I recently answered several (million) questions for my 7 Liebster Award nominations… one of those questions was How did you choose your blog name? I realized when I answered that question that I had never told y’all, my loyal readers (party of 1… your blog post is ready!) how I picked the name Happily Ever After Etc.
Let’s go back to the beginning shall we?
Before I ever clicked on the “start blog” button on wordpress.com I dreamed of having my own blog. I would dart around the blog-o-sphere reading all of these amazing blogs, written by these amazing women and think… that’s what I want to do. I thought about starting a blog in college… but who wants to read 3 posts a week about decorating a dorm room? I didn’t even think I could come up with that many ideas! (and if you’ve ever seen my dorm room you know I had a lot of dorm room decorating ideas… my room was decked out!) Then I moved in to an apartment and while I finally had the freedom to decorate as I pleased (to a certain extent I had a roomie and then a husband to consider) I just didn’t have the space to really tackle the projects I felt would be of interest to blog readers.
(Love the little blue arrow sign? Mine says Happily Ever After (for obvious reasons 😉 ) but you can have it personalized with whatever you like!)
Then my hubby and I moved into our very first house… and my excuses ran out. I finally had the space to do all of the projects my little heart desired! My hubby and I started brainstorming ideas for a blog name… I thought about using some variation of our last name but Smith is so common… maybe you’ve heard of a little blog called House of Smiths? How could I compete with that! My next idea was to use a variation of a favorite quote or saying. Well the writing was literally on the wall… in the form of my large blue DIY Pallet, that states quite clearly “& They Lived Happily Ever After”
That little catch phrase has always resonated with me for some reason. I grew up in the Disney Princess era and truly believed that one day my prince would come and take me away to a castle on his white horse. Some variety of woodland creatures would be waiting for me at the castle… of course we would sing wonderful songs, eat lots of yummy junk food and never do another chore again! Silly Disney Princess era 😉
While my life isn’t straight out of a Walt Disney Classic I truly believe I am living my very own version of Happily Ever After… etc. I have the handsome prince (who thinks the end of the bed is the dirty clothes bin and ketchup doesn’t need to be refrigerated (eeew!)) the majestic castle (3 bedrooms is majestic for us after the one bedroom apartment we shared in Colorado) unfortunately the singing woodland creatures are missing but I do have the cutest little Yorkie and kitten combo around! My little world isn’t exactly what I pictured growing up… but now that I’m “grown” well it’s just about perfect… etc.
Once I lit upon the idea of Happily Ever After Etc. I started looking around my life and realized that one of my favorite pillows also has “Happily Ever After” scrawled across the front! My Facebook cover photo also proudly declared “I believe in Happily Ever After!” I was convinced… it was the perfect name for my blog!
I think it perfectly describes my life and my home at the moment… my own version of perfect, of happy, of marriage, of home decor… etc.
PS I have had so many compliments/requests for tutorials/questions on where to find a similar one… for my big GIANT blue pallet that I finally wrote a tutorial! Yay! So if you want to make your very own GIANT pallet… here’s the steps!