SEARCH
MENU
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
Creative & Frugal Home & Garden Ideas

Empress of Dirt

  • Grow
  • Make
  • Ideas

New here?

Dig in!

Start here

Wow! The Empress of Dirt Gets a Makeover

Published on April 10, 2017Last updated November 18, 2021 ♛ By Melissa J. Will

This post contains affiliate links.
Read full disclosure statement here.

Share on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

We wish to announce that Her Majesty, the Empress of Dirt, has a whole new look. Not that we didn’t love her as she was, but, after many years in the same outfit, it was time for a nice, fresh start.

Come have a look.

Welcome to the brand new Empress of Dirt

First, let me give you a little history. Some of you have been following my blogs from the beginning (hello!) and remember these early years.

The Pioneer Days of Blogging

Back in the early 2000s, I had a blog called Pioneer Woman with Cell Phone. It was a place to share my love of old-fashioned life skills combined with a healthy appreciation for the usefulness and brilliance of modern inventions and conveniences. It’s quite a world we live in that we can sew clothes by hand and make bread from scratch, all while talking on a mini handheld computer known as a mobile phone.

Pioneer Woman with Cell Phone

Time to Grow

By 2005, I was ready for a change, and turned the blog into Empress of  Dirt, with a new focus on my main love: life in the garden.

The original Empress of Dirt

The name Empress of Dirt came to me after hearing a line in a song,

you can have it all, my empire of dirt.

It was Johnny Cash singing Hurt by Nine Inch Nails.  If you are familiar with the lyrics, you may see how it struck me as a good name for a blog about (mostly) a love of gardening, frugality, making-do with what we have, and the contentment we can only find in nature—all sprinkled with a healthy dose of life-is-short, and we are stewards, not owners of this earth.

How Empress of Dirt Got Its Name

I hastily made up the logo with Queen Victoria as the Empress, thinking this would be temporary until I came up with the ‘real design’. I never anticipated it would take 12 years to get it done.

With no particular design or technical skills, I finally had the good sense to hire someone who does.

Alice Priestley

Alice Priestley - web designer / front-end developer / alicepriestley.com

Alice Priestley is a ‘web designer / front-end developer with a background in book illustration‘ and the person who was able to turn my seemingly unrealistic dreams for this site into reality.

Alice provides the story of the creative development process here. Basically, I uttered some far-out ideas about the look and feel I was hoping for, and Alice disappeared with her magical sketchbook, fine coding skills, intuition, and a lovely determination to push the boundaries, and came back with something much better than I could have hoped for.

Art + Tech

Welcome to Empress of Dirt: creative & frugal home & garden ideas

In this era where a website must serve a tiny mobile screen and at the same time look right on a giant desktop computer monitor, it is no small task to design something that is playful and engaging yet technically proficient. Alice managed to capture the old-fashioned storybook feeling I was after yet still meet all the demands (and confinements) of a blog. I could not be more pleased, and, I hope, of course, that you will enjoy it too.

Dig In

To explore more of the new artistry on the site, and see the Empress come to life, have a look at Grow, Make, and Ideas.

To find out who is the inspiration behind the Empress of Dirt character, you will enjoy Alice’s story here.

And, to see more of her work, including beloved children’s books and web designs, visit Alice here:

alicepriestley.com

Enjoy!

And thank you, Alice, for a beautiful new Empire of Dirt.

~Melissa the Empress of Dirt ♛

Wow! The Empress of Dirt Gets a Makeover
Share on FacebookShare on PinterestShare on Email

Free Newsletters

Signup for creative & frugal home and garden ideas!

This site is spam-free and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

Melissa J. Will - Empress of DirtWelcome!
I’m Melissa J. Will a.k.a. the Empress of Dirt (Ontario, Canada).
Join me as I share creative + frugal home & garden ideas with a dash of humor.
More: Contact/About
New here? Dig in!  |  Our Podcast

Handy Resources

  • Year-at-a-Glance Garden Task List
  • Create Your Garden Profile
  • Soil-Mulch-Potting Mix Calculator
  • Garden Name Generator
  • Printable Garden Planner
  • Favorite Garden Quotes
  • Botanical Plant Names 101
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Some articles on this site contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Affiliate and Ad Disclosure | Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 · Empress of Dirt Creative + Frugal Home & Garden Ideas