Welcome To The Mama Notes!

I’m so excited to welcome you to THE MAMA NOTES! Whether you are a new reader or someone who has read my personal blog, Style Within Reach some time over the past 8 years, I’m so grateful you stopped by. In case you are new around here– I recently rebranded from Style Within Reach to The Mama Notes. Instead of focusing on my personal style and life, this new site will focus on motherhood — a combination of my personal experiences and those of other women.  I thought I’d share a little bit about my hopes, dreams and goals for this space — and some features of my brand new website that the amazing ladies behind With Grace & Gold designed !

BUT FIRST….A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME, CAITLIN KRUSE: 

I’m the mother to one strong willed, compassionate, spunky and sweet 16 month old baby girl named Piper Rose. I’m the wife to my supportive and kind husband, Austin. I’ve been blogging for 8 years and working on the lifestyle website, Glitter Guide for 5 — where I’m now the Editorial & Partnership Director. I also have a passion for styling and events and am the co-founder of Kruse & Vieira Events, a DC based floral and wedding planning company where I work along side my incredible business partner, Julie. If you can’t tell, I like to stay busy and I’ve become pretty good at multi-tasking over the past few years. I love wine, baking, reading interviews and memoirs, painting (when I make the time) and taking walks. Since becoming a mother I’ve become passionate about learning all their is to know about being a mom and raising children.

WHY THE MAMA NOTES?

Overall, I’ve felt like I outgrew my blog, Style Within Reach for the past few years. That feeling was even stronger once I became a mother. I started that site when I was single, living in NYC and obsessed with fashion, in a world before fashion blogging is what it is today. It has been a wonderful run and given me so many experiences and a career I could have literally never even dreamed of and I’m so thankful for that. When I was pregnant and couldn’t find a lot the kind of content I wanted to read I started thinking about skewing my blog more towards motherhood and kid & baby focused content. While there are thousands upon thousands of web sites that I love to visit for fashion or interior inspiration, or for mouth watering recipes, I can count on both hands the number of inspiring motherhood websites out there that I personally enjoy reading. (Here’s a list a few of my favorite motherhood websites to visit that I compiled while I was pregnant — which I plan on updating soon.) So between recognizing the gap in the online world, my craving for change and my passion for being the best mother I can — The Mama Notes was born.

I realize that could potentially turn away my readers that have been following along for years — but the truth is the content I produce will only be great if I’m 100% invested and excited about it. Right now, motherhood and pregnancy is what I’m passionate about learning and sharing. FYI — all of my content from Style Within Reach has transferred over to The Mama Notes!

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM THE MAMA NOTES!

Well, motherhood for one! You can expect to see posts on my personal experience with motherhood — what’s been working for us, products I’ve discovered and love, Piper’s favorite books, toys and recipes. But truly, one mother’s experience can only go so far — so I plan to include as much as I can from other women too. Interviews on touchy subjects like infancy loss and infertility, discussions with inspiring entrepreneurs who also happen to be incredible mothers and resource guides.

I’m so excited to be sharing birth stories on The Mama Notes! When I was pregnant I read so many birth stories — often just by stumbling upon them on people’s personal blogs so I’m really happy to start a birth story series where I’ll be sharing 2-3 essays written by mother’s every month about how they brought their babies into this world. If you’d like to share your story please email me!

I’ll also be sharing articles, tips and products for breastfeeding — another passion of mine. I realize breastfeeding isn’t for every mother, but it can feel lonely, hard and scary when you’re just starting and I hope to grow this category of The Mama Notes a lot in the next few months!

Of course, I won’t forget about style — while mine certainly isn’t the same as it once was I still love to shop and find great, affordable and mom-friendly pieces. You can still expect a few style and shopping posts on The Mama Notes every month in addition to BEAUTY! I love to share my month favorites and my drugstore beauty picks.

Another category I’m amped to delve more into is TRAVEL — specifically sharing kid-friendly city guides. Traveling with a toddler has taught me so much already….and having a trusted resource to look at before you go to a new destination knowing the kid-friendly spots is something I’d really appreciate myself, and plan to work on a lot for The Mama Notes.

I’ve also added a SHOP! The items will change monthly — right now I’ve included a link to all of our favorite products to use in Piper’s first year.

FOLLOW THE MAMA NOTES!

I’ve changed over all my social media — and would love to have you follow along!

I’ve just begun posting on Instagram @TheMamaNotes — and you’ll want to stay tuned for a few amazing giveaways that I’ll be hosting next week to promote the launch!! You can follow us on Twitter at @TheMamaNotes too — and don’t forget to join the Facebook community here. I also just started a Pinterest account which I’m eager to spend more time working on!

SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER! 

Another new feature is The Mama Notes newsletter, which will go out every week. You’ll want to sign up to get exclusive content that’s not featured on the site — you can sign up right here!

HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE?

I’m looking for women around the globe to share their stories — I’ll be accepting contributor posts and birth stories and I’m always looking for inspiring women to feature, nurseries with unique details and experts on childcare and pregnancy. My email is info@themamanotes.com and I’d love to hear from you!

 

I hope you’ll join me on this exciting, exhausting and life-changing journey of motherhood. We are in this together.