Welcome In! This is the Blog (But Fancier)

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This digital dream house website renovation is in full swing! Welcome to our first big reveal. It’s the new TOD Blog, The Craft Room!

Out with the old!

This space was built for bestie gowrls, Possibility and In Progress, to hang out and feel at home.

In the creative process around TOD business things, I notice I’m often shy about sharing. When it comes to my nails, I’m not as fussy. Although sometimes it catches up to me in that practice, too!

Typically, I’m more relaxed because even if I don’t capital L Love the artwork…

1. Nail art is tiny AF, nobody is looking as closely as I am,
2. A fresh set is always a vibe,
3. I’m going to apply a fresher set in 2-3 weeks!

Detachment, for the win! In this season of TOD, I’m bringing more of this energy to our digital home.

That’s why the Craft Room is first! We’re documenting the entire Dream House Website Renovation so we needed a place for the process and progress to live.

When it comes to processing via Digital Divination, I love to pour over things, unendingly. The content, context, relationships, notes, any and all information available, until I’ve milked it for all it’s worth, set it down, and then returned to pour over it once again… often with expanded perspective and sometimes for months on end.

I used to be a hater of myself about this. But these days I’d count it as one of my favourite qualities about myself. Bringing this level of care and attention to The Craft Room and the content that will be shared here is a gift. Period.

The Mood: Simply Nostalgic

While we’re here, let’s add Crazy Quilt (TV Show, 1997) to the list of “Things Living Rent-Free in My Head STILL.” But I’m not mad at it! Just look at this patchwork:

OK, go off!

Our Crazy Quilt-inspired blog banner features the new TOD/Welcome Mat Palette in its full range. It’s a special room, and I wanted it to feel like part of the same house as The Welcome Mat (our new Home page, coming next). Some of the other rooms will take on a different vibe by limiting the palette range.

But here? We went full send, big craft bin energy.

There’s a dash of cardboard textures, an abundance of illustrated quilt squares (hand-drawn by yours truly), art supply motifs, a swarm of Swarovski crystals, and googly eyes! My fave art supply!

This space holds layers of colour, of creativity, of memory. It’s ‘undone’, like any good creative corner of the house, where you dump your glitter glue or make magic. The visual chaos is curated. It’s collage-coded, a little silly, and sentimental.

Though visually busy, Craft Room is one of the simplest rooms in the Dream House, in terms of user experience. It’s a static, functional blog space. No frills. No fancy layout. No interactive elements.

Just a cozy spot to host evolving ideas, reflections, podcast episodes, and projects as they unfold.

The Function: A Fabulous Container

In this living blog space, you’ll explore the TOD patchwork. Evolving ideas, reflections, and projects are always coming to life, and I want to share them with you here.

The layout’s simplicity allows the behind-the-scenes to shine! Ideas, practical information, and client work live side by side, making it easy for you to follow your intuition through The Craft Room.

That’s what’s under the dopamine decor that you’re finding in the other areas of the TOD house: permission. Permission to trust yourself, to follow the thread, to explore and commune with creativity.

It’s a gift that says: mind the glitter on the floor and trust that it’s okay for good ideas to live on sticky notes.

Messy middle? Don’t know her. We’re all over the place on purpose.

Art isn’t fun without enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for what’s being created, what’s next, what we need or want to explore. Even when we don’t like what we made in its current form, it’s still precious. Everything you make is precious. But not because it is polished and complete.

The Process: In My Bob the Builder Era

This first page took me on a bit of a ride! I wasn’t sure it was all going to come together. But after tackling a million side quests, we made it here!

Craft Room Side Quests:

• New header + footer updates

• The decision to unpublish all the old website content and launch pages one-by-one, which resulted in these sweet new 404 Error Page portals

• The resulting drag king construction crew artwork

• Which go hand-in-hand with the Match My Freak Matches Collage

• Instagram highlight covers (completely unrelated and yet… very necessary)

Like any good craft sesh, this was both chaotic and clarifying.

The Craft Room’s Milanote moodboard was one of the simplest of the bunch. Just Crazy Quilt screenshots and text-box reminders to keep it simple. No bells. No whistles.

I illustrated the quilt squares in Procreate after pulling inspo from Pinterest. Sarah’s design support added texture, dimension, and alternate blog cover formats, making The Craft Room feel like a true patchwork.

And yet… I wasn’t sure I loved it.

After seeing the surreal drag king collages and some of Sarah’s Blueprint graphics, this page started to feel like the weakest link. But then I let it rest. And when I came back to it and revisited the original Milanote board, I realized: Oh wait, we nailed this.

This page’s creation is the creative process. Aligning with The Craft Room’s ethos meant letting go of the impulse to overwork it. So I ignored it, for a whole week, and came back just in time to record the episode.

Here’s how I know we nailed it:
Static layout? ✅
Cozy energy? ✅
Functional, no-frills blog space? ✅

The Invitation: Pull Up a Chair

If you’ve ever struggled to be in process with your own art, here’s what this page reminded me:

• Start with the intention to love what you create (Sarah’s pro tip!)
• Let the layers accumulate
• Know when to pause and step back
• Know when to move on

This page, and this blog, is a permission slip.
To be in progress. To try things, scrap things, and save things for later. To not know where it’s going yet. To come back later and realize it’s perfect.

So: pull up a chair, mind the glitter, and let’s make something!

Take what you need. Leave the rest.

Thank you for witnessing our first TOD Dream House Website Renovation Series reveal. I’m grateful you’re here! Stay tuned for the Welcome Mat Launch, coming soon!

Oh and if you wanted to see our Lego forest and animal birthday party up close, here you go:

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