5 years of The Artful Everyday

In typical fashion, on this blog and in my life, I’m late to post about The Artful Everyday’s 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! In January of 2018, my journey with this blog began. It wasn’t until July that I posted my first blog, but I like to celebrate this anniversary in January, when all the work and creativity began. It’s actually really incredible to think I’ve been working on this for five years, morphing and changing it as I grew and my life did too. So many dreams and desires have come true for me since starting this blog (and publishing 160 posts along the way).

To celebrate turning five, I decided to once again update the blog to better reflect where my life is now and where it’s headed.

I remember right when I began the blog, I had a column called ‘Amateur Expat.’ Someone gave me advice to get rid of the column, because I had just returned from study abroad and (everyone thought) not going back abroad. But I knew how badly I wanted to live abroad again—plus how determined I was to make it happen—and that I wanted to write about my experiences living abroad on the blog and continue to make that a part of my life. Which I did.

Now, I’m shifting once again to dive deeper into topics around life in Italy and leaving room to share more thoughtful reflection blogs, the kind of writing I love to do. Plus, there will be the usual topics of travel, including advice, guides, and impressions, and columns on home (which I’ve called ‘Casa’ as an ode to my almost-home of Italy…more on that soon), holiday, and parties (aptly called ‘Social’).

I’m also so excited to introduce a new series on the blog called ‘Inspired by,’ which will consist of interviews with the women who are so inspiring to me in my own life. I cannot wait to share them and their stories with you here—and am so excited to unveil this new blog structure that gives life to all of these ideas I have had inside of me for a long time, just waiting to be shared.

I’m planning to write another post to go deeper into the blog changes, and what you can expect from the new columns and series. Plus—expect some content in Italian, too, this year. 👀

It’s crazy for me to reflect back on how much my life has transformed and expanded in the last five years, but I guess that’s also life in your 20’s. And in the midst of that, we all lived through a pandemic. For me it’s still wild to think about, but that time sheltered at home gave me an incredible amount of space for creative projects and allowed me to completely change the direction of my career. I would never be where I am today without that time and now I feel even better set up for the future, a future I was already dreaming about as we all went into lockdown. Life is always working out for us, even if it doesn’t seem like it or takes longer than we thought.

Now my dreams are unfolding in front of me, more beautifully than I could have ever imagined.

While celebrating five years I can’t help but think about all the people I’ve connected with because of my blog. It has truly been a passion project and a loved creative outlet and when I hear from people (friends or strangers) that something I wrote touched them or made them feel less alone or inspired them, all the hours I’ve put into this website become worth it. Sharing our stories is one of the most powerful things we can do, even if it feels vulnerable as f*ck sometimes. I hope that my writing and my life gives people the courage to live the life they want, with intention, following their dreams and living in alignment as much as they can.

When we’re living our most authentic, genuine selves, we show up for the world in the best and most beautiful way possible. So don’t shrink down because of society or that voice in your head or that person in your life who’s dissatisfied with themselves and takes it out on you. Ignore it all and instead listen to your heart and your soul.

Pay attention to what lights you up, the places that feel like home, the people that make you the best version of yourself.

Those are the things to hold onto in this life. And I hope that in some way, big or small, The Artful Everyday can help show you that.

I am SO excited for this next era of the blog—I truly believe this restructure/redesign to celebrate the anniversary is helping me to align the blog so much better with my life and where I want to go in the future, and I cannot wait to take you along with me and continue sharing my life and musings and resources.

As always, I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read the blog, send me a DM, or connect with me. Thank you, grazie di cuore, for being here. Xx Maggie

Maggie’s top 5 blogs of the last 5 years

And to look back on the last five years, I thought I’d compile five of my personal favorite blogs. I can’t wait to continue writing and share more of my life with you all.

• Labels
• Leave yourself behind
• Overseas discoveries: I live here
• When we find happiness again
• How I learned Italian