Coming Back Slowly

Your Story Matters

Hi friends,

I’ve been on maternity leave for the last three months, and I’m slowly finding my way back to this space and the real world in general. Slowly is the big word here.

I am not returning with a color-coded content calendar, even though I seriously miss my color-coded calendars. I do not have a perfectly tuned workflow, because flow is not exactly the vibe (or even possible) right now. And I definitely do not have an epic plan to pretend my life has not completely changed. I don’t bs you. My life has completely changed.

I’m a Momma Now

I had a little baby girl on February 28th, and the whole thing has been wild. Pregnancy, labor and delivery, postpartum, being a mom. All of it. What a crazy journey. We’ll get into all of that eventually, because obviously I have a million thoughts (and photos), but today I mostly want to ease my way back into this newsletter and say hi.

So first, let me tell you a little bit about the baby.

Her name is Charlotte, and she is tiny and perfect and changing all the time. I already have a million nicknames for her, which was one of the reasons we chose Charlotte to begin with. Charlie. Lottie. Chuck. And somehow, since the day she was born, I’ve been calling her Kitten. I have no idea where it came from. She was just so tiny, and the name stuck.

She makes new faces every day. She has new sounds. New opinions. New tiny baby ways of being a person. I have taken approximately one million photos of her, because she really is the cutest baby, and no, I will not be accepting alternate opinions at this time. I’m not ready to go back into full scrapbook mode yet, but whenever I am, I will have the material. The camera roll is prepared.

One of my favorite things right now is seeing her in all the little onesies that people decorated at my baby shower. There is something so fun about watching her lounge around the house wearing these tiny bits of art that our friends and family made for her before she was even here. It feels like she’s wrapped up in all this love and color and time people spent thinking about her. It’s also super helpful for when she needs five outfit changes in a single day.

I Miss Creating + My People

I also miss writing to you. I miss making things in public. I miss making things on a regular basis. I miss talking about creativity and stories and paper and stickers and what it means to make space for our lives while we are living them. I’m finally in a place where I have enough brainspace to miss all the stuff.

And I really miss my people.

And honestly, more than that? I really, really miss creating with other people.

I miss sitting around a table while everyone is playing with paper and making something different. I miss the sound of scissors and paper trimmers. I miss someone asking if they can borrow the black Versafine ink pad. I miss looking across the table and seeing someone use a color or a stamp or a scrap in a way I never would have thought of, and suddenly I get a little boost and my own creativity feels a little more awake.

That being-in-the-room energy is its own thing. You all know I love my internet friends. Online community is real, and it’s the best. Especially for those of us with chronic illness, those of us who live in the middle of nowhere, or those of us whose IRL friends live far away. I have built huge parts of my life and the work I do around community online. But there is something different about being at the same table and hanging out in the same room.

I’ve still been creative during maternity leave, just in the tiniest, most seasonally appropriate ways. I’ve been playing with stickers here and there. I have a five-year journal that I got at my baby shower, and I’ve been using that as a little anchor. I keep a small creative kit in the living room (inside this yellow bag that I’m totally obsessed with) next to my pumping tools, because that is the reality of my creative life right now: pumping supplies, stickers, baby things, a tiny bit of paper (mostly stuff from Brandi Kincaid), and whatever pen I can find.

That’s the season.

I’ve taken a few Thursday3s here and there, but I’m not really in a huge social media sharing place right now. Honestly, being away from social media during pregnancy and these early postpartum days has been absolutely incredible for my life. Highly recommend accidentally opting out of the internet when possible. But I’m so glad I have those snapshots from this moment. A photo here (and by a photo, I mean 1000 photos of her and a handful of photos of me and Jeff). Jotting down three little things there. A tiny bit of proof that I was here, in this body, in this life, in this exact weird and beautiful season.

That’s what creative practice looks like for me right now. It is not big. It is certainly not polished. It is not happening at my desk with a full cart of supplies and three hours of uninterrupted time lol. My actual studio is a complete disaster. That was the one part of the house that I never got to organize before the baby came, so it’s literally an ADHD hoarding zone. My creativity is happening in tiny pockets, next to the baby stuff, between feeds, around headaches, near the pump parts, with whatever is within reach; and honestly, a lot of it has been happening on my phone, in the Canva app, in my camera roll, in the digital books I’ve been making.

Which keeps bringing me back to this: creative practice has to fit into the life you actually have.

Not the life you had three months ago. Not the life you had before the baby. Not the life you have in your fantasy calendar where nobody needs you and everything is just new media release dates, where the laundry is magically done, dinner appears from nowhere, the garden waters itself, your inbox is empty, your body feels amazing, and you have an uninterrupted afternoon to lovingly arrange scraps of paper while drinking something cute. Even though that sounds sooooo amazing.

I Miss Creating + My People

Creative practice has to fit into the life you actually have, in the season you are actually living.

Right now, my actual life has less time for pretty much everything; and I don’t mean that in a bad way at all, it’s just the season of life I’m in. Everything takes a little bit longer with a baby attached (there are no more 5 minute grocery store runs, it legit takes 5 minutes just to get her out of the car seat and into the baby wearing thingy). So all the stuff that keeps life moving has to get a little more intentional. Cooking. Gardening. Keeping the house moderately clean. Talking to friends. Making sure I eat something with protein in it. Getting outside. Taking care of the baby. Taking care of my body. Doing the adulting. Figuring out what work looks like now.

Is it ever perfect? Absolutely not. But knowing what actually needs to happen makes it a lot easier to make the day work.

And for me, my body is still very much part of the conversation. My headaches are back with a vengeance. Because I’m breastfeeding, there are only a few medications I can take, and none of them help a ton. I’ve also had some more heart stuff happening. We’ve ruled out the scary things, which is great, but it is still annoying and exhausting when your heart skips a beat and your whole body goes, “Um, hello?”

So when I say I’m coming back slowly, I mean it. I’m here. Everything is good. I am so wildly in love with this baby. And I am not ready to jump all the way back in. All of those things are true at the same time.

For the next few months, you can expect one real newsletter from me each month, usually on the first day or two of the month. There might be some event-specific emails or sales emails here and there, but most of that will happen over on the Awesome Ladies Project email list. Here on Substack, I want to keep showing up with actual letters. The kind I can write with my whole human self. The kind you’re excited to open. The kind that gives us something to think about and something to make.

I don’t want to come back by immediately recreating the exact same pace I had before. That pace belonged to a different season. TBH, it belonged to a different me. This is a new season, a new mama, a new version of my life. And new seasons need new containers.

That’s true whether you just had a baby, moved houses, started a new job, lost someone, got sick, changed relationships, entered a new decade, became a caregiver, went through burnout, or simply looked up one day and realized your old creative routine no longer fits your current life. It is okay to take a break. It is okay to let life consume you sometimes. It is okay to disappear into the season you are in.

None of that makes you a bad creative person. It makes you a human being having a human experience.

Your creativity is not gone just because you needed to put it down for a while. It may be quieter. It may be smaller. It may be living in a weird little corner of your life right now, wearing sweatpants and eating string cheese. But it is not gone.

Your creative practice is allowed to change shape. Mine is currently a five-year journal, a few Thursday3s, a million baby photos, and three stickers next to my pumping supplies. Tysm to Brandi and her Extravagant Hope subscription, because that sticker mail is doing important emotional support work over here.

Sometimes the creative thing is a photo on your phone or in the Canva app. Sometimes it is a list in the Notes app or whatever paper you’ve got on your table. Sometimes it is one sentence before bed. Sometimes it is a tiny kit in a cute bag on the living room coffee table because that is where your life is happening right now.

The point is not to force yourself back into an old routine just because it used to work. The point is to ask: what would help me stay connected to myself in this season?

That is the question I’m asking right now. Not, “How do I get back to normal?” Normal is not the goal. Normal is gone, if it was ever really here in the first place. The question is: what does creative life look like now?

And one answer keeps coming up for me again and again.

I need to make with other people.

I need to put creative time on the calendar and treat it like it matters. I need to sit at a table with paper and photos and stories and snacks and scraps. I need to be in a room with other Awesome Ladies and make something that only exists because we made it together.

That is why I’m so excited about Awesome Ladies Live.

About Awesome Ladies Live 2026

Awesome Ladies Live is happening July 25–26, 2026 in East Lansing, Michigan, at the Graduate East Lansing. It’s a small, in-person creative weekend built around the theme Tell Your Story—Together. And honestly, that theme feels even more right to me now than it did when I first chose it before Charlotte was born.

Storytelling is personal, but it does not have to be a solo act.

At Awesome Ladies Live, we’ll spend the weekend making, writing, playing, taking photos, swapping supplies, talking, laughing, and building a handmade book together-but-not-the-same. Our main project is called Pieces of Us, Pages of Me.

We’ll start by making collaborative collage sheets as a group. Then we’ll cut those sheets apart and share the pieces with everyone in the room. Those shared papers will become part of each person’s own handmade mini book. Your finished book will be yours: your photos, words, colors, stories, and choices. But tucked into the pages will be pieces made by the people who were there with you.

That’s the part you cannot recreate at home by yourself.

That’s the whole magic.

This is a small, intimate creative weekend for introverts, extroverts, and all the complicated people in between. No giant conference energy. No vendor hall trying to sell you more stuff. No one-size-fits-all class where everyone leaves with the exact same project. No pressure to be the most social person in the room or the most polished scrapbooker at the table.

Just creative people making things in community.

You can come because you want structure and breathing room. You can come because you want to meet new friends. You can come because you miss making with people who get it. You can come because you want to go home with a finished handmade project, and yes, finishing is a skill you can learn too.

You can also come because you want to meet Baby Charlotte, who will definitely be making an appearance. If part of your motivation is “I want to make cool paper things and also meet this tiny new Awesome Lady,” I fully support that agenda.

Registration is open now, and you can read all the event details here:

And whether or not you are coming to East Lansing, I want you to take this with you: tiny still counts. Weird little couch creativity counts. One sticker next to your pumping supplies counts. A note in your phone counts. Taking a break counts too, because sometimes life is the project.

What’s Next

Your creative practice is not supposed to be a fancy museum exhibit. Its job is to help you stay connected to your actual life.

So here’s your tiny creative invitation for this month:

Make a page, list, note, or tiny creative thing that starts with:

I am coming back to...

Maybe you are slowly coming back to your notebook. Maybe you are slowly coming back to your body. Maybe you are slowly coming back to your friends, your kitchen, your garden, your favorite pen, your morning routine, your sense of humor, your stories, your art supplies, your desk, your courage, your softness, or your own damn self.

It does not have to be deep unless it is. It does not have to be pretty unless that sounds fun. It can be one sentence. It can be one photo. It can be one sticker on one page.

Start where you are. That is always the place.

I’m coming back slowly, and I’m making space carefully.

Summer gives us a little bit of a softer landing right now. Jeff finished his master’s program and is finally getting to enjoy some paternity leave while he looks for jobs for next school year. Charlotte is still a tiny baby who changes basically every time I look at her. I want to be here for that.

If you want to keep up with our personal family updates, I’m sharing those over at my private family newsletter: myfamilystuff.substack.com.

Over here, I’ll be showing up about once a month with creativity, stories, paper, life, and whatever this next season teaches me. And one of the spaces I’m most excited to make this year is a room full of paper, stories, snacks, scraps, and people who get it.

I would really, really love to sit at a table and make something with you.

Talk to you soon!

xoxo,

Kristin

P.S. Awesome Ladies Live registration is $649. Once you register, you’ll get the hotel room block link so you can book your room at the Graduate. If splitting the ticket into two payments would help, email hello@theawesomeladiesproject.com with your PayPal email address, and I’ll set that up for you.