Career Champions: Katie & Lydia Shelton
Continuing with my favorite series: Career Champion! One thing I love about the blogging community is meeting incredible, strong, beautiful, courageous and wildly talented, smart, innovative, entrepreneurial boss babes, chief chicas, inspiring women. Every month, I'm going to spotlight one of these incredible role models and share a little bit about what makes them amazing.
Oh man, am I excited about this one! Lydia and Katie Shelton are the adorable, stylish and humble mother/daughter duo behind Oh Darling Blog. Not only are they the sweetest humans, but they know how to style a graphic tee better than anyone. I admire their style and dedication and I couldn’t be happier to have them as this month’s Career Champions.
1) You have the cutest mother-daughter blog, Oh Darling. How did you get into blogging?
First off, thank you so much! We have always had a love for fashion and have followed along with blogs before we even knew what they were, haha! So when I (Lydia) graduated early from high school, my mom brought up the idea of starting one and now here we are.
2) As full-time bloggers, what does your typical day look like?
It's our dream to be full-time bloggers, but at this time we are just trying to keep this side hustle alive. That being said, a typical day for us is:
7 days a week, we start our day by posting on Instagram. That consists of staying on the app for 30 minutes, engaging with other people's posts, and responding back to comments on our photos.
Most days we are either working on blog posts and/or researching blog post topics.
I (Lydia) am always planning content for Instagram, working on our Pinterest, editing photos, writing out captions, etc.
Throughout the day we take time to respond back to comments on Instagram, DMs and create Instagram stories.
One day a week, we shoot around 5-7 outfits/looks for Instagram and blog posts.
3) What is your favorite part about content creation?
Katie: I love the process of putting together outfits to then be photographed for posts.
Lydia: I love the challenge of coming up with new blog post ideas along with the process of writing them.
4) What is the biggest challenge for you in your business?
There is a lot of challenges that we face daily, but our biggest one would probably be slow growth. There's so much that goes behind the scenes of a blogger/influencer and it can feel very discouraging when you aren't seeing a lot of reward for your hard work.
5) What is the hardest and best parts of working with your mother/daughter? How do you balance business with family?
Katie: The hardest part is separating our personal relationship from the business relationship. The best part is being able to share a similar dream and experience the highs and the lows together.
Lydia: The hardest part is that we both work differently and being a perfectionist, it can really get on my nerves. The best part is getting to spend a lot of time with my mom and making memories with her.
We work during the day and by a certain time, we always put down the computer and phone to allow ourselves to relax and spend time with family.
6) What is the biggest lesson you've learned in 2019 so far?
The biggest lesson we have learned is bringing up any problems/issues face to face vs. email or text because you can't convey the person's tone or feelings through a screen.
7) Go back to college graduation: what would you tell yourself?
Katie: Follow your dreams and take more risks
Lydia: I didn't go the usual path after graduating high school, so I haven't gone to college yet... but I would tell myself to walk in faith over fear.
8) How do you find inspiration?
We find inspiration from others on Instagram, Pinterest, and blogs.
9) Who is your role model?
That's a good question. To be honest, neither of us have one, but now we need to get on that!
Rapid Fire:
Favorite guilty pleasure song:
Katie: Honey, I'm Good by Andy Grammer
Lydia: Downtown by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Favorite workout:
We workout at The Bar Method and PLNK - both so good!
Favorite snack:
Katie: Popcorn
Lydia: Peanut butter pretzels from Trader Joes or Hippeas
Favorite movie:
Katie: Sweet Home Alabama
Lydia: LOL (I feel like I'm the only person who has seen this movie, but it has Miley Cyrus in it)
Favorite phone app:
Katie: Snapchat because of the filters
Lydia: Youtube
Best way to spend a Friday night:
Katie: Watching Live PD
Lydia: Anything that involves my pajamas, pizza, and peanut butter m&ms (the 3 p's ;-))
