About Me

Tory Tries chronicles one girl’s quest to teach herself new skills and hobbies, proving that you don’t have to be an expert in any area to begin— or even succeed. As the ultimate destination for lifelong hobbyists and newcomers alike, our mission is to offer inspiration and information on cooking, crafting, gardening, fitness, and more. If you ever find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information available on a given topic, Tory strives to simplify things with research roundups, step-by-step guides, and honest feedback.

I’ve always had a knack for figuring out how to do things on my own. A lifelong creator, I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of seeing something I liked online and trying to make it myself— with or without instructions. My favorite part of these creative projects has always been the beginning: the idea, the research, the supplies, and the endless possibilities you have at the outset. However, I typically find it difficult to move from planning the project to doing the project for fear of failing.

This results in me excitedly purchasing project supplies that sit on my craft table for a few weeks collecting dust before I awkwardly move them to the closet. Official reasoning for putting them in the closet: “unresolved research questions.” Real reasoning for putting them in the closet: “fear of failing (or not being immediately amazing) at said project. An attempt to stave off any further self-embarrassment prompted by looking at the unused supplies.”

I started ToryTries as a way to hold myself accountable to skill building. It seems reasonable to buy all the supplies and read all the materials before starting a new hobby. But I’ve realized that for myself and likely many others, I could buy all the supplies and read all the “expert advice” and still have nothing to show for it. No amount of this prep work has ever made me feel ready to start trying. It’s all just a really clever method of procrastination. Simply put, skill building comes from real effort. Actual doing. And a huge part of putting in effort involves struggle, experimentation, and failure.

These uncomfortable elements are a package deal when it comes to effort (and therefore skill building) but we rarely hear about them. Anyone who’s been on the internet in the past decade knows that most of what we see is a highlight reel. Well, consider ToryTries your blooper reel. I’m just an average girl trying to learn new stuff. I’m not an influencer (nor do I want to be!) so you can trust that what you’re seeing here is exactly how it happened. It might not always be pretty, but I promise it’ll be real. I plan on writing about my both my successes and my failures. My hope is to normalize struggle and failure as parts of the skill building process and to show that you don’t need to be an expert to succeed.

I started Tory Tries soon after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, when we were all stuck spending time at home. I began filling my new free time with novels, lots of yarn, a newfound love of cooking, and a desire to blog about it all.

I hope that by reading about my experience trying new things, you will feel inspired to start trying something new, too.