How YouTuber Amy Tangerine inspires creativity through craft

Amy Tangerine has cultivated a loyal community of creatives with her YouTube channel, with DIY videos edited with Adobe Premiere Pro.

Image Source: Amy Tangerine.

Amy Tan is crafting a life she loves — and loves to look back on.

After turning her passion for scrapbooking into a successful business, the creative entrepreneur and author is inspiring people around the world to take time for reflection through art. “I’m a very sentimental person, so I love memory-keeping and looking back on the most random things,” she says. “Crafting isn’t just a hobby. It’s a way of being that inspires people to live their best lives.”

Tan has grown her business under the moniker Amy Tangerine — so as not to be confused with the similarly named author. In addition to taking on art and fashion design work for private clients, Tan has cultivated a loyal community of creatives with her YouTube channel, branded online workshops, podcast, and products. They flock to her not only for inspiration, but for permission.

“People often put the brakes on their own creativity because they feel they should have a purpose, but that’s simply not the case,” says Tan. “Allow yourself permission to just play and see where it takes you, because it could trigger something else that makes you have a breakthrough. And if it doesn’t, it’s okay because you still spent time doing something that you enjoyed.”

Helping people make things — and make things happen

With more than 57,000 YouTube subscribers, video has become yet another creative outlet for Tan to share tips on everything from stickers and watercolors to traveler’s notebooks and craft room makeovers — with some family trip vlogs thrown in for good measure.

Tan was inspired to create her YouTube channel in 2015. With minimal scrapbooking content available on the platform, she dove into the experience headfirst.

“Being a YouTuber means you really just have to take the time to figure it out,” she says. “People who might have budget to hire a team can spend more time honing their craft, but then they don’t understand the little things that you might do to make it easier on yourself if you had to do this all on your own. I think that’s an important experience to have.”

That’s why these days, Tan is the one who plans which shots she needs and shoots them herself using her Canon G7X Mark ii or her iPhone. And when she’s done, she’ll take B-roll shots of certain tools or materials in case she needs to splice them in during the editing process. Tan usually leaves the audio voiceover to the end so that she has the creative freedom she needs to craft in real-time.

“While you’re doing something, sometimes you don’t really think about why you’re doing it. You just do it,” says Tan. “Afterwards I realize that it might be helpful for me to explain the reasoning behind certain things that I’ve done, and that’s when I’ll do the voiceover. People like to both see the process and hear my thoughts.”

Sharing the editing responsibilities

Although Tan is a big do-it-yourselfer, she does split the editing work with an editor, Amanda Benson, who uses Adobe Premiere Pro to pull everything together. It’s a trade-off Tan can live with — Benson can get the job done in half the time, which frees Tan to focus more attention on content creation.

“I’m getting better and faster at editing, but my editor is so familiar with my style that it just makes sense for us to split the work,” says Tan.

Benson describes Tan’s style as “run-n-gun”, so she tries not to make the videos too cinematic because that wouldn’t feel genuine to Tan’s style. Instead, she lets the experiences Tan shoots speak for themselves. In Premiere Pro, Benson keeps clips in chronological order, so the adventure translates through the vlog. She also uses the Lumetri Color panel in Premiere Pro to make the videos bright and fun, just like Tan’s brand.

“I use the Lumetri Color panel and the color scopes in Premiere Pro as my first step in color correcting and grading,” says Benson. “I love how you can do very basic corrections, but if you want to go above and beyond, you can create really cool and unique color looks. Lumetri is a great place to start.”

The reason their collaboration works so well is twofold. First, Benson’s familiarity with Tan’s content and style means she just gets it, and she isn’t afraid to experiment. But none of it looks like an experiment — it’s all very seamless. And second, Tan shares what inspires her, so that Benson can draw direction and inspiration directly from the source. But the end goal is the same.

“I want to consistently create content that resonates with people,” says Tan. “Everyone should realize that they can make things — and make things happen.”

Watch the Tips & Tricks Tuesday session on IRL editing and get access to host Valentina Vee’s tutorial guide.