20 Questions with Sheila Arkee of Painted Ladies

1. Name: Sheila Arkee

2. Blog: Painted Ladies

3. Location: Southern California

4. Twitter handle: @paintedladies09

5. What is your blog about: Empowering, inspiring, and educating about beauty.

6. Date Started Blogging: August 2009

7. Day Job: Freelance writer, photographer, mother.

8. Why did you decide to start a blog? Although I’ve been in the beauty industry for years, I had been working at a dead end desk job and was desperate for a challenge and change. After taking a chance and winning a makeover from Stila, I knew I had to take my chances and started Painted Ladies with the encouragement and support of several fellow makeup junkies.

9. How did you choose your blog’s title? A longtime friend who also occasionally contributes to Painted Ladies came up with the title – it’s perfect for this blog which also has some amazing regular writers who are just as crazy about makeup as I am.

10. What do you like about blogging: I was just thinking about this and realized that I am living my dream of being in the beauty industry. I was a frustrated makeup artist for many years, and after I had my son I was looking for a way to keep myself in the beauty world and yet not have to work crazy retail hours or unpredictable freelance hours. Blogging combines my loves of writing, photography, and makeup perfectly.

11. Which blogging platform do you use? Why? Wordpress because it is so easy to use. I used Blogger for a personal blog and was utterly frustrated with it most of the time.

12. Biggest challenge when it comes to blogging: Balancing time! With my duty as a mother, I really have to take advantage of any pockets of free time that come up to take photos and write for the blog.

13. Do you monetize your blog? Yes

14. Biggest blogging achievements? Pursuing and achieving interviews with industry pros including Crystal Wright, Scott Barnes, Poppy King, Toni Ko, and Ted Gibson.

15. Worst blogging mistake you ever made? Typos, typos, typos! I catch so many of them ,but the good news is that it’s easy to clean them up!

16. What are your favorite blogs? A Beautiful Mess, Bakerella, Messy Nessy Chic, Design Seed.

17. What type of camera do you use? Nikon D90, 50 mm 1.8 and 35 mm 1.8 lenses

18. Something most people don’t know about you: I learned Spanish and Farsi as an adult.

19. Biggest talent: Meeting deadlines. Seriously, sometimes I don’t know how I manage to make magic happen when the clock is ticking away.

20. Who is the one person you’d like to meet? I’d love to have lunch with Martha Stewart – I’m a fan!