There is for every blogger, the moment when they first decided to start writing. For many these days they are motivated by the idea of making an income from it. I have no problems with this and these days I do make some money from my blog. However this isn't why I started blogging.

Previously when asked in blogging interviews I have often stated that I started blogging when on maternity leave with my eldest to combat the boredom. So I was shocked to see when I looked up my first post, that my eldest was in fact two and half when I started blogging. I was back at work teaching full time and not as I had imagined looking for an outlet for my creative mind whilst looking after a small baby.

Blogging for the first time.

It's amazing how time can smush together like that. So I had to ask myself again why did I start blogging. For me at the start my blog for purely for myself. I wrote about what I'd been making, moaned about school and took fairly rubbish photos.

My blog for a good few years was rubbish. I'm not saying it's perfect now but it has changed and evolved in so many ways. From the very early days, I started writing more tutorial posts and recipes. Then I launched an etsy shop and my blog became very focused on cross stitch and I designed hundreds of free patterns.

As I developed my design work and started selling on print on demand sites, it became a platform to showcase my art work.

All the time there was no real plan and my posting was sporadic. The photography had improved but was still pretty shocking.

Blogging for a Living

In April last year I was still out of work since my teaching redundancy and something had to give. I had run out of savings and I made hardly anything form my online shops despite working really hard on them.

Reading an article from another blogger who was taking the leap into working full time on her blog. I thought, this could be something I could do!

So since April I have worked really hard to turn my blog around. My parents bought me a camera and I've worked on improving my photos. Laying them out, thinking about backgrounds and improving the lighting. They are so much better these days.

I got my own domain name and moved from blogger to self hosted. So that I could monetise my blog.

I worked on improving seo and have dedicated time to guest posting and raising my DA which now stands at 27.

After all that I have managed to secure paid work for my blog. It's not enough to pay my bills and I went back to teaching part time last September. But it's enough to mean I can buy Christmas presents for my hubby this year. Which I hadn't done for the past couple.

Since I started my blog I have written and published 1084 posts. I now have my content planned for the year and have ordered a light box to further improve my photography.

Blogging future.

I may have started my blog just for me but I now understand I have great things to share and I love it when I get views and comments showing that people are interested in what I have to say. The buzz is great. Long may it continue.

[bctt tweet="Why I started blogging. #ukbloggers #lbloggers" username="@craftcartwright"]

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