Guest Scrapper 004: Sandra Gonzalez

Hello everyone! I'm so glad to be back into my regular posting schedule again! Baby Eleanor is doing great and so is Adeline. We are getting into the swing of things just fine! 

This week's guest scrapper is Sandra Gonzalez or ohsnapgonzo on YouTube. I have been watching her videos for some time now and her style of scrapbooking really inspires me. I don't know how many of her layouts I have lifted some part of! I was thrilled when she agreed to guest post here on my little blog. So, I won't keep you waiting any longer!

Hello crafters. I am so excited to be part of Amanda's blog and would like to thank her for this opportunity.  My name is Sandra Gonzalez and on YouTube I go by Ohsnapgonzo.  I am 36 years old and live in Chattanooga, TN.  I have been married to a really great husband and dad for 9 years and we have two girls.  If you have seen any of my YouTube videos you have probably seen a little hand wave across or even heard their commentary on my page or products I am showing...let's just say they're my little helpers...lol.  Isabelle is 6 years old and Gabby is 3 years old and I love to hear them talk about washi tape and making layouts or a Gabby says "mom are you booking (scrapbooking)?  My husband is very supportive and even enables me by stopping at Archivers if he is working in Atlanta and Skyping with me so I can shop.  The lady recognizes him at the store and always helps him out.  See I told you he was a really great husband. :)

Tell us a little bit behind your scrappy process and what inspires you. 

‪I find that most anything can inspire me to create a layout. Sometimes it's the moment or mood that is captured in a photograph. I can look at a collection of papers or embellishments and it will spark an interest in creating a specific layout for a specific picture I have. Lately I have noticed that I have been creating layouts on white or kraft paper and then adding pattern paper for layers or a pop of color. I love to use Thickers for titles and will use anything like brown bags from kits that I receive, packaging from a stamp or sticker and even the girls art work as embellishment on a layout. I love for my layout to have layers and a "puffyness" to them for lack of a better word. 

 When do you scrap?

 I tend to do most of my crafting towards the end of the day after dinner and when the kids have gone to bed. I just find that I get more done and have less interruptions. I have also been Skype scrapping during the night and that really has motivated me to scrap. You might be saying...what is she talking about skype scrapping? Well I have made many great friends in the YouTube community and one of them is Lisa, who is Maggiemylow on You Tube and even though she lives in Canada and I live in Tennessee we have been scrapbooking together over Skype. Gotta love technology...right? It is so much fun. We talk as we are creating layouts or working on project life and it is nice having the company of another crafter who loves it as much as you do. I would encourage anyone to get on skype and craft together, it really is so much fun. So yes I am a night owl and will stay up until midnight or 2 am if I really want to complete layouts. 

‪ What inspired you to begin scrapbooking? 

I first started scrapbooking about 11 years ago. I have always loved to take pictures...I can remember my first polaroid camera my brother gave me. It was pink and grey or even the 110 film cameras and disk cameras. I have always loved to take pictures. So one day I was shopping and I came across a crafting isle and started looking around I saw some Christmas stickers and a spiral album and thought it would be fun to put pictures in there instead of a regular album. You want to know something it was way more fun!!! I was hooked and from there I went to buying crafting magazines and finding Hobby Lobby and really going crazy for stickers, paper and paper trimmers....there was no stopping me now.

What are your favorite techniques. 

‪When I start a layout I generally have one or two pictures I want to use. I will put them down on my 12x12 white paper and start to pull pattern paper from a collection that I want to use. Sometimes I rip the paper the size I want to use or cut it with the paper trimmer. I find that I like my layers to be uneven and I will usually put distress ink around the layers to help them pop out a little...black sout and vintage brown are my favorite. I normally don't spend to much time on one layout it can take me from 20 or 30 minutes to complete a layout. I don't get to worried about the perfect placement of a sticker or any type of embellishment. I don't know many of the design rules so if I like where it is at I glue it down and move one and most of the time in the end I am very happy with my layout.

What is your goal as a scrapbooker?

‪My ultimate goal would be to have every picture on a layout, in my project life album or in a regular album all nice and neat and organized. Yeah right? Wouldn't we all love that but I know that will never happen so I will be happy with just creating as much as I can. I want my kids and even grandkids one day to be able to open up a album and feel like I am sitting right beside them telling them the story behind the picture.

‪You can find me on You Tube as Ohsnapgonzo or friend me on Facebook Oh Snap Gonzo. Thanks again Amanda for letting me share a little about myself and I hope everyone is finding a some time to craft. Have a great day:)

Sandra, thank you so much! I got a little teary eyed when I read about our kids and grandkids feeling like we are sitting right next to them as they look at our scrapbooks. Isn't that really what it's all about? Leaving behind memories for our loved ones. It's just an added bonus that we get to make things pretty at the same time! 

I hope you've enjoyed this weeks guest scrapper as much as I have! Go check Sandra out and leave her some love on her channel and Facebook page! I know she would appreciate it!

Guest Scrapper 003: Lina Maria Ullerup Witzner

Hello everyone and welcome back for week 3 of my Guest Scrapper series, a series where I feature an amazing scrapper on my blog each Thursday.

When I first began watching process videos online, I was immediately drawn to Lina, or Aurora Inbag as she is known on YouTube.  Her style really inspires me to go beyond my comfortable zone in my scrapbooking and stretch my creativity in ways I never would have thought of before. You can image how thrilled I was when she agreed to be a guest poster on my blog! So here she is...

Hello. My name is Lina, and I live in Denmark. A tiny country in Scandinavia, Europe. I’ve been married to my husband since 2001, but known him since 1992. I guess you could call us high school/college sweethearts. And then there’s my daughter, born in 2007, whose everyday life is often portrayed on my scrapbook layouts. I love animals, and have a history of breeding Somali cats and Chocolate Fox guinea pigs, and I used to have horses as well. Today we live with an Abyssinian cat, the true queen of the house, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel dog and three guinea pigs.

What inspires you to scrapbook?

It’s the story that inspires me to scrapbook . But that kind of starts at the time I’m deciding which pictures to get developed. I guess you could say my albums are divided into different stories. I have albums about our everyday family life, about the dog, about my childhood etc. And I go through these albums, looking for stories I have yet to tell, and decide on which pictures to develop to compliment those stories. Then when I sit down to scrapbook, I go through the pictures, and know exactly what story I want to tell with that picture. From there I gather the papers, embellishments, stamps and everything else I think I’d like to use. Once I begin the scrapbook process in earnest, it usually takes me an hour to an hour and a half to complete a page.

I’ve been taking quite a few design principle classes since I started scrapbooking back in 2007, so even though I don’t often think about them consciously, you’ll often find visually triangles and complimentary colors etc. on my pages. I’ve also come to love somewhat flat embellishments. I typically scrap 6-8 layouts a week, so the amount of space the layouts claim in my albums is something I think about. But if I think the theme of the page would go well with a huge, bulky flower, then I’ll add it.

When do you scrapbook?

I’m a stay at home mom. So I usually scrap while my daughter is at school and husband at work. I try to be active every morning, so 3 times a week I go to the gym, and two times I go for a run. But once I’m home, showered, and cleaned the house a bit, you’ll most likely find me immersed in some creative endeavor until it’s time to take the dog for his second walk of the day and pick up my daughter.

I actually held off beginning to scrapbook for a few years. I used to work with 3D modeling and texturing, and from there learned a little about digital scrapbooking. I loved the pretty papers and beautiful embellishments, but knew that if I started down the scrapbooking road it would be an expensive and time consuming hobby. And I wasn’t ready to devote that kind of time. But then my daughter started daycare, and I had to pass a local scrapbook store twice a day…every weekday! Needless to say, passing all those so cute mini albums and gorgeous papers in the shop window proved to be too big a temptation, and one day saw me entering the store. I guess the rest is history, as they say *wink*.

What do you love most about scrapbooking? What tips and techniques do you use?

I love color. In fact I’m a little bit obsessed about color. You wouldn’t know, looking into my closet, since most of my clothing is black or neutral. But paint, paper, washi tape even nail polish. If it comes in a range of color, I have to have it. And when I gather papers and embellishment for my layouts, I’m often taking my cue from colors of the photo, or maybe I think the mood of the layout could be set nicely with a certain color. I very rarely use a sketch of plan my layouts. One I have the ‘kit’ assembled; I just go with the flow. But I think that comes from knowing my own style and really knowing what I like and don’t like. I guess in some ways I am using some kind of plan, since I often use the same ‘setup’ of papers or the same places for my embellishment clusters. But I also like to shake things up every now and again, and if I see a layout or a technique I really like in a gallery somewhere, I’m never afraid to try it out, even if it is far from my usually style. I truly believe that, for me, creativity comes from experimentation, practice and knowledge. Knowing design principles means I don’t have to think hard about them, and can knowingly break them if I want to/need to. Years of scrapbook practice makes me confident in my own style, likes and dislikes. And experimentation is what makes it all fun and new again. And every once in a while it results in a style change for me.

What is your goal as a scrapbooker?

 I guess you could call this my goal as a scrapbooker, is to have fun, enjoy the process and create something my husband and daughter enjoys reading/looking through. After all, it is ‘only’ a hobby, and if I don’t enjoy it, I should be doing something else. That said, being able to share what I do through my YouTube channel and blog has really made everything even more fun. People are so nice to comment. And I am so happy when I learn I have inspired others to be creative and have fun, to tell their stories and get them down on paper one way or another. That’s definitely one of the best parts of sharing my works with others.

Isn't her work amazing! And 6-8 layouts a week! Holy smokes! I wish!

Inspiration truly pours out of everything Lina does! Make sure to check out her YouTube channel as well as her blog and show her some love! I hope you are all finding time to be creative in some way this week. Next week my blog will resume it's normal posting schedule as hopefully I have found some kind of a routine with our new baby girl! Be looking for a post all about Miss Eleanor on Monday!