Creative Crafters for Christmas: Sew Kidding

With Christmas just around the corner I thought it would be great to interview a number of creative crafters that can offer something unique at this time of year. This week I am delighted to feature Tracey with Sew Kidding.

Hi for those who don’t know you, could you please tell us a bit about yourself.

Hi I'm Tracey a creative blogger for Sew Kidding, I used to run an Etsy shop selling handmade items and work on commissions for craft magazines. 2 years ago I couldn't continue this when I decided to take my daughter out of school to home educate her due to no help for autism and PDA. I could no longer make to sell as the time involved needed was to be with my daughter. I started to write about our journey via a blog sharing our creative ways and realized that I could still have a creative outlet and make a bit of income. The blog was first called The Creative Pair as we made our crafts together, but in July I re-branded back to my business name and now concentrate on sewing and printable's with a few fun crafts. My daughter had found her love of art and video making so I'd like her to pursue her passions and dreams of her own. I spend a lot of my time with my daughter, home educating and going out for nature walks and many adventures and my spare moments are for blogging. Weekends are for family time though and I switch off and we go out on day trips or weekends away or events. I'm creating a second blog about our journey called Witts in the Wild so keep your eyes peeled! 

What sort of creative business do you run?

My blog is my business and many people still don't realise how you can make money from blogging it came to a surprise to me too! We have had so many opportunities open to us and it's definitely a path I will continue on. Its not for everyone it takes time to build up, its not instant and very time consuming, I stay up late nights to follow what has become my own interests, from creating and designing content, lighting and photography, illustrating and editing and then publishing and advertising. I do all of this myself and learnt everything I needed to know which has taken a lot and I mean A LOT! of painful late nights! After just 9 months of blogging I was up as a finalist as best craft blog for TOT100 so my hard work paid off.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to have a go themselves?

I'm pretty much a person who just dives into the deep end and tests the waters to see if its for me, so that would be my advice for anyone wanting to start a creative blog, just do it! stop thinking about it and try! I learnt quickly from just diving in, I'm sure researching and note making helps many but if you are passionate about what you do then that will shine through. The internet has space for everyone and I always keep that in my mind when I do what I do.

How do you juggle your creative work/life?

It is a huge juggle for me to maintain my blog and keep an online presence as most of my day and late evenings are devoted to being a carer and home educator to my daughter, I'd love to blog more often and go to PR events and awards but that's not the reason why I started blogging and I need to be with my daughter maybe when she's older I can go to more, who knows. I don't have the luxury of having six hours to my self so most social media is scheduled early in the morning with a few checks on my phone when I have a moment. The evenings are when I get a lot done but sometimes due to my daughters sleeping issues they can be a wash out too! So its mainly when I can, I will, sort of deal. I use my weekends as family time as that is very important to us so my social media kind of slows down then and I use those evenings to research and plan for home ed. So I'm permanently exhausted but its worth all that effort.

Where can we find you?

You can find Sew Kidding on:my blog here,

Thank you, Tracey for taking time out of your busy schedule to be interviewed.  If you are a creative crafter and would like to be interviewed on a future post in this series please get in contact.