A Semester of Experiences

At the beginning of this semester, I was nervous. I didn't know how I was to go out of my comfort zone to find a practicum that I could learn something from. I didn't know where to look. That's when I stopped worrying about what people thought of me and took the step to contact Stephanie Tarnasky.

Stephanie is the owner of Olive Ave, a fashion boutique, in Rexburg, Idaho. After I emailed her and called the store relentlessly hoping she would answer, I almost gave up. Then one day I decided to ask the person working at the store when Stephanie was usually in, so that I could finally catch her. When I did get a hold of her, I felt so accomplished. I talked to her about my situation and how I wanted to collaborate with her clothing boutique to showcase their different trends to an audience of girls of many different ages. I told her I wanted to be an advertisement of a sort to her business. I wanted to show girls through words and pictures the clothing that Olive Ave sells. Contacting Stephanie was a long process, but it taught me patience and persistence.

Once I contacted her and we went over to basics, I started my blog. I picked out three different outfits that I was to showcase in the next week. I did a lot of research of what was trending in fashion at the time, so I could appeal to my audience. I also added a little bit of my own style into each post. My first blog post was a post specifically about expressing yourself uniquely through fashion.

For this post, I picked out an outfit that showcased my style as a person.

Through out the semester, I learned the importance of networking. If I hadn't reached out to Stephanie, I wouldn't be able to have started this blog. Also, now that I have reached out to Stephanie, I want to broaden my blog to different fashion boutiques in the area. Since I have Stephanie as apart of my network, it'll be easier for me to find those people I can reach out to in order to feature their items on my blog.

I also learned the importance of hard work. I spent a lot of time working up my social media pages and sharing my posts. I would tell people on campus to follow my blog or those in my class. I would reach out to those who have an influence on fashion in the Rexburg area, so that they could endorse me.

I also spent a lot of time editing the pictures that were taken of me and coming up with the theme for each blog post and outfit. I wanted each blog post to really speak to my audience, so I made sure to use a language in which they could understand. Also, I added a lot of pictures in order to keep the audience interested.

Overall, I am very proud of what I have accomplished. I feel more equipped to find other things I may be interested in and pursue them.