Design Team News!

It's an exciting day here at Scraps of Elegance, we have lots of Design Team news!

Before I let you in on a few design team changes that are happening, I want to introduce you to our September guest designer - she is an SOE kit club member, and her work is so beautiful, we couldn't help but take notice - so we asked her to guest design for us with our September kit!

Cathi O'Neill

I am so excited to be guest designing this month for Scraps of Elegance! I have been a long time subscriber and just love to see what Mel has chosen for us to play with every month!! My name is Cathi O'Neill, and I am an American (Maryland/DC area native) who married an Irishman and have been living here in Ireland since 1997. I live in a beautiful village on the Shannon River with my DH of nearly 18 years (wow, that makes me feel old!) and my two beautiful daughters, Aine (onya) 10 and Aisling (ashling) 8 who are the subject of many of my projects!!
I have always love crafting since I was a little girl. My grandmother taught me to knit and crochet and I remember sewing Barbie doll clothes with her on her front porch! I am a knitter and quilter as well, but have recently in the last two years found cardmaking and scrapbooking, and an obsession was born!! I truly love creating and make vintage cards to sell here in our local village cafe as well as stacks of shabby/vintage style layouts of my girls to keep and share with family! I also love to do tags, ATC and altered projects, barely a day goes by when I haven't done something crafty!!
I am currently on the design teams for several manufacturers: Couture Creations, Molossi Chipboard, Paper Wings Productions, and two retailers. I also design for challenge blogs Frosted Designs and Sugar Creek Hollow, and have guest designed for challenge blogs Keeping the Best and Scrap it with a Song.

And now for the big Design Team News!

We are so excited to welcome two fabulously talented ladies to our design team, and I know they need no introduction, but we're gonna do it anyway!

Lisa Nazario-Gregory

Hi, My name is Lisa and by profession I am a registered nurse. I am married to my high school sweetheart and we have 2 children who are now successful young adults.  I have been a crafter my whole life. I sew, embroider, crochet, paint and have dabbled in many crafty things in my life. Back in 2005, when my son was doing his senior project with his girlfriend (who is now his wife) They were creating a scrapbook of their lives. They elicited my help as I was the crafty one. We took a ride to The Dollar Tree (our local dollar store) who had a section dedicated to scrap booking  papers, albums, embellishments, flowers, and we grabbed everything we could find. I knew about the new way of scrap booking, but never gave it any thought until that trip to The
Dollar Tree. After helping the kids create their albums , which by the way turned out fabulous, I was curious as to where I could get more "scrap booking stuff". So I drove to our local Michaels and Joanns craft stores. That is when I became hooked. Then I sought out the local scrapbook stores and found stuff I didn't even know existed until then. I shopped and shopped and shopped some more. I found Scrapbook.com and saw the kind of scrap booking the artists did. I was amazed at the styles. It just wasn't cut and paste and stickers. It was 3 dimensional, it was gorgeous, and oh so inspiring. So I created a gallery, created my first layout and the rest is history. My style has changed a bit throughout the years, but playing with paper and scissors is still so therapeutic for me.

Sandi Smith

My name is Sandi Smith and I live in beautiful Newfoundland, Canada with my wonderful husband and 2 great kids. I did
my first layout in January 2010 and was immediately hooked! I am obsessed with all things associated with scrapping and I am always in "scrapbook mode", constantly looking at things in our everyday lives for sources of inspiration. I love to tear, wrinkle, sew and to get messy with gesso, mists and paint. Some of my other obsessions... oops... I meant hobbies are refinishing antique furniture and my latest love is painting girls on mixed media backgrounds. I don`t have a definite style... my creations can be vintage, shabby chic or loaded with paints, sprays and gesso... depends on my mood and what inspires me at that time.

I am so excited and honored to be a part of this amazing team and I hope to inspire you just a little with the beautiful kits here at Scraps Of Elegance.



You'll get to see Lisa's work with our kits in just a few days, she'll be designing for us starting with our September kit!  And Sandi's first kit will be November!  We are thrilled they've joined our team, and can't wait to see what kind of gorgeousness they create with the kits!

Sadly, we also have to say goodbye to two amazing ladies on our team.  Both Romy and Helena will be leaving the team after the September kit.  They both have so much going on, and have found they need to reduce the amount of designing they are doing for the time being.  We are thankful to have had them on our team, they are both such talented and wonderful people, and we are happy that we will get to see their gorgeous work for one more kit!

Thank you for stopping by to share in our excitement, and I hope you all have a beautiful weekend!

~ Melinda ~