Hi there, welcome to The Side Hustle Bustle!

I'm Amber Hale a multi-passionate entrepreneur who loves home decorating on a budget, thrifting and flipping, social media management, course creating, health and nutrition coaching, being an Airbnb hostess with the mostess, making and selling digital printables and coffee mugs on Etsy, making Amazon influencer videos and chronic side hustling.

After working in several boutique hotels in NYC, I ditched the typical 9-5 job years ago and have been side hustling my way through life ever since! The thing I love about a side hustle is it can be whatever you make it. You can side hustle to boost your savings, save up for a trip or event, or to have an extra stream of income to fill a gap from your normal salary.

If there is anything that the year 2020 has taught us, is how life can change in the blink of an eye even when things feel the most stable. Many people went from a secure job going into the office daily, to being unemployed without financial assistance. That year made it more apparent to me than ever how important it is to have more than one stream of income.

Currently, my husband Chris and I are renovating the first of 2 bedrooms that we will list on Airbnb and while we are doing that, we our hosting our primary bedroom on Airbnb to help fund our projects. We have been super hosts for years by hosting our spare room on Airbnb since 2016 and it has been the BEST and most fulfilling side hustle we could have ever asked for.

This blog has been woken up from the grave and here you will find a little backstory on how I got started over 9 years ago in Brooklyn, NY, and how it is evolving now that I am in Denver, CO.

The way it all began...

I started this blog back in 2008 when I first moved to Brooklyn, NY from Jacksonville, FL.

Back then I sold just about everything I owned, packed up myself, my chihuahua Chili Palmer, and moved to NYC. I moved there alone with a total of 2 friends and no job (crazy, right?!) but I had my sights set on starting a career in the hospitality industry.

When I arrived, I slept on a friend's couch for a week so I could figure out where I would live and work.

Two weeks after arriving in NY, I landed a job at a boutique hotel in Lower Manhattan with absolutely no hospitality experience.

(Random side note...I met my husband Chris my very first week on the job but we worked very opposite schedules. Little did I know he would become my husband over 8 years later!!)

During that same time, I ended up finding an amazingly large (for NYC) brownstone apartment with private roof access in Bedstuy, Brooklyn.

Starting over from scratch...

Since I moved to NY with nothing but 3 suitcases and 11 boxes, I had to start from scratch to furnish my new place. I looked for furniture on craigslist, thrift stores, the side of the street (I found some really beautiful treasures there sometimes, such as my mid-century modern daybed!), and good ole' IKEA!

All of the apartment furnishing I was doing sparked a new interest in home decorating and furniture refinishing.

I was constantly finding gorgeous vintage pieces and mixing them with new furnishing pieces for my new little Brooklyn home. There was also a really awesome Salvation Army thrift store in Bedstuy, just about 3 or so blocks from my apartment which got me in a lot of trouble, the good kind of trouble. It was there that I discovered a newfound love for vintage glassware such as milk glass and pyrex. I started finding gorgeous pieces and collecting them, some for my apartment and others with the idea of reselling them.

Where does the name Picturesque Brooklyn come from?

PicturesqueBrooklyn was the name I chose when I opened my Etsy shop in 2009. There I started selling my vintage glassware from my thrift store adventures and it is now home to my digital prints and coffee mugs such as my ever-famous Ron Swanson quotes. 

The blog came shortly after the Etsy shop and was a place where I shared some of my DIY home projects, home furnishing deals I found out and about, and it also showcased vintage glassware and other funky vintage houseware that I was selling in my Etsy Store.

The name PicturesqueBrooklyn represented all the beautiful things I found during my Brooklyn adventures, there was so much treasure to be found in the Big Apple!

Now, it represents the life I built there with my now husband Chris, the memories we shared there together over 8 years, and the fondness I will always have in my heart for Brooklyn.

So why did I abandon my blog? 

At the time, Etsy wasn't as efficient as it is now. The Etsy app wasn't born back then and it took SO LONG for me to write listings, take photos, upload them to my computer, and finally publish it. I started to become uninterested in selling on Etsy and blogging, I dove face-first into a new hobby and passion. Health and Fitness!

Backstory...

For my first 4 years in NY, I worked in boutique hotels in Manhattan as a front desk agent, concierge and assistant front office manager. Like I previously mentioned, I met Chris, the love of my life while working at my first hotel job.

Chris was also a hunky personal trainer with a hot pair of abs... do abs come in a pair??

Anyway, Chris got me interested in health and fitness which changed my life! I started another blog called Exsoycise (now called AwakenedNutrition) where I shared my soy and dairy-free health and fitness journey. 

I went from vintage shopping and selling to healthy recipe creation and health coaching. I dropped everything and poured my heart and soul into my health blog and my own fitness.

So much happened over the 8.5 years that I was in NYC.

During that time, I realized that I did not have to pick just ONE main interest in this beautiful life that we get to make here on earth. We can have many interests and love them all just as equally. That is what makes life so much fun! So after a long break, I picked back up the things I loved and let my creativity shine once again.

Speaking of making life fun...the adventure continues.

Chris, Chili, and I decided to embark on a new journey together. We packed up our life and business and moved to Denver, CO at the beginning of March 2017!

And if moving isn't crazy enough on its own, we spent months planning our destination wedding in Austin, TX, and got married in late October 2017! It was magical!!

We have a lot going on at all times it seems lately, with building a new client base for our health and fitness business from the ground up in a new city, hosting our second bedroom on Airbnb to make some extra income, previously planning a DIY destination wedding, and soaking up this new beautiful Colorado life!

So I am breathing new life into this old blog.

Here is a little taste of what you might see here from time to time:

• Ways to make extra money and save money - hello, side hustle!!

• Home decorating on a budget

• Airbnb hosting tips and experiences (Read how we made $8,000 in less than 8 months on Airbnb)

• Etsy selling tips

• Amazon Influencer videos and tips

• Digital print creation

• DIY home projects

• Wedding planning and decor (Read 3 places to save money buying used wedding decorations)

• Travel and Colorado adventures

• and basically anything else that life throws at us...

Let's connect!

• Instagram - Lifestyle Blog: @sidehustlebustle

• Instagram - Health & Fitness: @awakenednutrition

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