Who does not love behind the scenes? I know I always enjoy reading what goes on in the making of my favorite books, tv shows/movies, blogs and so on. I decided to share a bit of the “behind the scenes” at Our City Homestead. Ever wonder what goes into our blog posts? How we create projects or recipes? Well, here is a little look at what we do!
There is quite a bit that goes into a blog post — writing the blog and in our case, deciding what kinds of recipes to share, plus researching food history because a big part of our blog is good old fashioned cooking like the pioneers once created. Plus there are photos to take and share, editing, publishing, newsletters to create, social media to share to and so much more, not to mention the cooking, baking, gardening and creating DIY projects and crafts.
Sometimes, it may seem new posts take forever to be published, and rightfully so. I even feel like a post should be up and running lickety-split but my strive for perfection can get in the way! I blog and save and edit and save and I often do this process a few times before I am ready to hit that publish button, but I honestly want to be sure I get my story across easily, that it makes sense and provides the best explanation on a how-to do something post or the recipe is correct and concise. I always add a small writing about the recipe or origin and history of it. I always love reading about that sort of stuff!! I also check for spelling errors and I read my posts over a few times, changing the wording and making sure quantities on recipes are correct. It can take me anywhere from an hour to do a post to several hours! It just depends what exactly it is! I sometimes get distracted, sometimes type several drafts and put editing and posting off while I get more ideas out. I often get caught up in so many things, but it is something I am improving on! “Progress is so much better than perfection” — something I work on each day!
I also spend quite a bit of time researching origins of recipes and how a lot of these wonderful recipes of pioneer times and of days gone by can be converted to measurements of today. I try old recipes, recipes from the 1700’s and 1800’s and make old family favorites as well as my own creations of “a little of this and a little of that” to blog right here! Sometimes I forget to take photos along the way which may result in sparse posts or my having to cook or bake it all over again just so I can take pictures! This of course results in a delay of my posting, but I just go with the flow!! Nothing like more goodies to enjoy!
So now that you know I take my time and put a lot of effort and care into each of my blog posts, let’s quickly mention photos! I love all things photos – I enjoy taking them, I enjoy looking at them and reflecting on them, I enjoy sharing them, I love how they transport you to another time and I love using them as a teaching tool. I find photos sometimes can be super simple and are easy to take and sometimes the ideas I have of staging get in the way. I always want to portray what the post is all about the best I can without getting “too fancy” or fake. I do not like too much distraction within the photos. I like it rustic, simple and it even to show our every day.
For example, I really did enjoy this delectable fudgy oat butterscotch bar with a reversed caramel dalgona iced coffee while working on Our City Homestead! I brought the coffee shop home while working from the comfort of my kitchen.
Like I said, we are trying to keep our photos simple and rustic, but we are also wanting them somewhat professional looking. We are working on improving our staging for 2021 and I am super excited to share these wonderful new images, capturing the goodness of what we created with much less background distraction! Pictured below, we are staging a delicious loaf of bread that is for our exclusive (never published on our website) free breads e-book you receive when subscribing to our awesome newsletter!!
I actually spent several days working on our exclusive breads e-book! I tested recipes and remade our family favorites which resulted in a kitchen full of bread to photograph and eat! I often toss ingredients in a bowl, so writing measurements can be challenging, even for making my bread! After all that baking, we then picked the best recipes to include! I am proud of our very first e-book and look forward to creating more, plus we are planning some fabulous things for the upcoming year!
Recipes. I love recipes! I have tons of recipes and cookbooks. I love recipe exchanges and searching for new favorites! I also have a pile of recipes in my recipe box that I was required to start as a Home Ec. project in grade 8. I have been slowly going through them all, making or baking them, capturing the goodness in photos and sharing it here with you. I really hope you enjoy all the recipes we share — they truly are made from the heart!
We spend numerous hours developing content for our readers and creating exclusives for our subscribers like you! We bake and cook and taste and photograph and then create new blog posts. It’s much the same for crafts and DIY projects. We create it, make it and try it out. We then make any changes or improvements and make it all over again to take step-by-step photos to blog and then we share it here with you! The crafting can be tricky sometimes to photograph or write instructions that make sense, but we hope to share much more crafting ideas this year! We are very crafty and love creating new projects! Many who know us (and even some who do not know us that well) happen to know we are a crafty family! We simply enjoy creating beautiful things and love hands-on projects! We find it relaxing and a great way to reduce stress plus it allows us a creative outlet which helps balance the expressive and creative energies of the sacral chakra.
We will be sharing an array of crafts, including sewing projects, chalking and painting projects, rustic home decor and even projects like my recipe box holder which I love, plus so much more.
Social Media. I tend to neglect our social media — not on purpose of course. I get so busy in blogging and creating and cooking or baking and gardening fun, (and of course homeschooling and all the other fun life brings), that I simply forget to let everyone know what we are up to on social media! We are on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest which you can find the links in all of our posts, plus we are brand new to Twitter which I am still trying to figure out, and will be linking here soon! I have my daughters occasionally helping me post on social media (such a great learning experience) and am looking forward to doing more LIVE videos on Our City Homestead on Facebook and eventually Instagram.
Here is one of our original posts from Instagram! Come follow us!!
We “taste test” recipes often like this veggie flatbread. We make a variety of recipes — everything from simple old fashioned home cooking to our favorite takes on foods from different cultures to delectable baked goods, to rustic meals and quick and easy dinners — some are hands down, the most delicious and some are horrible failures which never make it to the blog, but would make great bloopers!
Everything we create, we create with the possibility of blogging!
Above all, we love what we do here at Our City Homestead and we share our love of cooking and baking, pioneer history and lifestyle, crafts and DIY projects and gardening while bringing it all together with a little country flair in the heart of the city!
Thanks so much for being here! We hope you have enjoyed a little glimpse into what we do here — it has been a fun blogging post for me and I will no doubt share more behind the scenes in the future!
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours
Your blog is beautiful! You could tell how much love and care that you put into it! I am also thoroughly impressed with your bread recipes PDF that’s free when you subscribe to your newsletter..it’s gorgeous and I can’t wait to try the recipes!! Congrats on your 1 year of blogging!
Thanks so much! I really do put a lot of heart into Our City Homestead! Let us know how your bread recipes turn out – they are some of our favorites that we make regularly!!