Why I Started Blogging
Welcome back to 2004, it’s good to have you!
If you’ve made it to this point I can only assume you may know me personally, you’re here by chance, or I’m better at marketing this blog than I thought (yay future me!). My name is Lexie and earlier last year I started a business called Lexie Noelle Designs. This small business is based off of something I love doing, which is design and collaboration. I’ve been illustrating, doodling, youtube-ing every how-to-draw-something since I could hold a pencil in my hand. I’ve always leaned towards art. I’ve just never thought I could do much with it.
Do you ever get the feeling that you don’t know what you’re doing when you walk into a room, when you KNOW you had a purpose going in there? That foggy, sometimes helpless, feeling? It’s super frustrating, right? That is pretty much the only way I can describe growing up with a passion, not knowing how to hone it, and being asked what I want to do when I get older. I knew I had something I wanted to do with my life that was meaningful to me. I knew I wanted to do something more fulfilling to my soul (poetic right? Thanks.)
Well, the feeling I described only grew more panicked as I got into the later stages of high school, when everyone was filling out college applications, and the only class I had an A in was art. What DID I want to do with my life?? Nothing sounded fulfilling, and I wasn’t interested in anything that wouldn’t be.
Now, I understand this is sounding like a really privileged teenager who had the world at her feet and thought she lived in a high school drama, I promise it didn’t feel that way to me. While almost every single one of my friends were graduating with some kind of honors, I was getting panic attacks thinking the only things I really liked was doodling, taking photos, spending time with the people I loved, and road trips, and no WAY was I going to be able to make money off that.
So fast forwarding a bit to last year-
I really truly believe we all learn differently. Make no mistake, I do not equate leaving school the same as a vacation. Hard work, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, is hard for a reason. It is time, effort, and the ability to stick with something that can be the difference between taking “the easy way out”, or just quitting, and making a path that is your own and is successful both mentally, spiritually, and (in a worldly sense) financially.
As you’ve probably guessed, I took some time off from college at the beginning of 2023, deciding that if I ever wanted to go back, it’d be there. But I didn’t miss it. I’m no social butterfly, but I love making good friendships, and that’s what I did in college. But once I got married and friends started moving away, I had a harder time than ever finding interest in school. I had a hard time finding myself, so I started this business. I didn’t have much in mind starting it other than wanting to learn graphic design, and more about what I could do as an illustrator.
As most do, I started with stickers. Some designs sadly I look back on and absolutely think I should not have put them out, but that’s show biz, baby. We live and painfully learn from our mistakes. Who knows, maybe one day when I’m even more proficient in my trade I’ll look back at this cringey article and some designs I’ve put out since and think the same. But, from where I’m standing right now I feel pretty good!
So now-
I have an Etsy, selling some of my digital prints and a few designs put on tote bags and beanies (because I love those things, no particular reason why I started with those), and hopefully soon I’ll have stickers again! I’ve designed some illustrations for local businesses around town and some close friends have my art hanging in their home, and have been published in Ketchum ID first locally sourced Zine “Bald Mountain Rag” (go check them out!), and have big things coming in the future.
I am still completely figuring out step by step what the future holds but I have clear goals and am so stoked to take you along with me for the good, the bad, and the ugly!
Thanks for being here, and follow along for a weekly post and custom illustrations, cartoons, etc. done in house by me. I’d love for you to subscribe for weekly updates on my journey, artwork, and articles!
You’re a Gem!
Quote of the week:
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing”