Featured Designer – WendyP Designs
Happy Friday sweet scrappers! I hope you’ve had a good week, October sure is flying by isn’t it? We are still having an unseasonably warm Fall here, which I’m not going to complain about – winter in Alberta is going to start soon enough! If you’re anything like me you’re enjoying the momentum that started during the DSD celebrations and have been continuing to scrap and preserve those memories.
I’m here to bring you a brand new Featured Designer for the week, Wendy of WendyP Designs. Wendy’s store is filled to the brim with fantastic kits in every theme imaginable. She has so many great kits with her signature Gnomes, sports kits for any sport you can think of, and her Around the World series just to name a few! She has a ton of great Commercial Use options too, so definitely go check that out!
Before we learn more about Wendy, check out her Featured Designer kit, Happily Ever Autumn. This kit is yours FREE with any $10 purchase until our next Featured Designer goes live on Friday November 3rd. It is perfect for those Fall weddings or engagement photos, but versatile enough to be used for any Autumn pages – I used it for a page about fall family photos.
Wendy has also created a Happily Ever Falling add on pack with another full kit, journaling cards, papers AND wordart. I am so in love with those burlap banners! What better way to get Happily Ever Autumn free than to get the the add-on bundle and make a whole collection that’s perfect for all your fall photos?
So now let’s find out more about Wendy!
Tell us about your journey with digital scrapbooking… How did you find out about it? Did you start with paper first? How did you get started designing? Where was your first shop? How and when did you end up at Sweet Shoppe Designs?
Back in 2007 when my eldest was born I started scrapbooking. 1-2 years later I discovered that there was digital scrapbooking. I found it much cheaper than traditional and it was much cleaner. Back in 2009 I started designing templates first, but in 2010 I felt inspired to start making my own scrap kits. I instantly fell in love with it and started to make more and more kits only. My first shop was 7th Heaven, but that shop sadly closed a long time ago. In November of 2016 I was very lucky to join SweetShoppe Designs. I still love to be here and still love to design and scrap, but I’m sure you have noticed both parts of me.
Where do you find inspiration for a new kit or template?
Most of the time I find inspiration in the everyday lives of my kids. That is also when you see layouts coming from me because I love to scrap my own photos as well. And I can imagine that those kinds of things are happening in other families’ lives as well.
Do you use your own art in your kits? Show us some of your favorite original illustrations.
Yes I do, I illustrate all my gnomes myself and most of my animals, I really enjoy making those. But one of my very faves is for sure our own little Storm who I illustrated for my collection Paw prints to heaven. When I see photos or videos of him I still have moments of tears. Maybe this emotional part makes him my favorite illustration. Here are just a few but there are many many more lol.
What are some of your favorite things that people have made with your products? And, do you still get a kick out of your creations being used by other people to preserve memories, create art, etc?
I just love when I see Hybrid projects made with my designs. Somehow it feels like it is bringing my designs to the next level. And yes I still get a kick out of that. I always try to leave some love to the layouts in galleries when I have time.
How do you keep your collections fresh and new for themes that are done again and again like holidays, weddings, scrapbooking, etc.?
I love to make themes with a different twist. This is what I did with last year’s Valentine’s collection: Valoween and with Creepy Christmas – not your typical Christmas kit! Also with other specific themes where others feel it is repetitive I try to combine themes as well like Botanical Christmas and a Scottish themed Christmas kit, Highlands Christmas. I like to make these kinds of standard themes into something extra special. I did the same right now with my Featured Designer kit, it is wedding but autumnal themed.
Show us a preview for one of your first kits, compared to a recent kit you’re proud of. We want to see how far you’ve come!
I lost everything before 2012 But this is a baby kit I made halfway 2012 so the oldest I could find. I made this collection when I was pregnant with our youngest daughter Rosalie.
And this was a new baby collection I made in 2022, Bundle of Gnome, really a HUGE difference:
What brings you joy?
My family, music and spending time together at home or going out as family.
If you had an hour to yourself, but were not allowed to use it to scrapbook or design, what would you spend the hour doing?
I think I would read a book, watch a series or maybe just lay on the couch and listen to music with my head phone and let the music guide me.
If you’ve looked into your family history, can you share a funny story about an ancestor?
Well I found out about one thing just recently. I was chatting with Tracey about how my father is retiring after being an apple grower for at least 38 years. She asked me what my favorite apple was from our Orchard. I remembered what it looked like but I forgot the name so I looked it up. Google was telling me that it must be the Red Delicious, but Google was also telling me that type was only grown in the states. So I asked my dad if I was mistaken and that the apple I remembered was maybe a different one. Then my dad told me I was correct that the apple type is only grown in the states, but that my grandpa has brought the apple species home to our farm here in the Netherlands and that way has grown several Red Delicious trees. I also remember those apples growing huge. But I really really loved hearing what my grandpa did which makes it even more special that we had those apples as maybe the only farmers here in the Netherlands. Here are some pictures from the Orchard:
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was about ten years old I really wanted to become a dolphin trainer at some kind of zoo with sea animals. Later when I went to secondary school I really wanted to become a chef because I really enjoy cooking. But due to medical reasons I couldn’t keep up with the necessary speed. But despite that, I still love cooking (which I have passed on to our son).
And now I am a scrapbook designer, which I also really love and of course scrapping my designs myself.
I wanted to share a couple of pages that Wendy has created with her own designs because I love seeing pages that our designers have created!
Using: Sweet Sixteen – Bundle by Blagovesta Gosheva & WendyP Designs
Using Dreaming of Tulips bundle
And now check out these great pages from the SugarBabes and Wendy herself with the Featured Designer kit Happily Ever Autumn:
The Babes never cease to amaze me with their pages, I’m sure you can agree with me they are gorgeous!
That’s it for today, I’ll see you here next Friday to give you a sneak peek on the 15 products Wendy has chosen to discount heavily for her Featured Designer 15 sale. Until then, keep on scrapping!
