About Aiko
Hello there,
Emily and Alyssa here. We are the founders of Aiko! We are twin sisters born and raised in Coppell, TX. Growing up, we always found ourselves drawn to creative expression. Whether it was sketching on the side of school work, scrapbook collaging, or designing our latest mood board, you name it, we probably dabbled in it. However, as we got older, we found ourselves pulled in many directions with interests in different areas. Heading into college, we were fixed on a career in the healthcare industry. But as many of y’all have probably experienced, life doesn’t always turn out the way you originally planned. Instead, we both ended up in majors that neither of us would have ever expected.
The idea of Aiko came out of our obsession with art journaling. We would spend hours on end at our favorite coffee shops, with our heads deep in our journals in the long summer days between semesters. As the pages of our journals became filled with ideas, sketches, and writing, we also went through a journey of creative self discovery in which our journals became a true expression of ourselves.
We decided to create this blog as a way to release and spread our creativity beyond the private pages of our journals and the complex walls of our minds.
We are passionate about so many different things. We want this blog to be a platform in which we can share our passions and express our creativity. And, we want Aiko to be a place where others with common interests can come to connect and leave feeling inspired.
So, welcome to Aiko, we hope you stay awhile!
WHO
WE
ARE
ABOUT
me
E
My name is Emily Hoppie. Ever since I was little, I have always loved the concept of growth and the idea that nothing is truly stagnant in life. Between the ages of 3 and 18, I was a gymnast. As a gymnast, not only was growth a key part, but it was essential to succeed. I practiced 28 hours a week, always striving to become better. From a young age I was fashioned to always look toward the future and do everything I could to reach the goals that I had planned for. All of those years I was striving to get a college scholarship for gymnastics. Little did I know, being a college gymnast was not the plan that God had for me. I ended up quitting gymnastics my senior year of high school. However, I ended up getting a huge opportunity to become a student athlete at Baylor University.
It wasn’t until quitting gymnastics and coming to Baylor that I was able to really find who I was not only as a student athlete, but as a person. After changing my major and having to find out what I was good at, I began to develop a deep passion for creating. It is from this passion that I have for creating that I decided to start this blog with Alyssa. When I was younger, I quite literally wanted to grow up and be in the next stage of life. Today, I have turned that longing into a desire to grow as a person and become my best self. I think that there is always room to improve. At the end of the day I just want to become the best Emily that I can possibly be, spread God’s love, express my creativity, and share it with others, so that they can become their best selves too. Now, I am a senior, student athlete on Baylor’s Acrobatics and Tumbling team, a journalism major, and a co-creator of AIKO. I’m so excited to share this blog with you!
A
About
me
My name is Alyssa Hoppie. One thing you should know about me is that I am a complete and total dreamer. From the time I was a child, this has always been the case. When I was younger, one of my first real dreams was to become an amazing gymnast. And so, from the time I was three years old and until my junior year of high school, I would spend most of my life in the gym practicing the sport. What had started off as an ambition quickly turned into a passion of mine that led me to childhood unlike must kids. This dream took me on a 14 year journey of growth and self discovery that helped shape me into the person I am today. But, as my gymnastics career came to an end and I graduated from high school, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t see where my aspirations were taking me.
I chose to study kinesiology in college but quickly learned that my interests were elsewhere. Something inside of me was looking for a path that allowed me to be more creative, so I changed my major. I am currently a senior marketing major in the advertising track at Texas A&M University. I found a place where I could still use my analytical brain while tapping into my creative side.
Creating this blog with Emily has been another dream of mine for a long time. I’m very excited to welcome you to Aiko. I wanted to create this blog to share my voice and passions with the world. I hope that this space on the internet can become a home for you and me where we can come together, to discover, create, and feel inspired to follow your own dreams.