Hi, I’m Mandi! I work in the creative services department for Joann Stores by day, and I’m a crazy craft lady by…. other days.
My favorite kinds of projects are dramatic home makeovers (thankfully I haven’t been working on one of those in a while, though!), sewing or building things for dolls (that’s right, I said dolls), and tinkering with other little crafty projects with tools or food. I’ve been blogging for almost 15 years now, and 2020 seemed like as good a year as any to start fresh! (Okay, so in actuality, it felt like THE year to start fresh!)
If you’re wondering where I find the time to do all the things I do, don’t worry! I don’t actually have the time, which is why my posting here is sporadic at best. When you see me working on a fun project, odds are I am neglecting something important, like my personal fitness, my kids’ healthy eating habits, or, you know, a basic human sleep schedule. But sometimes I embrace the crazy and spend my limited time cutting up sewing patterns, planning a room makeover, or begging my husband to help me tile another room in our house. (Might explain why we’ve have subfloor in our back room for three years now!)
Want a little snippet of my professional journey? Read on below!
It was 2006, one week before college classes were to start up again for the fall, and I suddenly decided to change schools, move back to Ohio, and begin a career in interior design.
Spoiler alert: I am not an interior designer.
15 years later I’m in a much different place than I had ever imagined. My journey was set into motion when I clicked publish on my first blog in 2007. It started out as a scrapbooking blog and morphed to encompass all sorts of crafts, random musings, fashion interests, and home decorating. Along the way, I built connections with like-minded creatives— twenty-somethings on tight budgets with fun fashion sense and an urge to create.
As college years drew to a close, I realized that rather than stepping into the corporate world, I was interested in working for myself. The gig economy was new, and I had developed passions and skills to pay the bills. (Sorta.) I took freelance graphic design work when it came my way, was a wedding photographer on the weekends, and sold vintage in my spare time.
During the those years of going at it on my own, bloggers began teaming up together and I was fortunately enough to go along for the ride with Elsie and Emma and A Beautiful Mess. That was a life changing gig which allowed me to work on all sorts of fun and interesting projects that stretched me and grew my skillset. Being able to do the DIY blogger work without risking the startup money or feeling the immense pressure of being the owner of a business was a welcome change.
In my time since college, I had faced a lot of highs and lows and ended up developing some very unhealthy habits that led to manic depressive behavior tendencies. Aside from the standard stresses of marriage and living a low income lifestyle that I had chosen for myself, I also dealt with a cancer diagnosis and the fallout of some foolish life choices I had made.
In 2019 I realized that I wanted a change— no, needed a change. Working alone for all of those years had taken its toll. It didn’t feel natural or right to me. It always felt like a fight, except for when it consumed me and left me rung dry after each round of project obsession. I wanted forced consistency, normalcy, structure…. all of the things that I chafed against when my heart had been telling me to go out and do my own thing after college.
I began looking for a more traditional job, wondering what I would be cut out for with my strange work experience of the previous decade. But at the moment I needed it the most, my dream job opened up and wouldn’t you know it— I got the job!
So here I am— working for Joann stores as a crafted content planner in a cubicle with structure and lunch breaks. Workin’ that 8-5 and loving it. Who would have thought? Certainly not me!
Though my day job is demanding and takes up a lot of my creative energy, I still want to keep up with my personal passion projects from time to time.
I decided to start fresh and make a new space online to share those projects with the world. And that’s why I’m here. I’m glad you’re here too!
Contact Mandi for more info.
