Crafty Ass Female

In this episode, A + K check-in with each other about where they’re at mid-summer, different angles you could take to tell your story, and where they want to go with their creative energy. Amanda thought she would use summer to catch up on her memory keeping, and talks to Kristin about how she’s not doing enough PLAY / PRACTICE with her crafting. Kristin talk about her morning pages practice and how it allows her to “just play”. A + K each talk about their identity as a creative artist and putting self-imposed rules on their projects. Amanda’s been exploring how she can use IG stories & her digital space to supplement her paper memory keeping.. The girls also reflect on where they are at with their one little words for the year. Amanda talks about what’s FOUND and Kristin talks about how she thought her word PROJECT would have been a louder word than it has been.

Megan Dowd starts off by telling A + K about where the ‘has good words’ part of her online identity derived from. They also dive right in to Megan’s morning pages & how daily lists can serve as a scrapbook in and of itself and show you your arc of personal growth. dressing for your day as a work from home creative entrepreneur conscious narrative - taking agency over the story your life writes. “My life tells a story,” Megan says, “…be conscious about it.” About humaning the best you can human. the evolution of language and we can’t use words just because they sounds ‘cute’ or ‘trendy’ when the meaning attached to them

In this episode, you hear A + K talk about their perspectives on this year’s Awesome Ladies Live creative retreat. Kristin talks about her intentions behind this event, how she feels it succeed, and how she’s SO GEARED UP for next year’s (July 24, 25, 26)! Amanda talks about how she wanted to use her time at the retreat to get back to that ‘play’ mentality…to use what she had on hand to finally document the past few months. SPOILER ALERT: mission accomplished!

In this episode, A + K dive into a word that’s been on Amanda’s mind lately as she’s nearing the end of this unexpected jolt back into teaching: SURVIVAL. We survive hard things we don’t think we can. We survive loss and anxiety and chronic conditions and negative emotions and awkward situations and bad days and rejection and (the list goes on)... The girls dive into the coexistence of pain + hard things alongside positivity + productivity. WE ARE NOT BEING FAIR TO OURSELVES when our responses to ‘hard things’ are negative ones. The core idea of this episode: It’s fucking hard to be alive. How are YOU surviving it?!

Lisa Congdon starts off by telling A + K about her “early mid-life crisis” and what her really intense desire to be creative manifested into. Lisa then goes into the greatest lesson writing her first book Art, Inc. taught her. Teaching is also a big part of Lisa Congdon’s creative life. She goes into what she loves about teaching and letting go of the preciousness of her work when teaching students how to “art” using her techniques. Lisa and the girls discuss copying vs. ‘being influenced by’, and how to embrace your own voice, ideas, and “wonkiness”. Amanda + Kristin pick Lisa’s brain about being personal & political, and using her voice/platform to talk about topics she cares about. The girls discuss putting out messages of self-love, worthiness, self-care and being an influencer vs. being an impacter.

Today we have Heidi Butters-Stabb on the podcast! Heidi is an Australian/American dual citizen who has lived most of her life in regional Victoria (southeast Australia) and sees kangaroos in the wild on an almost weekly basis right now because of the ongoing drought. She also has strong ties to Minnesota in the US and understands what “real” winter is. She works as a University librarian and her wife is a high school teacher. They have two cats. Heidi is a scrapbooker, crocheter, cross-stitcher, quilter, failed knitter and wannabe writer.

Promise Tangeman starts off by telling A + K the origin story of how @scrappylikeafox came to be - including the time before smart phones when she used to carry around a point-and-shoot camera. (Been there. Done that.) The girls then go into what it means to be on the cusp of the millennial generation and Tracey then shares her thoughts and approach to scrapbooking and why 12x12 pages are her JAM! She talks about her TREND WATCH series and celebrating other’s creative content.

HAPPY FIRST MONDAY OF SUMMER 2019! Amanda ‘survived’ her first year back to teaching and she + Kristin reflect on what it means to be in ‘survival mode’ and suggest that even when you are in that mode, good things can happen and you can be thriving. We’d love for you to have a listen!

Tracey Fox starts off by telling A + K the origin story of how @scrappylikeafox came to be - including the time before smart phones when she used to carry around a point-and-shoot camera. (Been there. Done that.) The girls then go into what it means to be on the cusp of the millennial generation and Tracey then shares her thoughts and approach to scrapbooking and why 12x12 pages are her JAM! She talks about her TREND WATCH series and celebrating other’s creative content.

Sabrina Poole starts off by telling A + K the origin story of how @mrsscrapandplan came to be - from a tin she used to store scraps in as a kid to her foray into hybrid scrapbooking as an adult. Sabrina then shares her thoughts and approach to planning, first bringing up how she feels the planner community can be a bit intimidating. Then, Sabrina goes into how she maintains two planners - one for planning and one for memory keeping.

Sara M. Lyons starts off by telling A + K what the ‘M’ stands for in her name, and then goes into the backstory of her creativity from making art with her mom to the fashion blog she expressed herself on to losing her office job to her Tumblr posts gaining traction to slowly developing an online business. Sara started cutting out stickers on her couch and has developed her creative career in such a way where she has worked with brands like Urban Decay and illustrated a pop-up book on periods + vaginas! UHHH-MAZING! Sara also opens up to Amanda + Kristin about how she responds to blatant plagiarism and has learned that she needs to choose which battles she will fight and which she will let go of.

In this episode, A + K gush over the unofficial start of summer and share their upcoming summertime crafting plans. Amanda plans to jump back into her 9x12 project life album once the school year is over, and Kristin will be keeping up with her daily pages. The girls also chat about the weird phenomenon of pre-grieving the end of summer before summer has even began. Kristin suggests looking forward to short term things that will be happening within your present day, not just at the end of the week or month.

According to The Hill: On Wednesday, Governor Kay Ivey signed H.B. 314 — a near-total ban on abortion — into law. With her signature, Governor Ivey made Alabama the fifth state — after Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and Ohio — to ban abortion just this year. ENTER: Ep. 76 of the podcast, and in light of the recent ruling, A + K felt the need to contribute to the conversation about womanhood and our female bodies and minds and how we can be resourceful considering where we are at as women in America.

After multiple episodes on Mental Health, A + K talk about another aspect of health in this episode: PHYSICAL HEALTH. They start with NUTRITION & Kristin relates how figuring out what foods makes her feel the best has been the best thing for her body. Amanda brings up MOTIVATION and how the anger + grief of her breakup a few months ago was the HARD RESET that allowed for her to snap back into eating well and going g to gym regularly. The EXERCISE aspect of physical health is opened up and while Amanda finds a combination of aerobic + strength training works best for her, while Kristin has found out that exercise tends to exacerbate her. physical pain. The girls then dive into the importance of getting enough REST + slowing down enough to focus on taking care of ourselves.

In this episode, A + K revisit the topic of finding & identifying your ‘THING’. After talking with the wonderful Austin Kleon about his new book Keep Going, A & K felt the need to do a bit of a corrective to what the original episode on this was about. The girls talk about how this podcast has become both of their ‘thing’, but only through commitment, collaboration, and a consistent weekly routine. ‘Take the edge off’ is something the girls also discuss as an important aspect of discovering your things. When the stakes are high any and all decisions regarding your ‘thing’ become big risks, which can intern disrupt your creativity and corrupt your inspiration. Finally, the girls have a laugh as Kristin describes the ever-changing nature of life & finding a ‘thing’ with this phrase: “Here it is, and there it went.”

In this episode, A + K talk about scrapbooking as an amazing tool for personal growth since it causes you to be reflective, and how the craft of memory keeping blends the past, present, and future all at once. The girls discuss supplies and not treating them so preciously. Also, A + K make a point that choosing supplies is not the only choice you need to make for a project. Crafters don’t realize that choosing the approach is equally if not more important. How to extrapolate EASE and JOY in scrapbooking is what the girls are goaling to get across in the episode, and also suggest focusing on using all FIVE SENSES to pay attention to the little details of your life.

In this episode, A + K talk about how they both ‘got into’ plants and how you can’t get more ‘off the phone’ than planting and being connected to your garden. The girls discuss going through seasons and season of learning curves, dormant periods, and dispelling the myth of ‘you need to know what you’re doing’.

Megan Auman starts off by telling A + K her creative backstory and how she came into metalsmithing. She talks about diving in head first exhibiting at her first trade show with no experience, with only two months to prepare for it, and repeating everything she heard in the next booth over. She says, “If you wait ‘till you’re ready, you’re never gonna be ready. Sometimes you have to jump in.” Plus, Megan talks about the big ‘P’ WORD in running your own business: PRICING. She brings up the term 'artificial pricing’ for the first time on the podcast, and how ‘dream jobs’ are still JOBS and ‘work we love’ is still WORK! Megan makes a case for what her jewelry has that big box stores don’t: a story, a REAL person behind it, and a connection. She finishes the conversation talking about the hashtag #endstudioshame, to end the anxiety + shame about how messy & un-Pinterest worthy the creative process in your physical space can get.

Erin Maya starts off by telling A + K what she’s been up to since grammar school (haa haa!) and what was involved in her track to being the musician and artist she is today. Erin also shares her perspective on her past ‘broken’ relationship, how she feels they were both not ready for each other, and how going into massage therapy was the best thing she ever did because it forced her to have new experiences. Erin opens up to Amanda + Kristin about the hardest part of leaving her ex, being rejected by the rebound guy, and singing words she had written in her journal.

Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of three illustrated books: Steal Like An Artist, Newspaper Blackout, and Show Your Work! His next book is Keep Going, a guide to staying creative in good times and bad. His books have over a million copies in print and have been translated into over two dozen languages. He speaks about creativity in the digital age for organizations such as Pixar, Google, SXSW, TEDx, and The Economist. In previous lives, he worked as a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. He grew up in the cornfields of Ohio, but now he lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and sons.