Your prompt
“Before you ask yourself to feel better, what feeling needs permission to simply be here?”
Take a breath. Let the first honest sentence be enough.
Beauty Creativity Truth
There is more to remembering than what the mirror can hold.
A creative home for journaling, poetry, crochet, beauty, healing, and legacy—created by Lay.
There is nothing to fix here.
Only someone worth getting to know—one honest page at a time.
The meaning behind the name
Slayed—far beyond the surface.
Slayed Beyond Beautiful is where every part of Lay’s identity meets: the beauty professional, author, poet, journaler, crocheter, teacher, and woman remembering herself more deeply.
Beauty may be where the story began, but it does not end at the mirror. It continues through the pages we fill, the things our hands create, the truths we tell, and the legacy we leave.
Choose where you would like to go:
A Life Prompted by Lay
Meet yourself on the page.
The journal-prompt experience within Slayed Beyond Beautiful. Choose what your spirit needs today—there is no right answer and no perfect way to begin.
View purchase options ↗From Lay’s early pages
A book born from pain—and held together by hope.
Pay Attention began as poems pouring into Lay’s journals. Self-published in 2012 under the name Walayee C. Whitlock, these pages preserve an earlier voice, carrying both the ache of becoming and the hope that remained.
It is more than a poetry collection. It is evidence that even in the darkest seasons, something within us is still reaching for light.
Purchase Pay Attention ↗Made slowly, held warmly
Stories you can touch.
Crochet is another kind of journaling: color, texture, memory, and feeling worked together one stitch at a time.
One-of-one pieces
Heirloom gifts
Patterns & projects
See Lay’s latest crochet pieces, works in progress, and creative videos through her social links.
Continue making
Patterns for what the hands remember.
Choose one complete pattern or collection and begin with what feels closest today.
The Carrying Home CollectionThree coordinated crochet patterns
The Remembering Cover™A size-flexible beginner pattern
The Returning Lines Granny SquareA textured, size-flexible crochet motif
The Remembering BlanketA scrappy granny-square throw pattern
The Unplanned BlanketA 30-day chaos crochet and journaling experience
The Unspoken PageA textured pattern for expression beyond words
The Corner KeeperA crochet page-corner bookmark in three sizes
Words We CarryFourteen beginner tapestry crochet word panels
Words We Carry — MosaicFourteen right-side-only overlay mosaic crochet word panels
The Gathering RollA complete portable crochet organizer patternThe digital collection
Pages, patterns, and gentle places to begin.
Explore every current Slayed Beyond Beautiful digital offering, made to give your hands, words, and inner world somewhere to go.
A Quiet Place to BeginSeven gentle prompts for coming back to yourself
The Remembering Pages21 gentle prompts for coming home to yourself
Camp RememberingA gentle adventure journal for coming home to yourself
When Words Aren’t EnoughA 30-day practice of expression beyond words
The Life I Keep ChoosingA 30-day practice of thought, feeling, habit, and aligned action
Pay Attention — Revised Digital EditionLay’s original poetry collection, gently revised and newly presented
Comfort CrochetFive beginner patterns for quiet hands and soft daysThe Carrying Home CollectionThree coordinated crochet patternsThe Remembering Cover™A size-flexible Suzette stitch patternThe Returning Lines Granny SquareA textured, size-flexible crochet motifThe Remembering BlanketA scrappy granny-square throw patternThe Unplanned BlanketA 30-day chaos crochet and journaling experienceThe Unspoken PageA textured crochet pattern for expression beyond words
The Unspoken BookA complete modular crochet feeling folio for expression beyond wordsThe Corner KeeperA crochet page-corner bookmark in three sizesWords We CarryFourteen beginner tapestry crochet word panelsWords We Carry — MosaicFourteen right-side-only overlay mosaic crochet word panelsThe Gathering RollA portable home for the tools that help us return to the pageCome into the process
WATCH LAY CREATE
Journaling, crochet, creative healing, poetry, books, and the beauty work that began it all.
Journaling
Journaling
Crochet
Crochet
Creative healing
Creative healing
Poetry & books
Poetry & books
Salon life · Verified @LaysTok post
Open on TikTok ↗Salon life · Verified @LaysTok post
Open on TikTok ↗Salon life · Verified @LaysTok post
Open on TikTok ↗See more beauty and salon work at @LaysTok ↗
“
I create to leave evidence that I lived, loved, struggled, healed, created, and became.
— Lay
The woman beyond the brand
Writer. Mother. Maker. Beauty professional. Truth-seeker.
Lay is Walayee Ishway—an author, poet, journaler, crocheter, cosmetologist, teacher, and lifelong student of remembering. Slayed Beyond Beautiful brings those identities together where beauty, creativity, and emotional and spiritual healing meet.
Her first poetry collection, Pay Attention, was originally published under the name Walayee C. Whitlock. Today, she creates and shares as Lay.
This is a quiet place for honest reflection, creative truth, and the kind of legacy we leave one page and one stitch at a time.
A private way to reach Lay
Send a thoughtful note.
For author inquiries, creative collaborations, and questions about Pay Attention, use this form to open a private email to Lay. Your message is not posted publicly.
Before you go