Today we’d like to introduce you to Katherine Norris.
Hi Katherine, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am a native Floridian. I grew up in Jacksonville, we loved vacationing in St. Augustine when I was a kid, but one thing I knew…I did not always want to be a Floridian. But, something always brought me back.
I married my husband after my first year of college. We moved around some, then came back to Florida. During this time I attended UCF as a political science major, but like almost every elder millenial I wound up absolutely not doing that. Instead, I became a teacher. I love sharing my knowledge, experience, and life with others and since I had a small child, teaching was the obvious career path. I was working while my daughter was at school and I was home on almost every school holiday. During this time in my career, due to my husband’s career, we had the opportunity to live in many different places: Colorado, Kansas, Texas, California, British Columbia, and The Netherlands. So, with all this moving I put teaching aside after 5 years and made my first blog in 2010. I loved sharing articles with the world about things to see and do in all the places we were living, doing restaurant reviews, tips and tricks for moving often, how to make a place feel like home quickly, how to plan a fun vacation, and of course crafts. Then, around 2011/2012 I heard about instagram. I began posting there as I loved scrapbooking, so that became my digital scrapbook. Eventually, I realized I could use Instagram as a platform to promote my blog; so I merged my digital scrapbook with my lifestyle blog. Social media has become so big that in 2016 I abandoned my blog (I went back to teaching at this point as well) and have just been sharing my life and experience solely on social media. Now that social media has grown where it can be more of an entertainment as well as informational space I love sharing my knowledge of the world, theme parks, local eats and activities, planning vacations, and my various hobbies in fun and entertaining ways!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think my biggest struggle along the way has been really learning all the new technology. I grew up in an analog era, but I blinked and adulthood was full of technology from day one. As a child my biggest experience with computers was once a month when we’d get to go to the computer lab and play “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?”and then at 18 being thrown in to a digital adulthood where we got email addresses our first year in college and no one was sure how to cite a web address. So, as technology has progressed fairly quickly since then, and I didn’t major in a tech field, finding the time to teach myself how to edit photos and create videos has been my biggest challenge. It takes a lot of time and effort, but this serial hobbiest has managed to rise to the challenge.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a serial hobbiest. If you suggest I try a hobby, chances are, I will try it, and, most likely, love it! Right now, if you asked my family and friends they would tell you I am a crocheter….and they would be correct! After a really rough patch in 2022 my daughter gifted me a crochet kit and I used that to teach myself to crochet stuffed animals and I’ve made 24 of them and am just now at the point where I feel confident to start gifting and selling these items. I also make custom ornaments and cards. I think the art of paper craft has been lost recently, so I think that I what sets me apart is that I love to make cards, autograph books, scrapbooks, and journals.
Something that I am most proud of is not giving up on myself and continuing to do the things I love. That rough patch I mentioned above was really rough; finding joy in literally anything was very difficult. I couldn’t concentrate to read, my crafting brought me anxiety, but not crafting also brought me anxiety. Just getting up on the daily was the biggest chore I faced each day. So, through a lot of encouragement from my loved ones and my team of doctors we managed to figure out what was going on so I could get involved with the things I loved again. Which really worked out for the best because I now have a wonderful group of local women that I craft with every month.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was a serial hobbiest then too. I loved to practice handwriting, color, and cross stitch. I was a big reader, I loved to dance (I was best at ballet), and go to the beach. . I would often hold craft sales with my friends where we would make friendship bracelets and sell them at the end of our street. I would dream of traveling the world and going to theme parks whenever I wanted; basically who I was then, is who I am today, only my dreams of traveling the world and going to theme parks whenever I wanted is my reality.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katesmagicaladventures?utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katherine.norris.31?
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@katesmagicaladventures?si=H1XqKo5VYk-9eylY
