One of my goals this year was to do a total overhaul of design, content and name. I wanted a blog that reflected where I am and the content to match up with my goals and passion. I started off with the blog design - that was suprisingly very easy to accomplish, got things cleaned up , took away the clutter and fluff and I got things looking grown up. 

Next I tackled the content - Less beauty . More Travel and Lifestyle post. When I started the blog over a year ago , it was a way to document my forage into the world of beauty, what products to buy, what not to buy , what worked , what didn't work and by the end of last year we was starting to feel like a broken record with the beauty chat - I had accomplished what I wanted  - so what next ? I debated abadoning the whole blogging thing completely, but I had fallen in love with the process. Then, I thought about scrapping all the beauty chat- but could not really bring myself to do that either - I did not have the volume of beauty things to chat about several days a week , but I was still conencted enough to have something to chat about once or twice time a month, so we kept the beauty chat.

About the same time, my schedule opened up and I began travelling a lot more- the kind of volume I had always wanted but did not have the time to do. In line with that, the idea for the Portland Grace Shop which is inspired by my travels was finally taking shape - so travel became the natural progression - because whether or not I blog - I will always  travel. So we have the travel, the beauty, we also have some food thrown in the mix and sometimes get a little bit personal with the Life in: series which launched in July.

Finally the name - this one was surprisingly the hardest part of the process - When I started the blog, I picked the name on a whim (a placeholder) until I found something I loved and after much debate - I decided on Portland | Grace (there is a story behind the name, which I may share someday). Think of Portland | Grace as a much grown up version of rain drops roses blog. If you type in the old name - you will automatically be redirected here. Our social media accounts have also changed - make sure to follow us on Instagram ; Twitter and Facebook for update on the shop (coming really soon). I encourage you to go follow us on all those platforms - there may or may not be several giveaways happening soon.

What's new ? - We have a new landing page which I could stare at for days. Then, there is the blog which you are familair with, but we have a few surprises that you will see as the weeks progress. The shop - where we offer a selection of fine art photographs inspired by my travels (you can see a preview of the shop in tomorrow's post).  Finally the gallery - this is my baby right here, my nights and weekends for the last three weeks have been intense styling and photographing session and I am very proud of what we created. The gallery is now live (so you can get a preview of the upcoming collection). The shop launches on September 15th.

A big shout out to my friend lalaini for being a sounding board through all of the endless changes and edits for both the shop and blog. To my brother "G" for providing valuable photography insights and most especially to you who log on to read my ramblings on travel, food and beauty - there really is no blog with you. Thanks for coming on this journey with me.

To celebrate the re-design and shop the launch - I am giving away a few products from the shop over on our different social media platforms - so be sure to follow (and tell a friend) - you don't want to miss what is coming.

Cheers