We have yet another exciting addition to our design team and we’re thrilled to introduce her this week in our style lounge series. She’s been true to her own whimsical arty style for years now ever since the days when whimsical, arty and scrapbooking didn’t always mix and we’re thrilled to have her join us. Please welcome…. Danielle Quarmby!
Her style can be described in a variety of ways but for the purposes of the Style Lounge challenge, we're calling it Freestyle Whimsy! Can you interpret Danielle's style as your own? Have a look through her layouts below and see if you can take inspiration from them. Send your layouts to aussiedt@iinet.net.au by next Wednesday 25 May to be in the running for 'whimsical-freestyle' prize pack! We’re thrilled to announce that Celine Navarro will be judging her favourite as the winner! Please try and use predominantly products from Aussie Scrap Source in your projects.
Scrapbooking, for Danielle, is about creativity, self-expression and fun, and this is reflected in her scrapping style. Most often quite casual and freestyle, Danielle’s work can be described as arty, whimsical, fun and quirky. Often involving paint, layering, hand-cut vintage book paper and clustered details. Vintage style florals and patterned paper backgrounds are a regular ingredient in Danielle’s projects, and word choices often come from song lyrics or quotes.
Another hallmark of Danielle’s style is the apparent randomness of many elements on her layouts, which creates the freestyle feel. Colour is used to create mood and add emotion or whimsy to a project. Danielle intentionally adds a contrasting tone, quirky detail or unusual feature to each of her layouts to make it feel like ‘her’.
In the page ‘Clap Clap Yay!’ Danielle has used some of her regular techniques, including a Sassafras patterned paper background, hand-cut clouds and raindrops, stapled and scattered embellishments and a handwritten element. With a fairly harmonious colour scheme, a punch of extra warmth is added with the orange and yellow Cabachon Sculptured Flower Centres from Prima.
‘These are the magic years’ has a vibrant colour combination typical of Danielle’s style - Danielle often uses paint to add interest to a background, and here she has used a swipe of gesso and torn vintage sheet music to personalise the gorgeous Prima canvas paper. Chipboard elements, cardstock stickers, bloomers and alphabet stickers scatter across the layout in an outpouring of whimsy and lightheartedness. Danielle’s slightly messy, loopy handwriting is another regular feature used effectively here!
Celine Navarro is one of Danielle's long-time "style crushes" and has a vibrant, fun style. In her layout 'Lucky girl', you can see a smattering of colourful embellishments dancing across the page, a colourful floral patterned background and a focus on the photo. The layered patterned papers that make up the background are hand-cut, rather than perfectly straight, adding an extra sense of relaxed creativity.
In 'Just Wanna Bee Me', Celine demonstrates some more inspiring techniques, with paper-folding, notepaper cut edges and hand-cut paper layers. Photos are placed slightly askew over one another, and colours are combined in unconventional ways to great effect. Thank you so much Celine for sharing your work with us and for agreeing to judge the challenge entries!