We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alli Ward a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alli , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I spent the first 15 years of my career in the corporate world as a marketing and data analyst. Very numbers focused with very little room for being creative. My blog grew as a way to express that creativity through DIY projects and craft ideas I had for my kids and for my home.

When I first started, I would create projects for my local friends and family to inspire them how to make different things. I left that corporate job to pursue a full-time creative path for almost 10 years. While I continue to create different colorful family-focused crafts and projects not only for my family friends locally, anyone that was looking on the internet, It wasn’t until 2.5 years ago that I realized that it was more than just my Mom looking at my projects. I received an email from an educator in a small town outside Jakarta, Indonesia. The entire classroom of children had created one of my projects and sent me pictures.

It was then that I realized that I what I am making and sharing is inspire children and families all over the world.

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

Celebrating the HAPPY and positivity every day has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I went to school, and spent the first 15 years of my career as a skilled analyst, statistician, and computer programmer… Doesn’t really scream creativity, but I truly loved my job.

MadewithHappy.com started in its infant form in 2010 as a way to document our everyday life and share pictures of our young kids with our families across the US. It quickly became my creative outlet as I started to share crafts, home DIY Projects, parties, and recipes I loved.

After a few large brands started to take notice and the traffic to my site started to increase, I made the jump to full-time blogging in 2014. In the past 9 years, I have been blessed to collaborate with some great brands (Disney, Potterybarn Kids, and HP to name a few) as well as create an incredible website that I am very proud of. I love that I get to use my creativity every day, but also my business, computer, and analytical background to run the business side.

MadewithHappy.com today is a website focused on inspiring children and families to create and have fun working with their hands.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of my creative outlet is when I hear from my readers about how they love what I made or how it has impacted them. I have heard from Mom’s on how their kids loved a specific craft. I have heard from Dad’s with how they made some of our DIY projects (like our treehouse and dog house) with their kids and how much fun their families are loving it.

Some of the most rewarding emails have included a sister that sends our coloring pages and activity sheets to her special needs brother in his facility each week and how he spends hours coloring and loving it. Or the grandmother that looks after her grandchildren that just lost their Dad and how much fun they have with the crafts and printable games.

It is heartwarming to help kids flex their creative muscles. When I know there are families and kids out there that are facing adversity and what I make helps in even the smallest way, makes it all incredibly worth it!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The statements and questions I get asked most often after I tell someone that I own a kid’s crafting and DIY website is “Do you sell people the items you make?”, “Oh, what a fun hobby”, or “I’d love to take you to coffee sometime, I’ve been wanting to start a blog.”

I have been doing this so long, that I have heard it all when it comes to not understanding my business or how it works. What I think is important for those not in the creative space to realize is that this is a true business (not a hobbie) and a pretty big business at that.

In order to run a large website (hundreds of thousands to millions of pageviews each month) there are many of the same requirements as a brick-and-mortar store. There is the technology (IT) aspect of keeping a website up and running. Marketing is huge as we need to make sure our projects are being seen. Finance of course because we not only need to make money to pay for IT and Marketing but as with any small business, put food on the table.

While there are lots of different avenues for making money in an online business, for many, advertising on the website is a large portion of it. The ads you see throughout the site help to keep our sites thriving. Many online small businesses spend a good amount of time balancing the amount of ads while still making money.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.madewithhappy.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/madewithhappy
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/madewithhappy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alli-ward-347b54/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/madewithhappy
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBYBMkt10GqCDGQwoaYsaxQ