Crafty Ass Female – Details, episodes & analysis

Topics for our show today include: * Why do we think it matters when we include other people’s words in our scrapbooks? * How we incorporate words from people into our lives. * How to get people to get used to the idea of using words in their art. * How to incorporate current events into your scrapbooking * How song lyrics and lyrics can help you tell your story. * Bringing in other people’s perspectives can help when you don’t know what to say, but also add important context. Amazing! Look for a full blog post over on the Awesome Ladies Project later this week, and make sure to check out awesomeladieslive.com before it's too late to join us here in East Lansing next month!!! Our Guests: Christine is a memory keeper and crafter of all types and has been scrapbooking for well over 20 years. She lives in Northern NJ with her husband, daughter and Havanese, Lulu, in the town she grew up in. Professionally Christine is in commercial real estate, primarily investment and asset & property management. She is an art journaler, an avid book lover, a music, theater, movie and tv fan and a hardcore foodie. Christine has been a member of the Awesome Ladies Project since 2018 and a member of the ALP FSS since 2020. She can be found on IG as cpscraps and on the ALP as ChristineP. Megan Kiekel Anderson (she/her) has been a memory keeper for over two decades. A dark fiction writer, she lives in Kansas City with her chaotic family including too many cats, chickens, and foster kittens. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram under the handle @megan_nerdnest or at her website at www.megankiekelanderson.com (www.megankiekelanderson.com)

In another great roundtable for the Season of Scrapbooking, we engage in a candid conversation about the significance of selfies in personal storytelling and documentation. The episode begins by highlighting the role of selfies as a means of self-narration, allowing individuals to contextualize their own stories. Kristin shares her realization during college that she lacked self-portraits in her scrapbook layouts, leading her to consciously incorporate selfies into her routine through the creation of the Thursday3 project. Vanessa shares her journey with selfies, admitting her initial reluctance due to negative societal connotations. However, Kristin's encouragement and the support of the ALP community enabled her to view selfies as a valid form of self-documentation. She emphasizes the importance of capturing various aspects of her life, including her own presence, alongside her family and daily experiences. The conversation takes an introspective turn as Kirsten reflects on their early experiences with pictures and the desire to be seen and recognized as part of the group. Selfies, for them, became a way to ensure their presence was acknowledged and documented. The discussion further explores the evolution of selfies over the years, from simply being part of the group photo exchange culture to intentional self-documentation. The episode addresses the feminist aspect of selfies, challenging the notion that they are solely attention-seeking or self-indulgent. Instead, the guests emphasize that taking selfies is an empowering act, asserting one's presence and embracing self-importance. The normalization of selfies is encouraged, giving others the opportunity to explore self-portraiture as a form of personal expression and documentation. Throughout the episode, the practical aspects of taking selfies are discussed, highlighting the ease and convenience offered by smartphones as versatile tools for self-capturing moments. The guests also touch upon the freedom to edit, experiment with filters, and embrace different styles, thereby enhancing the creative possibilities of selfies. Listeners are invited to embrace the idea of selfies as a valuable means of self-expression, documenting personal stories, and cherishing moments in a visually engaging way. The episode aims to inspire individuals to see the power and significance of self-portraiture, reminding them that their self-worth should not be dictated by societal standards or external opinions. Find out more about Awesome Ladies Live at awesomeladieslive.com (https://awesomeladieslive.com) Our guests: Kirsten is a school counselor by day, and a memory keeper by night. She makes fully digital layouts and balances that with crafty paper projects. Everyday life is her favorite topic. Originally from Germany, she and her husband now live in a beautiful corner of Washington State. Vanessa is a mom, feminist, artist, latina, book lover, speech and language pathologist, and wife, who loves to learn and have deep conversations with other awesome people, especially awesome feminists!

Topics we cover in the show: * The origins of the BFF Sticker Club * How to use stickers as a way to Tell Your Story * Our favorite stickers and sticker challenges * How to get started with stickers if they're not totally your thing (yet!) * Currently List x2 About Annie and Laura: Laura Wonsik and Annie Simkin are childhood besties who grew up to be mental health therapists, sticker enthusiasts, and adult besties! Together, they formed the BFF Sticker Club- a vibrant Instagram community of “Stickies,” who love to share their passion for stickers, snail mail, and kindness (with a decent dose of sarcasm and lots of laughter). We hope you come and join the fun- it’s the friendliest little corner of the internet. You can find us at Instagram.com/thebffstickerclub BFF Sticker Club on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/thebffstickerclub BFF Sticker Club on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/thebffstickerclub/

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.

SUMMARY // Cathy Zielske (pronounced simply as Zil-ski) gives us the backstory of how she got to where she is today, from her job as an assistant editor for a magazine to having a baby and freelancing to her foray into scrapbooking and how she ‘got hooked’. Amanda + Kristin also talk with Cathy about finding your ‘thing’ and staying afloat in the creative industry by pivoting when needed and always evaluating when you need to make a tweak. Cathy also gives the girls the low-down about FIT: her online class all about documenting self-care. The class aims for its participants to to answer: Can you connect to what you need?

How is it that time of year again, crafty ass females?! It’s time to choose a guiding word for the upcoming new year based on some aspect of your existence you want to explore. We’ve had this awesome conversation last year & the year before, and it’s fun to see how A & K have grown! // Listen to Ali’s one little word® interview with us here.

We have gotten some listener requests for another PLANNER-THEMED episode, so here it is! A + K have done this before almost 100 episodes ago (!!!), but so much has changed since then…and PEOPLE, WE ARE ENTERING YEAR 2020! OMG! Let’s go!

Vanessa Oliver-Lloyd shares with Amanda & Kristin how she ended up in Shanghai, got back into art journaling with '“nothing books”, and finally embraced the word ‘artist’ while creating a second career as one out of necessity. The girls also discuss how women’s art has been seen as pastimes and perceived with some degree of condescension - as “just hobbies” and therefore without much value. Vanessa reveals how the medium & technique she chooses for her art is very intuitive. Her advice for when her inner critic is triggered or imposter syndrome flares up is LISTEN, ACKNOWLEDGE, and KEEP GOING.

In this episode, A + K talk about people pleasing. Why do we do it? How can we become more aware of it? How can we set up appropriate boundaries? The girls share their versions on this phenomenon, and discuss the answers to these questions.

Katy-Rose Bye shares with Amanda & Kristin about how she spent a good portion of her life trying to invent or reinvent herself, trying figure out her purpose. She feels you don’t have to take an eat pray love approach to reinvent yourself, and makes a great point that a LAPSE is not a RELAPSE. The girls also discuss negative bias and how we’re almost hard-wired to put more emphasis on negativity. Katy-Rose talks about prioritizing the positive in her life and redefining negativity like in the example of saying “resting” instead of “slacking”. Katy-Rose reveals that the brain works in habits, and the more we do something the more our brain will habitualize to it. She talks about stacking habits and adding a new activity you want to make a habit to a habit you already regularly complete.