Well, hi there. It's been a while.
A long while.
Man I feel like Steve from Blue's Clues. If you have no idea what I am talking about you either weren't a 90's kid who watched the video and cried like a baby or you're not on the internet very much.
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| Image from NYTimes.com |
Anyway, I took a long break from blog writing because I got caught up in work, life, moving, theft, etc. I think I talked about a couple of those things before I went MIA. Long story short, I moved into a house. Two days before moving into said house we got robbed; my laptops were stolen therefore writing blogposts became difficult. Then I had my summer job which allowed me hardly any free time (so I took a break from the internet basically). After my summer job had ended I had knee surgery and wasn't doing much at the time. I finally started back to making videos for YouTube but I left the blog alone for a little longer. However, my blog has been weighing on my mind a lot lately so I figured I would attempt to start it back up.
If you have been with me since the beginning you would know that this blog was started mostly as a New Year's Resolution. I wanted to motivate people and make them feel as though they are seen and they are enough. I wanted to be there for people when they felt no one else was in their corner. (I also just love writing so there's that too) I would get good feedback from people that knew me that my blogposts were really good and they were learning things, which is kind of what I wanted.
I fell out of the habit of writing and it started to feel like a chore (much like my bullet journal). I kept meaning to come back and write but I didn't know what to write. I then received an email from Google? (I don't know who owns Blogger) saying my blog wouldn't be monetized basically because of lack of attention... no that's not the right word. Not enough people were reading my blog... TRAFFIC! My blog couldn't make money because there wasn't enough traffic to it! I wasn't fully expecting my blog right off to be monetized. Much like my YouTube, there are specific guidelines to getting money from writing a blog and I am just not there yet. It also probably didn't help that I just up and quit posting for a few months.
Not being monetized was like a punch in the gut (although I knew deep down I wasn't going to get it). So, I stopped writing all together... like I stopped writing to my pen pals too. Slowly I am getting back into everything I enjoy doing.
Now that the sappy boring part is done, hi! Welcome or Welcome back. I am going to attempt to create "high quality content" for you to enjoy and hopefully it brings you some enjoyment and enlightenment! Here is the cliche YouTube thing to say: If you enjoy this blog, please share it with your friends! I love to write but I want my writing to impact someone else's life not just my own. My dream is for this blog to reach people all over the world and I can't do that by myself, so I need your help!
If you are a returning reader, (Hi, thank you, you are greatly appreciated), you will have noticed a little change in this blog. Previously, this blog was called Created 2 Create, which was basically my mission statement. I believe I was created by God to create things to bring people to Him. While this is still true, I realized navigating that title was difficult, even after I purchased the domain and everything. (I guess everyone was created to create..) So I cancelled my created2createblog domain. I decided that I shouldn't have a million different names on the internet (Created 2 Create AND The Craftea Cottage). So I have changed my blog name to match my YouTube and my Etsy store! Welcome to The Craftea Cottage!
I supposed some of you are curious how this name came about. Well, I have had a YouTube channel for quite a while but it was just my name. While my name is cool and all I wanted a cool YouTube name. So I originally changed it to Created To Create to match the blog. It turns out, everyone is created to create or some variation of it. So I thought long and hard about what I wanted my YouTube name to be. At the time I started watching The Paper Outpost on YouTube. Now obviously I didn't want my name to be too similar because my content isn't the same as hers. A lot of people tell me I am crafty. I like to make stuff and this is true. I started putting words together and came up with Crafty Corner (which I am pretty sure is a thing already). In all of my YouTube videos I would make a cup of tea and I would light a candle. I tried to incorporate these things into the title. Crafty--> Craftea. So that gave a little bit of uniqueness but I still needed another word. Corner wasn't going to work because there is someone called Crafty Corner and it just wasn't going to work for me. I don't know how cottage popped in my head but it did. So I called my YouTube The Craftea Cottage.
With the name change I have also decided in order to get more traffic to hopefully get my blog monetized, and to avoid stressing myself out and making this blog feel like a chore rather than something I enjoy doing, instead of writing and posting on a specific day of the week, I am just going to post when I post. This could be once a week, this could be three or four times a week. Woah... ambitious, right?
So I am going to close this blogpost by saying hello. Hello, I am back. I am bringing you words to motivate, inspire, and change you! If you have any specific topics you would like to hear my thoughts on, please do not hesitate to email me. You can do so in the Contact space below or by emailing thecrafteacottage@gmail.com.
I will see you very soon!
