The Crafty Mummy Story

Let me tell you a little of my Story…

If you’ve been reading here at The Crafty Mummy for a while you might know that I started this blog over three years ago now as “Mummy Crafts” on Blogger. It started as my place to share the things I had been making and bookmark things I wanted to make from other blogs and websites.

In May 2011 I moved the whole blog over to TheCraftyMummy.com and starting thinking “Hey! I spend a lot of time on this, and other blogs are making money… I wonder whether I could?” It was still mostly about sharing what I had made and linking to other great things I had found, but I also added some Nuffnang ads and signed up as an affiliate to Fishpond. About 300 people a day were visiting in June 2011 and I was blown away to think that people actually wanted to read what I was writing!

Over time I have added more affiliates but kept it all pretty low-key. They were earning a little money but not enough for me to get excited. Then I added some Sponsor Spots in my sidebar. These were monthly ads that businesses actually paid me for. Wow!

Fast forward to today and I still have Sponsor Spots and Affiliate partners, but I also have my own online shops and sometimes companies pay me to write about their products and giveaway their products. Why? Perhaps because that 300 visitors a day has grown to more than 1000 visitors a day, and just keeps growing.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, partly because I know as a blogger I’m sometimes curious to read about the journey of other bloggers. When you find a new blog to read you don’t always know the back story and it can be interesting to hear that.

Partly also because I want to say thank you to the sponsors who have supported my blog. There are four over there in the sidebar right now, but over the months there have been others as well. There are lots of places they could choose to advertise but they chose here and I’m grateful.

I’m not earning an income here, but I am earning just a little bit that lets me stay home with my kids and be available to them and my husband every day, while having this creative outlet to share my love of sewing and craft. I’ve realised too that the teacher in me loves to share tutorials and tips so there has been more and more of those here.

Ultimately… this blog makes me happy. It is my little thing in the midst of a life that is mostly looking after others. That sounds slightly selfish but I believe that if I’m not happy, I can’t give as much to others as I do. So I enjoy the crafting and the photos and the writing and all of it! Plus I enjoy sharing it and talking about it and teaching others about how to do it themselves.

So there you have it: a little of my blogging story.

An Opportunity: Be a part of my Story

I’m in the midst of thinking about all of this because I’m looking at Sponsor Spots for December. If you’d like to advertise here and you have a crafty/ sewing/ quilting/ fabric/ handmade business, then I’d love to talk to you. Send me an email at Tonya {at} thecraftymummy.com with some info about your business and I can send you some rates and stats.

Images in this post are all from my iPhone and Instagram

Update: There have been a couple of comments about moving from Blogger to WordPress so I thought I’d add some links to the info about my move:  I wrote about the move here: A Little WordPress Blogging Update  and then I wrote about my next makeover here: How To: Bloggy Makeover