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. 

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!). 

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.  

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).

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. 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.

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.

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.

My O-Cedar Angler broom is the perfect solution to it all.

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

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.

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.

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

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