At Home With: Emily Schuman

The beautiful Emily Schuman, of Cupcakes and Cashmere is a huge inspiration not only to me, but thousands of bloggers worldwide. Her site, like most, started as a way to express creativity while working in a rather bland job and has grown (admittedly through a slow process) from 2008 to Emily releasing her first book, Cupcakes and Cashmere: A Guide for Defining Your Style, Reinventing Your Space, and Entertaining with Ease, this year. The Everygirl were given exclusive access to the LA home Emily shares with her husband to find out how shes evolved from Vogue fashion intern, to creating her own empire...

How did you land the job with Teen Vogue? What was your role there? I worked in sales for both Teen Vogue and Domino magazines. I interviewed at Condé Nast for pretty much the duration of my senior year in college—it was pretty intense. I didn’t even have any semblance of a back-up plan. That’s how badly I wanted to work there. I can’t say exactly how I landed the job, but I think it was a combination of my work ethic, communication skills (follow-up emails, hand-written thank you notes, etc.), and my eagerness to learn.

When you first began blogging, what were your intentions for Cupcakes and Cashmere? At what point did you begin to view your blog as more than just a hobby? Cupcakes and Cashmere was more of a personal endeavor in the sense that it was something I wanted to create and maintain for myself. I think like most people, I started it since I wasn’t feeling creatively stimulated at my current job. I set certain goals for myself—to create unique content, to update my site on a daily basis, and to focus on improving my photography skills. After a while, I started to develop a decent-sized following. It was at that point that I began to look at the bigger picture and created a strategic business plan so that I could eventually work on my site full-time.

Did traffic on the site grow steadily over time or was there a specific turning point when you saw exponential growth? It was pretty slow and steady. It’s funny, I receive a lot of emails from girls starting blogs wanting to turn them into a success story overnight. I don’t think most people realize just how much time and effort it takes to make things look…well, effortless! I wrote for months without any comments or readers (for a while, it was just my parents and husband). I try to encourage people to start blogs since they’re passionate about what they’re writing about, not because it’s an easy career path, by any means.

I find this interview very inspiring; there are no shortcuts to success. To me, blogging isnt about the success or 'reader stats', its a fun and creative outlet I can share everything that inspires me with whoever wants to listen. rachel xo

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