About

The heart Behind Hearten Made

Hearten Made founder and designer Carissa sitting on a wooden stool in front of artwork, wearing jeans and a white tee

HI! I’m Carissa. Font hoarder, cat person, always five projects deep, happiest at the beach, and I believe rewatching Pride & Prejudice counts as self-care.

It kind of started with a blog back in 2006, when having your own little corner of the internet was basically a personality trait. I was never that into the writing part, honestly. But the designing part… I was obsessed. I’d spend hours making it look just right, tweaking CSS, adjusting the fonts and colors, rearranging everything until it felt just right. That feeling, when your website feels like you – I chased it like crazy.

What started as a hobby eventually became a direction. I’d already been teaching myself code & design, so when I later discovered WordPress, it felt like everything just fell into place. I never looked back.

At one point, life got hard for a minute. I was BROKE broke, working a job I dreaded, fresh out of art school (I dropped out, actually), and kind of in the middle of figuring out who I even was. But I knew I had this skill and an eye for design, and one day I decided to bet on it.

I spent most of my rent money on a domain, some hosting, and a $25 WordPress course. I listed my new themes on Etsy for dirt cheap and sold three my first week. It wasn’t much, but it was also everything. I finally had some direction and something that was mine.

Then the messages started coming in! People saying how happy they were that their site *finally* felt like them. I hadn’t expected that part, and it turned out that helping someone find that feeling was even better than finding it myself.

That joy is what led me to create Hearten Made, and it shapes every WordPress theme I pour my heart into. Because I know what it feels like to want your website to feel like you, to work for you, to grow with you — and I know what it feels like when it finally does.

My goal is simple

To help you feel confident, inspired, and completely at home in your online space.

Hearten Made exists to help heart-led bloggers and creatives bring their vision to life, without the overwhelm. It’s about more than pretty design. It’s about creating a space that reflects your story, connects with your audience, inspires you, and reminds you why you started.