Guest Designer | Mel Blackburn

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

Hello everyone! I’m so happy to be a guest designer this month! I’ve tremendously enjoyed designing with the "Northern Lights" main Scrapbook and Documenter Kits, and I’m delighted to be sharing my projects with you this month. Thanks, Studio Calico, for having me!

A little about me, I’ve been in the scrapbook industry for over 10 years. My love of paper started at a very young age when I started hoarding a collection of notepads and fruit scented pens. My love of scrapbooking and memory keeping evolved when I became a mother. Over the course of my creative career, I’ve had the pleasure of working for various manufacturers; I’m currently designing for Ali Edwards and Feed Your Craft. My design style is eclectic, from complex multilayers and mixed media projects to simple TN spreads—I love and want to do it all! About three years ago, I shifted my creative focus to documenting my family’s daily activities with pocket pages. I’ve also created 6" x 8" Story albums with Ali’s amazing Story kits. These albums feature stories that might not be normally documented; I truly love this project. My memory keeping plan for 2018 is to continue my 6" x 8" Story albums inspired by Ali’s kits and also create 6" x 12" weekly pocket pages spreads.

2018 TN Cover – The January stamp set was definitely my source of inspiration for creating the cover page of my 2018 TN. I wanted to keep a minimalistic design, therefore, I opted for a black and white color palette to compliment the TN and a bit of red to add a splash of color to the page. I paired the stamps with various elements from the kits to create this fun and simple intro page for my new TN.

Joy – I loved the hand-drawn font and design of the word “joy.” As you'll see, I’ve used this print on multiple projects. I used the 4" x 6" journaling card from the Documenter Kit with various elements from the Scrapbook Kit to create a layered page on this TN spread. The journaling was typed with my vintage typewriter on a trimmed 3" x 4" journaling card. Simple layers paired with embellishments are a sure way to create a fun spread.

Happy Joy Spread – I’m so glad I was behind on my 2016 album because it meant I could use the amazing "Northern Lights" Documenter Kit to get caught up and create this spread. The carbs card was perfect for the pictures of the holiday treats—it was meant to be! LOL! For me, the key to staying on top of my documenter spread is to keep a simple design focused on storytelling. I try to include as much journaling as possible. This spread is rather light on journaling and that’s simply because there were too many good cards I had to use.

Joy – The Cozy stamp set is amazing! Loved using it on this project! I wanted to make the word “joy” my focal point on this page. To do so, I paired with journaling and various accents to bring focus to the center of the page. The cluster of embellishments was inspired by the red wood stars paired with a transparency tag that I layered with white cardstock—this really makes the tag pop off the page!

Cozy – This layout was the first project I created with the December Kits. I was so inspired by the black stars transparency and the kraft stickers that I had to make them the focal point of my layout. Red accent throughout the layout helped create a balanced and cohesive design. I could use those red letters on every single project I create. I think that Studio Calico needs to create these alphas in more colors—perhaps the whole color theory spectrum! I definitely need more of these in my life! In order to keep the kraft labels from sticking to the transparency and to add dimension to my layout, I adhered them to white cardstock and cut off the excess cardstock. I adhered the kraft labels to my page using foam dots. Love the dimension this brings to my layout.

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