Time flies when you’re blogging. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been blogging for almost a year now. I rarely feel as though time passes quickly with my children. A year ago in their life, seems like ages, definitely not the blink of an eye. Thank goodness for that! But blogging for a year? It seems like just yesterday I started, and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of all the things I want to share.
I started my blog because I wanted a space where I could ramble on at greater length than an Instagram caption allows. I wanted to share more photos than is polite on Instagram or Facebook, a space that captured more of what my children were doing, how they were developing, and what they loved. I also wanted to build an archive of all the people that inspired me, and that I hoped would inspire my readers. I hoped optimistically to create a blog space that felt like a hub of inspiration, by connecting inspiring women with people looking for inspiration, by connecting conscious consumers with great small, sustainable businesses, and by sharing pieces of my own life, which is fairly ordinary, but shows how the simple things in life are truly the best things.
Those of you who’ve been around a while know that I’m passionate about the natural world: spending time in it, creating from it, sustaining it, cultivating our bonds with it. Really, everything I share in some way stems back to this, explicitly or implicitly. Whether it’s a project or adventure with the children, the way in which I review products, or the people I select to interview. Some of my favourite posts about things we did were: our botanical advent, making a mother nature leaf dress, making (garbage free) cashew milk, urban adventures, strawberry picking, drawing a day project, making a flower crown.
Botanical advent
Mother Nature Leaf Dress
Making cashew milk (photo credit: Kylah Dobson)
Strawberry picking
Urban adventures
Drawing a day project
Making a flower crown
I started off my first series of interviews sharing the words and wisdom of Inspiring Mothers, women who live creatively, consciously and connected with nature. Thank you Ashley, Carina, Bree, Tiff, Danielle, Jo, Jessica, Nelly, Josie, Sara, Kristin, Dana and Hannah. I have more of these interviews lined up for 2016 so stay tuned!
A little later I introduced a second series with Creative Mothers, these are interviews with creative and entrepreneurial mothers who inspired me to pursue my creative interests and who I thought could inspire readers to pursue their dreams of independent, creative work. Thank you Kaity, Lauren, Sophia, Alana, Erin, Peta, Heather, Rebecca, Amanda, Heidi and Kimberley for sharing your stories and experience so others can be inspired. I’m excited to introduce you to a few more creative mothers in 2016.
Styling and photo by Kaity
Painting and photo by Erin
Dolls and photo by Sophia
Then my series on minimalists followed. Most of the people I interviewed would add a qualifier, like “aspiring” or “novice”, because something, it seems, about minimalism makes it seem as though we aren’t ‘enough’ of one (even though it’s all about less…). Hmm. (More on that in another post, where I’ll look back on these interviews to glean the common and uncommon points from them.) The minimalists I interviewed focused minimalism in many different ways: in the kitchen, in a zero-garbage home, in maximizing a small space, in making career decisions, in raising their children, and more. I wanted to enlarge the concept of minimalism beyond the simple understanding that it is about the number of things in your home. It can be, but there’s so much more to this concept of less.
Photo by Katrien
Photo by Tiffany
Photo of Brian
Photo by the Devine Family
Photo of Alison
The Interview with a Minimalist series has become my most popular one. And I look forward to adding to it in 2016. Thank you Alison, Carina, Kellie, Kylah, Brian, Amanda, Tiffany, Katrien, and the Devine Family for sharing your story. If you would like to share your experience with minimalism, good or bad, I would love to hear from you. Please email me!
In August I teamed up with Melanie of Geoffrey and Grace, and I’m thankful for what this connection and our Slow Living Project developed into. The project has had a profound, positive effect on me. Similar to minimalism, people live a slow lifestyle differently, focusing on different aspects of their day and how a slow, mindful approach can be brought to bear, so that the moment can be enjoyed more wholeheartedly. Seeing all the beautiful moments shared on Instagram, has been a huge inspiration to me to apply a slow approach to habits and activities that hadn’t occurred to me. Thank you for sharing! And if you haven’t shared yet, please join in anytime. In January we are focusing on the word ‘renew’.
Photo by @petalplum
Photo by @thedevinetribe
Photo by @weevintage
Photo by @suchwildgrace
Photo by @mer_mag
Photo by @fareisle
Photo by @faithevanssills
Finally, it seems odd, on a blog that focuses on sustainability and minimalism to talk about stuff. While I think we should be mindful of what we acquire and minimize as much as possible, we all need shoes and clothes, and other goods to sustain us. The realist in me knows that if I tell everyone to buy from thrift shops, this will fall on many deaf ears. If the choice is thrift or a prior default store (such as Target/Gap/Joe Fresh), many will choose the latter. Sometimes Target is cheaper, sometimes it’s cheaper and nicer. I get it. But if there is a third choice that might steer people away from big box shops toward buying from small, sustainable companies that make beautiful goods and clothing, then I feel compelled to share that. I know some people will never be comfortable with thrift. I know some of you would rather spend more money on one nice fall sweater than buy three fleece hoodies at Old Navy. I know that some of you would shop sustainably if you just knew where to go. So, I made a choice to help spread the word about excellent companies making things in sustainable ways to encourage people to purchase from them when they need something. Not to encourage conspicuous, trend driven consumption, but knowing that we do need good quality things to make our life work.
On that note, I wanted to thank all the lovely small shops and brands who sent us their beautiful sustainable goods or who supported our blog and family in 2015 in other ways, sharing our posts, referring friends, and sponsoring our work. You can find most of them by searching “label love” “shop love” on this site. If you are interested in sponsoring us in 2016 please email me.
If you’ve made it this far through my post, first: thank you, second: please consider subscribing to my blog, by email or Bloglovin (see side bar or below), third: thank you, again!
A big thank you to my readers, you make this space feel like a community and encourage me to keep sharing. Thank you to my children and partner for inspiring me every single day to enjoy the little things: small, slow, less is best.
Looking forward to 2016 and what next year’s recap will look like, most likely quite different than this one!
xo, Danielle
ps – If you are curious, as I was, my Top Posts last year were:
My favourite posts, aside from interviews, were:
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