My Journey to Blogging // How I Got Started

What I Did Before I Started Blogging

I get asked all the time to share how I got started with blogging, so I thought I would take the opportunity to share that today.  Fashion has been engrained for me as long as I can remember.  You can read some of that (here), but I have always loved putting outfits together and in my free time, I would write outfits down in a notebook!!  This is like circa before iPhones and kids etc etc hahaha.  Anyway, I graduated TCU with a marketing degree but quickly jumped on the fashion industry path.  I worked at Neiman Marcus for a couple of years, then at Fossil Corporate.  I was at Fossil until I had Ely (my oldest) and decided to “retire” and be a stay at home mom.  So I didn’t work at all for a few years (popped out 3 kids :)) and decided after Zander was born, I wanted to do something with fashion again.

Outfit Details: Barefoot Dreams Cozychic Lite Island Cardigan // MOTHER The Hustler Two Step Fray High Waist Ankle Bootcut Jeans // Sam Edelman Welles Bootie // YETI Tumbler

I started out doing personal styling and closet clean-outs/helping people form outfits from clothes they already owned.  This was very part time since Zander was so young.  Mark originally planted the seed to start a fashion blog.  I knew about blogs (and actually had one for the boys), but to be honest I don’t love writing and that was my biggest hesitation. (Should I be saying that ? haha) I was like “can I just start a blog and do what Blair Eadie of Atlanta Pacific does ?! Yeah right.  So one day my cousins told me about liketoknow.it and how you can shop on Instagram.  It was probably within the first year it was created and that is what made me decide to give the fashion blog thing a shot.  It took me awhile to get started.. again it was super part time and I had no clue how Instagram worked.  In fact, I had to open an account just to get started!  I actually spent more time at the beginning getting my blog up and running than on Instagram.

With that being said, it took me many months before getting approved with Reward Style (a.k.a. Liketoknow.it)  and quite honestly, I still wasn’t good at Instagram at all.  My engagement sucked and I had like no followers!!  I was getting 20–50 likes per photo but I know we all have to start somewhere.  My husband took all of my photos on the weekends in the backyard.  He is and has always been such a big supporter of my business.  I remember packing a car full of clothes, lining up a babysitter, and heading downtown Saturday afternoon so he could take my photos.  My dad even contributed by constructing a wall at our old house so Mark could take my photos out there for more convenience.

My #1 Advice for Blogging

Things basically just grew from there (it has been a full time job for me now for 2 years), and my number one advice to this whole thing is staying true to your style/brand and being consistent.  You can’t grow your Instagram if you only post every few days.  I feel very fortunate to have grown my business to this point and never in a million years did I think I would be a blogger with over 200k Instagram followers.  Like EVER!  Mark has retired from taking my photos and is now on to helping me manage my business… he’s great at both but I think we would both agree he enjoys his new role much better.

Finally, and I know this may sound cheesy, none of this would be possible without all of my loyal readers and the support from each and every one of you! Let me know if you guys have any questions in particular that I could answer for you. Just leave a note in the comments below. If you’re curious what a typical day looks like for me now, I detailed it out in this blog post.

Talk to you guys soon!!

xo, Jaime