Featured Designer – Kris Isaacs
Happy Friday scrappers! Fridays are the best – not only because it’s the weekend but a new Featured Designer and FWP kit debuts today, and I can’t wait to jump in and learn more about our newest Featured Designer, Kris Isaacs. Kris is the newest designer in the Shoppe and if you take a look at her great kits and collections you’ll see she is the master of great illustrations, classy color combinations and her stickers are so versatile and so much fun. Her collections are always so full, every time I unzip one I can’t believe how chock full they are.
Kris designed this fantastic kit for her Featured Designer kit, Hello Winter, which is yours FREE with any $10 purchase from now until the new releases go live on December 15th. This kit is just perfect for scrapping those winter memories in a fun neutral, chilly color palette. I’m loving all those word bits and the wood wordart – so perfect!
Kris also created some extras to go with the kit, what a better way to work towards getting the kit for free than to complete the collection and get these awesome bits to use it all together?
And now let’s get to know more about Kris!
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?
Wow, this actually takes me back quite a few years when smash books use to be a thing in the journaling world. Do you remember that days of smash books, and paper bag albums? I believe I was actually looking up ideas on how to do this digitally to save space, time, and resources. That’s when digital scrapbooking came up in my research. I downloaded several collections after discovering the digital scrapbooking world, and was super excited to scrap me and my husband’s engagement photos right away. I quickly learned that I really needed specific snippets, colors, or themes to complete the projects that I wanted, and in turn, started to create within these collections my own roots to the digital scrapbooking world.
It became something that I quickly enjoyed doing, and soon found myself opening up a digital store on Etsy to share my digital creations. The first digital scrapbooking store that I joined was The Digital Press. I was REALLY excited that my creations had taken me this far in the digital world, and started to grow a solid customer base and a brand for myself through my shop there and on instagram. When that shop closed earlier this year I really wanted to join a shop that had an even bigger customer base, and that’s what landed me at Sweet Shoppe Designs. With their HUGE forum and creative team, it has been an inspiration to further my brand, add more dimensional elements, and further my style.
How do you define your style? What does that style include? How has your style changed over the years?
I LOVE this question because I actually get asked this A LOT. I would describe my style as a modern, clean lined, illustrated scrapbooking style. I LOVE to illustrate the stickers in my collections and have seen them in more than just digital layouts. I promote my collections as something that can also be used for hybrid projects, card making and more. I myself print them using the silhouette software, Canon matte photo paper, and cutting them with a silhouette portrait cutting machine. As you guessed it, creating mini albums is still one of my favorite things to do. Being able to take my collections to a physical product is such a cool feeling, not to mention getting a bang for your buck! My time spent at The digital Press was time I spent really trying growing my brand and find a very specific style that was my own. My work has been compared (ecstatically) to brands like Crate Paper. Drawing and having those little bits, tags, and physical products takes creations to multiple types of scrapbooking available for each collection.
How do you stay motivated or deal with the loss of mojo?
Another great question. Honestly, if I don’t have an idea in my back pocket on a new collection, or something seasonal isn’t around the corner, then I ask my creative team, who have the most amazing ideas. I have also been known to ask my customer base on instagram! Who better to ask what is needed in the creative world than creatives themselves? I have the most awesome customer base ever! And I really want to know what they want, or need for a project. It’s how I got my start and there’s nothing more satisfying than being able to scrap a photo with a specific theme. I’m open to all the ideas that my customers have, and it’s such a blessing to be a part of their memories.
What comes first when designing… theme or color palette?
Such a GREAT question. and honestly I would say theme. BUT it is just as important as the color palette. I’ve had a lot of compliments on the colors that I choose, and as a designer I feel it’s definitely one of my strengths. Although I do create with a neutral and muted color palette a lot of the time, I always try to add the one color in there that gives my collections a pop! It’s eye-catching, and gives each collection something unique. For instance my last collection ‘Give Thanks’ has this amazing chartreuse color and bright peachy orange that I feel really makes the collection look creamier and rich.
If you draw your own doodles or sketches for designs, what do you use for that? Tablet, pen, paper, scanner? Tell us more about your process and tools.
The tools I use for drawing the stickers in my collection are usually my iPad mini with an apple 2 pen, and I LOVE Procreate. When Procreate is limited with the layers for drawings, I use my Wacom One and Artrage to create my illustrations. They are definitely two of the tools that illustrators use most often in the current creative world, and believe it or not I’m not a fan of photoshop in any way. LOL, and coffee, don’t forget the coffee.
What new trends do you see coming to digital scrapbooking?
From my perspective, more modern styles are coming in, simple clean lines, minimal brushes, and bold designs. Scrapbooking has definitely come a long way. I myself love just black and white photos, simple clean texts, and templates. One of my favorite template designers that I use often is Designed by Soco. You can see that I use her templates for almost every example for my own digital collections because of the simple lines, and the focus on the photo itself. They are easy to add to my own papers and elements too, and are super quick to use when I’m in a pinch. Look for some collaborations between me and her in the future. 🙂
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?
Who doesn’t get an awesome kit out of their creations being used by others?! It’s such a compliment, and an amazing blessing! There have been so many projects that I LOVE from my customers, but my current favorite is from one of my creative team members, Vanessa @scrapcoffeebooks on instagram. Her Autumn Creation for a Travelers Notebook is so modern and sweet. Swing by and check it out as she fills it!
Who are your favorite designers? Who do you buy from when you want to scrap with something other than your own products?
One of my favorite brands is definitely Crate Paper. I have several of their collections and have to snag them every year for Christmas. They are always fun and definitely different from my own creations, with hand drawn elements, tons of tiny tags, and very bright, bold, and colorful papers which make the perfect mini albums. I’ve even placed some of the simple titles and whimsical words in chat books.
If you could go on a date but only had $25 to spend, where would you go?
There are probably two different dates that me and my husband Edward would go to.
One: Barnes & Noble. We would snag coffee, a cookie, and browse for hours in the book store, noting books that we could snag later, or cheaper on nook, lol. Such a great way to reset from the week.
Two: We would probably grab sandwiches at Subway for a lunch date, head to one of our favorite hiking spots with our packs and plenty of water on hand. Getting out of the office, feet to the ground, and back in touch with nature is one of the best ways to decompress from the week. Hiking was something we got into a couple of years ago on our anniversary, and was the inspiration for my ‘Outdoors’ Collection.
Do you have hobbies other than scrapbooking, photography, or memory keeping? Tell us about them.
I actually LOVE to crochet. It’s one of my FAVORITE things to do other than memory keeping. Sitting down to crochet something in the evenings with a warm cup of coffee is one of my ways to relax after a long day. Me and my husband usually curl up on the couch after dinner, read, watch a tv show, and again decompress from the day. These Harry Potter Amigurumi Characters were my Halloween Project this year. They were placed next to the fireplace with my wooden pumpkins from Michaels 🙂
Final thoughts from Kris
My mental health is very important to me. Scrapbooking and being a designer has helped in that process. Having something that brings joy to your life, and is also a healthy outlet, is one of the most important things to have for yourself. Digital Scrapbooking was at first a hobby for me, then became a side hustle, now it’s my full time job. I am a part of an AMAZING community of scrapbookers, creatives, and designers. It has been such a blessing in my life.
Kris Isaacs @krisisaacsdesigns
Before you go, check out these great pages from the SugarBabes with Kris’ new Featured Designer kit. As always they have knocked it out of the park creating beauty!
I’ve loved learning more about Kris, and I hope you learned a lot more too! Join me next Friday to see which products Kris has chosen for her Featured Designer 15 sale that will start on December 12th – you won’t want to miss it! Until then, keep on scrapping!
