with patchy and streaky tan all over the place. 

However, in recent months, I’ve been experimenting with a couple of different tans and exploring the market. Usually with fake tans, the ones that you put on for it to develop overnight are the long lasting ones, meaning that putting them on in the first place can lead to some dodgy tanning disasters as you can’t always properly see where it’s going, and if you’ve missed a bit. Whilst on the other hand, I find the instant wash on wash off tans pointless. I get that people use them for a one off night out but to me it’ just a faff to mess around spending ages putting on a tan for it to wash off in the shower the next day, is that just me?! 

Anyway, after falling in love with the Bperect brow powder last year when I visited their stand at Olympia Beauty, I was intrigued by their ’10 second tan’. I’m never one to believe the claims of a bottle and clever marketing so I had to try it out for myself. 

#BigBloggerExpo

LDN meet up has come a long way since our very first event in January 2015. We've done chocolate making, hula fit, Urban Food Fest, Center Parcs holidays (twice!), nights out at Dirty Martini, trips to Winter Wonderland and the ICEBAR London, and not forgetting the biggest event of them all, we hosted the #BigBloggerConference in August 2015. 

Since the conference, I've had so many people asking if we're doing it again this year. Even though, (like I do after every event), I promised myself I would never do another event like it due to the amount of work that goes in, yet again, I'm here, about to tell you about 2016's big event... What can I say, events is in my blood!

So, for those of you who attended the #BigBloggerConference last year, this year's event will be similar to the afternoon section. For those of you that couldn't make it last year, let me tell you a little about what to expect this year...

On the 24th July, a big bunch of beautiful bloggers will be descending on a London hotel to meet with loads of wonderful brands, all exhibiting, wanting to show you guys what they have to offer. This year, we have a wider range of exhibitors from different sectors to cater to everyone and every blog from beauty to food to parenting. On top of this, we also have beauty treatments, activites and networking areas to ensure you all have the most fabulous afternoon. 

As always we will be hosting a raffle, this time in aid of the British Heart Foundation and everyone will go away with a gift box of goodies to review back at home - no samples, just great, full size products that will give you something to write about! 

Tickets for the event will be released in batches weekly, starting from 7th May 2016. You will need to be signed up to the LDN meet up database to receive the invites so make sure your blogger friends are signed up too. 

More and more content, sponsors and exhibitors will be announced on our website all the time to check back there to keep up to date. You can also check out our website for all of the other events we have organised for the year - and there's a lot!

I literally can't wait to see you all there! 

For now, #BigBloggerExpo on Twitter, I know the brands are checking it so don't be shy!

Love Lauren xx

Everything You Need To Know About Working in Events

One of the main things I get asked about is my job in the events industry. It's commonly known as an 'easy job' and one that means a glamourous, jet setting career. A lot of my fellow graduates in Events Management no longer work in the industry because they quickly realsied it wasn't as fun and glamourous as they thought.