Our 500th Post: A Look Back

Blogging has a special place in my heart, and not just for the reason you might think.  Long before InspiringPretty was around, I had a deep appreciation for bloggers.  After all, it was a blogger who showed me how to turn granulated sugar into powdered sugar.  And what to do with all of that overgrown zucchini.  It was a blogger who showed me how to use my extra mason jars.  And how to make baseball prints on my son’s wall.   It was a blogger who brought me comfort when I doubted my mothering abilities.  And made me realize that you don’t have to be perfect to excel at something.

So when the prospect of putting together a site of our own came up, I was pretty excited.  I wasn’t expecting to replace any income.  Not many bloggers go into for the money.  There is a minority of very talented and dedicated folks who pull in a paycheck worth talking about.  But most of us make little more than it costs to pay our hosting fees and put up a few giveaways.  No, I saw this as a way to pay forward all advice and encouragement that I had benefited from all of these years.

Today is our 500th post on InspiringPretty.  Nearly two years ago we set out to make the world a prettier place, one reader at a time.  In that time we have gained so much more than we could have imagined.  This site has given us a voice for our frustrations and inspirations, a forum to showcase our crafty and culinary feats,  a way to say to the world, “Hey, isn’t this {…} creative/beautiful/amazing?!”, an opportunity to help out some pretty great budding companies and, yes, a fairly meager paycheck.  But above all of that, it gives us a tangible way to do better.  To try new things so that we can post about them.  To seek out innovative products, so that we can tell you about them.  And to reach out to as many people as we can so that we will have the biggest platform possible to support the companies and people that we love.

If you are a long time reader, thanks for coming along with us on our journey!  If you have just stumbled across our site, I hope you will join us for our next 500 posts.  We look forward to the many writing adventures {and maybe even a blog conference or two!} in our future.