Love from, Florence Grace

Four years is a long time, don't you think? I'm nowhere near the same person I was four years ago. I'm not friends with the same people, I'm not dating the same person, I'm not in the same job. Everything is completely different, and when I look back on the last four years of my life, I can't help but to think about how everything would be even more different had I not started my little blog - four years ago to the day. Four years ago, I was sat anxiously waiting for my A Level results, I was deciding if I was going to go to the university that accepted me or not, I was wondering if photography was really the career I wanted to pursue - in short, I was totally lost. Until I started my blog and began to create my own career. Blogging helped me to find my way, find myself  and totally change my life and I find that totally mind blowing.  I've been looking back through my Facebook page , right to my first year of blogging, and there's so many excit...

I love myself. There, I said it. And to be honest, it's no secret - I speak about it all the time across my social media platforms. I am a huge  advocate of body positivity and self love and I spend as much time as I can encouraging other people to love and appreciate themselves and their bodies too. I grew up struggling to like myself, let alone love myself, and now that I've finally learnt to appreciate my body, my mind, every inch of myself, I work so hard to make sure that other people are able to do the same. This was one of the best tweets I ever received... to know that sharing my self love journey so openly online helped to inspire and empower another is the best feeling! It doesn't help that for years and years and years  we have it drummed into our heads that to appreciate our looks is vanity . That to talk about all the things we are achieving and have going on for us is bragging . So often people who love themselves are branded as big head...

Anyone who knows me well enough will know that I am allllll about that girl power. I would consider myself to be a strong, independent woman and I constantly encourage the other women in my life to be, too. Being strong, being independent, being bold and fighting for your place in a world that is dominated by male privilege and misogyny can be very challenging, but it's a lot easier when there are some fantastic female role models to look up to. Here are some of my favourite women to look to for girl power, inspiration and motivation in every aspect of my life. Maya Jama I have been looking up to Maya Jama since I first met her when I was working on a TV show for 4Music two years ago. She was bubbly, friendly and even invited herself to sit on my lap at one point! Since then I have been looking up to her on social media, following her as she grows from strength to strength in terms of her career. Some of the moves she's made in 2017 have been absolutely incredible, from...

It's the 1st of June today, which means that two years ago today, I officially launched my business- my magazine, Love from... magazine . I can not  believe that it's been two years! Two whole years since I held that first published copy of Issue 1 in my hands and thought, this is it. This is what I want to do. Of course, in my head I had my doubts- who doesn't when they're setting up their own business? And so it seems like a huge  deal to have reached this two year milestone.  I can't lie and tell you that it's been a smooth, easy journey. It hasn't. I've been so busy trying to grow and evolve the magazine that I've had to pour in more money than I was often making, I've altered the price up and down, the page numbers, the layout, I've taken on writers, lost some then taken on more, I've lost endless hours of sleep pouring over page layouts and I've stressed over printing faults and late delivery... ...yet here I am. Two ...

This last week I have felt majorly deflated about my business. My business being, my magazine, Love from...  I absolutely love  running my own magazine. I love putting the pages together, interviewing people who deserve to be put in the spotlight, getting together with my writers and deciding who should be our cover star and, best of all, holding the finished product in my hands. Its an amazing feeling.  But at the moment, none of that really seems...well. Worth it.  Let's start with the first issue, the biggest issue of all; money. I don't make any  money from my magazine. In fact, it cost me just shy of £400 to produce one of the issue previously, and while not all issues are that expensive to produce, you get the gist of how much I'm spending. Add in the fact that there are no adverts in the magazine as of yet and that I give away the magazine for free  plus have to pay for stamps and envelopes and you can only imagine how much m...

Recently, I bought the 2015 film "The Intern", starring Robert de Niro and Anne Hathaway. The film looked funny in the adverts and I love both Hathaway and de Niro so had a good feeling about it.  I was right to have a good feeling- it is a truly brilliant film! I cried all the way through purely down to the sweetness of Robert de Niro in his old age, but also at the great story line. Without giving away too much, Anne Hathaway plays a very ambitious career woman who owns her own massively successful internet company- a total girl boss. Rife with feminist themes, the film portrays Anne's character as one that I could definitely relate to. Throughout the film there were some lines that really meant something to me- I wanted to share some of those with you guys in order to provide you with inspiration yourselves!  "It's 2015, are we really still critical of working mums, still?" "Apparently selling clothes makes us a chick s...

 Feeling great. I'm running my own business. I'm my own boss. I'm awesome. Go me. Damn it's hard being my own boss. So much to do. Let me watch another episode of Gossip Girl first. Yay! Someone has bought something! Money in the bank like ch-ching biatch! I'm so rich right now. Ugh my expenses are way more than my profit. Can I claim the money back for excessive wifi usage??? Why is nothing going right? I should be the next Zuckerburg right now omg. UGH I JUST WANT TO GIVE UP. Give me a job in retail any day of the week. Sits in horrible slump for the next week. Because honestly, what's the point? I'm going to end up penniless, homeless and alone.  OOH something good has happened. Cue positive email, something being bought or some great customer feedback etc. YAY. All is well again. And repeat.  Love from, Florence Grace Like this? Why not try... 10 things you...

For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you'll know I have a "theme", posting inspiring quotes relating to careers and running a business complete with the hashtag '#girlboss'. I follow a few accounts who dedicate their feeds to inspiring 'girlboss' quotes such as hustlherhoney, fabulousgirlsrock and bossyrichgirl as a source for my own inspiration, but recently I have found these accounts to be a little...well. Problematic. Let's take a look at some of the quotes: "Some girls daydream about boys. Some girls daydream about business" "The goal is to be pretty and paid" "Made myself a boss because I wanted to work in a crop top and mini skirt" To me, these quotes are deeply problematic. These quotes imply that you can't be stereotypically 'feminine' and enjoy girly clothes and make up and boys whilst simultaneously being accepted as a serious business woman.  Now, I like to c...

"Formation" One word was all it took. One word in a simple, plain white font, plastered across an image of Beyonce with long braided locks, posted to her instagram after a 10 week absence and the world went wild . Within seconds, "Formation" was trending on social media, and once everyone had managed to access her website to watch the full video and hear the full song, both "Beyonce" and "Blue Ivy" were trending across social media too. So why all of the fuss? Well, first and foremost, Beyonce hasn't released a single, let alone an album in a very long time and this came totally unannounced and unexpected. Secondly, she dropped it just before her performance at the Super Bowl half time show, meaning that more people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl just to catch her performance (God, the gal knows how to do business). Thirdly- and most importantly- the song is totally iconic. Discussing important and often ignored black histor...