SHRUTI ACHARYA BHAT
37, Bengaluru Founder, Artsy Craftsy Mom artsycraftsymom.com
Shruti Acharya Bhat was working with Oracle when she started her blog Artsy Craftsy Mom. “My daughter was three then and the blog was mostly an online journal. She was at an age when reading did not interest her much so we started doing crafts together. I would make something and post a picture on my blog,” she says. This snowballed into a crafts blog when parents and teachers started writing to her asking for ideas. She bought the domain name artsyscraftsymom.com three years later in 2012 and now runs the blog full time as a mompreneur.
The inspiration and inception It was her zeal to spend more time with her daughter and engage her in a meaningful way that first drove her to creating the blog.
Crafts and more Even though it is called Artsy Craftsy Mom, the blog is not just about making crafts with and for children. There are handy parenting tips on everything from throwing a birthday party to book recommendations and recipes along with plenty of pictures and video tutorials on making fun crafts with paper and colours. Holiday craft posts are very popular.
Number game The blog, which has about 22,000 web subscribers, gets as many as 50,000 page views on holidays. In a month, she gets about 3 lakh page views in a month.
Fulfilling journey Acharya says her experience as a mommy blogger has been very rewarding. She appreciates being part of the close-knit blogger community along with the added advantage of being able to skip commuting and being around when her daughter gets home from school. There are still challenges and pet peeves. “Managing finances, paying taxes and registering my company was a challenge. It’s difficult when people are not willing to pay to be featured,” she says.