E.64 How To Increase Your Creative Genius With Ali Edwards

 

"You are only limited by your level of creative genius" Dr. S

 

If there is one thing we know for sure, it is that a creative mind can solve the world's greatest problems. This is why, today, we brought on Ali Edwards to guide us through how to increase our creative genius as well as take us down a beautiful story of her business's development and evolution as a scrapbooker. 



 

Ali Edwards got started in her business back in 2002 as a result of the birth of her child. She started at this time because she wanted to make a baby book for her new son. However, when she was looking for a baby book, most of them were very cutesy, which was not her cup of tea. She wanted a more modern and photographic graphic design book. 

Eventually, Ali came across a scrapbooking website where people were talking about scrapbooking with a modern taste to it. It emphasized the story and then the photos. She felt very excited and knew that this is what she wanted to do.

 

Ali went to school for law and found that she didn't want to do that anymore, decided to move back to her soon to be  husband's old town and got married. She then had many other jobs before what she does now and found that it wasn't for her. Ali went back to school for graphic design and found that this was just like scrapbooking but in another way and fell in love with it.

 

As a stay-at-home mom, Ali would get bored, so she decided to make scrapbooks and eventually mastered the craft! 

She started getting job offers for her scrapbooking around 2003 and 2005 she established that she was going to start her business.

 

A lot of her self-worth today is related to building her business. In the beginning the hurdles were personal, such as how she was going to work when she had a little kid. She and her husband at the time had a lot of head budding on whose work was more important. It was a growth hurdle and an emotional hurdle. Her first born son got diagnosed with autism when he was 2, which was another hurdle that came her way.

 

               

For women who feel discouraged and don’t have full support in their relationship to do it, Ali shares: For women, if you're in a marriage and not feeling the freedom of movement, you have to start by having an honest conversation about what you need.

It's about finding your voice and finding what you actually care about because what you want matters. 

 Ali licenses to different companies and she partners in one company for stamps and another for acrylics. A company came to her and gave her the idea to put the license into one umbrella which was a big change in 2014. They work directly with that company and Ali gets a percentage. They have subscriptions and they do different projects that have beginnings and ends. They have digital components to them as well. It has worked out very good for her.

 Tips for designers who want to get picked up are share your work, continue to show up in a consistent way, figure out who you would want to license with.

 

Top tips for people who want to get into scrapbooking are to use it as a practice to pay attention to your life:

Pick up your phone.

Take pictures through the day.  

paint a picture of what your life looks like during the day.

Also writing stuff down and any way you can bring in gratitude is the best part of scrapbooking.

 

If Ali could look back and give her 10 year younger self advice, it would be:

 "It's going to be okay."

 

You can find Ali Edwards at

Aliedwards.com or

on instagram @aliedwardsinc.

Stay connected with news and updates.

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team. 

Close

50% Complete

Welcome!

We are soo happy to have you in community with us. Submit your best email below and stay tuned for our first welcome gift coming your way!