Member Spotlight | Carson Riutta

This June, get to know Carson Riutta (Carson). Carson's love of creating began with cardmaking, but has since stretched to include Project Life and Scrapbooking, and her lovely full-color projects are almost immediately attributable to her when they pop up in the Gallery. We hope you enjoy getting to know Carson a little better as much as we do!

Hello Friends! I'm so excited to be here today and to introduce myself. I've been playing with paper since 2008 when my dear sister-in-law came into my life and it's turned into a full blown obsession. For years I learned the ropes through card making. Once I had the kiddos, I started to dabble in Project Life. From there I wanted to be a bit more artistic so I picked up art journaling. Now I've finally taken the leap into scrapbooking and I feel like it's the perfect culmination of everything that came before. I'm a woman possessed! My husband doesn't see me much anymore once the kids are in bed.

During the days (when I can't play with my paper), I'm chasing my two boys around our little town of Apex in our new home state of North Carolina. I love my coffee (cream, no sugar), my husband (all sugar) and most everything about being a mama to two beautiful boys (the cream on top of this wonderful life). If I wasn't in my child rearing phase, I like to think I'd be traveling the world, working in a creative field and soaking up inspiration wherever possible. One thing I wouldn't be doing is making dinner every night.

all time favorite past kit or collection : All the Cirque Kits and the Printshop Collection

what do you do when your kit comes? While I'm still pumped from Presale and spending a lot of time in front of the computer debating whether I should save money or spend more for free shipping I'll usually print and cut the digital journaling labels and tags. I'll clear out my current kit tray and organize the remaining bits and pieces into my stash. When the kit actually comes, I've been known to declare quiet time hours earlier than normal or suddenly plop the boys down in front of their favorite show. Then I'll sit at my desk with my kit contents and swoon and organize as long as possible until duty calls again. I always transfer my kits right away to their tray and I recycle my kit boxes. Can I just say how excited I am for the new packaging.

what's your go-to technique? I'm a PL subscriber and I've been doing a lot of scrapbooking lately, so my go-to at the moment is to use PL cards on my layouts. They're so cute and such a good way to add pertinent text to a layout. I'm also quite addicted to machine stitching my layouts. It's a rare layout of mine that has no stitching, and sometimes it makes me very uneasy when they don't.

share your top 5 products :

1. Gold and Black Color Shine Sprays by Heidi Swapp. When I splatter, which I do quite often, these are the first inks I reach for.
2. Distress Stains by Tim Holtz, the bright colors. When I want to do a little watercoloring on a project I grab these guys first. They're easy, vibrant and a little goes a very long way.
3. Hearts, hearts, hearts! I love them in any form and use them with abandon. My favorite hearts lately have both been from the Cirque Card Kit. The black matte hearts and the outline wood veneer hearts. Can we please get those both in the shop SC?
4. SC printable labels. These are so handy for my style of journaling, short and sweet. They match the kits and with a little help from my Silhouette they are super easy to cut out.
5. Stamps. I love how versatile stamps are! They can be the focus of a project or just add a small detail here and there, but they always add so much dimension. I also love that I can store hundreds of them in a PL album, not that I have hundreds...yet.

where do you go when your mojo is low? First the pantry, then the couch :) But when I need to get that mojo back, my first stop is always the SC member gallery. Most, if not all of my favorite papercrafters post here and its' such an easy one stop shop for all kinds of ideas. If I'm looking for a specific technique, then I'll go to Pinterest. But in all honesty, my mojo is never gone for long, I'm an IG addict these days so I'm constantly seeing amazing work throughout the day. When its time to sit down in the evening to create, there is always something that has stuck with me and is itching to get out and become realized.

Thank you for letting us spotlight you, Carson! We loved getting to know more about you! If you'd like to see more of Carson's work, be sure to follow her here at SC and on her Instagram!