L.A. Influential: Bringing Jungalow To Life

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Like so many success stories, Justina Blakeney had a passion and knew she had to share it with the world.

She turned her zest for design and nature into a blog that has catapulted her career in so many directions.

Blakeney, an artist, designer and author coined her botanical boho vibe in 2009 while entertaining in her L.A. apartment.

"One of my girlfriends was like, "It's like a jungle in here. It's like a Jungle-Bungalow. And we all looked at eachother "It's a JUNGALOW!," and that's where the name came from!

This budding Bohemian grew up in Berkeley, California with supportive parents who cultivated culture and creativity within the family.

After studying design at UCLA and fashion in Florence, Italy she moved to Los Angeles, realized her passion was home design and began blogging, but it took time to drum up excitement.

"No one was reading my blog and I would call my sister and my mom and say, "Hey Guys...you want to comment on my blog? I wrote a cool blog post,"

After consistently posting, her determination paid off five years ago.

"Little by little people at the flea market started recognizing me and they were like Oh, you're the jungalow girl...You're JUNGALOW, right?"

Soon after creating the Jungalow Instagram account:

"It was like every day I had five thousand followers....and it was like...what is going on here?

Today the Jungalow Instagram has more than 800,000  followers

Blakeney's a New York Times best-selling author who just released her fifth book.