I have been quietly working on some big changes for a while now and am so happy to finally share them with you! Before I do, I wanted to take a second to thank you all for coming along on this journey with me so far and I hope you continue to stick around as I grow and evolve.

Why the Change? 

Changing the name of my blog was something I spent a long time considering. Would people be really confused? Would it greatly affect my traffic? While the answer to these questions was most likely yes, I decided to do it anyways. This is my creative space and I want it to be a reflection of me. With the name Petite in Pearls, I felt sort of like I had to post a certain kind of content that wasn't inspiring to me and that is the last thing that I want to do. This is the same mindset I adopt when approaching collaborations and people that I work with. For example, a lot of bloggers are desperate to attend Fashion Week in any context because it feels like some milestone to be invited to those events. I was invited to a few this year and declined because Fashion Week feels like my worst nightmare. It's just not me. I've also been offered money for posts on my blog and declined because it didn't feel organic to me. These are values that I want to stick to in every aspect of my creative work. No sketchy tactics to artificially boost my Instagram following from me. 

Behind the Name

Once I knew I wanted to change the name, I had to figure out what to change it to. Naturally, I considered making the blog my actual name, but since my last name is so ridiculous for most people to spell to type in a URL, I didn't think that was the best course of action. My next choice was Stella Cadente.

Stella Cadente means falling star in Italian. What you may not know if you're a follower of the blog and don't know me personally is that it's also a nickname. Around 10 years ago I had a phase where I changed my name on Facebook several times in a row, eventually making it Stella Cadente so people I didn't want to find my profile, couldn't. At the time there was a limit on how many times you could change your name, so when I changed it to that last time I got a notification telling me I was no longer allowed to change it. Soon after that people started calling me Stella and the name just stuck and I ran with it. I double checked to make sure the blog name wasn't taken, and couldn't find anything other than an olive oil company in Italy and I knew that this is what I wanted to do. 

The New Logo

I went through hell getting a new logo designed for the blog. I had an idea of what I wanted in my head, but don't have the software or graphic design skills to make it myself. I spent a while collecting inspiration and picking out fonts to send to a designer who ended up just taking months and months and not getting me anything to approve or give feedback on. I ended up asking a friend if she was able to do it, but she didn't think she could do a good job since she's more of an illustrator. Eventually, I found someone else to do the logo for me and got it back within 24 hours. The logo features the Big Dipper, Orion (my favorite constellation), and Cancer. I'm so happy with how it turned out. Let me know what you think down in the comments!

So, welcome to the new blog! And if you're new, please say hello. I don't want to talk at you, but have a conversation with you.