If you're a beauty lover, today's interview with Kara from Abracadabra Girl is just for you. A makeup artist and beauty therapist based in London, you may recognise her from this months sidebar and I caught up with her recently to find out a little more about the girl behind the blog:

I would never call myself an expert when it comes to the written word - it just happens to be the creative medium I feel most comfortable with. Whether it's writing for this blog, ALO, or in my freelance work, a day rarely goes by when I'm not spending my time crafting words and sentences. I've shared before some advice for writing for the web, and today I wanted to touch on some steps I've taken over the years to improve my own way with words.

After sharing A Beginner's Guide To Freelancing a few months back, I wanted to add to the topic today for any fellow creative entrepreneurs and share some more awesome must reads from around the web. From money matters to the biggest lessons freelancers have learned along the way, if you're looking for some words of wisdom or inspiration then the following ten posts are a must read for you:

From a very young age, my mum has always told me that if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well. Whether you work for yourself, within a team or organisation, or maybe you're a student; giving every task and job that comes your way 100% is the difference between the people who dream of success and the people who actually achieve it. Talent and natural ability are of course one part of it, but I really do believe that your work ethic makes just as much (if not more) of a difference. 

I didn't always have the grit that I have now - it's taken me a few years to really develop the mentality I have today of determination and my focus on always moving forward and personal development. For anyone else who wants to give every job they tackle 100%, here are some things I've learned about doing a job well:

It's only been within the past few months since turning 22 that I've actually started to feel like I'm on the path to becoming a grown up. I think I still have quite a few years to go until I'll feel fully settled into adulthood, but I wanted to share ten things I'm learning along the way so far:

With the end of year in sight, it's usually around this time of the year that we all start to feel a little reflective of the past twelve months and start to plan ahead for the next year to come. If you're a blogger you'll already know how much blood, sweat, and tears go into keeping on top of your online space, and to make your life a little easier I'm sharing today five things you can do for your blog before the end of the year to be prepared to take 2015 by storm. 

Sometimes I have little ideas for posts or thoughts I want to share that aren't enough to dedicate a whole post to and I've been looking for a way for a while now to share this type of content with you guys. Hopefully that's what Note To Self can be - a place for me to share some lessons I'm learning along the way, and share with you a little insight into the things I've been thinking about lately. 

When you're a working creative, it's super important to be motivated, productive, and always working and grafting towards your goals and deadlines. We all can waste time in so many different ways; though much more than just your usual procrastination, I've found that there are some specific scenarios we can all relate to when it comes to how we get in our own way when we're forging our own paths and building creative careers we love. 

I tend to share a lot of blogging related content on this space, which I love, but I realised recently that it's usually aimed at more seasoned bloggers or content creators who have been doing this for a while. There are of course so many awesome new blogs being created every single day, and I thought today I would share my best advice for anyone just getting started with their blogging adventure.