Over the past few months, I have noticed that blogging seems to be moving more and more on to Instagram. Have you noticed it? I can lose myself for hours on Instagram, scrolling through photos and reading the captions, watching Instagram Stories – they are addictive! Rather that reading blogs, this seems to be the go to app at the moment. Forget vlogging and spending all that time editing on iMovie, when you can instantly share a video on Instagram Stories, and with the ability to instantly communicate with followers, ask questions via polls, plus all the fun of face filters, adding captions and gifs. It is so much easier. But, where does that leave blogging?

On my blog, my posts about Slough are just as popular as ever, and I love writing them. I love discovering new things to do in my area, giving my kids new experiences, and sharing them with you. Giving readers, people who are stumbling upon my blog from Google, ideas and reasons to come and live in Slough. So my blog’s focus is definitely a weekly post on something to do with Slough, plus a weekly post on anything else, like my family or random posts like this one.

And then there is Instagram which I am taking in a totally different direction from the blog. Instagram has reminded myself that I am a creative person – a nod to the name of my blog, The Mummy ‘Stylist’ – it’s almost as if I got lost in my way, trying to do a bit of everything – am I a mummy blogger, pregnancy blogger, travel blogger, interiors blogger, fashion blogger, am I a vlogger? It was all getting too much and I needed to step back and really look at what was working on my blog and what I enjoyed doing. And I only just re-discovered what I love doing at the end of January – graphic design and creating photos that are like art. It’s what I studied to do, but life and mummyhood got in the way. Below is the first one I did on the 28th January 2018, it was very simple and I felt weird creating this photo while Lily was sleeping. But I loved it! And everytime Lily had a daytime nap, I kind of got addicted to making a photo.

I’ve ended up doing loads of photos which you can see on my Instagram page,  and I feel like it’s good for me, like it’s making the creative part of my brain active again, thinking up ideas like I’m back at college. And not only that, sharing them with the creative community of Instagrammers – that is almost the best bit, making friends with other creatives globally, taking part in Instagram’s weekend hashtag project, encouraging each other to be more creative and learning from each other too. Below is a moving gif one I created – next I would like to make an actual stop motion one.

The great thing about moving my Instagram to this creative side, is that I no longer feel under stress to take a fancy photos when I’m out and about. All these photos are taken in my home. When I’m out I can actually relax and take normal, non-Instagram-worthy photos to share on my personal Facebook. And on the Mummy Stylist Facebook page, I am sharing Slough stuff and the creative stuff, and I think that’s a place you can share both sides.

So in summary I am doing:
Two posts a week on the blog.
Creative stuff on Instagram.
Videos of normal life on Instagram stories.
YouTube is parked for now.
And then there’s my other blog Woolies Buildings Then and Now which I have found the passion to do again.

I think it’s more important to focus on fewer platform and make them the best they can be. Does that make sense? I hope you’ll stick with me on both my blog and Instagram, and enjoy the content I bring to you.

What do you prefer to do, read blogs or scroll through Instagram?

Sabrina x