My Life as Riah

As some of you know, my name is Riah, and I am The Wanderful Soul. I wanted to share a little bit about myself, and what I do since this blog has been working out pretty great in the past month.

Lately, my spare time has been limited, and my days are jam packed with to do lists that never get fully completed. I have recently taken on so many projects for my "career" that life has become crazy & stressful. So let me enlighten you on my career choice(s) for the moment:

• Shop Owner
• Student
• Blogger
• Photographer
• Model
• Graphic Designer

Yes, these are my jobs that I do 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are what keep me up at night, but through all the sleepless nights, I am absolutely happy. I have become so ambitious this year, and I love every second of it. It all started with my shop, Modern Elm.

I started my shop almost two years ago with the idea of creating jewelry as a side job, for fun. Now, I want to make this my job full time, and I am always pumping out new ideas, trying to be as unique and original as possible. I incorporate nature in my pieces, and I've even started working more with healing crystals. To hear more, visit my shops About Page.

My second job is a full time student. I am currently working on getting specialized in three areas: Jewelry Fabrication, Photography, but mainly Graphic Design. My passion for graphic design started when I was a youngster in middle school. I loved creating little icons and gifs for myself and friends. I was originally studying Evolution Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. (but we can all see how that turned out) I love science, but having a career in that department was not for me, so I opted for the creative life.

Third, I am a blogger. I only recently became a blogger after running a successful Instagram account, @TheWanderfulSoul. My goal with this account was to spread positivity, and inspire others as I saw how much hate was going around. After starting it, my outlook began to change as well, and I have become a better person because of it. I try to post as much as possible, to keep the community going, but it gets really difficult at times when I have school work to finish or orders to send out.



Fourth, I am a photographer. I have recently started collaborating with some awesome shops, and met some beautiful people as a result. I have been more interested in fashion photography because of it, and I am about to start working with a friend, who was my high school tennis coach/ photographer for senior photos. He's letting me tag along on his fashion shoots to take photos of my own, and learn the ropes to fashion photography. It's pretty amazing, and I'm really excited for the opportunity! I want to say that photography is probably one of the jobs that takes me the longest to do. I have to scout out locations for shoots, snap tons of photos to make sure I get some good ones, and edit the photos. Editing takes so much time, but I can't argue with the end result!

To go along with photography, I am also a model. I model for most of my collaboration shoots as well as snap the photos! I'm constantly running back and forth to snap photos, with my trusty timer. Sometimes my wonderful boyfriend takes them for me, but usually it's just me out there. I also model my own jewelry for my shop photos as well. (so many photos, so little time!)

And last, but not least, I am a graphic designer. Although I'm half way through my degree in graphic design, I have been asked to create logos & designs from some companies. Both small shops, and non-profit organizations. It has been amazing to create and learn at the same time. But with limited time to execute a design for a client, it gets a little hectic.

All of this has been so crazy, it's hard to manage my time! But I'm hoping that all of jobs I'm creating for myself will turn out well, and I will become the ultimate self-made woman! I hope giving you a glimpse into my life lets you see how much I'm doing behind the scenes, and hopefully you'll appreciate it even more.☺

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