The past month has brought a handful of "new moments" my way, and I wanted to make sure you sweeties are feeling completely up to date...
Marriage is Funny has taken up most of my bandwidth for (public and unsolicited) heart-felt sharing these days, so it may mean that Pepper Letters will become more like a once-in-a-while occasion until I can figure out the right balance, ya know?
The following is a little back-story about my journey as an online publisher, and if you've already hopped over to see the new site this week, it's possible that you'll recognize the words below. ;)
If you're new around here (HELLO + BIg HUGS!)... Feel free to check out the smattering of past love-notes right here, and in the meantime - I'd love to have you hit reply and tell me a bit about yourself with a quick intro!
XOXO, As Always - Jessie Pepper
When I first started blogging, it was all about riding the waves of creativity and letting them carry us to places we’d never thought we’d reach. Doing our own thing, serving up
digital dishes for an audience we might otherwise never meet.
Beginning to build my own little spot on the internet felt oddly similar to the sense I had when we moved into our first apartment together as
a married couple. Nothing matched. Everything clashed. We tried so hard to make the space “feel like us” (at 22 years old) that it ended up being one big mash-up of styles, eras, colors + half-finished DIY projects. (And I do NOT mean this in an
elegantly bohemian way.)
The next version became about function and form and finding ways to make a big impact with a slightly more forgiving budget. I spent hours upon hours researching things like fancy appliances and sophisticated furniture for our home, while simultaneously focusing on search engine optimization and the latest social media channels as a way to stay on top of my online game.
Eventually, starting to sift through my schizophrenic decor-style and settling on a
core message for the site certainly helped, but now it’s seven years later and I can hardly believe how much things have changed. So much transformation has happened both here on S+P and inside our home, but also throughout the blogging industry (and inside my heart) as a whole.
The Style + Pepper brand has gone through many visible adaptations over the course of it’s life. As our content and
ingredients continue to morph and grow, I love using a fresh new look of the brand as an opportunity to refine and reorient and reimagine all of the ways that it may look in another handful of months or years.
The biggest difference you’ll see today, is that our new design feels modern, easy + much more like our real home than ever before. That’s always been my whole aim, really — To create a space where you feel welcome and loved and invited and warm.
Go ahead and pull up a seat at the table, let me pour you a fizzy drink while I pop on the tunes, and please make yourself at home while you enjoy the latest version of our flavorful new brand.
All of the new logos and visuals you’ll see were created in collaboration with my incredibly talented (and patient)
baby brother… We started with a ton of my personal inspiration, and managed to get through the entire process without punching each other even once. ;)
The core of everything I do is very much the same, so what I post on the blog will clearly follow… I’m still regularly freaking out over fun things like
style and
sweat sessions and
sipping cocktails, but the beautifully tragic and triumphant matters of the heart will hopefully be popping up a bit more often.
I believe that it all belongs, and I’m grateful for a space and opportunity to share it with you whenever you decide to stop by.
In the meantime, please know that I love seeing the snaps and tweets and tags as you capture your own version of a #flavorfullife, and can’t wait to keep exploring what this looks like while we take little moments to celebrate it together!
Thank you and you and you for being a part of our journey so far, and as always - I hope you can feel my big hugs right through the screen! XOXO
