Welcome to Well Crafted Studio

Welcome to Well Crafted Studio! My name is Jen, and I’m over-the-top excited (whoo-hoo!) to have this platform to encourage you and to provide you with creative inspiration. I believe having that well filled is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves.

Just so we can get to know each other better, I’d like to tell you a bit about myself. One major thing you’ll notice soon is that I’m visual. I often think (and write) in craft metaphors. SO, as we prepare to throw open the doors to this website, here’s your first craft metaphor. Imagine a skein of yarn, and as you start to pull the end from the center of a skein it’s straight and taut, but as you continue to pull it starts to gather into a loopy kind of messed up pile. Yeah, it started ten years ago like that, with a blog.

Incredible Beginnings

I was a stay-at-home mom, and I really just wanted community with other creative people like me, so that I wouldn’t lose the creative part of myself. But as I pulled more yarn out of the skein, the more it started to pile into something so much more than I’d ever dreamed. An Etsy shop, a part-time gig writing magazine articles, super cool awesome people, conferences, and (wait for it…) a book with a major craft publisher. Seriously!!! And then life shifted in 2012. Everything changed. My pile of yarn got picked up off the table and tossed up in the air. When it landed, everything was different.

Unforeseen Change in Direction

There was no blog. No Etsy. No writing career. But there was a non-profit creativity ministry in a gift shop a couple miles from my home. And they needed someone with ideas for products to make. And there was a group of like-hearted women willing to work with me. Seriously amazing. I picked up my yarn again and started to knit.

Over the next six years, I got a crash course on using my creativity in ways I’d never envisioned, and a frontrow seat in how offering up whatever skills and gifts I’ve been given can (in God’s hands) literally change the world. We had an artisan co-op in Peru, and a weekly volunteer group – women willing to make whatever I dreamed up. There were retail venues willing to sell what we made and momentum kept building. I was feeling pretty confident that I had found my life’s purpose. In fact, it was knitting up so pretty that I ignored all the signs of burnout, and just kept on clicking those needles.

How I Found My Way Here

Then last year, life happened, and I crashed mentally, physically, and emotionally. My yarn went airborne once again, and it fell again into one big mess. When you no longer have what you thought was your life’s purpose, you feel loss. And loss, regardless of how it happens, or whether it was your choice to walk away or not, still leads to grief. God’s been good though, and after a couple months of couching it, and a couple more months of zero self-expectations, I started to feel better. I started to dream again, and started to create again. I started to envision THIS site. 

Welcome to Well Crafted Studio!

 It’s a place, conveniently located online, where you can come over with your coffee or tea. You can sit and pick a project, and we’ll figure out how to make it. And as we make it, we’ll talk about creativity, and how it can make everything more vivid, and exciting, and beautiful. Then you’ll start to dream too.

You’ll dream up ways to make your house prettier, your heart happier, your soul fuller, and eventually we’ll share ideas for using that creativity to make a difference in the world.

I’ll be here to teach, validate, and encourage you.  And then maybe, as we play, I’ll get to introduce you to some crafty friends who are learning to use their creativity to make a difference in the world.

Do I have an actual pattern for this creative project? Yes! Do I have any idea how it will all look when we’re done? Absolutely not. But isn’t that part of the joy of creating?

To create along with me, sign up for email updates and get projects and inspiration delivered straight to your inbox by subscribing below. Once again, welcome to Well Crafted Studio!