E002: Stephanie Woodson, Swoodson Says

Stephanie Woodson joins the show, sharing all about her life as a blogger via Swoodson Says.  We talk about how she got started, who inspired her creative life, the struggles of balancing raising her children and work, and her outlook with building up others in the creative blogging industry.

Transcript

00;00;09;03 - 00;00;32;29
Katy McKinley
Hello and welcome to I can make that conversations with Creative. I am Katy McKinley and myself proclaimed maker of things. My family and I live and die by the code of DIY and naturally we found ourselves surrounded by people who lead some pretty creative lives themselves. I've decided to stop selfishly hogging all of my brilliant and wacky friends and then start sharing them with you.

00;00;33;12 - 00;00;45;09
Katy McKinley
Behind every finished project is a human being who went through a range of successes and failures in making and in life. And it's about time that we get to know just who those talented individuals are.

00;00;47;16 - 00;01;09;08
Katy McKinley
Welcome back to episode two, everyone. I have no idea how long I've been following today's guest, but I believe I stumbled across her blog and Facebook group when I first started delving into sewing and making on more of a public level. So it's been quite a while now. She is and has always been a wealth of knowledge for other creative bloggers, and it's such a treat to have her joining us.

00;01;09;23 - 00;01;30;21
Katy McKinley
My guest of the hour is Stephanie Woodson. She is the creative voice behind Woodson says a blog that will guide you through many hours of sewing, crafting, embroidery projects and lots of other creative based things. On top of what she provides as tutorials for us. Stephanie also has a shop section on her site where she has some adorable PDF Sewing Patterns for sale.

00;01;31;11 - 00;01;53;14
Katy McKinley
Stephanie is an admin for a sewing crafting and creative bloggers group, which is a small pool of bloggers who share support, ask questions, provide insight and simply cheer on their fellow creative friends. On top of that, Stephanie is a momma of two littles. Here she is beginning to explore the balance of homeschool and work from home life with all while keeping everyone happy and healthy, herself included.

00;01;53;29 - 00;01;55;28
Katy McKinley
Welcome to I can make that, Stephanie.

00;01;56;15 - 00;01;58;06
Stephanie Woodson
Hi. Thanks for having me.

00;01;58;07 - 00;02;01;27
Katy McKinley
I'm so excited. This is the first time I've officially heard your voice, so it's kind of fun.

00;02;02;24 - 00;02;03;15
Stephanie Woodson
Yes, I've.

00;02;04;01 - 00;02;05;03
Katy McKinley
Known you forever.

00;02;05;10 - 00;02;22;15
Stephanie Woodson
I'm very used to operating solely by email and being able to edit edit what I'm saying and not talking. And I once a year I go to a creative conference and then I talk to people in real life, and that's about the extent of it. So this is twice a year for me this year.

00;02;22;26 - 00;02;36;20
Katy McKinley
So I'm just going to come right out of the gate with a question that I personally have a hard time answering. But people almost always ask when they first meet you. So what do you do for a living and how do you explain your career and your business to people?

00;02;37;24 - 00;03;04;09
Stephanie Woodson
I always just say that I'm a sewing and crafts blogger and sometimes people know what that means and they'll respond back and be like, Oh, like X, Y, or Z. And, you know, they have some familiarity with the realm of crafty blogs. So if somebody is curious and I usually go further to explain how that's a job. Sometimes people are like, you know, that sounds like a hobby or how do you make money?

00;03;04;09 - 00;03;21;24
Stephanie Woodson
Which I'm totally fine with answering. And, you know, I explain kind of the different ways that that is actually a business. But it's hard because it started as a hobby for me, and it's a hobby for a lot of people. So I understand when people talk their heads quizzically at me when I say that, but a.

00;03;21;24 - 00;03;44;06
Katy McKinley
Lot of us have kind of a similar story to where we've been doing this for as long as we can remember. And whatever this is to each individual creative person, but it's just kind of essential, like breathing to some of us and we've been doing for so long that it's part of our identity. When did you first pick up a needle and thread or get behind a machine or start to start doing some of the projects that you do?

00;03;44;29 - 00;04;09;08
Stephanie Woodson
I first seriously learned trying to teach myself how to sew when I was pregnant with my eldest kiddo. So it was about seven years ago. I had a few failed attempts when I lived at home. I distinctly remember trying to make a bathing suit bottom with using like a pair of underwear as a pattern. And I know now retrospectively I did not add any seam allowance.

00;04;09;08 - 00;04;25;11
Stephanie Woodson
I had no idea what I was doing. It was a it was a big failure on my mom's machine. So I seriously tried learning how to sew, like with some actual instruction online. But about seven years ago.

00;04;25;14 - 00;04;29;26
Katy McKinley
Is there someone in your life that has heavily influenced your creative journey?

00;04;30;25 - 00;04;55;00
Stephanie Woodson
Definitely. My mom, as I alluded to, I kind of grew up with her sewing and crafting around me. She had a sewing space and a machine always and made a lot of things. I remember her sewing. I rode horses and she would so me show shirts and a saddle pad and I know I volunteered her often to sew things for other people, which now I can respect is awful.

00;04;55;20 - 00;05;15;11
Stephanie Woodson
When my do it to me. But I just always thought of her as you know, she can make anything, she can do anything. And eventually she helped me execute some ideas and high school for refashioning, which is really what I was most interested in and still still enjoy doing. So I would come off the idea and then she would execute it.

00;05;15;11 - 00;05;32;15
Stephanie Woodson
She would sell it for me and just generally planted the creative seed, you know, putting, putting the idea out there that if you can't find it, you can make it. So she definitely has have a big influence on me, and I appreciate her letting me grow up in a space that encouraged that.

00;05;32;15 - 00;05;54;07
Katy McKinley
I guess now that's that's really cool to have it around you, too. My mom is a she did a lot of crafty and creative things, but she never did anything with apparel. So it's funny that she'll still ask me today to help her. So I'm sure I'm like, Mom, but you taught me how to sew, so, you know, I'm doing this for me.

00;05;54;11 - 00;06;09;17
Katy McKinley
I guess being, quote unquote, crafty is one thing. But deciding to put yourself out there in this big, scary, wide open Internet is another thing. And it's hard and it's competitive. And what got you into blogging in the first place and what keeps you around in this world?

00;06;10;23 - 00;06;38;21
Stephanie Woodson
I say when I did actually, after a few false starts and giving up on sewing and then eventually getting over that hump of knowing enough to sort of navigate my problems and really start enjoying it. I didn't have anybody at that time in real life to share my projects with. I didn't know anybody who sewed. I could call my mom, obviously, but I think at that time she I don't remember if I could now I can text or I'll text her pictures that I'm working on.

00;06;39;03 - 00;07;02;16
Stephanie Woodson
But at that time, I don't think she had that capability. So I was really drawn to that, the community aspect. I had followed a lot of sewing blogs before I actually started sewing, so I felt like and it was it was a different back then, you know, there is more kind of journal type blogging, and I don't think there are any Facebook groups yet.

00;07;02;16 - 00;07;30;18
Stephanie Woodson
So people talked in the comments of blog posts and and that appealed to me, you know, to connect with other people who are making things or who could give input, since I didn't have that in person and I didn't really have any time to seek that out in person either. We moved a lot and, you know, it was hard to it's hard to get a dentist and a doctor set up over a year and a half, let alone like finding people who liked sewing, which is a little difficult.

00;07;31;05 - 00;07;55;12
Stephanie Woodson
Usually, I think. And then eventually and, you know, I don't really have a good sense of even when it started shifting how to make things, I started sharing tutorials. And I you know, if you looked back at some of my first tutorials, if I haven't deleted them, I probably deleted most of them actually. You know, I just felt like that was what you did, You shared what you made and then you share and tutorials.

00;07;55;12 - 00;08;14;07
Stephanie Woodson
And I don't like looking back. I don't know why I felt compelled to share these simple tutorials, but I did with terrible pictures. I use tiny little pictures because I felt like big pictures were rude, which is now, you know, the opposite of how our blogs are. I mean, they probably were back then. I just didn't know what I was doing.

00;08;15;00 - 00;08;37;06
Stephanie Woodson
And slowly at first I just I was like, Oh, well, I'll have an Amazon affiliate account and I'll, you know, link my supply list. And, you know, it made maybe like $2 a month or whatever. And slowly I became a little more interested in the business side of things and it just shifted from sort of hobby into hobby and work.

00;08;37;12 - 00;09;07;12
Stephanie Woodson
And probably about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, I really started making actual money and it shifted into more work. Find a hobby, which definitely keeps me around and it gives us the flexibility I had always. We hadn't planned on homeschooling. I had planned on going back to work at some vague points when the kids were older, and now I make definitely what I was making before I worked in the nonprofit world.

00;09;07;12 - 00;09;30;17
Stephanie Woodson
So that's not saying that's not saying a ton. But now I'm, you know, making the same salary and I'm able to stay home. We have a lot of flexibility to travel and I really enjoy it. It's still blurry between hobby and work, but I love people using my patterns and tutorials and it's it's still very fun, which is nice.

00;09;30;17 - 00;09;42;29
Stephanie Woodson
You know, a lot of jobs are not necessarily fun and there's aspects that aren't fun, but I'm definitely hooked and I hope I it continues to be fun and a viable career, a part time career for me.

00;09;43;02 - 00;10;01;04
Katy McKinley
What are your favorite projects that you I mean, not necessarily a specific one, but do you love doing the embroidery projects the most? I know you do a lot of fashion, which fascinates me because I don't think I have that in me like you do. So what's your favorite thing to put out there and work on as a project?

00;10;01;11 - 00;10;02;17
Katy McKinley
Oh, that's a.

00;10;02;17 - 00;10;28;06
Stephanie Woodson
Hard question. I really I do. And I noticed just recently, you know, I love upcycling and refashioning the most and it's not necessarily what I do the most of. So I'm trying to shift a little bit back towards that. I think especially because it doesn't travel, we've traveled a lot more this year and so I've done a lot more hand embroidery projects because I can take those with me and they don't require a machine.

00;10;28;06 - 00;10;54;09
Stephanie Woodson
But I really do love starting from starting within some creative boundaries. I have X and I want to make Y or I have X and I want to figure out how to make it into something that I'll actually wear actually use. So that's always there's always a special boost of excitement when I have a project that I really am happy with that started out that way because I don't know, it feels it's more it feels like more of a creative challenge to me.

00;10;54;11 - 00;11;04;19
Stephanie Woodson
It's interesting, it's unique to me. So I think that is definitely my favorite type of project, which is silly that I don't do it more often. But yeah, like I said, I'm hoping to change that this year.

00;11;04;19 - 00;11;21;24
Katy McKinley
Well, and I think some of your projects are a lot more on the practicality level than it is about. I mean, there are some really beautiful blogs out there with all these great ideas, but they're not always, What do you do with the end product? Sometimes, you know, you can only have so many wall hangings and so many throws on your bed.

00;11;21;25 - 00;11;30;12
Katy McKinley
So but you seem to find something and take it and make it in something that you would actually utilize in real life as a human person. I like.

00;11;30;12 - 00;11;54;26
Stephanie Woodson
I like to think so. I also think when I first started blogging or when I first started trying to make it into more of a career, I very much had the mindset that whatever I shared had to be unique. It had to be new and different, or what was the point of of putting it out there and actually as, as I've grown more an audience and sometimes people ask me like, do you have a tutorial for a tote bag that you recommend or a scrunchie that you recommend?

00;11;55;04 - 00;12;13;04
Stephanie Woodson
And a lot of times I go to look at the ones that are out there that I've always been like, Oh, I'm not going to do that because, you know, there's a zillion of those, which is true, but they're not always how I would do it. So I'd be sending somebody a link and be like, But actually, you know, you can skip this or they didn't include that.

00;12;13;04 - 00;12;38;00
Stephanie Woodson
You need to do this. So I also I feel like lately a lot of my projects are things that are not terribly unique or complicated, even, but I just want a tutorial that I feel like is the not necessarily the quickest way, but the clearest way or has the most pictures that is really going to walk through somebody through it who's a beginner.

00;12;38;00 - 00;13;01;14
Stephanie Woodson
Sometimes it's hard once you really know what you're doing, to remember sort of where you get hung up. And so I try really hard to maintain that beginner mindset and I always respond to like comments and questions and tutorials. So I feel like that has been a little bit more sort of functional projects, but also beginner projects or projects that aren't necessarily that thrilling.

00;13;01;14 - 00;13;24;27
Stephanie Woodson
But it's because I've had people asking for them and I haven't always been able to find a tutorial that was exactly what I how I would want them to do it. But I felt like was the easiest. And I was a utilitarian but something that would hold up to. Sometimes you look at a tutorial and they don't talk about finishing the edges and you think, Oh yeah, you would wash that once and it would start to fray, you know, and if you don't, if you're a beginner, you don't know that.

00;13;24;27 - 00;13;37;15
Stephanie Woodson
So I have been trying lately to sort of fill in those gaps. I have a lot of friends who have just started sewing and say what I would want to send to them instead of sending it to them by a text message or an email. I'm turning it into a blog post so that I can share it.

00;13;37;29 - 00;14;00;19
Katy McKinley
So I think of you as a Pinterest guru. That would be my I am horrible on that site specifically for marketing myself, but you seem to have it down pat and you have a lot of specific images that are shared and you do a lot of round up posts and different things like that. Do you still see Pinterest as like the PIN board inspirational project site that it started out as?

00;14;00;19 - 00;14;10;02
Katy McKinley
Do you enjoy being on there? Is it or does it just kind of now part of your job and what you do to promote yourself? You know, I never used Pinterest.

00;14;10;10 - 00;14;30;26
Stephanie Woodson
I don't feel like as just a user. So I started using it for business, so I never used it solely for my own planning. You know, like a lot of people, how it's intended to be used, I suppose as the pen more in project place. But I guess I and I and I just have so many ideas of my own.

00;14;31;07 - 00;14;53;11
Stephanie Woodson
It's rare for me to use something like that. I have a few like secret it, so I guess I do use it in that way for decor, but I don't have that on my public profile because it very much is just a part of my job for me. I do like it as a blogger who wants traffic to my site and I, I definitely appreciate the traffic that it sends me and try to stay active there.

00;14;53;11 - 00;15;16;07
Stephanie Woodson
And I sometimes it does. Let me bump into new blogs. I still like following other blogs. I still use other people's tutorials and powder and such is a questionable tactic from the work aspect because obviously that doesn't that doesn't build my business. But I enjoy it and I have fun using other people's tutorials. So every once in a while I bump into somebody new and I'm like, Oh, that's an exciting project.

00;15;16;07 - 00;15;40;22
Stephanie Woodson
I'm glad I saw that. But really I'm just I'm just using it because I have to for my job. I have enough ideas, usually of my own to fuel my creative time, but I know a lot of people have complaints about spam and things like that. So I think I'm hoping that they turn that around because I know a lot of people have strayed from using it.

00;15;40;22 - 00;15;45;17
Stephanie Woodson
When people steal the pictures and redirect it to their sites and everything like that, which is a shame.

00;15;45;17 - 00;16;05;03
Katy McKinley
Yeah, I actually I have a love hate relationship with Pinterest mostly because as a as a person who puts things on their own blog, sometimes as a tutorial and, you know, you spend hours like coming up with a planning take, like going through the steps of the of the completed project and taking pictures of it and then explaining it and editing it.

00;16;05;03 - 00;16;15;26
Katy McKinley
And then someone will say, Oh, I saw this on Pinterest. Like, No, you did this. This came from a specific blogger, you know, like Pinterest gets all the credit for it sometimes. And so.

00;16;15;26 - 00;16;16;14
Stephanie Woodson
It's true.

00;16;16;22 - 00;16;40;20
Katy McKinley
It can be a blog blogger is what I would like to say. Sometimes people view this blogging thing as a competitive market and they literally will not share any secrets. The success they, you know, they just keep it all locked up. And a lot of times I've seen a lot of beef between different bloggers, but you seem to kind of take the opposite approach where you're more of an open book.

00;16;41;17 - 00;17;12;00
Katy McKinley
I mean, you, even on your blog, sometimes share what you make this month or you gave me a lead one time to a site that did like paid promotional work and stuff. So I feel like you you've provided leads and opportunities to other people. And why is your approach that way? Why did you choose to go, you know, sharing for other bloggers and inside information and instead of rather like kind of honing in and keeping it all to yourself.

00;17;12;13 - 00;17;36;16
Stephanie Woodson
I so I'm not competitive as a personality trait drives my husband not only playing board games, I'm not competitive. So that's probably a big part of it is it's not my first instinct to guard information, but I do go, I would say go out of my way to try and share things. I love connecting people with opportunities just in all facets of my life.

00;17;36;16 - 00;17;59;18
Stephanie Woodson
People who know me are forever getting emails of me saying, I read this and I thought of you, or I think you might really like this. I just I like connecting people with things that I think is a good fit for them, which is true of blogging too. I want everybody to succeed. I so I feel so thrilled that it has become, you know, a true job for me.

00;17;59;18 - 00;18;23;24
Stephanie Woodson
I enjoy it. I want it to work for other people. I guess I don't see it as sort of a zero sum environment, which I, I guess it is to some extent, depending on what your goals are, a company might be looking to work with for people. So if you connect them to one of those people and bumped yourself off, I guess maybe you're sort of eating your own, but that just does not.

00;18;23;24 - 00;18;45;07
Stephanie Woodson
That's not how my brain works. I really like the phrase and hopefully I'm not butchering it, but you get the gist of it in that a rising tide lifts all ships. The more craft blogs that and so and blogs that are building their audiences and getting people involved in crafting and sewing and excited about crafting and sewing is good for all of us.

00;18;45;07 - 00;19;09;06
Stephanie Woodson
We all share. There are definitely instances where we see my friends and peers share similar things and we are genuinely competing for Google Traffic for a certain search term or what have you. But I think in general a lot of it just everything that is, if it's working for everybody, it's working for everybody. You know, I like I also get a lot of shared information.

00;19;09;06 - 00;19;37;00
Stephanie Woodson
I've had great opportunities from other bloggers that they had no reason to share with me that have had really positive impacts on my career. And I'm not going to name anybody because I don't want to forget anybody. I would feel really guilty. But yeah, I like I get personal gratification from doing that and seeing other people succeed. Somebody emailing me and be like, Oh, I started working with your ad company and it's just totally changed, You know, my budget and our this is such a big deal for me.

00;19;37;00 - 00;20;05;26
Stephanie Woodson
Or I started working with that company about you saw that post and I just loved it. I love that, you know, that's that's exciting for me. I like seeing other people succeed. Yeah, it just is sort of my natural personality. And also I appreciate when people reciprocate. Like I said, I've had other people do that for me. I think it's hard to it's hard to suss out people who are actually being helpful versus people who are trying to make money off of helping you.

00;20;06;02 - 00;20;27;16
Stephanie Woodson
There's a whole subset of bloggers who make money telling you how to blog, which is totally legitimate. And I have bought courses and I've bought books. I've been very happy with them. I don't mean to imply that they're, you know, frauds, defrauding anybody. But it's it's hard when, you know, there's affiliate programs involved and people make money by referring you to certain things.

00;20;27;16 - 00;20;48;00
Stephanie Woodson
And I do too. But it can be hard to get started and to know what's what. And so I always yeah, I always want to help people who are getting started or people who even are just trying to make it more of a business because I think it can be difficult to navigate those things, especially when there's all those complications involved.

00;20;48;00 - 00;21;12;22
Stephanie Woodson
And I have done I haven't done the income reports recently. It's ironic that the more money I actually make, the less I do them, which is usually the inverse people usually do, than when they're making lots of money and trying to get other people to, you know, do things like them or buy their book about blogging. But I don't I have not I have zero interest in trying to blog about blogging.

00;21;12;22 - 00;21;30;27
Stephanie Woodson
And so it really has just not made sense to dedicate a ton of time to the income reports. As I've gotten busier with things that are in line with what I want to be doing and making more money. So I do that every in a while. I'll probably do one at the end of the year, but yeah, I used to do them religiously back when I was making literally pennies.

00;21;31;16 - 00;21;49;05
Stephanie Woodson
So sometimes if people are like, Oh gosh, that just seems so far off that you're making so much money and this is this is so unattainable. I'm like, Well, I'll go back and look. You can pore through these these income reports where I was making very, very little money and probably still putting the same amount of time in.

00;21;49;05 - 00;21;52;28
Stephanie Woodson
I just didn't, you know, didn't know what I was doing and was I as strategic.

00;21;52;29 - 00;22;02;06
Katy McKinley
As being this open for your followers and friends and I guess competitors? Has has it ever backfired on you?

00;22;02;06 - 00;22;22;07
Stephanie Woodson
Not that I'm aware of. I'm sure it kind of, and I just did not come to my attention. I do have to be a little more careful as I've worked with more companies in that. A lot of times the contracts I sign stipulate that I can't I can't share details of my contract, which means I can't talk about how much I'm making.

00;22;22;16 - 00;22;46;28
Stephanie Woodson
So I have to be careful in that way because that could really backfire on me unintentionally. It just that I was trying to share information with other people and I legally was not allowed to. But thankfully that has that has not happened. But that has also made me be a little more cautious. But yeah, like personal on a personal level, relationship level, I've I'm not I'm not aware of any instance in which that has backfired on me, but maybe it has happened.

00;22;46;28 - 00;22;53;22
Stephanie Woodson
You know, somebody got picked for something because of something I said and I beat myself out of the group. I don't know.

00;22;54;16 - 00;22;59;12
Katy McKinley
What would you say is your absolute favorite part of your creative career?

00;22;59;23 - 00;23;24;09
Stephanie Woodson
Having people tell me that they dug out their machine or tried something new because of me, I just absolutely love it. It never gets old. Sometimes people say, Oh, sorry, you know, sorry to have to waste your time or I just had to email you. And I love hearing that. I can't imagine how many people like how many emails that I have to get for that to feel annoying for that to wear out, but have to be like hundreds a day, which has never happened.

00;23;24;09 - 00;23;48;22
Stephanie Woodson
Obviously. I'm not Oprah, but yeah, I just love that I had somebody who I used to know in high school and we were never that close. But at some point she found my blog and started following me and now has used some of my patterns and tutorials. And she, you know, she took the time to just say, Hey, you really inspired me to learn how to start selling.

00;23;48;22 - 00;24;18;28
Stephanie Woodson
And she's made some of my projects and that is just so I love that feeling. I just love it because it can be really easy, I think when especially with Pinterest to sort of scroll around or Instagram and you feel like you're being creative because you're looking at all these other creative projects that you're consuming, you're not creating, and so any time that what I'm sending out into the world is sparking somebody else to create instead of consume, that feels good to me.

00;24;18;29 - 00;24;23;16
Stephanie Woodson
I enjoy that thoroughly. That's definitely my favorite part for sure.

00;24;23;17 - 00;24;32;28
Katy McKinley
I always think it's funny when people look at me and they say, Oh, you're just so crafty, you're so creative. I'm just not good at that. And I'm always like, Well, when did you actually try to do it?

00;24;33;17 - 00;24;50;28
Stephanie Woodson
Yeah, yeah, it definitely it's hard. Like I said, I feel like you feel creative when you're looking at other people's stuff and you're like, Oh, I am really feeding my soul here. But I don't I don't think it works the same way. Yeah, you have to get your hands dirty and and mess around with it and be willing to make mistakes too.

00;24;50;28 - 00;25;16;29
Stephanie Woodson
I think sometimes people say, Oh, you know, I tried my I tried my sewing machine once and it didn't go well. I'm like, Oh, I have to try it a lot of times before I felt confident and what I knew what I was doing. And I think that's a hard part about teaching yourself by Internet instead of having a lot of people around you in person, the learning curve is steeper, and I think it's easier to drop off when you don't have somebody right at the ready to be like, Hey, what do you think is going wrong here too?

00;25;16;29 - 00;25;34;26
Katy McKinley
You have two little people at home that call you mom. And like you said earlier, you're starting to explore homeschooling with them all while balancing, you know, basic child rearing and relationships and your creative endeavors. So what are the biggest challenges with the full time mom work from home and now homeschooling life?

00;25;35;00 - 00;26;03;27
Stephanie Woodson
I would say trying to tease out the different components so my kids know I so and I have sewed with my kids and so it's it's hard sometimes often. But anything they see or anything that pops our head Oh, Mom, can you make that? Can you make that for me? Can we make that together? Can we? So that so if I made everything that popped into their head or they talked about, you know, that would be a full time job, they just they're super creative little people.

00;26;03;27 - 00;26;25;28
Stephanie Woodson
I adore them. I love hearing what was out of their mouth. But it's hard to say. You know, I don't have a strict schedule right now. These are the hours that we are acts and these are the hours that we are why? And I like that flexibility. And but at the same time, it provides a bigger challenge of, well, when do I work on something that's just for me or when do I.

00;26;25;28 - 00;26;54;02
Stephanie Woodson
So a gift for my friend that that is it for work, but it's just for fun. And when do I when, when do I care? About the time to So this I don't know, Purple Dragon with wings and a unicorn horn costume that my daughter's decided she wants. So it's weighing those those decisions. It's scuse me, there's only 24 hours in a day, you know, trying to decide what what's work and what's hobby and what's fun with the kids.

00;26;54;02 - 00;27;04;11
Stephanie Woodson
And carving out time for all of those things. As is really difficult for me. I have not figured out the the best way to to approach all of that so far.

00;27;04;11 - 00;27;11;12
Katy McKinley
But hopefully it's awesome to be doing a pretty good job, though. Everyone's still, you know, alive and thriving. So yeah.

00;27;11;22 - 00;27;34;06
Stephanie Woodson
Is true. For that I am thankful. And they my husband is super supportive. He makes it easy. A lot of times things come out well. They start noticing like, I got to work this weekend. Is that okay? And the cereal for dinner sort of thing. So I'm thankful for his support and he makes it a lot easier than I think it would otherwise be.

00;27;34;06 - 00;27;34;19
Stephanie Woodson
Well, you.

00;27;34;19 - 00;27;41;07
Katy McKinley
Have obviously a lot of things that you are good at, but what are you not very good at? There are a.

00;27;41;07 - 00;28;06;05
Stephanie Woodson
Lot of things I am not very good at. I went through a long time ago. I had a long running experiments where I tried something new every month and I enjoy it and invited my audience along with to varying degrees of success, of success. And I so I can now tell you I am very terrible at wood burning my hands shake.

00;28;06;05 - 00;28;27;13
Stephanie Woodson
I have a central tremor, so that's basically a fancy name for like a handshake. And there's no good reason why. And wood burning and shaking hands do not come by. And while I did not did not go over a while, that is not in my crafting feature. And anything really with counting I use I have I have knitted in the past.

00;28;27;13 - 00;28;45;08
Stephanie Woodson
I have never crocheted. Cross-stitch is very difficult for me because I just don't retain numbers lol. I that's what I love about embroidery. You know, you can pick it up and set it down and you don't have to remember how many stitches you took or where you stopped in a pattern. It's just you just go with the flow.

00;28;45;18 - 00;28;59;28
Stephanie Woodson
So anything that involves remembering numbers, how many stitches or I don't know what you call knitting loops, I, I don't know. It's a long time since I tried to knit. I just. That's not a strength of mine. I avoid those very much. So.

00;29;00;03 - 00;29;05;29
Katy McKinley
Is there part of the creative process that you wish you could skip over completely?

00;29;06;02 - 00;29;26;15
Stephanie Woodson
Um, I think that my answer would be two parts for that. When it comes to just making just me making separate from the block, I really do not like the prep process. I don't like having to pre wash and iron and getting all my materials. If I could just click my fingers and have that stuff already, I would be thrilled.

00;29;26;15 - 00;29;57;22
Stephanie Woodson
I'm impatient. Once I decide I want to do something, I just want a diversion which is not not smart. So I don't do that. I do pre wash and blah blah blah, but I don't enjoy it. And from blogging, I absolutely hate taking pictures, which is really unfortunate because that is a huge part of being more successful and blogging is taking better pictures, say, Oh, it feels it is very much a mental chore for me to think about my camera settings and staging photos.

00;29;57;22 - 00;30;19;09
Stephanie Woodson
If you ever look at my Instagram, you're like, Oh, she's got like props and stuff, you know, It's not just something sunk down a white black background that represents a lot of mental work for me. I just don't I just don't think that way. I don't it does not come naturally to me to sort of have these artfully arranged random sewing notions around the finished product.

00;30;20;08 - 00;30;28;04
Stephanie Woodson
But does those pictures do much better? So I do it, but I hate it and I do not I do not enjoy it at all.

00;30;28;04 - 00;30;40;03
Katy McKinley
I am not a I am I'm right there with you. I am not good at flat labels. I do not like having to think ahead of time to take pictures. I just want to be like, Here, look what I made and then move along.

00;30;40;12 - 00;30;54;13
Stephanie Woodson
Yeah, Yeah. I'm the same way. If I could just snap pictures with my phone and be like, Check it out. Like, you can tell, you know, you can sell that it's a cool project is just not a very good photo. But unfortunately, that does not fly anymore.

00;30;54;24 - 00;31;15;29
Katy McKinley
Well, if money and time are not an obstacle, what do you think you'd be doing right now? Would you be outsourcing some of that work that you don't like, or would you be what would be your next big, you know, big idea for your blog if you didn't have to worry about, you know, the not fun parts of it?

00;31;16;16 - 00;31;48;11
Stephanie Woodson
That's a hard question. I would love to do some more, some ebooks. I've been talking about it for a long time and I have not made any real efforts towards doing it. It's very easy, which I'm sure you can relate with, to get sucked into sort of always just doing the next thing that has to be done, you know, just the main keeping, keeping the fire going, the things that you have to do every week I send a newsletter every week, you know, getting the next newsletter done and getting a blog post on for the week.

00;31;48;11 - 00;32;07;26
Stephanie Woodson
And I hope that's the next week, you know, Oh, I have a deadline. It's really easy to get sort of sucked into just the the daily grind. So I'm working on brainstorming ways to carve out extra time because I'd love to do an e-book. I especially love to outsource all the photography for an e-book. I don't think that would happen.

00;32;07;26 - 00;32;26;27
Stephanie Woodson
But if money and time were not an obstacle, I certainly would do that and just hire somebody else out to make it look beautiful or hire somebody to do all my my video editing. I've been trying to do more video lately, and it's just like pulling teeth, trying to sort of switch my brain over gears from editing photos into editing video.

00;32;26;27 - 00;32;37;17
Stephanie Woodson
And yeah, I'd love to pay all that. Get a housekeeper. Get a chef. Yeah, I just do the making part. I die or all the other stuff out. Well, this is.

00;32;37;17 - 00;32;54;15
Katy McKinley
A really random thing and kind of off topic, but I was reading through your your bios on your website and stuff, and I saw this really interesting piece about you that you used to as a hobby of yours. You used to enter sweepstakes.

00;32;54;24 - 00;32;55;20
Stephanie Woodson
It's true.

00;32;56;21 - 00;33;00;15
Katy McKinley
That's really interesting. So how, how does that even become a hobby? It is a one.

00;33;01;03 - 00;33;28;15
Stephanie Woodson
Oh yeah, I actually wrote a really, if anybody is listening and curious for a lot more information, I wrote a long piece about it on Abby Glass and brags while she naps that blog about how I shifted from that as a hobby into sewing. But so I was that we we moved a lot. I've already said and we we're living somewhere and I knew we were going to leave in a year and a half again.

00;33;28;15 - 00;33;42;22
Stephanie Woodson
And I had trouble finding a job. I was always really up front with organizations and saying, you know, I know we're going to be leaving. I'll try to make it worth it, but I'm not going to be here longer than a year and a half. And nobody in Kansas City was had any interest in that. They were just like, No, thanks.

00;33;42;22 - 00;34;03;10
Stephanie Woodson
So I was trying to cobble together jobs. I wasn't just going to sit around the house. I wish now that I had been a blogger then, because I kind of got a lot done, but I was not at that point. So I started entering sweepstakes. I don't remember how I first heard about it. Maybe I honestly don't remember.

00;34;03;21 - 00;34;24;26
Stephanie Woodson
But yeah, it's this whole subculture. It still exists. Every once in awhile I peek and I'll enter one or two just just for the fun of it. But it's this whole subculture of people who find sweepstakes put on by companies and and enter them in mass. They they do. I enter a ton of them and they are legitimate and somebody has to win.

00;34;24;26 - 00;34;43;28
Stephanie Woodson
And there's like forums and Facebook groups for people sharing their wins and it's yeah, it's this whole fun little subculture. It was very easy. It's very brainless. You just enter your information in and then you weed through your, you know, everything you enter and puts you on somebody's newsletter. So then you weed through your emails at the end of the day.

00;34;44;01 - 00;35;04;09
Stephanie Woodson
But yeah, so it was fun and it was easy to do while watching TV. And I so I did that. And then I also worked promotional events, like if you go to the mall and somebody is heading out samples or trying to get you to do some silly game for their new product or like I helped people test drive cars some one time.

00;35;04;09 - 00;35;30;01
Stephanie Woodson
So you get paid to basically just now do whatever random event a company is sponsoring. So I cobbled together things like that and surveys and mystery shopping. So all these like weird little niches cobbled together into of actual full time salary when you add it all up. So yeah, that that was a part job, part hobby for me for like a year and a half.

00;35;30;01 - 00;35;51;14
Stephanie Woodson
And it was fun that you get this big burst of adrenaline when you open your email or you get a phone call like you've won, you know, and sometimes it's like a can of coke or whatever, but sometimes it's something really exciting. I think my biggest prize, I don't remember if I put this on my my bio or not was $10,000.

00;35;51;16 - 00;35;59;12
Stephanie Woodson
So it was this super thrilling, exciting win from CBS. And I, I haven't topped that, unfortunately, yet.

00;35;59;13 - 00;36;00;24
Katy McKinley
It would be a hard one. Yeah.

00;36;01;05 - 00;36;21;00
Stephanie Woodson
I know. Now I mostly enter I have like a little alert set up, so I enter for tricks. So if I ever win a trip, I'll be over the moon. But, but yeah, it's a it's an interesting subculture. I it's a lot of fun. I won a lot of stuff for our wedding, so I won the flowers and I won.

00;36;21;02 - 00;36;34;12
Stephanie Woodson
I don't remember what else. Something else also is interesting, but people don't really win those things. So if anybody looking for a brainless hobby while they're watching TV and they don't want to embroider, it's a fun world.

00;36;34;20 - 00;36;59;15
Katy McKinley
Well, I would find that something surprising to learn about you, but I guess I'll leave it with one more opportunity for you to tell us something a little wacky or different or surprising about yourself. What is something that you've got? Like a hidden talent or a guilty pleasure, what you wanted to be when you grew up or something that people wouldn't necessarily know just by knowing you today?

00;36;59;22 - 00;37;18;17
Stephanie Woodson
I I'm not that interesting. I'm not that surprising. But I do think it doesn't come across very often. A big part of my life in high school was horseback riding, actually just commented on somebody else. So in the sewing world's Instagram, she posted a picture of her in her four gear shoe. And I was like, Oh, that looks so familiar.

00;37;18;17 - 00;37;42;04
Stephanie Woodson
So I spent a lot of time in high school. I sort of partially I worked with a barn owner and we had scoop ponies out of fields and buy them and I would work and train them to be sort of child friendly and then we'd resell them. And I saved all the profits for college. And I had my own horse who I trained, and I rode an operation to sort of lower level hunter.

00;37;42;25 - 00;38;05;05
Stephanie Woodson
So like English. So I had like the black helmet on and the tall black boots and and all that. So that was a big part of my life. And I really miss it. Every once in a while I'll take the kids somewhere that has people horseback riding for whatever reason. You know, we just went to a medieval times or whatever it is, and it's like this twins like this big chunk of my life that I don't I don't do anymore.

00;38;05;05 - 00;38;23;09
Stephanie Woodson
But there's unfortunately, just so many hours in a day. And horses sort of are an all all consuming passion and hobby. You kind of have to be all in or all out if you just show up once a week. I did try to just show up once a week and sort of lead somebody's horse and ride. But I was just saw all the time.

00;38;24;05 - 00;38;40;25
Stephanie Woodson
I'm also like never got strong enough. So at once a week I just because it wasn't the same as when I was in high school and could go out every night and and everything like that. So, yeah, I don't think that comes up in conversation very often, but I love it and I miss it and I'm always happy anybody somebody wants to talk horse with me.

00;38;41;17 - 00;39;28;04
Katy McKinley
Well, thank you so much, Stephanie, for spending time with me today. It's been a lot of fun getting to know you better. And for everyone out there listening, thank you also for joining us for the second episode of I can make that Conversation. So creatives, I believe, link to my blog post as well. But you can find Stephanie all over the world wide web at Swoodsonsays.com and on Facebook Pinterest Twitter and Instagram as at Twitter it says getting into I can make that conversation to have created transcripts from this episode along with links and more information about today's guest can be found at www.wildandwanderful.com.

00;39;28;04 - 00;39;30;20
Katy McKinley
See you next time creatives.