November Guest Designer Kelly Klapstein

Hello Simple Stories fans, Layle here with you today :)

I'm excited to introduce you to our November guest designer Kelly Klapstein -

Here's a little bit about Kelly -

Kelly feels blessed to be the daughter of a scrapbooker. Since she was a child, her mother encouraged her to save keepsakes and photos in albums, and this sentimentality has grown into her love of scrapbooking today. Keeping it real and journaling about heartfelt issues makes Kelly's scrapbooks poignant records of her life. Her three teenagers are the subject of numerous scrapbook pages and keep her hopping with their sports activities and busy social lives. Her best friend and husband, Elmar, shares all the driving and helps everyone stay organized. Lucky for Kelly, he is a travel planner extraordinaire and schedules all of their trips and family vacations.

Kelly's crafting style is eclectic; she loves to design with a variety of themes, from vintage to cute to graphic, with some mixed media thrown in. Kelly's studio time is spent exploring crafting in artistic ways, playing with paper and imagining unique designs. Not only does she share her ideas on her blog, she also makes video tutorials on YouTube. Online, you might know her as "Kelly Creates." You can also find Kelly featured on The Crafty Power blog, designing for Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L.

Currently, Kelly writes and designs for Canadian Scrapbooker magazine(www.canadianscrapbooker.ca) and loves sharing her crafting ideas with readers. Along with writing, Kelly is passionate about teaching. A former high school English teacher, Kelly is happiest in the classroom, and there are always lots of giggles heard coming from her classes! She enjoys teaching in her local scrapbook stores as well as larger scrapbooking events, such as the Great Canadian Scrapbook Carnival and ScrapFest. "Paper and paste are good for the soul" is Kelly's crafting motto!

Kelly created this fun mini album using our Urban Traveler collection. Would you believe she used only one 6x6 paper pad and chipboard stickers to create this?!!

According to Kelly -

In the past couple years, I've been making more mini albums and enjoy having an entire event captured in one compact book. One of my first mini albums was made with an older Simple Stories Christmas collection a couple years ago, and I knew right then that Simple Stories papers are perfect for mini's! I planned a class and taught the Christmas album, and then recently decided to make another one using the 6 x 6 Urban Traveler paper pad. I'm all about economical scrapping too, so when this mini came together using only one 6 x 6 paper pad and a set of chipboard stickers, I was thrilled! It has 10 pages and additional photos can be tucked inside the pockets located on the inside front and back covers. Also, each photo mat is a pocket that holds a journaling tag with a Bingo card pull tab. Urban Traveler is an awesome collection and versatile enough to scrapbook all kinds of trips and vacations. I recently taught this mini album as a class at ScrapFest in Ontario, Canada, and it was a big hit because everyone loves Simple Stories!

Here are a few more pages from Kelly's mini album -

Watch this fun video from Kelly to learn how to put this fun project together using a 6x6 pad and the packaging to create the actual base of the album!

Thank YOU Kelly for sharing this fun project with us, especially sharing your idea for creating the mini album out of the 6x6 pad packaging - so very clever!!

To see more projects using our Urban Traveler collection, check out our Urban Traveler Pinterest board