We recently connected with Cristy Stewart-Harfmann and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Cristy, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
My mission with Happy Family Blog is to help families slow down and find joy in everyday things. Before starting Happy Family Blog I worked in corporate America working 100+ hours a week. I LOVED working and worked so many hours because it brought me joy. That all changed when my daughter was born premature. The first year of her life I continued to work, but I felt pulled to be a stay at home mom.
Since giving up my career would mean a total lifestyle change I looked to start a business where I could be home and work on my terms. They say as parents the days are long and the years are short. This statement feels so true. We want to inspire families to focus on joy together. Sometimes that is as simple as a yummy meal together. Other times it is celebrating milestones and holidays with easy setups. Or our favorite way to find joy as a family is through travel. We share family friendly travel that our readers can recreate for their family too.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
I have always been an optimist. As I have gotten older I realized that being able to find joy in even the hardest times is rare. I started Happy Family Blog so I could help share my optimism with my readers.
Life is busy and we can go through the motions without stopping to find the joy. I share easy ways to find joy with your family. Like how to make a donut cake with store bought donuts. Or turning oranges into butterflies and adding them to a breakfast platter.
We are blessed to live in South Florida where there is so much to do for families. We love to be tourist in our town. And we share those adventures (like beach days, sea turtle hospital, seeing manatees) with our followers.
I am a world traveler. I have been to over 28 countries. We love traveling with our family and sharing where we go and how to make their family friendly.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
My best advice for creatives is to find other creatives and create a community together. No one will understand how to support you in your challenges or cheer you on in your success than friends in your industry.
Find a Mastermind group where you can all share things that work and don’t work.
Have you ever had to pivot?
A majority of my business is from brand partners. During the lockdown brand partners dried up over night (I am so grateful they are back now). I had to pivot my business and focus on creating other revenue streams. I focused on what I did well. – I created a Masterclass on Brand Partnership so I could teach other content creators how to make money with brands.
– I focused on increasing my affiliate income and started a Facebook group to share deals.
– Increased blog traffic to increase ad revenue
– Started a new section of my business to represent other creators as their Brand Manager
-I launched a podcast called The Happy Family Podcast. My goal is to be able to inspire others to find joy by sharing stories from people with similar life experiences.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://happyfamilyblog.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happyfamilyblog/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HappyFamilyBlog/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristinamba/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/HappyFamilyBlog