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A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Lifestyle Blogger

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All opinions are mine alone. #SweepTheMess #CollectiveBias

Do you have a beautiful mess? I feel like I create one on a very regular basis...with my job. I love being a lifestyle blogger. It comes with so many fun perks...including a crazy mess from a good day's worth of work. 
A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
Over twelve years ago, I quit a job in the corporate world to move to a small town for my husband's career. At the time, there were no jobs in my field in this town, so I did freelance graphic design from home. After our kids were born, I continued freelance work off and on for several years. Eight years ago, we moved to central Texas and I expanded my business a bit by creating my own lines of cards, stationary, blog designs and more. In order to advertise my business more, I started this blog (I just celebrated four years here!). My youngest was about to start school. With my previous health history, I knew working outside the home was somewhat questionable. Even now that my cancer is completely in remission, I still am glued to the lifestyle working from home has brought me. I knew a blog could not only help me advertise my freelance work, but also give me a bit of a creative outlet for all of my other interests.

What started as a simple blog has turned into its own full-time job. I no longer do any freelance work...in fact, I actually love this even more. I'd love to say that I fly solo and run this show on my own, but, I'm no miracle worker. I have an incredible assistant, Gina, who is a God-send and does lots of behind the scenes stuff for me. I also have a wonderful family that is fully supportive of the craziness that is mom's job. Here's a peek at a day in my little world...messes and all (because, y'all...I love seeing others' real life...and sharing it, too!). 

A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
After four years, I do feel like I have a good rhythm down (for the most part). I try to just do recipe photo shoots two or three days a month (crafts and DIY projects are scattered throughout the month, too, and printable posts are done nearly every week). I pack my recipe days full...usually three to five recipes in one day. It's pretty exhausting. Not only am I cooking, I'm staging it all and photographing a lot of the process, especially the end result. The day I'm showing you here was actually just two recipes (and then photos for this post, too). It was actually a bit of a catch-up day coming off of a very last-minute spring break vacation. 

There's lots of chopping, whisking, baking, sauteeing...all of the fun. I don't worry about the mess as I go. I'm usually in a huge hurry to catch the perfect sunlight at the perfect time of day for my final photos.

I know my O-Cedar Angler Broom will be ready and waiting for my beautiful mess once the sun is down and I'm ready to tackle it.  


A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
One of my recipes this day was a vegan burger with carmelized onions, apples, and cheese (this yummy recipe post will go live on Wednesday of this week).

I always create more than I need. On this day, I cooked eight patties, but only used three for my end photos. My family (and neighbors) are always super helpful with the extras (wink).


A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
Plating seems to take longer when you're doing it for a photo. I examine lettuce, y'all. Lettuce. I just want to make sure it all looks its best for the camera. I may rip through an entire head of lettuce just to make sure I've grabbed the perfect pieces (no worries...the "rejects" make a lovely salad for my lunch later).


A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
A beautiful mess. While it looks a bit crazy, I'm thankful for this mess. It allows me to work from home. It allows me to look out the window at my kids' school (which is directly across the street) and wave at them during their recess. It allows me to take off for spring break when the rest of my family is off. It's also allowed me to work with some wonderful companies and share my love of all things domestic with all of you.


A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
After all the cooking, prepping, and mess-making, I haul everything to the garage for photos. My garage has great light. My set up is a bit off-beat (and probably ridiculously unprofessional), but it works well for me when I shoot with a 50mm lens for my food photos...it's the perfect space!

Above is my super fancy photo studio...rebar and all, y'all. I built the pallet board as a bottom background and usually use scrapbook paper for the top, clipped to my rebar. The rebar is for hanging printable banners for photos. I (sloppily) painted that one wall in my garage just for photos, too...in case I just want an actual wall as the background.

I get weird looks from the mailman...but hey, I still love my job.


A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
As my light begins to fade for photos, I turn my attention back to the kitchen...a sink full of dishes, an island full of food remnants, a stove full of food-caked pans. To me, it's all a part of the job description. A beautiful mess, indeed.


A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
My O-Cedar Angler broom is the perfect solution to it all.

A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
With a little bit of cleaning and a few sweeps, normalcy slowly creeps back in.
My house returns from its studio back into our home.

Be sure to enter below to win big from O-Cedar:
O-Cedar "A Beautiful Mess" Giveaway

A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
After I clean, (and often at my kids' sports or piano practices), I edit photos. This was edited on my laptop, I use a different program on my desktop computer. But I was pretty happy with these photos, so they really didn't need too much help.

A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger
From my beautiful mess, to a mouth-watering end result. I truly love what I do.
Hilariously, after all of that cooking, we had take-out for dinner.
I was too tired to reheat any of it...it is what it is. 

Check out this beautiful mess from O-Cedar compiled from lots of people's messes>>>


I've shared above how I find beauty in my own messes.
Check out O-Cedar's Twitter feed here for more beautiful messes.
How do you find beauty in yours? Tell me in the comments below.

A Beautiful Mess: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Lifestyle Blogger

Neglect your chores like me and don't miss a thing:




15 comments:

  1. I love this post Kristi! I take the majority of my pics in the garage too. Glad I'm not the only one:-)

    Katie

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  2. This is a great post! I love it when bloggers present to their readers what really goes on and who they really are. Thanks!

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  3. This is an AWESOME post. It really describes the behind-the-scenes so well, right down to the weird looks from the mail carrier. I love it! You are awesome. I liked your blog before, but you just made me love it. LOVE it.

    And I've also gotta say - I love the O-Cedar angler brooms. They're the best.

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  4. Thank you for sharing some behind the scenes stuff! Great post!

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  5. This is so awesome! I'm so glad you showed all the before, during and after shots. It really makes everything come together and I love seeing the finished product.

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  6. I can completely relate to a "beautiful mess". Fun post!

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  7. Love this post! I love seeing behind the scenes!

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  8. Love this! It looks just like my kitchen in the middle of a foodie post. I need to try this broom, mine is just not cutting it.

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  9. I love this! I've done several half day shoots where the crafts were basically all assembled prior and it is so exhausting! Isn't is crazy fun what we get to do? Thanks for sharing your behind the scenes with us!!!!

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  10. I love this! If people only knew how much work we went through to get some of the photos we do! My kitchen looked like this last week when I was putting together a frozen custard toppings bar. It was delicious and worth it, but oh so messy!

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  11. Hahaha, I love it! I totally know what you mean.. it's a messy process behind the scenes for that beautiful photo. This sandwich looks insanely great. Thanks for sharing with us :)

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  12. I love your island! That blue is a beautiful color. Your kitchen looks similar to mine... a mess ;)

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  13. Great post! I always think it's funny to see how it really looks. I'm taking pics in a small corner of the garage right now. The light is beautiful, but the space is really difficult! I know how it is!

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  14. This is all so true, at least the final photo looks good!

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  15. I'm so glad someone else's house looks like this too!

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