Saturday, August 8, 2015

Welcome Guest Designer, Heather Robertson!

Please welcome Heather as our guest designer for August, September and October!  I have been enjoying her creativity already and look forward to her creations for the next couple months.  Let's learn a little bit more about her.


How long have you been scrapping and how did you get started?
I have been scrapping for about 10 years .  My friend was a Creative Memories consultant and invited me to a party.  I had 3 photos and nothing else.  Everyone else had bags full of “stuff” (now I understand why !!)  I enjoyed the idea but immediately knew that I had to break a few of the traditional scrapbooking rules and do my own thing. I searched online and discovered a wonderful digital site which totally inspired me.  From there I branched out into paper scrapping.  Ever since I’ve been trying to find more rules to break !!

Describe your scrapbooking style
I would say my primary style is graphic but messy - I love to make bold, eye catching pages, usually with some sort of quirkiness - either in  journaling, for the title or with the photos. Lately, I seem to be adding lots of little embellishments and stitching or misting.  I love adding unexpected shapes or design features - something that makes you look twice at the page and think “that’s an interesting idea” . Although I really think that you can’t go wrong with anything in scrapbooking I personally CANNOT have papers and embellies that don’t “match” my photos.  If a sticker saying doesn’t make sense to my page I won’t use it.  I get inspiration from ads on TV or in magazines or things around me.

Describe your scrapbooking process
Quite often my pages look very straightforward but most have taken me many days to complete and usually have lots of little details. I love challenges so usually I start with a challenge.  Then overnight I let the ideas percolate. My most creative time is just before I fall asleep.  I can’t start a page until I have the photos I want to use.  Then I spend a day thinking about what I want my page to say.  Then I pull out ALL of my papers until I find ones that suit.  The same with all my embellies.  Then I play around with placement and leave it again, returning to tweak the pieces as necessary.  Finally I stick it all down.  Sometimes I journal and if so it’s usually an addition. If I’m creating my own design I often will plan it out in Adobe PSE so I can play around with placement and sizes.

Favorite manufacturers and why
One of my favorite things to do is mix manufacturers on a page - a typical page will have 10-25 different manufacturers on it. I don’t really have a favorite manufacturer - if a design or color appeals to me I will buy it.  I may like only a few pages in a collection and NEVER buy a whole collection. My recent pages have embellishments from Heidi Swapp, Simple Stories, Fancy Pants, Doodlebug, Bella Blvd, Webster’s Pages, Jillibean Soup.  I also love, love, LOVE woodgrain paper so I have quite a mixture of manufacturers.

Scrapbook page designers that you admire or who influenced your style and how
I really love browsing the galleries and picking up techniques or features from everyone’s pages.  I don’t really follow the “big” designers.  In particular , I love to check out digital pages which have some very cool design features.  One paper designer that springs to mind is Melissa Spinks.  She really has a unique style, her pages always have a ‘WOW” factor, they’re just different to the norm, which is what I’m trying to achieve.

Other than scrapbooking, what other things do you enjoy doing?
I love working with my hands.  My husband and I are renovating his mom’s house, adding new flooring, painting etc.  Next job will be refinishing our wood floor. I love to play racquetball, bike and hike.  While waiting to pick up my daughter I enjoy reading mysteries or thrillers.


Will you, please, show us three of your favorite pages?
My favorite pages tend to change over time but here are three more recent ones that I love.  As you can see they’re all very different.

This page brings back great memories.  What I love about it are the bright pops of color against the white, the playfulness and lots of fun touches like the vellum sun, the multicolored title, misting, little fish

I really love the simplicity and graphic feel to this page and that Lauren’s cat ear is sticking out from the circular photo. I love the change in color to the title letters to match the color of cardstock and I love that it’s offset, yet balanced.


I love to cut photos in unique shapes.  For this page I felt the chevrons added to a sense of movement as Kona races across the sand. It also brings back wonderful memories of Kona enjoyment of the beach in Homer.

You can see more of Heather's work on her blog, Unleashed.

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