I’ve been blogging for 14+ years, and have learned a thing or two. Here are some of my favorite resources for blogging.

Hey, you! Are you starting a blog of your own? Looking for camera equipment? Just want to know what I’m using? I’ve got you!

We’ve tried a LOT in the last 14+ years of blogging, but these are the things we’re using and loving today. Have a question you don’t see answered? Let me know!

This post contains affiliate links. This will never change the price you pay for ANY item. Feeling properly disclosed? Great! Let’s jump in!

Site Design & Templates:

We run our websites (Sweets & Thank You and One Lovely Life) on WordPress. Sweets & Thank You runs on a Kadence child theme.

Our Favorite Themes & Block Collections:

• Restored 316 Designs – We love these beautiful, customizable, FAST Kadence themes for WordPress. We’ve used Sage Theme, Create Theme and Thyme Theme.
• Restored 316 Block Collections – Mix & match themes by adding block collections. We use a mix of the Thyme Block Collection, Create Block Collection, and Sage Block Collection for our theme.
• Conversation Callouts block collection! Make it easy to add beautiful, custom-looking blocks to your posts and pages that draw attention for sign-ups, freebies, tips, affiliate sales, etc.

Plug-Ins & Extras

• Tasty Recipes – Our favorite recipe plugin. I love that you have several recipe templates to choose from, and you can customize colors to match the rest of your site. (This also works seamlessly with the Nutrifox nutrition facts plugin–free to Food Blogger Pro members!)
• Nutrifox – Speaking of which… if you’re hoping to include nutrition facts on your site, Nutrifox is the way to go. We use it over at One Lovely Life and have loved how easy it is. (FYI – We’ve made the conscious choice not to use it at Sweets & Thank You so people can just relax and enjoy their treats, but it’s GREAT for everyday meals and recipes!)
• Tasty Pins – A great way to caption & provide metadata for your Pinterest pins (titles, descriptions, keywords, ALT text, etc.)

Photography Equipment & Backdrops:

In Our Camera Bag:

• Canon 6D Mark ii (great for video + photography)
• Canon 100mm Lens (For close-up shots & close up video)
• Canon 50mm 1.4 Lens (For all other shots & video)
• Photoshop & Lightroom (Creative Cloud) – We use a combo of these two for all our edits, but love the Creative Cloud subscription for access to all the apps we use and love.
• Adobe Premiere Pro – For video editing. I love the tools for adjusting exposure & color grading. (YouTube has endless tutorials to walk you through how to use it!)
• PremiumBeat – This is the site we use to license all our music. Their monthly subscription is super affordable & they have a wide selection of tracks. Use my referral code IUATESHT for 25% off your first purchase.

Photography Backdrops:

I prefer solid backdrops to vinyl when photographing food. They’re more resilient to liquids, spills, and textures inherent in photographing food in my experience.

• Woodville Backdrops – Lots of gorgeous options to choose from! This company is based in Russia but ships quickly to the U.S.. They also have great customer service & a fun collection of dishes and props.
• Erickson Surfaces – Ships MUCH SLOWER than Woodville, so you can expect items to take several weeks/months to ship. Thicker boards, but great quality.

My Favorite Places To Shop For Props:

• Target – A great way to mix and match with seasonal items or keep to a budget.
• Anthropologie – Beautiful, more unique items, seasonal touches, and linens
• USA Pans – My favorite for baking pans! (They’re also carried on Amazon)
• Crate& Barrel – Quality plates, glassware, and linens. Also carry quality pans & bakeware.
• Etsy – I shop for vintage boards, glassware, and metal props (like measuring cups, pans, etc.)

Social Media & Other Services:

• Flodesk. Our favorite platform for sending newsletters! Their block-style templates are beautiful and easy to use. Unlike most other platforms, their pricing isn’t tiered, so no matter how big your list is, your price will stay the same. Get 50% off your subscription with our link!
• Tailwind. We use Tailwind to schedule Pinterest pins (image pins) for both our websites. I love the communities feature, where you can share directly to creator groups where it’s easy to find new content to share and have your work be seen and shared by other creators. Get $15 off with our link!
• Planoly – Map out your IG posts, reels, stories, etc.
• PicMonkey – This tool feels VERY intuitive for me, so it can be a great one to start with. I prefer it to the more popular Canva, and use it for all our social media graphics.
• Canva. That said, Canva has a lot of great tools and works well for creating eBooks, hand-outs, cheat sheets & documents. We use both!

Blogging Resources & Great Places To Learn:

• Food Blogger Pro. We joined Food Blogger Pro YEARS ago and just keep on learning. This membership is jam-packed with info about things like photography & video, to social media, to the business side of blogging and so much more. Plus, there are hundreds of other professional bloggers & creators to connect with. They’re always updating, improving, and expanding, so we haven’t run out of things to learn yet! Don’t miss their free podcast if the membership isn’t in the budget.
• Foodtography School. Sarah Crawford from Broma Bakery teaches this suite of courses all about food photography, influencing, and creating. She walks you through ALL the things in a very conversational way (no stuffy biz jargon here!), and her new membership The Growth Collective provides a community of creators, monthly learning topics, and a host of resources you can immediately use all on a pretty reasonable budget.
• Simple Pin Media. This company is close friends with Pinterest and always has the latest data on trends, forcasts, and best practices for Pinterest. Her podcast is free & she has paid services and a membership if you’re ready for more.
• Peach Perfect Financials. Accounting for bloggers! Ansley is a blogger and professional accountant, and she provides lots of resources for the do-it-yourself crowd, or you can hire her for accounting services.