Carmen Smith loves a good DIY and budget friendly renovation projects, but her claim to fame is her award-winning humor. She’s married to a bearded fellow, mom to 2 tots, and likes to keep things as real as possible to remind everyone there’s a real human behind the screen.
On her blog, Living Letter Home, she aims to teach everyone to love the home they have on a budget and let it be an extension of your personality.
Q&A with Carmen Smith
What interests you most about taking on DIY projects?
To see how wild we can get obviously first and foremost, but also to see how much money we can save. Our hope is that we can somehow inspire others that it doesn’t always have to be extravagant to be fancy and fabulous.
What creative areas do you prefer to focus on?
Budget friendly DIYs and projects inspired by brands we love but can’t afford. Our goal is to show people how to let their home tell its own story all within their means.
What do you consider to be your greatest business accomplishment thus far?
Cold pitching to brands and landing paid sponsorships when I barely knew what the heck I was doing, but more importantly building a relationship with the brand so that we can continue working in the future.
What has been your most difficult project that you’ve tackled?
Our guest bathroom hands down. Here we were lil’ baby bloggers, wannabe home DIYers and decided our FIRST project we would tackle was gutting and renovating an entire bathroom. Supposed to take us 6 weeks. Tooks us 11 months. My eye still twitches over this.
Do you have a brand partner that you consider to be your favorite?
Sinkology. Those people know how to party (legally, of course). Second is Wagner. They’re an incredible group of people to work with.
Which platform helps you to reach your audience the most, and how do you keep them engaged?
My blog, no doubt. I know I’m supposed to say Instagram, but that’s miserable for me and no matter what I do, I can’t catch wind over there and it’s quite frankly a super low ROI for the time I have to invest in it. So, my blog is bread and butter and I keep them engaged with my wicked sense of humor in my writing style and the fact that my email list gets behind the scenes photos and stories that never hit the blog.
Based upon your personal experience, what’s one piece of advice that you’d give to blogger/influencers?
Treat your blog like a business and take it seriously. Find your voice and run with it. When I first started, I focused so much on what other people did and tried to copy and it never worked. It wasn’t until I decided to show my real life crazy side that I started to pick up steam with blog traffic and on social. Oh and also, get a mentor. Someone who’s been there, done that and is 2-3 steps ahead of where you are.
What’s one fun fact about you that our readers would be surprised to know?
I don’t know where any countries are. Also, I can recite every single episode of Friends from memory. Probably why I don’t know where any countries are.
What do you like most about HAVEN Conference?
I know most people go to collaborate with brands, and while that’s great, the collaborations with other people have been invaluable. I started an entirely separate site and business strictly because of a couple connections I made at HAVEN last year and it’s been incredible.
What do you want your audience to take away from your presentation at the Heart of HAVEN virtual conference?
You’re never too small! Know your worth as a business/blog.
Q and A with a HAVEN 2020 Speaker Series
(This section will be updated as more articles are published)
Amber Kemp-Gerstel
Ashley Wilson
Heather Cooke
Jessica Litman
Corey Hudson
Wendy Zock
Racheal Jackson
Jessica Russell
Cara Newhart
Jess Crow
Tracy Pendergast
Brittany Norman
Jenn McMurray
KariAnne Wood
Karen Snyder
Yuni Min
Kera Jeffers
Kate Smith
Erin Marshall
Erin Ruoff
Rachel Rosenthal
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