Guest Designer | Ashley Horton

We're thrilled to have the lovely and talented, Ashley Horton, as one of our guest designers this month, and excited to get to know her better today! Be sure to follow Ashley here at Studio Calico to keep up with her and see more of her beautiful work.

Hi there!  My name is Ashley Horton, and I live in the Southern US along the Gulf Coast, with my husband Tyler and our three children, Madison, Emma and Reese.  I am a "work" at home mom, and we are also a home school family, since 2011.  This year, we have a 5th Grader, 3rd Grader and 2nd Grader!  So, there's never a dull moment at our house.  I love that I am able to be at home with my family, and this also gives me a great opportunity to create.  I started scrapbooking in 2006, when our oldest daughter was born, and I haven't stopped since then.  I fell in love with all of the pretty papers and embellishments, and scrapbooking quickly became more than just a hobby for me.  I loved the aspect of memory keeping in scrapbooking, but the creative outlet was a huge draw for me.  It just seemed to click and I knew that I wanted to continue to improve my layout designs and be inspired by others, so I could in turn inspire others with what I was doing.  I set goals for myself, as I felt like my designs improved.  The first goal, was to join a Scrapbook challenge blog, and when I achieved that goal, I continued on to meet the next one on my list.  I have been fortunate enough to be published in print and online magazines, to design for amazing teams like American Crafts, Pink Paislee, and Crate Paper, as well as being a teacher with Big Picture Classes.  These opportunities have led to many friendships with other online crafters, who have the same passion that I have.  It has also allowed me to open my own Etsy Shop and coordinate my own team of talented designers.  And I have recently been designing scrapbook collections with Pretty Little Studio.

Since I began scrapbooking, I have always been drawn to 12x12 layouts.  If you're browsing through one of my galleries, it will be filled with 12x12 pages.  Occasionally, I also create cards and home decor projects for some of my team assignments.  I've also dabbled in 8.5x11 layout formats, but I just love the space that you get when you're using a 12x12 paper.  Most of my layouts, focus on one photo, and I love to create interesting backgrounds or use die cuts to create unique looks on my layouts.  Some of my favorite products are my Silhouette Cameo, wood veneers, spray mist, embroidery floss and die cuts.  I like to find inspiration for my layouts, from things that are not necessarily scrapbook related.  For example, I like to browse Pinterest for images of quilts, background designs or geometric shapes.  I love the challenge of interpreting these types of images onto my layouts through paper and embellishments.

Scrapbooking for me is an everyday part of life.  I'm either working on a project, designing something, blogging, photographing or thinking of ideas for my next layout or cut file designs.  I consider scrapbooking as my main hobby, but also as my job (aside from stay at home mom) so I put as much effort into it throughout the day, as I can.  I do also love to read and cook.  And I'm even able to incorporate cooking into my scrapbooking, because of course, I have to snap a photo of something new and yummy that I cook for the first time!

I loved working with the February Studio Calico kits—here's a look at my projects! 

This Girl:  I don't consider myself a big stamper, but I just had to use the Sydney Alpha stamp set.  There are so many possibilities!  I used it to add some phrases to my layout, that went along with my photo.

Dream On:  There are some gorgeous patterned papers in the Confidant Scrapbook Main Kit, and I used three of my favorites for this layout.  I combined two of the patterns for my background, and then placed my photo and embellishments along the "seam" of the two papers, to create a continuous look.

French Macarons:  I like to look for different ways to use the products in my SC Kits.  I took two items from the Confidant Scrapbook Main Kit and altered them a bit for this layout.  I cut the Love tag between the letters to extend it behind my photo and I also trimmed the word "hello" from the Hello Gorgeous acetate piece, and placed it above my photo on the layout.

See more from Ashley:

Ashley Horton Designs

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