I started Holy Craft in 2010 as a creative outlet for me. I began blogging after having my youngest child as a way to keep our growing family connected to our out of town family and friends. We had moved from Indiana, a place I called home for 21 years of my life, to the Seattle area to be closer to my husband's family. My parents had moved from my hometown and we had lots of friends and family that were still in the Midwest. Blogging was relatively new in 2005 and I mostly posted pictures of our growing family.
our family in 2007
I had a friend share a craft tutorial with me from a blog that no longer exists and I was hooked! As I was raising babies, I sort of put my creative side on hold but blogs helped me rediscover some of those things that I loved to do. I started sharing craft tutorials on our family blog and then linked up to my first craft linky party. I had people coming to my personal site and realized that I really should keep that private, so I created a craft blog called Holy Craft.
Holy Craft was a fun outlet for me. I struggled for about a year after my third child was born with postpartum depression. I had focused for so long on everyone else that I finally realized that it was OK to take a little bit of time to focus on me. During nap times I would create and craft. I created some posts that I am pretty proud of and some posts that I would love to get buried in the archives. For a glimpse back, you can see my top posts of 2010 here.
Holy Craft was my creative outlet. While I love crafts and creating, I am far more than that. I have a bachelors degree in child development and family studies and I love being a mom. I've written posts on parenting and marriage that I'm sure some of you can relate to.
Most people who know me, know that I am quite thrifty resourceful. My husband and I got married in college, and supported ourselves on next to nothing for years. We continued to live on one income and I've managed to keep us on a pretty lean budget throughout the years. I call it living well on less.
I also have become quite passionate about an organization called World Vision. We are lucky enough to have this NGO practically in our backyard and I've been able to see the work that they are doing on a few separate occasions in rural Africa.
So just like you, I'm more than just one defining characteristic. If asked what I do, I am quick to say that I am a stay at home mom. The interesting part of that job though is that the end goal is to slowly work yourself out of a job. My oldest son is launching and heading to college soon and my younger two kids are getting older and needing me far less than they did when they were younger. I have more time with them in school full time, than I did when all three were under foot, and blogging began to fill in my time.
Several years ago, I went to my first blogging conference and I realized that I could take this hobby blog to the next level. I started to treat my blog like a business and was very excited about creating my own job. In April, I ended up at the blogging conference again surrounded by a group of incredible bloggers that I am lucky enough to call my friends and I kept coming back to the fact that I wanted to rebrand.
I felt like I had outgrown Holy Craft. The blog name felt like it was closing in on me and was keeping me from from feeling like I could write about topics that I was passionate about. I sat down with my tribe of blogging friends and started brainstorming new blog names, something I had done for more than a year. Nothing was sticking out to me, and I kept coming back to me. My name. Rachel Teodoro.
I hesitated because my married name is a mouth full! Who is going to spell it right? No one is going to be able to find me or my blog. There are so many vowels! But in the end, it just felt right. So, here's a handy pronunciation video just for you. Once you know how to pronounce it, it's really quite easy to remember the spelling.
As I was brainstorming on new blog names, I thought about what I wanted my blog to be all about. I have heard from several good friends that when they read my writing, they can hear me talking. I take that as the highest compliment. I want to come across as my real authentic self and I wanted to be talking about real people, real projects and real life, which is how I came up with my tag line.
I opened up the tab "real life" and the first drop down menu item is parenting, marriage and family life. You will find posts with those titles. Give it a shot. I love this feature. I think it makes searching for what you are looking for so much easier.
I'm still working out the kinks for my newsletter subscription form. Some of you have unsubscribed. Maybe you didn't know that the same great content would be coming to you in a different package. Whatever, it's fine. I just want you to know that I'm still here. Still writing and creating and sending out all my latest posts straight to your inbox. If you want to subscribe, send me a message in that handy contact form. I can get you signed right up and you will get posts as they go live delivered directly to your inbox. I never send you spam. Promise.
So, I think that's all for our little tour around today. I am really excited for the changes here and think you are really going to like what you see. With any change, there will be some growing pains, but hopefully those will get sorted out quickly and you will stick around and enjoy the new Rachel Teodoro blog. Let me know what you think! I would love to hear from you.
No comments
Post a Comment