Alyssa Craft, Upstart Homesteader in Idaho

Name: Alyssa Craft

Occupations: homesteader, digital marketer, blogger, graphic designer

Place of Residence: Idaho

Hobbies: gardening, cooking, diy projects, rock climbing, hiking, videography, photography

Homesteading Blog: Pure Living for Life

Follow Alyssa Craft:

Blog: To receive updates of her journey and notifications of giveaways (tools and other

fun stuff for the homestead) then be sure to subscribe to the blog.

Facebook: Follow Alyssa on Facebook where she posts loads of photos, useful

information, new blog posts and more.

Instagram: View the numerous photos of the work on the homestead.

YouTube: Watch videos of her journey including tutorials, the process on developing her land, product reviews and more.

First Homebuilding/Homesteading Project: Alyssa moved to Idaho with her man, Jesse, in September of 2015. They purchased 5 acres of land where they will be building their homestead from scratch. To start, they will be living in a 19-foot travel trailer while they develop the property a bit. They plan to be off-grid as much as possible by having their own solar power system, a well and a septic system.

Their first project will entail building a 24-by-36-foot barn with a gambrel roof. The barn will serve as a place to put the RV, a place to work on building their house, a place to store their belongings, and they will be building an apartment in the loft where they will live eventually instead of their travel trailer. This will be done using timber from their own land.

Over the next 35 years, they hope to begin construction on their first timber-frame home. There will be many DIY projects between the trailer, the barn and the house, and they couldn’t be more excited! They are most excited about building their off-grid hot tub and starting their organic garden.

Homesteading Background: Alyssa was born and raised in the city, so she never really had the chance to get elbows-deep into homesteading. She has always been curious about health, organic gardening and producing both food and home products from scratch. After purchasing her first house in the city, she realized that to fully homestead, have chickens and be self-sufficient, she would need to move out to the countryside where she could fully develop her skills as a homesteader.

Personal History: Alyssa was born and raised in Palmdale, Calif. After attending college at California State University, Chico, she moved up to Medford, Ore., where she lived for 5 years, minus a small side trip to Boulder, Colorado.

In her early adult years, she spent her time working as a graphic designer both as a freelancer and as a corporate employee. While she enjoys graphic design, she wasn’t happy or content living in the city, bouncing around from job to job to make ends meet. She realized sometime in 2013 that she would rather get away from the rat race of the city and purchase some land in the country where she could spend the majority of her time building a home with her man, gardening, and even practicing entrepreneurship out in the country.

Other Fun Facts:

• Alyssa funds her journey by making her living online providing marketing consulting, building digital products and blogging. This is great, because it allows her to do what she loves in a remote area, yet she can still bust out some work when she has a WIFI connection.

• Starting a homestead from scratch has been the scariest, yet most exciting and rewarding experience of her life so far.

• She has had to overcome many hurdles to start a homestead from scratch. Prior to this journey, she had barely even used a hammer! She goes to bed exhausted every night yet completely satisfied, because homesteading is the only thing that makes sense in her head. Alyssa is a firm believer that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to.