I’d like The Nectar Collective to be a place you can visit throughout your day for open-minded inspiration, interesting articles, and unique tips for designing a life and business you love. I knew that in order to keep things moving and growing, it was important to have fresh perspectives and more friends who could help me bring this vision to life. To assist with this goal, I put out a call for contributors, not realizing that I’d end up receiving 150 applications (holy moly!) from some of the brightest, funniest, and creative-est bloggers out there. Needless to say, selecting just five new friends to help me with building and loving TNC’s community was so.dang.difficult.

Today, I’m absolutely thrilled to share with you the five women who will be joining me in this adventure — our collective. I know this sounds like a cheesy cliche straight out of an HR handbook, but for real, each one of these ladies was selected very carefully. I wanted to find a group of people who not only had skills and experience in their respective areas, but who also matched the tone and voice of our community. I really think you’ll love this group. Now, let me introduce you! 😀

In alphabetical order, because, duh.

Alyssa Wible // DIY Contributor

Alyssa’s photography completely struck me when I visited her blog. I was eager for a DIY contributor, and Alyssa’s projects are absolutely gorgeous — urban, modern, and beautifully styled. She also has a fun, playful voice on her site, so I knew she’d be a perfect fit. Here’s Alyssa:

Alyssa Renee is a photographer and designer who blogs about DIY, photography and travel. With an insatiable appetite for creating, she’s always seeking out new skill to learn or project to start. Currently, she’s loving crochet, weaving and all things textural. She can never get enough of shine, shimmer or sparkle and loves making things beautiful! Living in Boulder, CO and enjoying the fresh mountain air has inspired her to live a cleaner life by making all her beauty and cleaning products herself, so look out for some lovely DIY beauty projects!

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Christine Williams // Self-Development + Travel Contributor

You know those ads for “the most interesting man in the world”? Well, Christine might have them beat. Except, she’s a chick. A super interesting, funny, adventurous chick. As she’ll tell you in her bio below, Christine is a nomadic world traveler with some incredible wisdom to share. You can expect insightful self-development and travel articles from this unique woman. Here’s Christine:

Christine Williams is a nomadic writer, travel addict, chronic blanket hog and reality TV show junky. She blogs about her backpacking adventures at Don’t Forget To Move, hoping to convince others you don’t need to have a trust fund or win the lottery to travel the world. She’s slept on top of Mayan ruins in Guatemala, chased wild boar in the Amazon and battled a bed-bug infestation at a hostel in Nicaragua (she still has nightmares).

This past year she moved to Melbourne with her Aussie boyfriend and started studying for her Master’s degree in International Development. They are about to take off for Southeast Asia and will spend some time enjoying warm beaches and cold beers in Thailand and Cambodia before heading off to the Philippines to help out with typhoon disaster relief. When she’s not working overseas, you can find Christine kicking back at home in the San Francisco Bay Area, most likely stuffing her face with vegetarian burritos. She’s excited about contributing to The Nectar Collective and getting to know the community!

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Christy O’Shoney // Self-Development Contributor

I had the pleasure of meeting Christy at Alt Summit last June, where she was a speaker. Excuse me for sounding like a hippie here, but her energy was amazing. You instantly feel comfortable around Christy because of her incredible kindness, humor, and open-mindedness. She’s also badass at writing and observant of the world around her, making her one heck of a self-development guru. Here’s Christy:

Christy O’Shoney is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She is the creator of Avoiding Atrophy, a blog dedicated to celebrating the unpolished aspects of life. Her writing spans a variety of subjects from pop culture to relationships to the mistakes she made at her own wedding. Her work has been featured on sites such as Salon and Hello Giggles, and she recently spoke at Alt Summit on the subject of “Blogging with Comedic Voice”.

When she’s not writing, you can find her on New York’s comedy scene doing standup, improv, and storytelling. A native of San Antonio, Texas, she sites the film Muppets Take Manhattan as the reason she moved to New York City. She wanted to ride bikes with Kermit through Central Park, but in actuality, she spends a great deal of her NYC life watching Netflix with her husband, Daniel, and dangling hair ties in front of her cat, Frasier. She is totally fine with her choices.

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Jessica Angeles // DIY Contributor

I met Jess at a blogger event about a year ago and she’s been a close friend ever since (I’ll even be going to her wedding next month! Yay for blogger friendships!). Not only is Jess hilarious, uber creative, and just about the easiest person in the world to get along with, she’s also dependable and FULL of ideas. You’ll love her DIY projects (and perhaps her drink recipes, too! ;)). Here’s Jess:

Jess lives in sunny Southern California and is deeply obsessed with her dog, while also spending about 80% of her time crafting. Jess Loves This Life is a blog about everything that makes her happy and appreciative of where she is in life. Due to health reasons, crafting was the only thing she could really do for a while. She quickly fell in love with the DIY community and blogging as a whole.

She uses her blog to document projects that she’s proud of, and that serve as a constant reminder that she is capable of so many things. When she’s not crafting or snuggling her dog, she can be found hanging out at Disneyland with her awesome fiancé, listening to Taylor Swift on repeat, or drinking one too many cups of coffee.

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Maya Elious // Business + Blogging Contributor

I knew Maya was meant to be after I checked out her application and then spent God only knows how much time being completely entranced by her blog’s content. In addition to her rockin’ blog, Maya also runs her own design studio and has a wealth of encouraging and unique business + blogging advice to share. Here’s Maya: 

Maya Elious has 7 years of experience in web and graphic design with a growing reputation for her skills in small business branding. She has a passion for helping passionate entrepreneurs grow their personal brand with effective web design and brand recognition. As the founder of BRNDWCH, she is able to fulfill her passion on a daily basis.

When she’s not behind the computer screen, Maya enjoys networking with professionals, shooting photography and speaking on personal branding and professional development.

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p.s. It would be freakin’ AWESOME if you welcomed them to our community. Here are three easy ways to do that:

1. Leave a comment!
2. Give ’em a shoutout on Twitter! Here are their handles: @mayaelious, @jess_loveslife, @christyoshoney, @dontforget2move, @alyssareneemade
3. Say hello on their blogs: Maya, Jess, Christy, Christine, Alyssa