Love from, Florence Grace

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...

This week was going pretty well...until I heard the news that Kate McCann- mother of infamous missing child Maddie McCann- was named one of the top 20 inspirational women in Britain. That's right folks, not only is the mother who abandoned three children under the age of three so she could go for drinks with her friends 'inspirational' but she's actually one of the most  inspirational in the whole of Britain! Bullshit. Excuse the language, but come on! REALLY?! They were at a lack of that many inspirational women in Britain that Kate McCann somehow qualified?! Someone please explain to me what it is that makes her so inspirational? Other women listed in the top 20 included the likes of JK Rowling and Joanna Lumley. That's right, Kate McCann is apparently as highly thought of as JK Rowling. Wow. Were there no women who had done great work in the emergency services, no women who had done exceptional charity work, no women living with chronic illnesses or...

Yesterday I spoke about whether or not you could be your own source of inspiration, and I said that yes, you definitely can. However, I also highlighted the fact that it's important to have other sources of inspiration, and I want to discuss one of my main sources of inspiration with you guys today. If you hadn't already guessed by the title of this post, my main source of inspiration is TED Talks. TED Talks are amazing . Seriously. I wish I had started watching them sooner. In fact, I wish it was compulsory to be shown them at school, maybe in assemblies or form time, because you can seriously just learn so much from them- and I know for sure that I would have felt a lot more inspired for the rest of my school day if I'd started the day off watching one of these! I really got into TED Talks about, I don't know, eight months ago maybe? I was watching huge numbers of them, every single day (there's endless amounts on YouTube) and feeling totally refres...

I love coming up with creative, imaginative ideas. I love being told that my ideas inspire others. And I love being inspired by other people. But is it actually possible to be your own source of inspiration?  I think the answer to this question totally depends on the idea you need inspiration for and the kind of person that you are.  When I started my stationery line, it wasn't because I was inspired by one particular person- I knew stationery was easy to design, order and sell as I'd seen countless online 'celebs' do it, so I wanted to as well, being the stationery lover that I am. So I did have some source of inspiration but not from anyone in particular. The idea was mostly generated from my own mind.  Starting my magazine was totally my own idea- but could I subconsciously have been inspired by the magazines I'd been reading when I was younger? I feel like the idea came totally from my own head, but it might not have done.  I don't den...

The women in my family are not what you would call 'feminists'. My youngest sister doesn't have much knowledge on the topic, although claims to be one, but I know she is not fully aware of what it means. My other sister thinks it's stupid and my mum also isn't someone you'd label feminist either. It might make you wonder where on earth my strong feminist streak developed from...well, today I'm going to tell you! These are the women who made me a feminist... Mrs Johnson.  My history teacher for the first year of my history GCSE, a heavily pregnant Mrs Johnson was a firm  feminist who would often rant quite excitedly about the topic. I had never really encountered feminism before this point, I'm not sure if I'd even heard of it before, which is really quite shocking. However, Mrs J soon changed this, introducing me to the Pankhurst sisters and the feminist movement. I knew there and then that I was a feminist.  Marina and the Diamond...

In short, the answer is yes ...to me, anyway!  In long...well, there are a whole multitude of reasons as to why I find the Kardashian/Jenner clan inspiring! Whilst many people look at the Kardashians as money grabbing , attention seeking individuals, I feel we all must look at the bigger picture here. First off, aren't we all money grabbing and attention seeking? Haven't you ever posted a provocative tweet or Facebook status whilst feeling annoyed or upset, knowing it will cause a reaction and gain you some attention? Don't you always try to make as much money as you can, just like them? There really isn't much difference between the Kardashians/Jenners and us 'ordinary' people in that sense.  Secondly, people seem to completely disregard what the family actually do. They have an overwhelming amount of achievements tucked under their designer belts, with their fingers in countless pies. Some include: Eleven series of KUWTK, inviting th...

Inspiration and copying are two very different things that blur very closely together. It's a very  fine line between the two and once crossed, can become dangerous territory.  Inspire: Fill someone with the urge or ability to do or feel something. You can be inspired by people in many different ways- you can be inspired by the way they dress, the work they do, the goals they have. Whatever it is, they inspire you to do something similar  to them, be that their process of thinking about a certain situation or their way of styling a certain outfit. You use them as a starting point, and the inspiration they fill you with helps you to create something or do something on your own, of your own credit.  Copy: Make a similar or identical version of.  If you copy someone, you do exactly what they do. If someone else, such as a celebrity or a friend at school buys something, you go and buy the same thing. If someone else posts a photo you think l...

It never fails to make me smile when I get nominated for a bloggers award out of the blue, and it never fails to make me smile when I am called an inspiration- making my nomination for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award from A Blogs Life one that made me overly happy indeed! A Blogs Life is a very unique styled blog, and the only one of it's kind that I follow- it is run by all the family, which I think is incredibly sweet! So thank you to the whole lot of you for nominating me- I appreciate it more than you know! The Rules 1) After being nominated, write a post, starting off with a mention of the blogger who nominated you, as a small thank you to them! 2) Have a bit of fun and come up with seven facts about yourself.  3) Nominate 15 bloggers that inspire you for the award! The problem with being nominated for bloggers awards, is that they nearly always ask you for facts about yourself! On top of this, I recently did a post named "50 facts about me" ...