Contributor Center Stage | Lilin Fang

This November, we're thrilled to dedicate the Contributor Center Stage to Creative Team Contributor Lilin Fang (lilinfang)! Lilin is an active part of the Studio Calico community, sharing her beautiful layouts and creations. Be sure to check out her projects in the Gallery this month! Take a few minutes to learn a little more about Lilin — her scrapbooking history, organization techniques and more! We're so thankful for our talented team that helps to spread the joy of memory-keeping all over the world.

1. How long have you been scrapbooking?

I started scrapbooking in March 2012 when a friend gave me a scrapbook kit as a gift and I enjoyed documenting a few photos with it. Since then, I started with project life to document Ethan’s first year. I made my first layout when I took Pop of the Page class here and have been addicted to this creative form of memory keeping.

2. What’s your go-to technique?

I love working with white cardstock. The white card stock acts as my canvas and I love adding pops of color to it. I currently love playing with mixed media and water color is by far my favourite media to work with since it’s so easy to use and dries up quickly and beautifully. It is also a great way to add color to a plain background.

3. Would you mind sharing some photos of how one such project came together/some text describing the stages?

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut this fun nordic inspired die cut background and will be used as my stencil. I place the stencil on my white cardstock and applied some gesso with a brush.

After the gesso has dried completely (I left mine overnight), I have this beautiful textured background paper. I went on to cut pieces of papers to back my photos.

To make my photos pop, I love adding vellum. I usually cut the vellum slightly bigger than my photos.

For my title, I am using the gold ‘jolly’ glitter sticker from Heidi Swapp.

Next I decide on the placement of my photos. I plan to place them in the middle of the page. To ensure the page isn’t too plain, I decide to add some journaling at the top of the page. I printed my journaling on a piece of vellum and cut them into strips before adhering them. I used Courier font in size 12 for my journaling.

I then folded a doily into half, added some stamps and adhere it to the bottom of the page. At this point, I felt that the page looked a bit plain so I added some paint splatters. I used Mr Huey’s Seafoam, Mary Mary and Mistletoe.

Once the paint is dried, I adhered my photos and some enamel dots for a finishing touch.

4. How do you stay organized?

I live in a tiny apartment in Singapore so I can’t afford to have my own scrap room. I usually craft on my dining table and I decorate a part of Ethan’s room with layouts, mini albums and supplies that I am currently working on.

I also allocate part of Ethan’s wardrobe to keep my supplies. Ikea is my favourite place to shop for storage solutions. I love this Antonius basket drawers that fits into my cupboard. The transparent boxes are great too as I can easily tell what’s stored in them.

I also love using little baskets to divide the drawers into compartments so I can better organize and categorize my supplies.

This is my favourite drawer where I store all my mixed media supplies and stamp ink pads!

I am currently using the studio calico handbooks to store my stamps. It works well for me as it’s easy to browse and look for a particular stamp.

Last but not the least, I organize my wood veneers, sequins and other goodies in compartment boxes like these. They are handy and are the first thing I reach out for if I want to add a little something to my projects.

5. What is the crafting tool you can’t live without?

That would be my precision scissors. I love to fuss cut and it wouldn’t be possible without my trusty pair of scissors.

6. Where do you go to get ideas?

I usually browse through Instagram, Pinterest and of course Studio Calico’s Member and Creative Team gallery.

7. Anything else we should know about you and/or your style?

I am a hoarder! I sometimes struggle to cut into a new pretty piece of paper or tear open a new box of embellishment. And I always wish I had two of each item – one to use and one to hoard! I am a slow scrapper. I can hardly finish one layout/ project life spread or a card in one sitting. I usually work on a few projects at the same time and complete each one of them after a couple of days. I also make it a point to allocate some creative time daily even if it's as short as 30 minutes!