June marks the fifth anniversary of Fly. Wow! I can't believe it's been five years — and it's been a fantastic ride. Usually, I post a sentimental heart-felt message saying thank you, and although I always feel extremely grateful for all the amazing support — I thought this time around it would be more fun to list the top five things I've enjoyed or had the opportunity to do because of Fly. In no particular order, here they are:
1. Highlight talent I want to see.
This goes back to what I wrote yesterday in the post called "After Single Ladies" (under tip #4). About a year into Fly I was having a heated debate with my then boyfriend about not liking what I was seeing on TV or in the media in general. He was like, "well do something about it." And I replied, "I'm trying to do it with my blog." He said, "well try harder."
At that time Fly was only about sharing scanned images from my sketchbook or colors and patterns I found to be inspiring. Then I realized, let me create what I want to see. I continued posting fashion, art and design that I loved, but I started highlighting fly ladies doing amazing things. These were artsy creative faces I didn't see anywhere else so I wanted to make it a point to showcase them on Fly.
2. Meeting amazing people.
Whether it's someone who's been featured on the site, a visitor who sends an email, or a reader I met on the street I feel truly blessed to have met some incredible people all because of this site. You all are so amazing; you're open to sharing your stories, thoughts, and opinions or take time out of your day to just say hello. I truly truly appreciate that connection.
3. Doing Webisodes
How in the world did I start doing webisodes? I am so shy. I don't know how I convinced myself to produce webisodes but my friend, Rakia, inspired me to try, and then I was hooked. Producing videos is fun and exciting; I know that I would not have explored this without the platform that is Fly. Creatively, it's been a fun medium to highlight talent and challenge my artistic abilities, and personally it's been a great way to try something different and be more spontaneous.
4. Launching I Love My Hair
Never in a billion trillion years would I have thought that posting an image of my graduate project on Fly would give me the opportunity to sell my prints online. And to think I only posted that image because I was drowning in my schoolwork and didn't have time to find anything else to put up on the site. Because of that one little post I opened the I Love My Hair online shop, I was commissioned to create artwork for The HoneyComb Salon in Germany, have prints sold in the museum shop at the Museum of Craft & Folk Art in San Francisco, got a feature in House & Home Canada magazine, and picked up few other projects and publication mentions. That was a HUGE blessing that I never saw coming. It not only happened because of Fly but because of all the people who helped spread the word via Twitter, Facebook and tons of great blog features. Thank you so much!!!
5. Meeting the President Obama and him calling me fly.
Need I say more? (You can read more about that experience here.)
In these five years I've had so many great experiences and I am extremely grateful for them all.
Now time for celebrating those five years (and all that's to come). Next week and for the rest of the month of June, Fly will celebrate five years of flyness with fun giveaways and by highlighting tons of inspiring women in art, design, fashion, and media. It's going to be sooooo fun and I really can't wait. So keep checking back. It's only going to keep getting better!
