Meet Marianne!

Wow, what a creative and productive month January was! Our Guest Designer, Kathie Link gave us some dynamite pages to inspire us and it was such a pleasure to have her join us. Now that February is upon us, it's time to introduce you to our next Guest Designer. Marianne Hope is joining us this month all the way from the Netherlands! You will love her style and I know she'll charm you as much as she did me!

Oh, and don't forget that we want to see how you are inspired by Marianne's pages. You'll see three of her all-time favorite layouts below the interview. We want you to scraplift one of these pages and share the link to your layout in the comments section of this post. You have the whole month of February to add your link and who knows, you could win free scrap stuff!



Q:Tell us a bit about you and your family.

A: I am married to my sweet German, also called Till (yes, that's his real name) and proud mom to Mats, Jonas and Lotte. We moved from Norway (my home country) to the Netherlands in 2002 and enjoy it more every day. Because of our multi-cultural background, our children speak 3 languages, which can result in many funny things to scrap about.

Q: How long have you been scrapbooking and where did you get your start in this craft?

A: I think I have been scrapbooking all my life, I just didn't know it had a name before 2004. The moment I read about it in a Dutch scrapbook magazine, I knew that this was my "thing". I played around and had fun with this hobby whenever I had a spare moment, but in february 2008, on my birthday, I decided to get serious about it and started my own blog, started participating in challenges and submitting to magazines. It kind of took off from there and I am very thankful for all the opportunities I have been given, designing for 2 different magazines (one Dutch and one Norwegian) and being on different design teams (at the moment I design for Papirgleder, one of Norway's biggest scrapbook stores and ScrappeMania, a Norwegian challengeblog).

Q:What inspires your creativity when you are scrapbooking?

A: I get inspired by my photos, the story I want to tell, the challenge I am submitting to, the products I am using or committed to use, but also magazines, ads, childrens clothes, fabric ++

Q:Describe your creative style

A:Oefff, that's a hard question to answer in few words. I do like to follow the principle "less is more", but I always follow my heart, what fits my photos the best. I love to use hand cut felt, crepe paper, buttons, fabric, sewing and paint. Sometimes it's freestyle, sometimes it's clean and simple, sometimes it is vintage and sometimes it's just my own thing.

Q:What are your three favorite products/techniques right now?

A: Ops, I already mentioned them; crepe paper, sewing, painting

Q:What project(s) are you currently working on?

A:My lay-out for our next "one little word" challenge at ScrappeMania

Q:Describe your perfect day

A:A lovely sunny, but not too hot day, the kind of day where I wake up and feel the energy flow. The kind of day where the kids do everything I ask them to without hesitation and without kidding around (ha, ha, like that ever happens...). The kind of day my husband gets home before dinner time. The kind of day where I can just let my creativity work for me and end up with more than one project finished.

Q:What are your three favorite layouts of all time that you’ve created (published or not)?

A: This is my my absolute all time favorite LO. It was made for the Pencil lines sketch no. 100, (made by Kelly Crowe). I love circles, fabric, lace, buttons, stamps, hand cut felt letters, sewing and white space and I like this picture of Lotte, which is SO typical for her at the age of 2, so I guess I just have to like this LO...


This is the very first lay-out that I was really really happy with and still like. It is also the first lay-out that got me noticed in several magazines and on SIStv. I love the picture, the colors, the overall composition and the story it is telling. It's about my second son, Jonas, who at 3 years of age just wanted to be cool, not nice or good looking - just cool. He's got a "cool" hairdo on this picture, ha, ha. I also love the fact that I only used a white background, paint, a black pen and some old scraps.



This LO show all my kids how they are; happy, funny and colorful. I like the fact that I used 12 pictures on one page, and that it is low cost and simple. This is also one of the LOs that got me to the final in the Dutch "Scrapbooker of the year 2008".