A Note From Chikae
Photos by Milda Bend
Hello and a warm welcome back! I’ve missed this space. This is a little thank you note from me to you and a re-introduction to Hikarui.
“In silence, we’re able to find the answers.”
A Fresh Start
For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on Hikarui and taking care of my wellbeing. I took the second half of 2018 off to work on a huge rebrand and establish a more sustainable lifestyle for myself. By taking time off, I was able to focus on realigning my priorities and refine my vision for this blog and my creative work. Read more about this here.
Previously, I had two websites: A portfolio and this blog. Over these few months, I allowed myself to think about the purpose of my brand and decided I needed help with a totally new brand direction and redo my website from scratch. I approached Haruka of The Denizen Co for help, and together we decided that Hikarui and Chikae O.H. needed to be merged. So we re-jigged everything and moved all content to fall under the Hikarui brand and so the new generation was born.
Haruka and I redefined the categories to better align with the Hikarui concept of lightweight living:
Anecdotes - Musings on living, coping and healing
Nesting - Create your own getaway space through mindful home-making
Travel - A collection of adventures for the wandering soul
Tips - Efficient hacks that boost productivity and creativity
Whilst I have big plans for the future I wanted to start simple, do something well and grow organically when the timing was right.
Thank you
Thank you for being patient with me as I spent this time discovering what I truly love doing and redesigning everything. I promised certain things in the past and didn’t/couldn’t deliver, and sincerely hope you will forgive me for that. I was lost and in the midst of finding my feet and I didn’t want to give half-hearted answers, work or content. It was important to me to deliver quality-driven content within a curated, design-lead space that was up to my standards. I set out with the mindset that this blog would be something that I would personally read and because of this all of the content on this blog, Pinterest and Instagram are carefully curated through intentional imagery and words. As a result I finally feel like I have something I can be proud of. I hope that by reading this blog, you will feel inspired and motivated to start making small, mindful changes for the better. Be gentle and kind to yourself as you do this, allow yourself to progress naturally.
I’ve learnt many things along the way that I can’t wait to share with you but for now, why not check out my new blog posts: A Beginner’s Guide To Wabi Sabi, Kusatsu Onsen, and Allbirds, The World’s Comfiest Shoes? or take a peek at my portfolio. If you want a trip down memory lane, you can explore some of my older blog posts from 2016/7 from my floristry/photography/road trip days, where my photography was confused and my writing was all over the place and lengthy. Plus I love the idea that you get an insight into my journey and how I have evolved over time, as I think it’s important to share this to remind others that we all start from somewhere. If you’re interested in reading more about this, you can find an older post (will do a new updated post soon) here. Things really have changed!
To those who have stayed with me from the beginning/middle of my journey and to newcomers taking the time to get to know me and Hikarui, thank you so much for being here, I’m so grateful. A special thank you must also go to Casey my VA and Haruka who both made this journey much less stressful and a joy to be on.
- Chikae
