We recently connected with Jamie Lee and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jamie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

When we first moved to Colorado over 12 years ago we had a toddler and knew no one here. I was lonely as a stay-at-home mom and I lost my village of people. I was in a new city, didn’t know anyone, and didn’t have much to do outside of our home, so I decided to start a blog for family and friends. I figured it would be a good way for everyone to keep up with what we were doing and I could share the adventures my daughter and I took around Denver. Things like visiting the Denver Zoo, going to parks, etc.

When I shared my blog on my personal social media a friend reached out to me and told me about “mommy blogging”. I was intrigued because I didn’t know anything about it and had never read a mommy blog. She showed me the basics and I was terrified. Why would anyone want to work with little ol’ me? Then I drove right in reaching out to brands and companies to work with.

I know people tend to think mommy blogging isn’t a lot of work, but it can be. Stay-at-home parents have a heavy workload taking care of their kids and their house, add in having to write a post, take pictures. and everything else that goes into the post and it gets to be a lot. As we had more kids it became harder to keep up with blogging. Juggling 3 kids who need constant attention while you’re also trying to work is a lot. There were often times when I thought I would need to give it up because I didn’t have the time to dedicate to it. This always made me sad because I have LOVED working on this blog. It’s my 5th baby!

My blog has grown over the years and it has also changed a lot, which was scary. When I first started I was working with brands to review toys, food, places, and sharing things we did. Now I don’t work with brands much anymore. The pandemic took a lot of work away from bloggers and it never came back. As a business that was a scary time. I had to reevaluate how I was doing things and see what I could change to adapt to this new way of blogging. I once again jumped right in and changed how I was running my blog. I was terrified that this new way of blogging wouldn’t work for me, but it has turned out to be so awesome. It has grown, adapted to change, and brings me so much joy to work on.

When I started mommy blogging my whole goal was to help parents. Whether it was helping them do something fun with their family or helping them pick out a new gift for their kids. I have always liked helping people. And this blog allowed me to do that, but also work with companies to try their products and give my honest feedback to other parents. Hopefully, this would help them choose if the brand, item, place, vehicle, etc was a good fit for their family before they spent the money. Now my goal has shifted to helping families but in a new way. I now share free printables for parents to help keep their kids entertained, crafts to do, recipes to feed their families, and I’ll never stop sharing about things to do in Denver. My focus these days is on FREE or cheap things to do.

When you have a business you have to adapt to change and sometimes that happens very quickly. It’s terrifying when you think all of your hard work is going down the drain, but my advice is to take a deep breath, come up with some new ideas, sleep on it, and then start executing those ideas. It will either work or fail, but you won’t know what will happen if you don’t try. If you fail, at least you’ll know you tried. If you succeed then your plan worked! Not every plan is going to be a success. I have had plenty of fails over the years, but it’s never stopped me from giving up!

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.

Hi, I’m Jamie! A 30-something mom living in the suburbs of Denver, Co. I have 4 children, an amazing husband, and some fur babies. I started my blog The Denver Housewife 12 years ago and it’s one of my favorite things.

The Denver Housewife started as a mommy review blog, but over the years has changed into a recipe, free printables, and craft blog. I share delicious recipes to feed your families with a focus on holidays. I try to make sure all of my recipes are easy to make and budget-friendly. I share free printables to help keep kids busy like activity sheets, bingo games, and even props for pictures, I also share crafts made with a Cricut machine and offer free SVG files for them. Last but not least I share about things to do around Denver. Indoor play places, splash pads, swimming lessons, and more!

I try to keep things low-cost, fun, and delicious!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Be yourself! For years I struggled with growing my social media audience because I felt like I had to be a certain way to fit in. I had to fit a certain aesthetic or hang out with certain people, but none of that is true. I started truly growing when I let go of who a mommy blogger should be and was just myself. Find what your audience likes to engage with and go from there.

Share the mess, the snarky memes, the not-so-perfect food, and everything else that makes you who you are. People love someone who is authentic. Not everything has to be business or sales-pushing. Give people a glimpse into who you are (with boundaries).

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Starting a blog does not require a lot of money. When I first started I was on Blogger, which is a free site. It was basic, but it got the job done. Setting up your social media accounts is also free. So you can start a blog for free.

When I first started blogging phone cameras weren’t what they are now, so you definitely needed a digital camera, but now you can blog off a phone camera. In fact, I have used my iPhone for several of my blog posts and you can’t tell the difference.

As I made money from blogging and social media I grew my blog. I switched to a self-hosted site, bought my domain name, invested in courses to help me grow, and bought more equipment for photography, crafting, and props for pictures. However, start with what you have on hand and as you grow, grow your blog/social media.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thedenverhousewife.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedenverhousewife/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDenverHousewife
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/denverhousewife