I am beyond ecstatic about this week's guest designer, Liz Tamanaha! Liz is a digital designer, scrapbooker, and owner of Paislee Press. Liz also designs for Purple Onion Designs and Lily Bee. She claims herself to be a "minimalist." Her work is clean, modern, beautiful, and pure... genius.
How would you describe your scrapbooking style?
Definitely minimalist. And photo-centric. I'm drawn to neutrals and serene color combinations and I also like mixing modern + vintage elements. Throw all of that together and I end up with projects like these:
What inspires you to be creative?
my daughters, the unexpected, the everyday, love, pretty color combinations, photos, memories, emotions
Who are your favorite scrapbook designers and why?
Oh boy, there are so many that I LOVE, I can't possibly list them all!
Moon Ko - for her photography, her clean style, her writing voice, her sense of humor.
Leora Sanford - her use of color, her use of white space, her use of embellishments, her whimsical + sophisticated flair (how she manages to combine the two is awe-inspiring!)
Amanda Taylor - the way she uses her photos + her voice to tell a story and capture the meaningfulness in everyday ordinary moments.
Shaui Lee - her artsy + eclectic flair. you can always find something unexpected and brilliant on her pages.
Kelly Purkey - her use of color, typography and her happy + vibrant pages
Cindee Bae - her photography, the way she works both paper and digital layouts, the way she mixes vintage + modern
Desiree McClellan - for her way with words + white space
What are your favorite color combinations to design with right now?
grey + chartreuse.
What is your creative process?
All of my pages start with a white background + a photo and I build from there. What happens next depends on what I'm in the mood to use or what concept/technique I want to experiment with.
What is your story that you are trying to tell?
Does finding my voice count as a story? When I first started scrapbooking, the story was about me. Documenting my experiences, things that I loved, moments that I wanted to remember. I had fun making layouts but I always dreaded writing. My journal entries read like dry research papers (yawn) or worse, like diary entries (the ones that make you cringe when you re-read them). I struggled with writing so much that I eventually just left them out of my pages. A dear friend told me not to worry, that one day, I would find my writing voice. I doubted her. After all, I'd been actively searching for my writing voice for so many years now with no success. I didn't think that one day would ever arrive. Then I gave birth to my daughter Audrey, became a mother, and found myself wanting to write + document. This certainly wasn't something that happened instantaneously. In fact, I'm still in the formation stage of finding my voice. I still struggle with writing, I still dread it at times but I am writing with more confidence now because I know who my audience is and I have a purpose. I'm writing for my daughters and that's my story.
Liz currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband Eric and daughters, Audrey and Madeline. When she's not designing, she usually keeps busy by daydreaming about her next vacation to hawaii, listening to jack johnson songs, drinking coffee and browsing Anthropologie catalogs. You can follow Liz on her blog, Paislee Press, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.
Create Well: Find your audience and then you can write with confidence.
