When I started blogging, I bounced around from Xanga, Myspace, Tumblr, Blogger, and WordPress. I even dabbled with Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly. My blogs were about teenage angst, lots of emotional “first boyfriend” rants, friends, “finding yourself”, love, and more. Some blogs were about fashion, DIY, cooking, and lifestyle. But, it wasn’t until The Quirky Pineapple, that I decided to stick with travel blogging.

Then I turned into a lifestyle and travel blogger! I served my community with posts about moving abroad, thoughtful travel, women empowerment, and international love stories. I started to receive more inquiries for sponsored posts, affiliate links, and help with blogging.

Now, The Quirky Pineapple is rebranding to The Quirky Pineapple Studio; offering copywriting, content creation, and brand/blog strategy for the fierce, creative souls in the tourism and hospitality industry! You may have noticed a little change in The Quirky Pineapple’s appearance, and I’m excited to dish it all out to you about the months of planning that went into this!

What inspired the transition from blogging to online business?

I’ve been blogging since I was 13, which means I have over 10 years of experience in the blogging sphere! When I first started blogging, I knew, immediately, that I wanted this to become my full-time job. Since then, I’ve been pursuing this dream!

I had numerous blogs before The Quirky Pineapple Studio that were all flops. During my senior year of college, I created The Quirky Pineapple. It was first an online diary, then a travel blog, and finally a lifestyle and travel blog. I moved to Spain to teach English, after graduating, and decided that I need a space to share my adventures and inspire people at the same time.

After two years abroad, I moved back home to the United States to try out “corporate America”. From there, my travel blog quickly became a lifestyle and travel blog. On the blog were my adventures but also more about my lifestyle transition and becoming a full-time employee at a large company.

Thanks to my full-time job, I finally had the funds I needed to invest in my blog the way I always wanted to! I started working on my blog as a side-hustle every night after work, and spent my weekends creating content. I reached out to other bloggers and creatives in the Washington, DC area, meeting as many people as possible! Attending regular networking events with creative entrepreneurs who were photographers, videographers, small business owners, etc. I was inspired by their story and how they helped their audience through each of their services.

Being a full-time blogger takes A LOT of work. Although I knew I loved this type of work, I didn’t want to be another vessel that brands and companies used to get their products in front of an audience.

I knew I wanted to help my audience in a more direct way.

This lead me to brainstorming ideas for services, products, or anything else that would help me get closer to becoming a full-time “blogger” or entrepreneur! After all the journaling I did, the late talks with my family and boyfriend, and reading A LOT of motivational/inspirational blog posts, the idea of a “Brand Relaunch” popped into my mind. I remember when I first thought about it – and it terrified me. The Quirky Pineapple Lifestyle & Travel Blog wasn’t who I was anymore, I grew out of my first brand.

After months of journaling, I went back and highlighted common themes I saw in my entries. So many things I wrote, talked about writing, sharing, inspiring, connecting, and communicating. I realized, I’ve always wanted to write and create stories for people! I wanted to welcome people into my “studio” (virtually or in-person) and invite them to share in a heartfelt conversation or event.

At this time, I also knew that corporate America was NOT my cup of tea. While I am grateful for having a full-time job, I knew I didn’t want to work in this type of setting. I wanted my own freedom, schedule, and rewards for the hard work I put in! I wanted to work for myself! This is also the time my boyfriend and I decided we needed to make moves on our long-distance relationship. Dealing with long-distance for about a year and a half was ok, but we felt like our relationship was in limbo and couldn’t move forward until one of us decided to move.

I knew I wasn’t happy in my corporate job, and that working through my blog, creating content, copywriting, and offering strategy sessions to people was something I LOVED. The idea for “The Quirky Pineapple Studio” was born, to be a virtual space (read: studio) to offer these services to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and side-hustlin’ divas. So, my rebranding started and the goal was to go full-time and be able to work from anywhere (ie: Madrid, Spain)!

Here we are, Pineapplers, the culmination of MONTHS (almost 6 months to be exact) of hard work, late nights, writing then re-writing, and a chunk of investment! I’m so excited to introduce you to The Quirky Pineapple Studio!

What changes can we expect?

New website design, brand identity, and mission!

You may have noticed the makeover The Quirky Pineapple received! It’s hard to miss, actually. The website looks so different than it did before and I’m extremely pleased with how everything turned out. A rebrand and relaunch is no joke. I wanted to do it right, so besides buying templates and DIY-ing everything, I decided it was time to invest in professional help.

I browsed website designers through Facebook networking groups, asked my other business friends for referrals, and scrolled through Instagram, trying to find someone that “matched” me. It wasn’t until I was randomly scrolling a “Follow Thread” on one of the Facebook groups for website designers, that I stumbled on Giada’s (Miel Cafe Design) Instagram account. Something immediately drew me to her work, although it was very different than my own. I reached out the beginning of May, and secured a start date for the end of July.

We’ve been working hard together since June/July, to create a website that was functional and captured the personality behind The Quirky Pineapple Studio and all my dreams for it! Giada works magic and every idea I had, she took it and created something WAY BETTER. Everything she sent back to me, all the previews, designs, colors, and fonts I ogled over! I didn’t think I would love my website as much as I do, but Giada is AMAZING at what she does.

Of course with a professional website, I wanted to have professional and branded photography done to visually capture my brand. I worked with my good friend Laura Quintero, of Laura Quintero Photography. We picked a day, rented out a studio space, and had a photoshoot! It was SO fun working with Laura (as always!), and seeing images of my brand as a real thing made me even more excited. We shot four different outfits, making sure to capture the fun, welcoming, and inviting vibe I wanted The Quirky Pineapple Studio to embody.

While The Quirky Pineapple Lifestyle and Travel Blog’s mission was to inspire people to chase their adventure. The Quirky Pineapple Studio is kicking it up a notch! I want to be able to give people the resources, tools, and inspiration to be able to chase their adventure (whatever that may be). The Quirky Pineapple Studio’s mission is to help you hone in on your voice and visuals, to create a strong community and a lifestyle of freedom and confidence to be the fierce diva that you are! This is done through copywriting, content creation, and strategizing with you to make sure you feel empowered and ready to share your heartfelt brand!

Copywriting, branding, and strategy content on the blog! (And fun travel/event related things, too!)

I’m sure some of you have noticed the subtle shift in content that I’ve been sharing. I will be focusing more on copywriting, content creation, blogging, and branding. There will also be posts about building a community, future events I plan on hosting in my new home, and travel adventures with the boyfriend! (: Travel is still a huge part of this brand, which is why I wanted to create a business that could go with me anywhere I wanted to!

Monthly videos sent out to my community (aka subscribers)!

You may know that I have a YouTube channel, mostly with videos of travel vlogs and lookbooks. I’m excited to focus on video again, to create monthly tutorials, pep-talks, and resources for my community, aka my email subscribers! Email subscribers will also be the first to know about discounts for packages, special sales, and be the first to grab tickets to future events hosted by The Quirky Pineapple Studio!

Why did you change your name from The Quirky Pineapple to The Quirky Pineapple Studio?

The Quirky Pineapple was a great place to start building my blog and my brand. My friends and family started remembering me by it, new business friends loved the name, and brands/collaborators loved it, too! But, when I decided I wanted to rebrand I knew that The Quirky Pineapple had to change a little bit. I love my brand’s name, but I really felt as though I had outgrown it.

Read about how I decided on the name The Quirky Pineapple!

Every time I thought about The Quirky Pineapple, it reminded me of a blogger that WANTED to become more than what she was doing. I looked at my content and saw a lot of privileged posts, talking about travel, life, etc. without taking into consideration the other side of my privilege. I talk about “chasing your adventure” but never dived into how my good fortunes and privilege played a role in my ability to do so. I knew The Quirky Pineapple had more to give, more purpose to showcase, and more love and empathy to show readers how to chase their adventure, their way. 

I turned back to my journal entries and posts, scanning and highlighting, and saw that there were numerous times I mentioned my dream to have my own studio. It was in my five year plan, my ten year plan, and even my immediate plans! All my journal entries talked about having a space to invite creatives and others to come learn, be inspired, and find empowerment to pursue their adventures. While I’m in no place to open my own physical studio location (not yet!), a virtual studio would work just fine! For everything that The Quirky Pineapple stands for, adding “studio” to the end of my new brand was perfect! It’s my virtual space to invite you to join me and share in great conversations, advice, tips, and learn how to find your voice and share it confidently!

Trying to keep up with all of the details and more from The Quirky Pineapple Studio?

If you’re loving the new direction of The Quirky Pineapple Studio, and want to keep up with everything going on – you can subscribe to the Pineappler family! Email subscribers receive monthly videos to help them hone in on their voice, special sales, the first to get tickets to events, and more! (: I’m more than excited to start this new adventure of mine, and the next stage of my life! I’ll be moving back abroad to Spain and the TQP Studio will now be my full-time job! Your support means so much to me!

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