Welcome Michelle Filo as our week's featured designer! Michelle's designs will inspire any traditional scrapbook artist to dip their feet into digital! Not only does Michelle have her own line through Little Dreamer Designs, but she also designs for Fancy Pants Designs, Designs by Lili, and Pencil Lines. This is what she had to say...
I was born in Brazil but in 2000 me and my husband Alex decided to try life in Australia, it was the start of a great adventure into growing up away from the family and becoming a family ourselves. I finished university and had my two boys, Mateus, who is five years old, and Lucas, who is two years old. It has been a struggle balancing work, family, and everything in between, but we do it anyway :)I stumbled across scrapbooking in 2005. Entered a scrapbooking store and was in awe of all the goodies available, I bought a couple of things and proceeded into making a little keepsake of my first 10 years, not really knowing what scrapbook was, I think my little keepsake turned out pretty much like scrapbooking, I think it was instinct hehe. After creating a lot of little things to give to family and friends that year, life got way too busy and I took a break from the craft. Well, actually, I spent a lot of nights playing World of Warcraft instead of crafting, hehe, but it was for lack of physical space to craft and to avoid having to clean up, etc.
In 2007, right after Lucas was born, I felt again the need to create little keepsakes for the family. A nice way to share photos and stories of my new bundle of joy. In my quest to avoid digging into supplies and making a big mess I found digital scrapbooking. From then on the world was my oyster and I have never stopped. Got myself published and started to get more and more into scrapbooking as a whole. With time, I longed for some crafting, there was a need to get messy and handle scissors :) and I started dabbling into hybrid scrapbooking. For those who don't know what is hybrid scrapbooking, it is simply what we like to call scrapbooking when we mix digital designs with paper crafting. If you get part of your project done digitally, print it, and use it to finish of a real physical project, you are using hybrid scrapbooking. A lot of people like to create hybrid pages, it is so easy to get a nice collage of photos aligned and resized in your computer than to try to cut it up by hand. But I am a little more into the mini albums, so much so that I started offering templates for it and became a designer with the Little Dreamer Designs website. I am all about sharing what you know with others. When I post a page on my blog where I think I did something different I always try to explain what I did, paper or digi. I also found a good excuse to spend hours creating templates, turned it into a business :) But I tried to keep it affordable and I still love to offer a freebie from time to time, and I also design templates for the Pencil Lines blog which we offer for free every week.
Nowadays, that I have my very own scrapping space, there is nothing I won't try in scrapbooking. I use all kinds of mediums and techniques, from stamping to stitching, wherever my inspiration takes me. I can't see a specific style on what I do, I like to think I am a good example of a eclectic style. I do know, however, that I can't be minimalistic and I have trouble doing the fantasy style, even though I love both styles, I know it just doesn't suit me and my photos. Talking about photos, oh, what scrapbooker doesn't start looking closely into her own photos? And I did that so much I started to fall in love with photography :) I have been dishing out a lot of money with my new found passion but I can tell you know that you don't need a good camera to have great photos to scrap. Just need to be creative and learn how to really "capture the moment". Lately I am in love with editing photos and making them look a little vintage, it completely changes the feel of a photograph and evokes a different emotion. Usually, just adding a little rose tint does the trick. (Example below)
before
after
Lastly, I would take this amazing opportunity to urge digi scrappers to try a little hybrid or paper scrapping; and likewise, I would love to see paper scrappers having a go at the amazing world of digital. There is so much opportunity to create, I hate to keep these little trade secrets all to myself :)
You can find more of Michelle's amazing work at her blog, With Love by Mushy.
Create Well: There is so much opportunity to create! Digi scrappers to try a little hybrid or paper scrapping; and likewise, paper scrappers have a go at the amazing world of digital!
