I started my tumblr blog in December of 2007, but for a full month it was a secret. See, I’ve always been skeptical of social media. I deleted my Myspace account after a year and a half of use, I joined Facebook only after everyone told me I should have a profile for “professional use,” my first tweet was just a year ago. It’s always felt like way too much to keep up with. I kept my blog secret at first because I didn’t know what I was doing and I was afraid that whatever I was doing was wrong. But eventually in January of 2008 I told my best friend Amandalyn Ferri (you know, from the internet) about my tumblog, which she quickly reblogged and before I knew it I had found myself a full fledged member of the Tumblr community.
For the majority of my blog’s life span it has been purely personal; cataloging artwork, old photographs of my family, personal achievements and those of my friends, relationships come and gone, nights out, pets, cat videos, vacation and of course, delicious food. However in March 2011, after jolting awake in the night with a fully formed idea of The Daily Face (something I thought only happened in movies), I threw my efforts into making my blog what it is today.
I have been doing The Daily Face feature on my blog for over a year now. For those who are unfamiliar with the project, it’s simply this: I create a makeup look on myself, photograph it and detail exactly what products I use and the steps taken to achieve the look. I also include beauty tips, like cat eye liner how-to’s, and have recently added weekly nail looks. My goal has always been to make makeup accessible to all people, even if you don’t wear a lot, or have never worn it before. It was also important to me not to lose the personal aspect of my blog, so there are always snapshots from my life mixed in.
My idea was good, but would have been impossible to pull off without the tumblr platform. It was a slow burn at first, gaining more followers through people reblogging and tweeting about my blog, but even in the beginning I found myself able to reach larger internet venues, like DailyCandy; who brought me in to do videos for them. Things really blew open for me in September 2011 though, when Tumblr included me in their small group of bloggers to cover Fall/Winter 2011 Fashion Week and then later when they included me in their Beauty Spotlight. Since then I have contributed to BirchBox, Glamour, Stylelist, DailyCandy, Paper Magazine and HelloGiggles.
I love my blog (and in turn, Tumblr) because it has given me the opportunity to do what I like to do, while reaching people I never thought possible. We are lucky to live in an age where we can reach a destination by way of many different and unexpected avenues. Tumblr is a huge part of this. It makes us entrepreneurial and provides access to turn ideas into reality. It opens us up to things, people, and ideas we may not have seen otherwise, and that makes us cooler, more cultured, and most of all, smarter.
Design by Simon Fletcher. Powered by Tumblr.
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