If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
It is always so inspiring to browse the Cocoa Daisy gallery and I truly enjoyed picking some of my recent favourites for this blog post!
I immediately fell in love with this layout from Ami, using the March kit! I love the layers, the twine and the tilted paper! Check out the rest of Ami’s gallery and her blog.
I also love this layout from Sherry – such a wonderful idea to save some of the petals from the bouquet in the envelope! They look so beautiful and I think I spot some of the sequins too! Check out Sherry’s gallery and her blog.
This design by Asil is soooo wonderful! I also love the soft colours so much. Don’t miss the rest of Asil’s gallery and her blog!
The layout I chose for my lift was made by Amber, using the February kit. It’s such an explosion of colour that really inspired me! Amber’s colourful gallery is found here.
Here is what I came up with, using the April kit.
I hope you enjoyed this fabulous inspiration from the Cocoa Daisy gallery!
It’s time again for one of my favorite blog features: Meet the DT. I love getting to know our designers this way, we have the most amazing team! Today we have our Aussie contingency, Sharmaine Kruijver. She’s such a dear, she came to CHA this last January and it was a treat to actually get to meet her in real life. She is well loved and watched over by her Aussie friends, and they were so impressed at her gumption to travel all the way to California. I am glad she did!
Here’s more about Sharmaine, in her own words:
I was born in Tasmania, Australia and have lived here all my life. I’m married to my one and only, Dave, and we have 4 girls (better known as the 4 Squirts and my dollop of cream!). The girls range in age from 14 down to 8 and boy oh boy is life jam packed busy!! I work as a relief Teacher’s Aide at the Primary School while Dave is an Engineer with our State’s power distribution company (and he is really good at his job!). I’m 42 this year and often wonder what this thing called “Grown Up” is all about and sort of glad I don’t know yet!
I “found” Cocoa Daisy when it was first started, “found” it again in 2009 and then REALLY FOUND it again when I tried out for the Design Team in May of 2011. I’d been searching for a home. Somewhere to be me. Somewhere different. Cocoa Daisy was the place and it’s been my home ever since.
I love playing with paper and embellishments and I love to get my fingers dirty with ink, mist and paint. But the thing I love most about scrapbooking are two things. The first is that I can start with no plan or purpose and without much thought something wonderful is born. It’s a bit like the stories of how our girls came to be, but that’s a WHOLE other story!! The second thing I love most about scrapbooking is that I can tell my stories my way. I recently heard a quote, on Dr Who, that I really think sums up why I scrapbook. He said “a soul in not made up of things it is made up of stories”. Scrapbooking is a way for me to share my soul.
1. What is your most creative time? Anytime I sit with a moment to get lost in the scrappy goodness on my desk. I find that life is so busy that I just need to stop and allow creativeness to unfold. I work well with deadlines too, anything to force me find time to create!
2. What is on your top 5 playlist right now? I recently pressed delete accidently on my favourite playlist. I COULD HAVE CRIED! So I have been reading songs as I find them. Newly added are songs from Jeremy Camp, Little Dragons, Of Monsters and Men, Gabrielle Aplin and Rudimental.
3. What’s next on your scrappy life list? Oh gosh I’m not sure what is next. So far this year I have travelled across the big wide world to CHA in Anahiem. Then last month I caught 3 flights to participate in the most awesome-est scrap retreat and had the opportunity to teach for the very first time. 60 ladies how to get messy just like me, that’s was scary fun!! I don’t know what the rest of the year holds for my scrappy life list but I’m open and R.E.A.D.Y!
4. What is your favorite retreat? My ideal little getaway would involve adventures every day, seeing new things, good coffee and eating delicious food. Where? Not fussed as long as it ticked those boxes and if it included Dave, the girls or a bunch of friends then that’s a bonus!
5. If your life was a movie, what actress would play you? Hmmm tricky one. I don’t like drama in life so it would have to be someone who wasn’t “dramatic” (does that sound funny being that they have to dramatise things?!). Someone who told the story the way it was. Thinking of Aussie Actresses… I love Toni Collette and think Rebel Wilson is funny. Tricky, tricky question. I love Diane Keaton and Meg Ryan so they’d top my non-Aussie list, for no reason other than I love their work.
6. Who are the important people in your life? When it comes to “important people in my life” I am a very passionate person. Dave and our girls top the list, then my sister and her girls. Next are the people who have made a way into my heart. I might not see them often but they are super important to me and I feel blessed to call them friends.
7. What are you known for on your pages? Stories. Followed closely by mess!
8. What’s your favorite inspiration site? Pinterest has oodles of inspiration but without the inspiration that life brings I would have nothing!
9. What food would describe your style? Spag bog. It’s hearty and it’s messy. Each time you make a batch it tastes just a little different.
10. What is “dressed up” for you? I don’t do dressed up (or shopping for dressed up for that matter) with ease. I’m very much a jeans, t-shirt and sneakers type of girl.
We are so lucky to have Sharmaine here at Cocoa Daisy, she has a heart as big as the world, and isn’t afraid to show how much she loves you.
We are so excited to share our exclusive Simple Stories/Cocoa Daisy collaborated papers with you, here’s a few of the ways the Design Team used them, so awesome!
Alissa used them for her Project Life, I love that she took a 4×6 and cut it to fit two 2×3 pockets, so many ways to work these papers:
Anna combined a few of them to make a mat for her photo and journaling:
Denise used one of the journaling cards as just that, a journaling card! I love how she captured a teen’s focus with the pie chart, cool idea.
Emily went rogue and used the lovely teal ledger B side of one of the papers. She only wished she’d had two of that sheet because she could have used some of the Elements side too…
Jaime fussy cut one of the polaroids out and used it as an embellishment in her design:
Jody used one of the 3×2 Elements as a house for her date:
Kim added her’s to a card and then punched out part of it, you don’t have you use them as expected!
Lisa used a 4×6 to house her title and photo as well, but got a completely different look:
Mandie cut out a single HAPPY arrow tab from one of the 4×6 elements to use as a directional embellishment, I love how many different uses this card had!
Mandy Kay used one of the 2×3 Elements as one of her “pictures” on this page. Who says you need to frame only photos?
And there you have it, just a few of the ways our Designers used the fun papers from Simple Stories. So you can go all out with Project Life, or you can easily incorporate the same Elements into you traditional scrapbooking style. I love versatility so much!
Hello Daisies! Emily (on behalf of myself and Sharmaine) on deck today to share with you our version of our new monthly blogging feature, Out of Your Element. Take a look at our galleries, you can see that we have some vast differences in our style (Sharmaine likes to use paint and mist with stencils and masks, I use a lot of black and white photos), but we also have a lot of the same design tendencies (We both lean toward small single photos, layers, playful titles, capturing our kids’ funny conversation, and professing our undying love for our husbands), we just execute them in a unique-to-us manner.
I took a stroll through Sharmaine’s gallery and noticed three things I wanted to try, three things I rarely do, three things that would put me Out of My Element: black paint, a patterned background, and DYMO labels. I also noted that Sharmaine does a lot of great layouts about nature and the simple day to day. I had this gorgeous picture of winter in Colorado I’d been wanting to scrap, so I lifted this layout, and here’s the result:
While working on the design, I realized I didn’t have enough ‘I’s to spell out my title! Sharmaine had done a blog post a few months ago about replacing letters, so I substituted the ’1′s for the ‘I’s, and in the end it had even more significance because this photo was taken on 1/1/13. Don’t you love when things like that happen?
I like to use cardstock backgrounds, I’ve been doing it more often, but it was still hard to go with a patterned paper, I know my choice isn’t super patterned, but it’s a step outside my box, so I’m counting it. I don’t use paint very much, it scares me. To use black paint? That leaves even less room for error, but I like how it turned out, I decorate with black a lot in my house, so it shouldn’t be that hard for me to use… I think it balances nicely with the DYMO label journaling. I didn’t have any DYMO tape, but I did have the Impact Label font, so I computer journaled and cut it out to look like DYMO. I love the playful touch it gives the design!
Here’s what Sharmaine said about the challenge:
Emily is right, our page designs are pretty similar. My pages start out looking a lot like Emily’s but end up so different because of the further processes I play with. So I was challenged to keep my pages clean. I used Emily’s page “On a whim” page as a jumping board. I was inspired to use a fun family photo moment, straight lines, papers and few embellishments. I kept the photo pretty central to the page, used pattern paper background and Journaling, all the things I think make up an “Emily” page.
We found this feature a good way to stretch ourselves; push ourselves out of our comfort zones a bit. Scraplifting others has a way of doing that, looking even deeper at another designer’s style adds a whole other exciting level. You should try it.
Hi, Daisies! Mandie here to give you a little tour of my scrap room. (the “IE” Mandie – just to be clear. I know there are 3 of us! ha!) Well. It’s my current scrap room, anyway. I haven’t talked about this too much outside of Facebook and Instagram, but about a month ago we found out that we will be moving to Germany this summer (and we are SO SO SO excited! Living in Germany is a life long dream for me!) As a result, I’ve started to really pare down the amount of stuff I have. I just don’t know how much space I will have over there – we won’t be living in base housing. It seems silly to store it for several years here in the States. But also, silly to take it all not knowing if I will have room. If you want to see pre-purging you can go here on my blog. Many things are very much the same. There is just a lot less stuff! Okay…. so here we go! It’s photo heavy. Bear with me!
here you have a full look into my room. It’s right off of this odd front room when you come into the front door of my house. So… unfortunately, you can always see it. It is actually the formal dining room. We lack formal furniture; so scrap room for me! lol! (please know that I lay ZERO claim to that ugly chandelier. We are renting.) See that giant pile in the corner by the window? That is stuff for the consignment sale at the local crop here next month! Yikes!
(hey…. there is a sneak of things to come in these photos too…. but my lips are sealed. hee hee.)This is kind of another view of what you have seen already. On the left, the white shelf is now empty. The top drawer has mini alphabets and label stickers. The bottom drawer houses a ridiculous number of thickers. ( We don’t need to get into that….) The small Expedit next to it has random things. A mostly empty spinning organizer, a box full of handmade cards, notebooks with sketches, a box with extra adhesive refills, typewriter ribbons, etc and a photo with 2 of the ladies that I consider to be some of the most wonderful people on earth (my friends Taryn & Angela). The large Expedit houses all of our albums. The top just has some knick knacks and prints. The little Expedit on the other side is filled with random items.
Coming around the room…. Ahhhh…. the lovely pile. Please ignore. It’s ugly. LOL! This Expedit has some punches on display, magazines I have things published in, a basket with Pebbles buttons, rub ons and stamps. The big pink boxes contain photos, cross stitch stuff and miscellaneous scrap tools – such as my embossing gun… That kind of thing. On top is another spinning organizer that is pretty empty now (aside from washi tapes & zing ), my very much used typewriter and a 3 Tier basket that has wooden stamps and lots of twine.Coming around the corner, I have these shelves that I painted grey. They are falling apart & won’t be making the move with us. Right now, it has my pattern paper, cardstock, Pebbles design team products, my page protectors, more boxes with photos, a shelf with my scoring board, smaller trimmer, etc. On top of the shelf, I have my photo printer, Silhouette and an iPod dock. I also have a stack of layouts I need to put away. No one else has one of those, right?
In the corner, I have an Alex cart from Ikea. In this cart, I keep my kits.Here is the drawer with last month’s kit in it. (You didn’t think I’d show you this month’s, did you? hee hee) I have all of my pattern paper and bigger items like Thickers on the left. On the right, I have an organizer from the closet section at Target with all of my smaller items in them.
And then… to my Raskog carts. My favorite things! I recently rearranged them during the big purge to be more functional.
