story time

hi friends! I can’t remember the last time I just sat down to share my heart with you…In just a few days I will be celebrating 7 years since I decided to go ALL in with content creation, influencer marketing, and the day I said “I can actually get PAID to blog? yes please!” I also happen to be celebrating 20K followers on instagram, which is honestly wild to me. So let’s take a little walk back down memory lane in celebration of these milestones.

To truly begin this story, we have to go back even further than 7 years.

Let’s take it back 16 years. My oldest (Taylor) was 2, yes the one who is about to move into her college dorm in 2 weeks. 🥹 and my Wyatt was just a few months old. We lived in the country, none of my friends had kids yet, and my best friend was my Grandma. If you are a momma, especially a mom of littles, you know how isolating and lonely those early years can feel. Especially when you don’t feel like you have a community around you. Social media was not a big thing, I had a Facebook page because I had a college email (yes do you remember that?), but it was nowhere near as prominent as it is today. Instagram didn’t even exist yet. I can’t remember how I stumbled upon it, but I learned that there were mom bloggers out there who were writing stories, and sharing their experiences with motherhood online. I started to really enjoy connecting with them and reading their stories, and felt inspired to start my own blog as a way to remember the things that were happening with my kids, sort of like a digital diary. I started up Momma’s Love & Laughter on blogspot, and this was my first post.

Writing was a way for me to process my thoughts, document special moments with my family, and celebrate the highs and lows with this new online community I was joining. I wrote on this original blog from 2010-2017. During that time, I was raising babies, added a third one to our family, started an online sewing and embroidery business, and also started direct sales with Younique makeup. In 2018 I decided my platform needed to change a little bit. I was still sharing stories about family, however I was also starting to share more makeup tutorials, product recommendations, outfits, etc, and I also wanted a domain that was all my own. That’s when tinaschoenfeldt.com was born. ✨ see her first post below.

wow wow wow. sometimes my own words still hit me!

the me 8 years ago wanted to build a community of women who were seen, uplifted, encouraged, and confident. if I could go back and tell her just how amazing you guys are. truly. I love what I do here each and every day, and it’s an honor that you’ve allowed me to share pieces of my life with you while we’ve built this community together.

But while my online community was growing, behind the scenes I was starting to feel like I was running thin.

From 2018-2019, I was raising a family at home, working the boutique 5 days a week, spending my days at the sewing and embroidery machine, and then in the evenings working on my blogging and videos for Younique. I started to feel like I was not doing one single thing well, and instead doing all the things halfway. Something had to give, and I knew in my heart the online business was the one that was going to allow me the most flexibility with my time, and it was something I genuinely started feeling really excited to be doing. I was loving it. So I decided to close my boutique of 6 years, and decided I was going to pursue Younique and monetizing my blog full time. This is when I actually said out loud “people actually get paid to blog?” I had been blogging for 9 years by this point and had no idea where to even begin. But what I did have was years of experience creating content and showing up online. My experience with Younique had given me so much confidence on camera, I spent years getting ready on Facebook lives, chatting with my friends, and teaching them makeup tips. I knew how to share and connect with people, I just needed to figure out how to turn that into an income. So I started to research ways to monetize blogs, and learned about affiliate marketing. I would get a product I love, share about the product, and then get paid when someone orders from my link. That’s perfect! I got my first partnership with L’ange haircare, and was so excited to be sharing products I really loved.

These words still ring true today, and at my core, I will never ever share something with you that I would not use myself ! And the gratitude I feel to STILL be doing this thing that I love so much, is overwhelming.

As 2019 wrapped up, I decided to join a program to help me get my fitness and health back on track.

The Faster Way To Fat Loss, which also had an opportunity to apply to be a coach after going through the 6 week program. I had JUST essentially quit another business to focus on my blog. I was not looking for another career. But 2 weeks into the program I knew that what I was learning I could not keep to myself. A whole new world of health and wellness unlocked for me, and I shifted from helping women with their makeup and hair, to helping them with their macros and workouts. My content was evolving right alongside my life. And then 2020 hit, and the world as we knew it ceased to exist. EVERYTHING was online. Nobody was going to the gym, people were scared to go to the stores, so they shopped online. We turned to TikTok for entertainment and fun, and the digital world, I feel, ramped up and took off. Prior to 2020 I didn’t really know how to answer people when they asked me what I did. Influencer? What’s an influencer? I was still figuring out what this online career even looked like, but opportunities were starting to come my way that showed me there might be a whole lot more to it than I realized.

In 2020, I ordered a collagen powder online, and shared about it in my stories.

The brand reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in creating a video of me using the product for them to be able to use on their page for ads. They would pay me for the video, and then pay me a commission on any sales driven from that ad. Wow, this felt like I had nothing to lose. And somehow this was the turning point where I was no longer just being rewarded for sales driven. This was a value placed on my actual content and the story I had to tell about the product. Today, we’d call this UGC, or user generated content, but at the time I didn’t even know there was a a name for it. I just knew a brand was willing to pay me to create content, not because of how many people followed me, but because they saw value in what I could create. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one realizing there was something here. In 2020, the influencer marketing industry was valued at around $9.7 billion. By 2025, that number had grown to more than $32 billion. Even more telling, U.S. brands are projected to spend $44 billion on creator advertising in 2026 alone. What felt like a somewhat unconventional way to earn an income when I started has become an entire marketing channel, with nearly half of creator ad buyers now considering creators a “must buy.” 

Looking back, I think 2020 accelerated something businesses were already beginning to understand: people connect with people. A product shown in someone’s actual kitchen, bathroom, garden, or everyday routine could tell a story differently than a traditional commercial ever could. And as shopping moved increasingly online, brands needed people who knew how to create that kind of content.

From 2020 to today, this little online business has continued to grow in ways I never could have imagined.

I’ve had the opportunity to build lasting relationships with brands, work with companies I genuinely love, host events, travel for opportunities, appear on television, publish a cookbook, create alongside some incredibly talented people, and represent household names that still make me pinch myself sometimes. I’ve also gotten to celebrate so many of these moments with the friends and family who have cheered me on every step of the way.

I took a little walk through my camera roll while writing this post and pulled out some of my favorite memories from the last several years. There are far too many to share them all, but looking through these reminded me just how many incredible experiences this career has given me.

And through all of the changes, I think what makes me the most emotional is realizing that the heart behind what I do really hasn’t changed. The platforms have changed, the content has changed, and my life certainly looks a whole lot different than it did in 2010. But I still love sharing the things I’m excited about, telling stories, creating something beautiful, and connecting with the people on the other side of the screen. Somehow, that young momma who started writing because she was looking for community ended up building one.

So as I celebrate 20,000 of you on Instagram and 7 years since I decided to go all in on this crazy career, I really just want to say thank you.

Thank you for being here. Whether you’ve been reading since the Momma’s Love & Laughter days, found me somewhere along the way, or just joined this little corner of the internet recently, you are a part of this story too. Every time you read a blog post, watch a video, try one of my recipes, send me a message, leave a comment, share something I’ve created, or trust one of my recommendations, you’re supporting the business that allows me to keep doing something I truly love. I don’t take that for granted.

Sixteen years ago, I started a blog because I wanted a place to document our life and connect with other women. I never could have imagined where it would take me, or that the little two-year-old I was writing about back then would be heading off to college as I sat down to write this. 🥹

Here’s to 20K, 16 years of stories, and 7 years of doing something I truly love. I’m so grateful for the doors God has opened along the way, and I can’t wait to see where He leads me next. I have a feeling there are still a whole lot of stories left to tell. 🫶🏼