After spending years in a corporate setting, Liz Joy found herself itching to use her left brained creative instincts and share what inspired her life and style. As she left full time work to be home with her new baby, she realized a blog was the perfect creative outlet for her lifestyle. A paperie soon followed and Pure Joy Home was off and running. We chatted with Liz about design, life in New England and of course, motherhood.
Check out Liz’s blog for an April box review and a giveaway today!
Tell us a little about you, personally and professionally.
I am a creative spirit who believes in making the most out of every day and living a joyful life. I have been blessed with two beautiful children and an amazing husband who is my best friend and my rock; we are a team whose bond is so strong I can't imagine doing anything without their hands in mine.
I am very inspired by nature and everything around me and I share my creative inspirations via my paper goods company, Pure Joy Paperie, and my lifestyle blog, Pure Joy Home. I love to write about all that inspires me: interior design, fashion, and living a healthy lifestyle through exercise and recipes. Through the paperie, I love to design my art prints and stationery with lots of color and joy- many of my designs are directly influenced by nature and the outdoors. My left side brain is always in HIGH GEAR bursting with ideas on what to create next, it's fun to be this way but can be exhausting!
Pure Joy Home is darling! Tell us how you got started and why you decided to hop into the world of blogging.
I started Pure Joy Home years ago while working in corporate Human Resources. While I loved the community and interacting with people portion of my job responsibilities, my creative side was not being fulfilled. I started Pure Joy Home as a way to share all of my inspirations and ideas and feed the creative part of my personality. Once I began writing the blog I quickly realized that I needed to learn how to use Photoshop and Illustrator in order to and keep my content fresh. I learned a lot about graphic design and self-taught my way through Photoshop and Illustrator. The more I learned, the more I loved it and Pure Joy Paperie followed suit. I started painting again and incorporating that medium into my designs as well which helped launch my art prints and stationery. I started out creating birthday party invitations and save the dates that I sold on Etsy and now I am creating entire custom wedding invitation suites printed in all forms- including letterpress. It's a fun and very fulfilling mix to have the blog where I share my visions and interpretations of all things lifestyle and the paperie that keeps me creating and interacting with such a receptive and encouraging group of people.
Your blog talks about daily inspiration. Where do you find most your inspiration lately?
I approach my day with my eyes wide open and an open heart ready to seek out what's happening around us. I'm inspired from the moment I wake up when I see the smiles plastered on my little ones faces and throughout our daily adventures including walks around the neighborhood, going to the beach, shopping, dining, meeting new people, traveling, cooking, tasting, etc. I love to be out exploring with my family and I also love being home playing in the kitchen, building towers, having dance parties and snuggling on our couch.
How would you describe your personal style?
I would describe my personal style as laid back and casual with a touch of boho. It's definitely inspired by beach living, even though we don't actually live on a beach, although that is in the plans...
To you, being a mother is…..
To me, being a mother is a privilege. You are given the gift of these beautiful babies that you mold into human beings and what a crazy cool responsibility that is! It's our job as parents to teach them about the world and guide them as they navigate through their life. I feel very strongly about letting children lead their own way and figuring things out on their own, even as young babies. The last thing I ever want to do is stand in my kids way and prevent them from learning for themselves. As their mother, I will always be there to catch them when they fall but I think it's important to fall. When my son was learning to walk, he fell a lot, and he's a great walker now.
We love how you talk about joy in the everyday. That can be hard with two little kids and a busy life! What does it mean to have joy and why is that a focus for you?
We only get one shot at this life, and my mantra lately has been "when you're 90 years old, what would you say to yourself now?" This helps me tackle whatever task or problem is at hand and puts everything into perspective. To me life is about LOVING those around you, lifting each other up, and having FUN because who really cares about all the other nonsense? We fill our days with what makes us happy and I try to take the taxing elements of being a parent lightly such as the tantrums, making them eat a "perfect all-organic" diet, "screen-time", sleepless nights, etc. We do our best, we do what works for us, and we make having fun our main priority!
What are some of your favorite family traditions or things to do?
We love to be outside hanging in our yard, playing with balls and hide and seek, going for walks, going to the beach, dancing, snuggling in bed, reading books, swimming, etc...We like things we can do together and all enJOY :)