New Beginnings

Don’t you just love new beginnings? Having a clean slate and starting fresh?

There’s just something about a blank page. Though fraught with uncertainty, the promise of all the possibilities, the opportunities and the hope of great things to come, are enough to give one the drive to dive head on.

Today, I am excited to finally kickoff this new beginning. This fresh start.

Hello! Welcome to A Crafted Lifestyle!

First and foremost, let me introduce myself. I am Anna Ignacio. Some of you may know me from my previous blogs, or maybe from my Instagram, as annings.

Sixteen years ago, I started blogging with the sole purpose of documenting my life. I wanted to write, using my blog as a digital record, so I could easily look back at memories I wanted to preserve. From a regular blogger, posting snippets of my life and my experiences on the daily, blogging quickly took a backseat when marriage and motherhood happened.

Raising a family and managing a home takes a whole lot of energy, attention and time, and balancing it all while trying to squeeze in some online journaling became a bit too much for me to handle. So I stopped, and for a while I concentrated on my family.

While stay-at-home mother and homemaker turned into my job titles, I made sure not to be defined by them. It was easy to get caught in the whirlwind of chores, cooking and never-ending to-do lists, but I didn’t want those titles to stop me from nurturing my love and passion for the arts. I immersed myself in calligraphy, hand lettering, painting, scrapbooking, different types of crafts, and even picked up the art of bento-making and food styling.

Marriage and motherhood hasn’t stopped me from making art. Art is my therapy, but it’s simply not just an escape from the busy life of managing a home. Art is what makes this journey more exciting and fun. It brightens our days and nourishes our home. All the touches of art and the crafty activities have helped me be a better wife and a more involved mother.

Being a homemaker has given me the drive to be more creative and to use the everyday to find ways to live A Crafted Lifestyle.

It is in this note that I took the plunge and finally started a blog again.

I am not new to blogging, but this time I wanted a fresh start. A clean slate. I want to go in a different direction with a new purpose.

A Crafted Lifestyle will be my platform to inspire others to create and pursue the life that they dream.

This blog will not like be my previous domains where memory keeping was my main purpose. Instead, I will use this as a tool to share how fun and easy it is to insert creativity into the everyday.

Through scrapbooking, calligraphy, photography, simple styling, DIYs, tutorials and all sorts of fun crafts, I will share tips on how to brighten up your homes and lives.

Join me as I embark on this new journey. It’s going to be a whole lot of fun, I promise!