Meet the Designer chat at STO!

Want to chat with Meagan?  Want to get to know her?  Come by the chat room at Scrap Takeout on Monday, January 7th at 9pm CST!

Check out Meagan's store over there here.

Meet the Team: Kandi ~ Kandiced

Hi everyone! I love to be called Kandi or Kandice but you might have seen me around the scrapbook digi world as Kandiced. I love to hang out there. I do all types of challenges and speed scraps. ;P

I have very few hobbies other than scrapbooking. My kids are still small and take up a lot of my free time. Which is my favorite part of my day, hanging out with my kids. I'm always laughing so hard at them...with them. They say the darnedest things, for example I took my son to the dentist recently. The dentist asked how he was doing and how's his teeth. He replies I have a pain. Dentist says, Where's the pain? My son replies, In my butt!! I start to giggle because I have no idea where this going to take us. He just turned 4, so then he says I'm a pain in the butt! OK the dentist is laughing at him and he says next that if he's is a pain in the butt would it hurt when he poops...they conversation severally steered way from his teeth. LOL The dentist wanted to keep him for the rest of the afternoon. Love my kids...:) Next year both kids will be in school so I'm hoping to go back to school myself. Still not to sure what I want to study yet! 

I have been on Meagan's Creative Team for a very long time, since May 2011...Wow, how time flies! Here's one of the first layouts I did with As Wonderful As She (it's retired now).

 But I believe this is the kit that attracted me to Meagan's store and was so happy to find out she was having a CT call. Ever since I loved everything Meagan has created. Meagan's kits are so gorgeous, her word art is amazing and her templates are so easy to use, especially if you have troubles clustering. It is extremely easy to create any kind of layout using any one of Meagan's products! I had a hard time picking just a few layouts to show you but all these kits you can find at her ScrapMatters store.

Spirit Of Giving

The Christmas To Remember : The Collection Bundle

plus this template now retired is also by Meagan's Creations

Baked With Love

Baker's Delight The Collection & Hit Repeat Templates by Meagan's Creations

I used not 1 but 2 of Meagan's Word arts.

Day Dreamer

Wishes & Wings The Bundle Collection by Meagan's Creations

Temptations Vol 7 By Wendy Tunison Designs

Life Is Wonderful

The Simple Life Bundle Collection  &

Hit Repeat Volume 1 by Meagan's Creations

Just out of high school coming from a small Canadian prairie town of less than 100 I have done a lot of travelling! I was blessed with living over in Lahr, Germany for several years. I was able to travel to so many surrounding countries it would be hard to say which one was more interesting. I did do a few things I can't do again. I went to Berlin for the 1st year anniversary party after the wall came down. I went to the Olympics in Barcelona. On Christmas morning I was blessed with thousands by the Pope at the Vatican City. I was there when Euro Disney opened. I've been on the Love Boat for a  Caribbean Cruise. I walked the Las Vegas strip when it closed down for New Years eve. Plus 8 years ago I became a long haul team truck driver and went all over Canada and the USA. A very short lived job, only 2 years, but I was 6 months pregnant and decide I couldn't handle the car sickness anyone. 

I know I was supposed to show a picture or two but most of them are from over 20 years ago. Here's a couple I found on my hard drive of my Paris France trip.

Eiffel Tower

Paris France

I have so many things I can not live without. Here's a few:  my laptop, dishwasher, washing machine & dryer, air conditioning (even though it winter here for 6 months!), my van, my music, and oh I can't not forget my camera. How else do I takes picture for my favorite hobby ;P

I think one dream is for my family to go to Disneyland or Disney World. We haven't had a big vacation as a family yet and that would be so much fun! 

One of my favorite technique is blending papers into each other using different types of brushes and the eraser. In my Train Engineer layout I even created my own mask. I love the grunge look and  Meagan's papers in Steampunk were beautifully done I really love the look of how the 5 papers were blended here. 

Steampunk Bundle Collection by Meagan's Creations

I hope to see you around and thanks for hanging out with me today!

Meet the team: Dana ~ scrappingirl

Hello Everyone!!!  My name is Dana, but I am "scrappingirl" around most of digiland!!

I am from Idaho...one of the suburbs of Boise...I love living here, not too big, but not tiny either.  And we have 4 seasons...I like most of them, 3 out 4 isn't bad right?? :)

I love doing most kinds of crafts...I like to sew simple things (I hate being frustrated, so it has to be simple) and still doing paper crafts!!  I love reading and I LOVE LOVE LOVE to play softball.  A summer isn't complete without a season or two on a softball team!  I love to travel and be with my family!  

You can check out my blog here: http://www.iamscrappingirl.blogspot.com/

And a few of my galleries here:  Scrap Matters, Gingerscraps

I really love being on Meagan's CT.  She makes some of the best kits...they are some of my very favorites around!  This is a layout of mine using one of Meagan's older kits called Beach Baby:

My very favorite kit of Meagan's is The Simple Life.  I love the soft blues and yellows and the elements in this kit are fantastic!!  I love how versatile it is, too!

I really love to travel, but I am not much of a world traveler...although I would really like to be...One of the favorite places I have visited is New York City.  I went on this trip when I was a senior in high school.  My mom and I went together and we visited New York and also Boston.  It was SO much fun and I loved seeing all of the sites and the history surrounding it all!

One of the hardest things I have ever done in my life is being a mom, but the best thing I have ever done in my life is being a mom!!  I can't think of anything in my life that I would rather do and my kids and family is the one thing I could not live without!

As far as dreams, are concerned, I feel that for the most part, I am living my dream...I have a beautiful family and I honestly couldn't ask for anything else!

So, onto a little light topic...my favorite technique.  Far and away my very favorite technique is layering and clustering.  That is one reason I love Meagan's templates and kits so much is that she makes it so easy cluster and layer!  Here are a couple more of my layouts using Meagan's products with some clustering and layering! :)

Thanks so much for reading all about me today...it has been lots of fun sharing a few things....

Have a fantastic day and Happy Scrapping!!

Meet the team: Stephanie ~ filandstef

Hi everyone!  I’m Stephanie (aka filandstef in the digi-world).  I love digi-scrapping and being on Meagan’s CT!  I have been married for 8 years and have a three year old son.  He is featured in many of my pages.  I am a nurse and am headed back to school for a refresher in January.  I also love to read, mostly mysteries.  I like to exercise – volleyball is my favorite sport and I ran my first 5K this fall. I also like to cook and bake – I love trying new things!  We just bought our first house so I am slowly learning to paint and getting excited to decorate!

Here’s the only recent photo I could find of me!

My favorite LO (so hard to choose one – so here are a couple!) – 

Puppy Love – using The Simple Life:

40 – my sis-in-laws b-day -  Using It’s My Birthday:

Your first Christmas – using a Christmas to Remember:

Typical Day  - using Boy part of Boys and Girls Mega Kit:

A Christmas to Remember is probably my favorite product from Meagan. It’s definitely my favorite Christmas kit!  It is so pretty and sparkly, but I enjoy working with anything she creates.  She always throws in some fun and creative pieces along with the basics. 

If you want to see more of my LOs here’s links to my galleries at STS and SM –

ScrapMatters 

Stuff To Scrap 

The most exotic place I've ever been is probably Nigeria where we lived the last seven years. I volunteered at an HIV clinic during our time there.  We just recently returned to Ontario.  Here’s a LO about our life in Nigeria –

We also had the opportunity to visit Kenya a few years back – 

One thing I could not live without is chocolate!  We always brought plenty of chocolate chips with us to Nigeria. 

A dream of mine is to become a nurse practitioner. 

My favorite LO technique – if you could call it a technique is journaling!  I think it is so important to write something about the photos in most LOs.  Don’t stress about being a good writer.  Use lists, short narratives or even just words to get your point across.  Check out some of my LOs above to see various kinds of journaling.  When your children (or you) read your journaling at a later date, they won’t care if you are a good writer, they will be happy to be able to read some details and remember the story!  I made monthly pages for my son’s first year and I have pages of other things he’s said or done that we don’t want to forget. 

Meet My Team: Manda

Hi guys! It's me, Manda! I'm super excited to be a part of Meagan's CT team as her Facebook Specialist. This is me:

Apparently I don't take my own picture very often. This is actually about 2 years old, but I love this picture. It was taken at a meal theatre while on honeymoon with Jeffery. We just celebrated our second wedding anniversary last month. I am so blessed to have him and my children in my life. 

I have a ton of hobbies, which I guess helps to keep me sane as a stay at home Mom to Peyton (5) and Noah (1) [ ... and Jeff (35) hehehe]. Of course, I love digital scrapbooking, both designing and scrapbooking, but I als enjoy crochet and reading. I play the flute and piccolo, too. 

I do blog, but I'm not very good and keeping things up to date. If you want to check it out, visit me here. I have 2 main galleries that I use for my digital scrapbooking stuff. You can find the larger one here at Stuff to Scrap or check out my newest gallery here at ScrapMatters. 

When asked what my favorite layout is, I usually just think of the latest layout that I've made. You know how that is, right? The newest is always the new favorite around here. But I have to admit, I keep coming back to this layout that I made from a picture taken at Peyton's first field trip in Kindergarten. 

Credits: Rustic Autumn by Meagan's Creations Die Cut Templates by Meagan's Creations

I just love the large photo and am really glad I choose to showcase it this way. It's really hard to hang out with just Peyton sometimes when I have Noah to look after, too, but I was really lucky to be able to go on this trip with him, just me and him. He was so excited to get to spend some Momma time. I also just love this template with the clusters and the floral die cut mat. 

When it comes to exotic or interesting places, I have to admit I'm somewhat of a homebody. I haven't been many places, but in college I went with out Campus Ministries team to the Dominican Republic. Fortunately I speak Spanish since during the trip over there we were stranded in Puerto Rico overnight. Eek! As a missionary we were teamed with a group of Christians there and so we got to knock around the less tourist friendly areas as well as getting a little sightseeing in. I was truly blessed to share such an important message with those we met there and humbled by all that I saw. 

This beautiful ancient castle, the Fortaleza Ozama, is the oldest standing military fortification in the Americas. It was built in the 16th century by the Spanish when the Dominican Republic was still a Spanish Colony. This was part of the "pretty" part of the summer I was there.

This is what the locals call "The Bottoms." This and areas like this are build into the sides of hills so and along mountains so that houses can be stacked for more room. The average person lives here. How terribly humbling. I think I learned and experienced more during that summer trip that during the whole rest of my college experience. 

When it comes to dreams, I've always had one dream - to write a novel. Silly, I know. Lots of people have this dream, but for me, it's really something I hope to actually accomplish. I went to school to write, I have 3 novels started on my hard drive, I'm trying to get into book editing and reviewing, and I read constantly. One day ...

Random question ... One thing I can't live without? Umm, well, excluding God, my Bible, and my family (because, really, those are things that I really can't live without), I'd have to say (selfishly) my Nook Color. Jeffery bought it for me almost 2 years ago. It has my Bible, photos of my kids (and scrapbooked backgrounds!), random but important files, crochet patterns, and a nearly inexhaustible supply of books. Seriously, I think it holds up to 10,000 and has everything from classic British and American literature, to Latin, to mythology, to random fan fiction for a little brain novocain. I love that thing! 

And finally, I'd like to leave you with my favorite scrapbooking technique. Ready ... drop shadows! Okay, I know, I know, that's not the greatest (I mean, seriously, check out the rest of Meagan's blog - have you see the tutorials!?), but I love them. The trick is to layer them and adjust them. Here are some things that I do on every layout that I think makes the shadowing awesome. :)

1. Not all shadows are the same! Ribbons and buttons should have larger, darker shadows than something like a piece of paper. They stick up in real life more than papers, so they should seem to in digital scrapbooking, too, right?

2. Not all shadows have to be black. Try gray. Or maybe if your layout has warmer tones, try a brown instead. Experiment. Unlike paper scrapbooking, you can always "undo" if you don't like it. 

3. Shadows aren't just one sided in real life, so layer your shadows. I go through and shadow everything in one direction first. Then I go back and make all the shadows on their own layers (in PS Layer > Layer Style > Create Layer). Then I go back to the element or paper and put a very light, very tight shadow on the opposite side. My main shadow is usually at about -44 degrees and my opposing shadow is usually at about 128 degrees and about half the opacity of the main shadow.

4. If you have ribbons or curly strings, make them look like they're jumping off the page. Put the main shadow on it's own layer and then manually warp it a tiny bit so that it appears more 3D (in PS Edit > Transform > Warp).

I love to adjust my drop shadows to make my layouts more interesting. I think it adds just a little extra umph to make it that much more special. It might take a few more minutes to do, but in the end, I think it's really worth it.