The Blogger’s Corner series is an interview series featuring advice and experience from bloggers whose blogs are older than six months.
If you would like to take part, you can find all of the details here.
This week, we have the lovely Emma from Ettie and Me
1 Introduce yourself
Hey I’m Emma, fire marshal, PA and all round general entertainer to my scrummy little one year old daughter Ettie.
2 Tell us a little bit about your blog
My blog, ‘Ettie and Me’ is a UK family and lifestyle blog focusing on all things motherhood and home renovation.
I’d say I’m a parenting blog first and foremost, but we’re in the process of renovating our second home and when I’m not parenting, I’m generally painting so I decided to combine the two.
The focus of the blog tends to vary depending on where we are with different projects around the house, so if there’s nothing exciting happening I’ll talk more about the adventures I get up to with my daughter or my general observations on motherhood.
3 What can your readers learn from your blog?
Ettie and Me focuses on my passions and observations on motherhood. I talk a lot about days out and family travel, but also cover more emotional issues such as baby loss and the guilt that comes alongside being a working mum.
I’m also an avid supporter of small brands, particularly those created and developed by mothers, so I have a small area dedicated to ‘Amazing Mamas’ and their beautiful Instagram shops. Within this area I run a monthly feature called ‘Small Brand Spotlight’ where I showcase some of these amazing shops and hold a little interview with their founder. It’s a great opportunity for my readers to learn about a brand they may otherwise not have come into contact with and I feel privileged to be able to support other entrepreneurial mothers.
On the home renovation side, I provide updates on the progress we are making on our second home and general interiors inspiration posts for what’s hot for the current season.
4 What’s your favourite thing about blogging?
I love writing so wanted to give the creative side of my brain a little workout. I’ve always kept a diary, particularly when we’ve been travelling as I love to record our adventures.
Unfortunately, my travel diaries tend to be on scrappy pieces of paper or water damaged notebooks that have fallen into the sea. I figured I was much less likely to lose or damage a blog (I hope) so here we are.
5 And your least favourite thing about blogging?
The time commitment. I naively thought blogging was all about writing pretty posts and taking lovely photographs. But is it so much more than that, a lot goes into blogging behind the scenes which readers aren’t always aware of. I’d say about 20% of my time is spent actually writing my posts, while the rest is spent promoting the site and researching the next area.
It can be enjoyable as its lovely to make connections with other bloggers, but it does mean you rarely get a moment to yourself.
6 Tell us one random fact about you
I can still recite the whole of the Fresh Prince of Bell Air rap.
7 If you could only blog about one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
I absolutely love blogging about time with my daughter, she is so cheeky and happy. We have the best time when we’re together and I know that this is an extremely special time in my life. I appreciate that one day she’ll grow up and we won’t be able to run around the forest chasing fairies anymore, so for now I am making the most of it and capturing it in words and photographs so I have a record to look back on one day.
8 What was the hardest part of starting your blog and why?
I found actually starting the blog quite easy, I had a lot of ideas in my mind and so was eager to put pen to paper – or finger to keyboard as it were.
What I didn’t appreciate was the sheer scale of the learning curve once I’d jumped on board the blogging bus. There were aspects of blogging I’d never even heard of and getting to grips with everything has taken an enormous amount of effort.
It’s been really enjoyable though and I feel extremely proud of how far I’ve come, so I have no regrets.
I still have a tremendous amount to learn, but feel less pressured to learn it all in one go now I’ve mastered the basics.
9 If you could give new bloggers one piece of advice, what would it be?
I’d say just go for it. I had absolutely NO idea what I was doing when I first put finger to keypad and I’ve still a long way to go, but I’ve learned soooo much along the way and learning is part of the fun.
10 Is there anything you know now that you wish you’d known in the beginning?
I’ve touched on it previously, but I completely underestimated the level of time which goes into promotion and I think if I’d have known that it would have put me off. I’m glad that it didn’t though because I love what I do.
11 Do you have any long term goals for your blog?
At the moment I run my blog as a bit of a hobby and if I’m invited along to anything on the back of it, I see that as a bit of a perk. Ultimately I would like to earn some form of living from it in the future, but I want to establish a loyal following first.
12 Who’s your blogging hero?
I discovered mummy blogs through the long solitary hours spent breastfeeding my daughter. There wasn’t much else to do during that time, other than watch Instagram stories with my one spare hand.
Through that I discovered Cara from Within these Walls and Katie from ‘Mummy Daddy and Me Makes Three’, I’d say they are my blogging heroes because they inspired me to do what I do now, but I also love Alex from The Frugality and Kirsty from Life With Boys.
13 What’s your favourite social media network and why?
I absolutely love Instagram. Long before I was ever a blogger I’d love connecting with people through those little squares and still do now. I find daily inspiration on the multitude of amazing accounts out there and am constantly in awe of other people’s feeds. Conversely I also find Instagram the hardest account to grow, I guess it’s because there is so much competition out there. Despite that it will always be my favourite.
14 Anything else you want to share with us?
If you’re thinking about starting a blog, thing long and hard about its name. I wish I’d known how complicated it would be to change my blog name – actually changing the name would be easy, it’s the rebuilding of stats that would be a nightmare.
I chose the name ‘Ettie and Me’ as I wanted to get going quickly, and Ettie is the most important thing in my life, but actually I’ve been a bit narrow minded for when other children come along. I guess we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
15 Where can we find you? (blog link and links to any social media)
You can find us over at my blog, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Thanks again,
Emma
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