Sharing a bit of my passion.which is also my niche

Hello Everyone,

I read something somewhere today about when you are trying to generate an income with a website or blog, having something to sell itself will not bring success. It is having something that will solve a problem or help someone in some way. It does not even have to be something that is tangible. One of my biggest passions is my cross stitching, but I wanted to share how something that started out as just a hobby making gifts for friends and family became such a passion. It all boils down to people! I will try to keep this short (I could literally write a book about this....hmmmm...maybe I should? LOL)

A few years ago I found a cross stitch Facebook group. It opened up my eyes to a whole new world of this hobby of mine. I have been stitching since my mom taught me at the age of 14, but after I found others that shared this hobby, I learned there was SOOOO much more to it than I could ever have imagined.

Shortly after I joined the group, I ended up becoming an admin of the group. When I was made admin, I asked another admin what I was supposed to do and she said "whatever you want". The group was not really a "group" in the sense that it really was just a bunch of people but with no real interaction. I started doing activities such as gift exchanges and other things and before I knew it, I basically had a new "family".

It was amazing! And so my hobby became more than just a hobby. There are so many reasons why, but I am only going to share a couple here. I brought so much compassion and joy to so many people in the group, they were always saying that they could not thank me enough for all I do. So about mid year of 2014, I thought of something. I thought it would be cool to have Christmas ornaments made from my group members to decorate my tree with that year. So I posted the idea to my group and they loved it! Here is my tree and the ornaments made with love:

There are over 50 handmade ornaments on this tree. Each year it is a blessing to look at this tree and know that I have so many great people in my life!

In 2015, I started hosting retreats to bring as many from our group together as possible (there are over 4000 in my group, but of course that is from all over the world). I had about 175 attend that first year from all over the US and one from the UK and about 4 from Canada. It was so much fun and so awesome to meet these people. I have a co-admin in my group that is from the UK and he became one of my best friends. I went to the UK this past summer (to host a retreat there) and I got to meet him and his family and spent a couple days in the lovely little town of Kent. It was like we had known each other FOREVER! I took my 18 year old with me and he loved them too and the rest of the trip he kept saying "can we just go back to Chris's?"...LOL Not that he wasn't having fun, but our most fun was with Chris and his family.

Then we went to Scotland and spent 4 days there with another one of my group members and her family. It was just the most awesome trip. It would have been awesome no matter what, but the people that I got to meet after 3 years of anticipating (the retreat was in the planning for 3 years..I had to save the money to go!) was so worth every minute and every penny! When my oldest boy was in Navy bootcamp, so many from this group wrote letters of encouragement to him and it helped get him through the darkest of days. They did the same for my Marine son while he was in bootcamp just a couple months ago (he graduated bootcamp end of Nov).

A few years ago I had asked my mom what she would like for me to stitch for her as I had not done anything for her in a while. Well the thing she picked out was a MONSTER (I'm not joking..you will see in a minute..lol). I worked on it for about 8 months, but I just couldn't get enough time on it and it would probably have taken me like 10 years to finish it! Well when I posted this in my group, my friend Chris offered to do it for me.

So him and his daughter did about 75 percent of it over about a years time and then sent it to me to finish. I gave it to my mom for her birthday a few weeks ago. She had no clue ...last she knew I had given up on it. I wish I would have captured the emotion on her face..it was priceless! I had my friend on facetime on Facebook messenger so he could be part of it all and witness the joy his hard work brought to my mom.

Him doing this for me was just beyond belief...most would not even put this much work into something for a relative, let along someone they only knew online and had never even met! lol But these are the kind of people I have been so blessed to have come across. Here is the picture. It's called Hay Wain and is a replication of a famous painting by an English artist named Jon Constable (and what is funny and my mom did not know this when she picked it out is that this is a famous tourist area in the UK..LOL) And yes, this really is all cross stitched..is not a painting! :)

Ok, I have written enough I think..hope I have not bored you..lol. But I think with my passion and the joy and inspiration I bring to others gives me what I need to be successful with this endeavor...I do have something to offer that can solve a problem. I plan to have affiliate links with companies that sell cross stitch stuff, but I think a lot of my traffic will come and stay because of my passion and the motivation and inspiration I can offer. I will share one last pic of my work....I just finished this one into a pillow tonight that I stitched for one of my co-workers..I even personalized it to his favorite Mets players..am excited to give it to him tomorrow :)

I hope you have enjoyed my post and if you have read to the very end of this, please leave me a comment with any thoughts you may have on what I have shared here. If you would like to see any more reasons why I am so passionate about my niche, please feel free to visit my site and who knows, maybe I can inspire one of you to pick up this awesome hobby? LOL https://luv4crosstich.com I still have quite a few ideas and things to add to it, but it's slowly coming together using all the awesome training and support here at WA!

Thanks and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Fae