SYW316 – Scrapbooking in Your 20s with Kaylen Faye

Kaylen Faye: [00:00:00] After I started spending my free time being more creative, I noticed so many changes, just like mentally more energized and physically more energized. And I just really love to be able to share that with other people. And I think creativity is such an important part of life. I grew up around creative parents, so I just really value it and I wanted to be able to share that with other people.

Jennifer Wilson: Welcome to Scrapbook Your Way, the show that explores the breadth of ways to be a memory keeper today. I'm your host, Jennifer Wilson, owner of Simple Scrapper and author of the New Rules of Scrapbooking. This is episode 316. In this episode, I'm chatting with Kaylen Faye, a 20 something second generation scrapbooker, content creator and bride-to-be.

Our conversation focuses on how memory keeping has shaped her life, friendships, and career goals. Hey, Kaylen welcome to Scrapbook Your Way.

Kaylen Faye: Hi, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.[00:01:00]

Jennifer Wilson: I'm looking forward to our conversation so much. Your online presence is so interesting and I can't wait to chat with you about scrapbooking. Can you share a little bit about yourself?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, I just graduated college, started a full-time job, and then in my free time I found it was really rewarding to have time to be crafty. And started sharing that on social media to help and inspire that for other people. And here I am.

Jennifer Wilson: Very cool. What did you, uh, get your degree in?

Kaylen Faye: Um, marketing analytics and Spanish.

Jennifer Wilson: Oh, what, what? A combination. Awesome.

Kaylen Faye: Yeah.

Jennifer Wilson: And what part of the country are you regionally in?

Kaylen Faye: I'm in Wisconsin, so north of Chicago.

Jennifer Wilson: Very cool. Very cool. I am in downstate Illinois, I guess central Illinois in the Champaign Urbana area, so.

Kaylen Faye: Awesome.

Jennifer Wilson: So do you have a favorite recent layout or crafty project? Tell us about it and why you love it.

Kaylen Faye: Absolutely. Yeah. I've honestly, I'm working on like three scrapbooks at once right now. [00:02:00] So, um, just trying to, trying to do a little bit here and there. I think my favorite page that I've done recently has been in my scrap journal. And it's, that journal is for kind of the story of our new home, kind of to document that. So my favorite page that I did was the day that we moved in. And it has all of our family kind of helping us out. Just the meaningful pictures are really, really special.

Jennifer Wilson: Very cool. So what format is this journal?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, it's from Creative Memories. It's their new, their new kind of smaller sized album., It's 6.75 by 10, so the small size is really perfect for a coffee table book.

Jennifer Wilson: Oh, no doubt. We'll definitely include a link to that in the show notes as well as links to everything else you mentioned.

Kaylen Faye: Awesome.

Jennifer Wilson: So what is something new that you're excited to maybe do, use or try? And this could be inside of your crafty life or in your everyday life.

Kaylen Faye: I think the thing that I'm really excited about right now is just getting my [00:03:00] craft room together. So I got.

Jennifer Wilson: Mm-hmm.

Kaylen Faye: This DreamBox, which is amazing. And um, I've really been loving the organization progress. So kind of finishing that up. I wanna decorate it a little bit more and just kind of make my craft room feel really peaceful and homey.

Jennifer Wilson: Yes. Yes. That sounds amazing. Tell me about like your favorite organization, part of the DreamBox. Like what is like a great solution that that's within it?

Kaylen Faye: Oh my gosh, there's so much storage. It's hard to pick just one thing. Like I feel like I have a lot of craft supplies, but I still have so much more space and I'm gonna go shopping for more. Like they have thought of every little detail, like even like just their small, their use of the small space is incredible. Like just having the little thin bins that go in between the bigger bins get the most out of your space. It's genius.

Jennifer Wilson: That's really cool. So I'd love to kind of hear more [00:04:00] about your backstory. How did scrapbooking become one of your personal hobbies?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, I grew up with really creative parents and my mom has always been scrapbooking. She made a scrapbook for each of the first 10 years of my life. So we have, I have like 10 scrapbooks from her, at least. Um, so I've always kind of grown up around scrapbooking. I started. Oh, so long ago.

But I remember in fourth grade, my mom was a fourth grade teacher at the time. And she started an afterschool scrapbooking club. And my friends and I all made our scrapbooks after class and it was so much fun. And that's kind of my first big scrapbook that I recom that I remember. So and now ever since, ever since then, I've just loved being able to document and share those memories and look back at them.

Jennifer Wilson: That is so cool. I love how teachers can kind of bring their own passions to the [00:05:00] school in the form of clubs like that.

Kaylen Faye: Absolutely.

Jennifer Wilson: So, as you know, there's so many different ways to be a memory keeper today between like the tactile options to more digital app-based options. Can you kind of give us the rundown of how you like to approach telling your stories?

Kaylen Faye: Absolutely. What I love about scrapbooking is there's really no right or wrong way to do it. Like every single page can is a little bit different for me, and I think that's the fun part. So some pages it's just pictures. Some pages I write like a side note and have like half a page of journaling with it.

And I think, um, it's kind of nice to look back and just read through those little notes. So I'm looking at, through my scrapbook right now, actually, in a lot of my pages, I'll put a title of kind of what we were doing during those pictures. And then and then add a little text about kind of what we were doing, what the, [00:06:00] the date was, kind of what I remember about it.

Jennifer Wilson: So you're definitely a more like traditional scrapbooker and it sounds like you are using Creative Memories albums, so very kind of like a, you know, a, a paper centric approach.

Kaylen Faye: Yes, definitely.

Jennifer Wilson: So you recently got engaged, uh, do you have a wedding date set and have you thought about how you might wanna scrapbook it?

Kaylen Faye: Yes, we just, we uh, actually we haven't really done too much wedding planning yet, but we did book our venue and we're getting married in August of 2026. So we have like less than 10 months at this point to get everything together. And I do have some really fun ideas for scrapbooking, um, whether that's like bridal shower related or at the wedding and then post wedding. So I have a lot of fun things coming with that. I don't, don't wanna share too many details yet, but, um, definitely a lot of fun scrapbooking coming around that. Definitely going to be scrapbooking all [00:07:00] of the pictures post wedding, either in a normal album or digitally in a magazine as kind of fun.

Jennifer Wilson: Oh yeah. Very cool. And how would you approach doing that? Like would you, I know you, I think you use an iPad a lot. Um, what would be the, how would you produce that magazine?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, so I have a lot of scrapbooks that I love scrapbooking. But for really special like trips and stuff, if I want it to be its own album, I will basically go on Canva and it's like their eight and a half by 11 magazine templates. And you can just put your pictures in and kind of design them how you want and move 'em around and add text. And then print it out through Canva. You get this little magazine.

So I've done it for like different trips that I've gone on with my fiance and then like our engagement I'm working on right now. And then I'll definitely do one for our wedding too, just to have those little magazines as coffee table books as well.

Jennifer Wilson: Oh, very [00:08:00] cool. I didn't know that Canva had a printing service, so that's definitely something new to me.

Kaylen Faye: It was actually really easy and it's nice just to do it all right there. It's really nice.

Jennifer Wilson: Oh yeah. There's a lot of folks that are doing all their scrapbooking in Canva nowadays. And it's, yeah, the, I remember when the tool came out and it's just, it's become just such an amazing part of how we create these days.

Kaylen Faye: Definitely.

Jennifer Wilson: I also wanted to say like, you know, you're a scrapbooker when there's something coming up in your life like a wedding and all the things surrounding that, and one of your first thoughts is, okay, how am I going to scrapbook this?

Kaylen Faye: Literally. Literally. And that is like the only thing that I kind of have an idea about what I want is the scrapbooking stuff.

Jennifer Wilson: Yes, yes. Lots of decisions ahead, but it is, it is such a fun time for sure.

Kaylen Faye: Definitely.

Jennifer Wilson: So do you have like a favorite crafty gadget right now?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, I actually just got this, I think it's pronounced Lean. It's L-I-E-N-E, Pix cut, S one. [00:09:00] Um. And I love it. It's like a, it prints out your pictures or your stickers. And it cuts them out for you all in one, like on a sticker sheet. So you can design your own stickers that you want. You can print out any pictures. It's so easy and it's easy to store. And it's been a lot of fun to kind of design my own stickers.

Jennifer Wilson: That is really cool and like the quality of it. You've been really happy with that.

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, the paper quality's really good that it prints on. The ink quality's great. It's like waterproof and scratch resistant. So I haven't had an issue with the pictures getting bent up or ruined or anything. It's been, it's been lovely.

Jennifer Wilson: That is really fun. Yeah, I can't wait to check that out. Now like most of us, I'm guessing you have other creative hobbies and maybe non-creative hobbies. What else do you do, um, in your free time?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, I'm somebody who can't sit still, so I feel like I'm always doing something. And I think the main thing, [00:10:00] the main thing that I love doing is scrapbooking. But I also love card making. I love sewing. I love, I learned how to crochet this year, so I've been doing a little bit of that. I love being outdoors. I love hiking, traveling, um, going on walks. I teach group fitness classes as well, so I get to teach classes in the morning. Which is a lot of fun and kind of another way to get involved in the community a little bit.

Jennifer Wilson: That's really cool. What, like what uh, program or style of group fitness are you doing?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, it's like a bootcamp class. It's really fun.

Jennifer Wilson: Nice.

Kaylen Faye: And it's bright and early in the morning and I make everybody like do burpees.

Jennifer Wilson: Yeah.

Kaylen Faye: It's a lot of fun.

Jennifer Wilson: I mean, burpees and fun like are often not in the same sentence, but as the instructor, I'm sure it is very fun for you.

So what made you decide to start sharing the creative parts of your life on social media?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, honestly, like coming from college and then going to a full-time [00:11:00] job, there's two things that I kind of noticed. And one was I have a lot of time after work. Because I'm, I'm not doing homework.

Jennifer Wilson: Mm-hmm.

Kaylen Faye: That was a different change. And then also I'm exhausted after work. Like I have, I have time, but I'm so tired and I'm so just mentally drained from the workday. I kind of turned to scrapbooking and crafting just as a way to do something. But that was still low energy. And honestly like after I started spending my free time being more creative, I noticed so many changes, just like mentally more energized and physically more energized. And I just really love to be able to share that with other people. And I think creativity is such an important part of life. I grew up around creative parents, so I just really value it and I wanted to be able to share, to share that with other people.

Jennifer Wilson: That is really cool, especially in terms of how kind of sometimes [00:12:00] we like, you have to take the action before you get the feeling that comes from the action, right? We don't always feel like doing something, like doing burpees first thing in the morning. But we're we're very regretting that we did the thing we did, so.

Kaylen Faye: Absolutely.

Jennifer Wilson: So you mentioned like having more time after work versus being a student where it's like, it's all the time. So how do you feel like you balance all these things with being a, you know, a crafter for your personal fulfillment, a content creator, and all the things that you do?

Kaylen Faye: Oh my gosh, it's busy. Uh, it's a lot, but I, it's things that I love doing. So I always try to make time for it. Um, definitely try to make time for like the people in my life the most. And then outside of work, I'm always trying to finish up a scrapbook page and then record it. It's nice because my content creation, it's not like I am necessarily creating anything new for, specifically for my social media. It's kind of things that I'm [00:13:00] already doing. So it's more just documenting and kind of sharing rather than creating something. So definitely helps balance a little bit of that because I'm already creating something that I love and I just get to share it with everybody.

Jennifer Wilson: Yes. It makes it so fun when you're, when you can just, it's your real life and you just happen to be recording it and, and adding a few extra details on it and sharing it.

Kaylen Faye: Yes. I think my first, yeah, one of my first like viral videos that started off one of my series about asking my mom for random craft supplies, was literally the most spontaneous, like, just thing. Where I was like, this would actually probably be funny in a video because I was actually just recording myself doing this scrapbooking page and then I asked my mom, Hey, do you have, I don't even remember what it was.

Do you have this specific sticker? And she was like, oh yeah, I do have this and this, and this might work too. Like, so, and I was like, that would be really funny in a [00:14:00] video. So I just posted that little clip of it and it got over a million views. Um, and then I, we kind of started a series off of it.

Jennifer Wilson: That's really fun. I like, I remember one time my do, I don't remember what, what else my daughter asked me for, but I'm like, why? Yes, I do have that. I've been preparing for this for many years for you to ask me about specific craft supply.

Kaylen Faye: Exactly, exactly. That's what I think that my audience, um, really loves seeing too, is because they can relate, because they also have a ton of craft supplies that they want to someday pass down to their daughters and share with and spend that time with.

Jennifer Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. Like the, the family connection of that is definitely rewarding as well, too. Sharing things with, yeah. The people you love in your life, so. Now your top TikTok of all time, like 9 million views, I think.

Kaylen Faye: Yeah.

Jennifer Wilson: Was a bingo card for 2025. Can you tell us about that?

Kaylen Faye: Yes. So in the beginning of 2025, or actually end of [00:15:00] 2024, I had some friends over my mom's craft room. And my, one of my friends picked up these little, I think eight by 10 canvases from Michael's and, um, had the idea to do this bingo card. And we kind of just talked about what do we all wanna accomplish this year? Let's put it on this bingo card, write it down, make it look cute, and let's try to get a bingo. And, it's, it's been a lot of fun. The video blew up and I think it inspired a lot of people to kind of plan out their 2025 goals and reach 'em.

Jennifer Wilson: Well and I love it, like, as an alternative to a vision board. And maybe like, uh, when we think about things as a range of options and we're successful, even if we do some of them. I think the, the Bingo approach is, is helpful for that.

Kaylen Faye: Definitely.

Jennifer Wilson: So have you gotten a bingo on your card yet?

Kaylen Faye: I have actually. And I, I'm gonna be an overachiever and try to get a [00:16:00] blackout this year. We'll see.

Jennifer Wilson: Nice.

Kaylen Faye: Have a few more things to do, like run a 5K, I don't know. I'll do that.

Jennifer Wilson: Oh, you still have a couple months.

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, we'll see.

Jennifer Wilson: Maybe. Maybe a Thanksgiving, Turkey trot type of thing.

Kaylen Faye: Yeah. That would be fun. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun to kind of like think, oh, I'm, I don't have anything to do this weekend.

Oh, what can I look up my Bingo card and see what I can do? Like, oh, let's try to learn machine embroidery this this weekend. Because it's on my Bingo card. Otherwise, I would've forgotten that I wanted to do that.

Jennifer Wilson: Yeah. It's so important to have your, your goals and dreams in front of you so that you, they stay top off mind and you actually try to go about them. So.

Kaylen Faye: Exactly. Yeah, it's all intentional.

Jennifer Wilson: So you're definitely a younger scrapbooker. What do you share with your peers who maybe didn't grow up around it like you did?

Kaylen Faye: Yeah, that honestly has been a really fun thing to do with some of my friends. And I've grown really close to [00:17:00] a few of my friends through scrapbooking. Um, who maybe haven't scrapbooked before. But they came over once they saw that how fun scrapbooking was on my page. They're like, I wanna come scrapbook with you.

And I'm like, let's do it. So being able just to share that time with them and they come and hang out with me in my craft room or my mom's craft room. And we just scrapbook and talk about the memories that we had with the pages that we're working on. It's a lot of fun.

Jennifer Wilson: Yes, yes. I think scrapbooking with others is one of the most rewarding things. Like definitely it's fun by yourself, but when you get to do it with friends, it, it makes it even more special.

Kaylen Faye: Absolutely.

Jennifer Wilson: So, Kaylen this has been so delightful to, to chat with you. Can you share where our audience can find you online? Anything you might have new or coming up this year?

Kaylen Faye: Absolutely. Yeah. I am on TikTok and Instagram. My TikTok is at Kaylin Faye, and my Instagram is at Kaylin Faye underscore. Um, I have so [00:18:00] many fun things coming up and I hope you guys stay tuned, follow along, see what I do with my wedding scrapbook this year, next year. And thank you so much for listening. Thank you for having me.

Jennifer Wilson: Yeah. Thanks for spending time with me and to all of our listeners, please remember that you have permission to Scrapbook Your Way.