You know how sometimes as you go through life, you develop friendships with people whom you absolutely crush on their art or style or creativity?! Well, that certainly happened to me in the creative world! When I started scrapbooking and sharing online, one of the first girls who really wowed me with her rich stories, fascinating fussy cutting and lovely layered layouts was Lisa Hausmann of Recklinghausen Musings. You can imagine how flattered I was when she reached out recently and asked if I was interested in joining this ever growing and expanding creative blog tour! Thanks Lisa! Definitely check out her post here – she’s amazing! The idea of the tour is to answer four questions, then introduce three fellow creative bloggers who will continue the tour the following week. So, here we go…

1. What am I working on?

As I mentioned a couple times this month, May was absolutely bananas! One of the highlights of May was my baby girls 5th birthday! Like every little girl right now, she wanted a “Frozen” theme for her party. And as anyone with a little girl knows, Frozen merchandise is almost impossible to find. Good thing I’m crafty! I downloaded the free “Do you want to build a snowman” printable from Happy Money Saver, I punched snowflakes using my EK Success Large Snowflake punch so I could create our own goodie bags, and I made this banner for my baby!

UPDATE: Looking to buy some Frozen inspired party items? Check out my Etsy shop!

Beyond our Frozen birthday crafting bonanza, May was also busy with my nephew’s baptism – I’ll post a video this week showing a quick card I made and even show how the card design went awry and what I did to save the card! May included LOAD (layout a day) as well. I was honored to be a featured designer amongst lovely company and loved the layouts featured all month long (Cara, who you’ll meet later in this post, was one of other featured designers – get ready to fall in love with her style)!

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

As a photographer, I definitely have tons of photos of my daughters to use for layouts. But sometimes the photographer in me gets in the way of telling stories I want to tell if I don’t have the “perfect” photo. That’s absolutely ridiculous of me, considering the stories are what my daughters will (hopefully) most likely want the most when they’re older! So with that said, I believe my photo style, artsy layouts and colorful nature give my layouts a fairly unique look.

3. Why do I write/create what I do?

When my first daughter was born, I had thousands of photos of her before she was a year old! So it was a natural progression for me to start scrapbooking, considering my walls were becoming quite full of her photos and wallpapering the house seemed a little more difficult than my level of expertise 🙂

I first fell in love with the craft in 2008 when I joined my cousin Irene for our first Creative Memories crop (ever think that Creative Memories kind of served as the gateway drug into this hobby?! Haha!) My first couple of years, I was awe struck with everything about the craft, and I had visions of the pages I wanted to make, but since I was starting from scratch, I felt the need to purchase all the tools and supplies before I could start. Needless to say, I became a collector and investor for a couple years before I started to actually create layouts. Then I discovered LOAD, True Scrap and True Stamp classes, all of which took my crafting into a whole new artsy world!

4. How does your writing/creating process work?

My usual process for creating a layout starts with the photos which goes hand-in-hand with the story I want to tell. As much shopping as I do getting all the adorable products I can get my hands on, it might be surprising, but I don’t think I’ve ever started a page with a specific product in mind. Nope, it’s photos and stories that lead the way!

Once those are chosen, I then print at home, usually creating a collage of several images, and start pulling supplies. Depending on the story, sometimes I’ll pull specific patterned paper, or I’ll pull white cardstock and create my own background with stencils and spray mists, distress inks, distress stains, and I’ve even started playing with gelatos recently. Then I’ll lay it all out and start adding embellishments and trimming paper. I never stick it down though until I’m completely done. The whole time, the story is dancing around in my head, but the journaling is usually the last piece I add, although I usually am sure to leave plenty of room for it. If I’m running low on space, I will create pockets behind layouts or incorporate it into the design like these layouts.

When I first started scrapbooking, it was predominantly about my girls birthdays. Then it evolved to expand beyond birthdays and into more heartfelt stories – our everyday moments, the love I have for my family and the LOAD prompts have helped me to tell stories I normally wouldn’t tell, which I truly love, like these layouts – one of my Vivi (my grandfather) and another of my twin uncles.

I also try to make a few pages of myself every year. My girls need to know who their mama was, besides the cooking / cleaning / driving / volunteering mama they see 🙂

Now I’d love to introduce my sweet crafty friends from around the world. Each is a mama. Each is crafty beyond belief. Each is spunky, adorable and super bubbly. And each of them has inspired me in one way or another! Be sure to visit these lovelies and leave them some comment love! You’ll be happy you’ve discovered these lovely and crafty gals!

• Cara of C’est la Vie (ours anyway) is a Canadian who is living in Luxembourg with her hottie French hubby and their 6 children (yes, 6 and 5 of those are boys!). Scrapbooking is her biggest passion, and she regularly loses track of time while playing in her studio. The other half of her studio is where the sewing magic happens, Cara loves nothing more than sewing a fantastic costume for herself or her children, without a pattern if she can help it. She considers her DLSR her 7th baby and is always trying to improve her photography. Her style is consistent no matter what the media, happy, bright and colourful, she hopes that she reflects this in her personality 🙂 Head on over to visit Cara of C’est la Vie (ours anyway)!

• Kymona Tracey of Kreative Kymona is a woman who never slows down and loves it. Yes… she is the energizer bunny’s sister! She keeps going and going (which is something she is working on, if you follow her weekly wishes on her blog). She is a single mother of two wonderful children who are 8 years apart. Her 16 year old son is a true self-made jock who plays every sport you can think of! Her 7 year old daughter is a real life princess who loves anything crafty and girly and absolutely hates anything related to sports. Talk about yin and yang! …but she loves it!! Besides running from one activity to another with them, she works full time at a hospital (public health background), facilitates a reading group at work, teaches high school students on the weekends and has a huge love of learning new things. She’s taken classes in photography, web design, knitting, scrapbooking and card-making. She loves them all, however, her true passion is card-making. She was introduced to card making back in 2004 and hasn’t turned back since. She started out as a hobbyist just making cards for family and friends. People were always ecstatic when they received a card from her. What they did not know was that it made her feel just as special to make a card for them. This passion pushed her into teaching card-making classes at work with a couple of coworkers who wanted to learn how to make projects for their families. In September 2013, she made a big leap and created her blog, Kreative Kymona. Besides being a mom, her blog has been one of her most rewarding accomplishments. Just being able to share with her world community makes life so rewarding! Head on over to visit Kymona of Kreative Kymona!

• Alice Boll of Scrapbook Wonderland has been scrapbooking since 1999. She is passionate about scrapbooking and loves to share the joy of the craft with others. She was born and raised in Canada, although not in one of the places with a cool name like Moose Jaw, Flin Flon or Vulcan. She’s the chief laundress, taxi-driver and chef to two boys, Joe and Ryan, and she’s lucky enough to be married to superman’s cousin, Jonas. She loves swimming and in the summer can be found coaching swim club. For the other 8 months of the year, also known as winter in Canada, you’ll find her curled up by a cozy fire with a toque on my head, a cup of hot chocolate in hand, enjoying my favourite activity, scrapbooking, eh! With an adventurous spirit, she loves to travel, and has been known to enjoy daring diversions like sky diving and bungee jumping, although lately her most treacherous activity is teaching her 14 year old son to drive. Join Alice at Scrapbook Wonderland where she shares tips, tricks and techniques to help you share your memories in a creative way. Her quest is to make scrapbooking FUN! Head on over to visit Alice of Scrapbook Wonderland!

As always, thanks for stopping by. If you still haven’t signed up for the Clicky Chick Creates email list, be sure you do so you can receive the “7 Must-Have Kid Birthday Photos” tip list! Have a joyful, creative, blessing filled day!
Live creatively!
xoxo,
/c