Why do you blog?

I only recently started blogging. I never thought I would but there are a few reasons why I decided to start.

The first is to let friends and family know what is going on in our daily lives - the type of stuff we wouldn't normally share in detail while catching up on the phone. Instead of sharing a couple photos, I just share my project life pages in the posts. That allows friends and family to see our week at a glance, but it also allows scrappy friends and visitors to look at pages if they are interested. I do not really like Facebook or Instagram and am not good about keeping up with either of them (I am currently deactivated on both), so this is a way I can make the info available and people can read if they want. Our oldest daughter usually doesn't live here and she says she loves being able to keep up this way.

The second reason is for general memory keeping purposes. I feel my boys (who are 10 and 11) will be more likely to go back and look through an online blog than go through old scrapbooks - even my older children are probably more likely to do this because it is easier and they don't live at home.

The third reason is I can share stuff that might help or encourage other people. I am not an expert at anything, but I have had life experiences others may relate to. I am a mom of four, a crafter, a homeschooler, have a special needs child, have went through some major health issues, and am choosing to live a more purposeful life. I am not a scrapper who does a lot of fancy techniques at this point, but I have had people express appreciation for my simpler style, especially as a lot of people have reached burn-out with shopping, hoarding, and using lots of product. There is NOTHING wrong with any of those things, but some people relate to my style and less product use. So far I have only done one "how-to" post and I only did it because I had been asked many times how I achieve white borders in my PL. I don't know if my method will work for anyone else, but maybe it will give them a better idea of what will work for them.

I am not big into promoting myself, especially because I don't use social media. The most promotion I do is on the blogger thread at Studio Calico and sometimes linking my blog in my gallery postings there. I have also started to share on the thread here and have it listed in my signature, but I am new here and don't really want to come across as pushy or something. I am not that invested into having a lot of followers because I have no agenda for my blog. When local people have found out and asked about my blog, I will tell them I am not a blogger, I just have a blog. Haha. I suspect it is boring to most people because crafters aren't going to care about my personal life and personal friends don't care about my crafting.

I have found it fun so far, so I say go for it! I use Wordpress and have found it pretty easy to use. I keep the aesthetic of mine very simple because that is how I like it, but you can easily make it look snazzier than mine without it being too difficult.

What a great question. I've enjoyed checking out your blogs, ladies...they're great!

I started my blog because I started a home based business. I'm a stay at home mom who just did NOT want to go back into the workforce full time. This has given me an outlet to be creative and earn some extra money to help out with all the extracurricular expenses we all seem to have w/ our kiddos. :-)

It's definitely been a learning curve and I've really enjoyed my blog. I know I have a lot left to learn which is just fine w/ me.

I have had my blog since 2007. I love having a "journal" of sorts though I have never had it printed. If I lost all that was there, I would be devastated! I need to start saving things from there. I should make it a daily priority to work on for 15 minutes a day or something. I also love sharing art and my love for Christ.

Well honestly I only started my blog because I submitted for pubs/contests and you basically needed a blog. Now I have some followers so I do keep it up for that and also I still enter contest now and then. And as above poster says it is also a place my family and friends can see what I am doing.

I blog only about crafty stuff and started a few years ago as a sort of record of what I was doing. Then there were various blog groups on the Papertrey Ink forums and my blog was reasonably active and regularly visited. Now it seems like not many people visit and a lot more happens on instagram. I've been posting more to IG and less to my blog and am considering just letting it 'hibernate.' It's a lot easier and quicker to upload a photo along with a quick explanation and some hashtags to IG!