Awesome Ladies Member Spotlight – Meg Woolston

Welcome to our new Awesome Ladies Member Spotlight, more in-depth with more questions, so we can get to know you wonderful ladies a little better. Let’s dive in and meet our first of the new Member Spotlights: Meg Woolston.

Welcome and thanks for taking part in our Member Spotlight! First up, let’s get to know you.

What’s your name and who are you known as on Awesome Ladies?

My name is Meg Woolston. I’m also megwoolston on Awesome Ladies.

Where are you from, and where are you now?

I grew up in Michigan and lived there until my mid-20s. I’m now in the Washington, D.C. area (technically northern Virginia) where I’ve lived since 2009.

Care to share a bit about yourself?

I’m a dabbler who likes to try new hobbies, and I’m excellent at planning out ideas in great detail, but mediocre at actually sticking with them long enough to complete them. In my day job, I’m a project manager for a nonprofit, and my Master’s degree is in early childhood education, though, much like my hobbies, I also dabbled in college majors, resulting in undergraduate degrees ranging from psychology to English to finally education.

My husband and I have been married for almost 5 years (though together for about 13), and it’s just the two of us for now, no kids or pets. We hope to move back to Michigan in the next few years or so, but for now, we make do with one or two trips home each year to visit friends and family.

Crafty Questions

How did you get you into paper crafts?

I did a 6-week study abroad trip to South Africa and Namibia in college, and between the 10 students on the trip, we came home with over 10,000 photos. I knew I wanted to do something special with them beyond just sticking them in a photo album, so I started scrapbooking. This is my first ever scrapbook page spread.

Do you think your craft style has changed from when you started to now? How?

My style has not only changed since I started crafting, but it also continues to change on pretty much a weekly basis. I started doing traditional 12×12 scrapbooking, moved on to Digital Project Life, then physical Project Life, and now I’m doing all my memory keeping in a mixed media journal.

I’m always experimenting in order to give myself a chance to incorporate all my different preferences in different ways. For instance, I’m drawn toward earth tones but also, on the complete opposite spectrum, to neons. So, since those don’t work well together, that’s an opportunity for two separate projects of some sort!

Where do you get your inspiration from? Who are your favourite crafters?

I’m always looking for inspiration around me. I tend to pay a lot of attention to the fabric patterns on people’s clothes and often find color combination inspiration in doing so. In terms of favorite crafters, my favorites run the gamut of different hobbies and skill sets. I think my first crafty “hero” was Elise Blaha-Cripe because I’ve always admired her ability to hop from one hobby to another, while always somehow retaining a cohesive “Elise” style.

Lately, I’ve also admired the work of Samantha Dion Baker, who draws beautiful full-page sketches of the highlights of each day in her life. She also just released a book called Draw Your Day and it’s fantastic! I also love Amy Tangerine’s fun bullet-journal style of memory keeping and Dani Ives’ felt portraits.

What are you currently working on?

I’m about to start working on some woven wall hangings for holiday gifts for family, and I’m also working through September’s edition of 30 Days of Lists and trying to slowly, but surely, catch up on my 100 Day Project from earlier this year. Both of these challenges, as well as all my memory keeping for the year, are going into one journal, which I’ve started referring to as my Depth and Breadth Book.

Can you share more about your Depth and Breadth book?

I got a little frustrated last year with trying to keep up with all the arbitrary “rules” I had set for myself. I had convinced myself that I had to use one album for one project, one journal for another project, and a traveler’s notebook for yet another. And that if I wasn’t creating on a regular basis, I must not be a “real” creative/artist/memory-keeper. And that if I started a project (like 30 Days of Lists) I couldn’t move on to another project until that one was finished, or it would interrupt the cohesiveness of my album. All this frustration led to me not creating much of anything at all!

So this year, I decided I would set one rule for myself when it came to crafting: go with the flow. I bought two identical mixed media journals (because I knew one wouldn’t be big enough for the full year) and decided they would contain every project I do for the whole year, disregarding chronology or self-imposed deadlines or pressure to make page spreads match.

The journals include everything from Currently Lists to vacation photos, favorite recipes to art journaling, funny quotes I want to remember to color palette inspiration, current events and more. In other words, they cover the depth and breadth of my day-to-day life.

I work on it only when I feel like it and don’t feel guilty if I don’t touch it for a few days or even weeks, but so far with this method I’ve filled up one whole journal and am working in the second one, which is far more than I created before when I had so many “rules.”

I share all of my pages on Instagram using #depthandbreadthbook if you’re interested in seeing more!

Do you have any crafty goals for yourself for the rest of 2018?

My only goals at this point are to keep working in my Depth and Breadth Book, to finish up handmade holiday gifts, and to give some thought to how I may or may not want to tweak my process for 2019.

Favourite creation for 2018 so far?

I’m pretty happy with all of the monthly memory keeping pages I’ve added in my book this year, but I think if I had to pick a single favorite page in my journal, it would be an illustration I did based on a Rumi quote. It started out as an attempt to practice drawing florals, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out overall!

What drew you to Awesome Ladies? What’s your favourite part so far?

The internet can be an ugly place, full of “mean girl mentality” and bullies, comparison and self-judgment, but Awesome Ladies has always been a welcoming place where we can step away from the negativity for a bit and just celebrate each other and ourselves. My favorite part, aside from the community of people itself, is all the small manageable challenges Kristin has created, like Thursday3 and Currently Lists, that help make regular memory keeping easy to fit into our lives.

The Random Stuff

Favourite social media to use?

I have a love-hate relationship with Instagram, but it’s probably the platform I use most regularly. I’m on Twitter, too, but mostly just to follow cute dogs and keep up with the news!

If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go?

My dad’s side of the family is Scottish, so I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland to see where my ancestors came from. But I also like the thought of Tuscany, and even though it’s in my own country, I’ve never been to the Northeast U.S. (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) and would love to go during the fall someday.

Favourites – TV show, Movie, Podcast, Band/Musician

TV show – changes all the time, but I love The OC, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Breaking Bad, The Magicians.

Movie – I’m not much of a movie person, despite having worked at a theater for 3 years. I guess I’d say either Pitch Perfect or Princess Bride.

Podcast – anything on the MaximumFun network. My Brother, My Brother and Me, Wonderful!, Sawbones, The Adventure Zone, We Got This, Can I Pet Your Dog?

Band/Musician – Andrew McMahon (formerly of Jack’s Mannequin/Something Corporate), James Morrison, Paramore, Muse, Ernie Halter, Tony Lucca, Melissa Polinar.

Either Or

• Scissors or craft knife? Scissors
• Glue dots or tape runner? Glue dots
• Black pen or blue pen? Black
• Tv or Music? Both! I can’t choose!
• Scrapping with snacks or no snacks? Usually no snacks, unless sparkling water or coffee count.
• Morning or night (or afternoon?)? I’m just pretty much always tired, soo…. Haha!

Currently…

Watching – Jane the Virgin season 1 and Bojack Horseman season 5.
Reading – A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin.
Listening – Andrew McMahon’s Zombies on Broadway album.
Making – Broccoli salad to pack for work lunches.
Feeling – Mind-blown that we’ve apparently all been pronouncing Chrissy Teigen’s last name wrong all these years!
Planning – Our December vacation back to Michigan.
Loving- The approach of fall.

You can find Meg on Instagram | Her blog | Awesome Ladies Gallery

Thanks again for being part of our Member Spotlight.

Until next time,
Stay Awesome