The question we get asked time and time again is “how do you both handle WAT with your full time jobs?!” and our immediate response is always “we really don’t know, we just get on with it!” Although in theory this is somewhat true, we’ve made a few changes to our work and personal lives and are now in a place where we feel comfortable and confident in managing both our full time jobs and the blog.
Like most things, anything new always seems really daunting and scary, and we’ve definitely both had our moments when we thought we just can’t handle the pressure and work load. But, whilst we both sit here and write this blog post (last night after work) it feels so good to know we’ve come such a long way and it’s SO worth it.
It was actually when we were asked by PANDORA to select some charms from their new “ESSENCE Collection” that we truly realised how important both of our personalities and traits were in making We Are Twinset a success. Although on the surface and in general we think alike and are very similar, we definitely have very strong individual personality strengths that make us such a great team. Right from the beginning when we launched WAT, Sarah has always been the one to come up with content ideas, whilst Philippa’s strength lies in the technical side of our business. Sarah is very creative and likes to work at 100 miles an hour, and although this is an amazing trait in the fast paced world we live in, it helps that Philippa is a calming influence and prefers to work one step at a time. We’ve come to realise that the mix of our characters is the answer to us being able to work so well together and what makes us such a great team. There’s not many people who could work day in and day out with their best friend!
When we had a look through all the “ESSENCE charms“, there were so many values that expressed our characters but also our friendship for one another. Friendship, Generosity, Positvity, Confidence, to name a few and (without sounding too cringey) just the thought of wearing these around our wrist makes us feel so empowered… not to mention how pretty they are, our favourite has got to be the marble positivity charm! We love how we can stack them on a sleek bracelet, perfectly fitting for our paired back style and it felt really special that we were able to personalise the bracelets with each other’s traits.
Whilst we’re getting all deep and personal, we thought we would mix things up on WAT today, and rather than posting a new outfit, we wanted to strip it all back and show you all what actually goes in to our blog posts from beginning to end…
On the surface, putting a blog post together might look really easy, but only fellow bloggers out there will understand when we say this couldn’t be further away from the truth! In comparison to many blogs, we are still fairly new, but even still, post after post we’re constantly trying to better ourselves and always thinking how we can make our posts bigger & better than the last. Due to the nature of an online business there’s always something to do, always things to tweak and update, and when we think about it, that’s exactly why being a blogger can sometimes feel so full-on. Yet we both wouldn’t have it any other way!
In the early days of WAT, we used to take individual outfit photos before heading off to work (our poor husbands being photographers at 7am every morning!) We would then both get into work super early, comp our pictures together, side by side, and type up the days blog post over the phone to each other AND have it go live before 9am that day. It didn’t take too long until we realised this was way too much to take on (for our husbands too!) and we decided we needed to rethink how we could make our blog work so we weren’t exhausting ourselves before the day had even started.
After a lot of thought and consideration we decided to cut down our blog posts to three a week rather than five (quality over quantity!) and organise ourselves so that we could shoot one outfit blog post in the morning before work and one/two over the weekend. Although at the beginning we had our concerns about our new business plan, it really was the best decision we could have made and since restructuring our way of working, we can definitely see a change & growth in our work.
The weekends are full-on We Are Twinset time. Although to some this might seem crazy that we don’t have our weekends to relax and unwind, we’ve found that this is the most constructive way to organise ourselves for the week ahead. We take this time to prep & plan our upcoming blog posts, go through emails and generally catch up on all things WAT in the comfort of our homes.
At the moment we’re styling up for our “Minimal Monochrome” street style shoot so we got together last weekend to go through all our ideas, references and style up our outfits for the shoot next week so we don’t have to stress about it whilst we’re at our day jobs.
As a preference, we try to work out what we’re shooting in advance, it’s definitely much more beneficial when it’s not a last minute smash and grab (which it sometimes is!). To start we like to get a rail together of possible options to shoot. We are very lucky that we often get sent items to wear on posts as well as being avid shoppers and having options to style up is a valuable lesson we’ve learnt from working in the industry for a combined 20 years!
In fact styling up our outfits for street style shoots is often a bit of a sensitive task. We both have our silly insecurities with our bodies and so it’s paramount styling up our outfits together to make sure we’re both happy & confident with our looks and of course making sure they coordinate well in true Twinset style.
Since having WAT we can both admit it’s changed the way we feel about ourselves. Constantly taking photo’s (even when we feel gross or just generally having one of those days) it’s made us notice things about ourselves and definitely given us a few unnecessary hangups that we didn’t have before. We always say that we couldn’t imagine having a fashion blog on our own. The greatest thing about being a blogger duo is having one another to boost each others confidence. From the get go, we’ve always promised each other not to take ourselves too seriously and to always be sensitive of one another’s feelings – especially when coordinating our outfits!
Once we’ve organised our outfits for the shoot, including the finishing touches like minimal accessories and most likely a cross body bag and a power flat, it’s back to the drawing board. Flicking through mags, scrolling through pinterest, we try to do as much research and get together as many references as we can per blog post to get new ideas and inspiration and to help keep WAT fresh. Taking the time to do this over the weekend has really helped to stay organised and on top of things so that we know exactly how we want to structure each post.
We’re shooting our Minimal Monochrome street style shoot this Friday so don’t forget to log back in then to see how we’ve put all our prep in to practise!
Jewellery worn throughout – PANDORA’s new ESSENCE Collection.
Two-tone bracelet | Silver ball chain bracelet
Our charms include:
Ph. by Sophie Yershon Photography
*This post was created in collaboration with PANDORA*