My Creative Story: Part 8 Growing my blog

Read Why I Am Telling My Creative Story and see each part of the story here. We started Get Messy in May and in June I packed my entire life up, lived out of our car for two months and then moved to Korea. You would think that this would be the worst time for my blog, but it was the exact opposite. I was SO inspired by this Get Messy community and the challenge to create while mobile, with no exceptions. Oh and the accountability of Get Messy was just unreal. I was pre-scheduling posts to have an art journal go up every Thursday. I was taking photos of my pages in Panera parking lots as we travelled and I created in the car. I was doing admin in coffee shops. I was stopping at Starbucks just to have group skype chats with the creative team, just for fun.As soon as we got to Korea I was beyond inspired to share everything! And people were SO excited to read. I was sharing apartment tours and things I was learning in Korea and so.many.crafts. I had a whole new place to decorate and had brought very few supplies with me so I was getting really creative and was being stretched in my skills and was really finding my style. I was blogging 4 days a week, consistently. I had an editorial calendar and was following it to the T. I was learning to take legitimate breaks when we travelled and not promise to blog when I knew I wouldn't actually have the time, internet or energy to write consistently. I was getting featured around the interwebs and making new blog friends and growing, growing, learning.I start taking Tiffany Han’s 100 Rejection Letters class in October 2015. The goal of this year-long program was to dare people to tell you no, but in the best way. To apply for/reach for/ask for the things you wanted in your creative business in the right way. I take the class, learn to pitch, create a game plan and goal for my blog/business and start putting myself out there like crazy and getting rejected left and right. I was racking up Rejection Letters and excited to fill my star chart up but then I started to get this weird feeling. I was getting no Yes’s, regardless if I was shooting high or shooting low. I had to start taking inventory and really assess what was going wrong.All of these people were rejecting me on something that I was proud of: over and over again. About 10 rejections in a row were for Design Teams for scrapbooking companies. This was THE dream. I wanted to be a scrapbooking blogger. But clearly something was wrong. I took a long, hard look at why and decided to cool it for a bit and focus my energy elsewhere. Eventually a friend put out a call for a DT and I knew this one was perfect for me and I got it! I was so excited. I was already using her stuff, promoting it and was friends with her. A no brainer for both of us. But then I immediately realized that once something is now ‘work’ it’s no longer fun anymore. I was officially being a child who had no ability to act like a grown up. I was barely getting my posts in on time and doing us both a disservice.At this point I had completed two (!!!) full 12x12 project life albums of our years, 2013 and 2014, through pages weekly. Completing my Project Life Albums within the calendar year is still to date one of my greatest life accomplishments. But for 2015 I had downsized to 6x8 pages and a non-weekly format as I didn’t have the time, energy or desire to keep up with a weekly format. So this meant that some months got one tiny little 6x8 page and I was completely ok with this. I should have listened to what I was really trying to say to myself when I downsized: I need to layoff the pressure on this project and explore the other things that I was curious about. But instead I ramped it up by committing to a creative team. I finished my commitment and knew it was time to make a decision: NO MORE applying to creative teams. Also I had come to the realization that most CTs don't make money. Now that I was working full-time I really had to decide what was worth my time and in the end it comes down to doing stuff just because everyone else is versus time spent enjoying life and doing things that I love.I will always choose the one that supports enjoying life.I decided to start applying to different opportunities, ones better aligned with my brand and not so directly scrapbook related. And, as only time can tell, my scrapbooking focus has completely shifted and I feel so much more free and happy about that. #hindsightWhen Yes and Yes put out a call for a DIY blogger, I applied, got rejected, but she shared a link of one of projects and I got huge hits from that. Win. I applied to write a travel guide for her. She said yes. Totally on brand and exposed my travel writing to a whole slew of new readers! Win. I reached out to a company about designing flair for scrapbooking and asked to design some, they said yes. Now I have a real life line of scrapbooking travel products that people can hold in their hands. Oh, and they paid me in actual cash + gave me product. Win, win + win. I just simply followed the directions in a scrapbooking ecourse, emailed the instructor to say thank you and show her my finished book and landed a feature on A Beautiful Mess. WIN. So many great opportunities that have been amazing for me that came from me branching out, thinking creatively and not overcommitting to something I’m not crazy about.This consistency in posting and looking for alternative places to get noticed and collaborate are the two biggest factors in how my blog has grown and through that my creativity. Now that my blog has grown, I have to make sure there is consistent content for these new visitors to find and then keep them around. Let's talk about that in the next installment of this series.Read Why I Am Telling My Creative Story and see each part of the story here.