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Yesterday I did a photoshoot with Where Women Create magazine, a new publication (they have had two issues out since last November) featuring extraordinary women and their creative spaces. I love this magazine because it's all about the artist–not just the products, the trends, the advertisers, or following the crowd.

Reading the magazine is like reading a book cover to cover. It's just saturated with delicious photos and inspiring words from artists themselves. Editor-in-Chief Jo Packham takes a refreshing departure from the overstyled, unrealistic style that we see as artists too often…we all know that we don't live that way. We work out of closets, tiny third bedrooms, amidst laundry and dirty dishes and children and day jobs. My work table isn't clean. It's a kaleidoscopic mess of beads, buttons, rulers, pens, tiny bits of felt scraps, half-full cans of soda, thread, millinery supplies, paint, adhesives. So I love that Where Women Create shows that realness. It's relatable. I see myself in the women on these pages.

At the same time, WWC represents the great diversity of creative women. Shop owners, quilters, mixed media artists, nonprofit organizers, authors, musicians, chefs…I am so happy to read about women in all walks of life and their creative spaces. Everyone has such a different process, such different goals, such different circumstances. I think this magazine will inspire you and I hope it will make you feel part of this wonderland of a community of strong, beautiful, supportive women.

Some of the women featured in past issues include Sally Jean Alexander, Jenny Doh, Shelli Gardner, Kaari Meng, Rebecca Purcell, Leigh Standley, and Kata Golda (love!!!). And so many others.

Where Women Create magazine is based on Jo Packham's book of the same name which should be in every crafter's library.

Anyway, when Jo e-mailed me asking me to participate in the upcoming issue of WWC, I could have died….I don't even know what to say. I can't describe it. The time between that e-mail and when I welcomed her and her photographer, Paula Jansen, to my little home absolutely flew by.

The time in the middle was spent just working so hard. I took the opportunity to get started on all of those little projects I have had in my head. Why not?

Jo and Paula were so fun to work with. They looked through all of my stuff and were so interested in where I came from and where I want to go.

Jo has so many great ideas for directions for this publication, and I am so endlessly grateful to be a part of it.

After the photoshoot, we had a delicious dinner together at a restaurant in my neighborhood. I loved spending the day with these ladies, and getting to show them around my cute little neighborhood and treat them to dinner was icing on the cake! It was great picking their brains, and I will never forget how much fun we had and how much I learned.

So, if you haven't already, pick up Jo's book, Where Women Create: Inspiring Work Spaces of Extraordinary Women, and look for the magazine in stores including Barnes and Noble, Borders, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Joanne's, Lowe's, and places like that…

xoxo