Guest Designer | Laura Wonsik

We're thrilled to have the lovely and talented Laura Wonsik as one of our guest designers this month and are excited to get to know her better today! Be sure to follow Laura here at Studio Calico to keep up with her and see more of her beautiful work.

Hello! I'm so excited to be here sharing some projects I made with the AMAZING March “Bookmarked” Kits. My name is Laura Wonsik and I'm from the magical little town of Oxford, OH, home to Miami University where I work as a counselor in the Student Counseling Service. I'm mom to a 3-year-old stinker that goes by Ellie and am married to my best friend, Chad, who I've been with for 15 years.

I've been scrapbooking since I was 16 years old when I discovered Creative Memories at one of their parties. I worked for a scrapbook company (Imagination Project—we had four different lines, the most famous of which was "Gin-X") for a year after college, but ultimately, I went to grad school to get my Master's in Counseling. Scrapbooking has served as my happy place and coping skill for most of my life and my love for it only intensifies with time.  

My favorite type of memory keeping is through pocket page and traditional hybrid layouts. Learning how to incorporate digital elements has really "upped" my scrapbook game and allowed me to practice new techniques and styles. I'm inspired by bright, happy colors and mostly like to document daily routines and little things that my daughter says. 

Sitcoms are the soundtrack of my life and are a requirement whenever I craft. I actually have layouts where, when I look at them, I can remember exactly which episode of which show I was watching when I made them. I have listened to sitcoms (preferably from the mid-80s to mid-00s with canned laughter) when I scrapbook ever since I started when I was 16 years old; the first one was Seinfeld and the most recent is The Middle.

Studio Calico has always been one of the best places to find fresh and on-trend products. This kit is certainly no exception and I was so excited to work with it. Here's a little bit about each of my projects.

Ellie's Hard No – The stamp sets this month give me all kinds of “heart eyes” and I had a blast finding ways to make them work together. One of my routines when working with a new stamp set is to spend a few minutes looking at it and really examining it for possibilities. When I looked at the pattern builder from Jasmine Jones, I thought about how I could use some of the images alone in a repeated way to make flowers or leaves, how I could use them together to create a seamless pattern, and how I could rotate them in different ways to pair with other stamp sets which is how I came up with the idea to make them little scallop people. My daughter has some strong feelings sometimes so I thought this was the perfect way to tell the story of her "hard no" when it comes to bedtime.

Yes x Infinity – I love the way the patterns in the "Pen Name" add-on kit look together and came up with the idea to create a triangle mosaic so that they could be used together on a single layout. I then used the negative space for a repeated title of affirmations from the Yes & No stamp set to reinforce the story of celebrating my daughter's wackiness one morning. 

Oops Cards – Sometimes when I don't have a specific photo or story to tell but I really want to play with some awesome product, I make cards to put in my stash for later. That's what I did with these two cards after playing with the Oops stamp set. I know that these will come in handy pretty soon since life is full of "oops" moments!

Weekly Spread - Documenter Kit – One of my most frequently used strategies for pocket page spreads is to create repeated embellishment clusters and place them in a visual triangle on the spread. I learned this from the great Ali Edwards and it has made a huge difference, not only in creating visually balanced and pleasing designs, but also a routine that makes getting these layouts done quickly a breeze.

My favorite thing about the "Bookmarked" collection is the color palette. One of the challenges of documenting stories with photos from multiple parts of the week is that colors don't always match. That's the role of product: to highlight certain colors and pull everything together visually. This collection is great for that as it has a soft but colorful palette perfect for matching a wide variety of photos.

Weekly Pocket Page Layout – I used repetition again for this layout, pairing a rubber day of the week with a chipboard heart and an epoxy sticker on each photo. I also made sure the 3" x 4" filler cards were balanced in terms of color with the photos.

Yes And No – I used the Yes & No stamp set as a journaling prompt to talk about some of my current favorites and least favorites. I loved using a lot of different colors and pairing together some of the sentiments to make it more playful. 

Thanks so much for checking out these projects, and I hope you feel inspired to make your own magic with this awesome new release!

See more from Laura:

Instagram

Blog

DT – Ali Edwards & Elle's Studio