It’s hard to believe that 2022 has come and gone! I honestly still feel like I’m processing the year 2020, and now we are entering a whole new year.
I haven’t been as consistent as I would have liked on this blog over the last year. Although I’m not ready to share many of the details and maybe never will, I really struggled emotionally during this last year. My family has been through a lot of changes and transition, and my pregnancy with my daughter was really stressful for a variety of reasons. A few months after she was born, I started counseling and although it has required a lot of hard work, it has also brought a lot of healing.
As a mother, I often have a lot of conflicting emotions. I long to have time with my children and to be as present with them as possible, but I also miss working and having a career of my own. Although there were aspects I loved about running Elsie James, it was hard to make much of a profit with all of the fabric, machine, and business expenses with the limited amount of time that I had to invest in it. I’m still planning to open up my shop from time to time, but it will be on a limited scale while my babies are young.
I have always loved writing and the creative aspects of blogging. It’s a way to combine so many of my interests, it provides a creative outlet, and is a form of income that doesn’t have pressing deadlines and machine upkeep. In this new year, I am planning to focus in on my blog by posting every Friday, which is more manageable for me than biweekly (at least at this stage in my life!).
Each month, I will be writing about these four categories: slow fashion, homesteading, sewing, and motherhood. From the slow fashion category, you can expect to see outfit ideas and inspiration featuring some of my favorite brands, thrifted finds, and personal makes. From homesteading, I’ll be sharing more of our renovation and homestead projects as we continue to fix up our old home on a few acres. For sewing, I’ll be sharing sewing tips, my favorite patterns, and capsule wardrobe plans! And for motherhood, I’ll be sharing about how we are raising our children, homemaking tips and tricks, and homeschooling resources for young children.
My niche, per say, is a lifestyle blog written for young families who want to live slowly and sustainably but also within their means. Ethical fashion is not cheap, and for good reason, but because my pockets are not bottomless, you can expect to see outfit inspiration with the same pieces styled over and over. Because one of the most sustainable things you can do is to use what you already own, right? Homesteading and fixing up an old home take both money and resources, so our process will be slow and we will be sharing frugal ways to renovate as well as how to create a budget. The whole reason I learned to sew is because I had expensive taste in baby clothes. I wanted to learn to make my own–and I believe you can learn too! And finally, motherhood. Motherhood is beautiful and hard and sanctifying work. I am far from a perfect mother and have struggled to find rhythms and routines that work for our family. I want to share what I am learning as I create a positive family culture in my home.
My goal with this blog is to help young families pursue a more sustainable lifestyle by planning purposefully with frugality in mind–and that planning piece is probably the most important. Making changes to your lifestyle takes time and often doesn’t happen overnight, but small, well-planned changes add up to big changes over time.
Some of the things that I will be writing about are changes I started making a long time ago and others will be newer changes that I am in the middle of learning how to implement. I’m trying to remember to not compare my beginning to someone else’s middle–we all have to start somewhere!
So friend, I hope you will stick around and join this community of families who are choosing to bypass many of the conveniences of modern living for simpler, slower, more sustainable practices like homemaking, homesteading, and homeschooling. Building intentional homes and lives takes time, but I am learning that it is well-worth the investment.
A Home Remodel Planner + Budget for a Smooth Renovation
The Perfect Last-Minute Christmas Gift You Can Easily Sew for the Kids on Your List
Last Minute Christmas Eve Outfit Ideas for the Whole Family
How I Taught Myself to Sew: Becoming a Lifelong Learner
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