Category: Featured Designer

Summer is here, the year is halfway over and we have been back now for 3 months. Yeah. Things are finally starting to take shape again and it’s feeling like home. No home is complete without having our monthly Featured Designer spot, how else do you get to know us. 🙂

I am sure many of you are familiar with our designer Heather Z Scraps! She is new to our With Love Studio family but not new to digital scrapbooking. She is our featured Designer this month and she has this amazing vacation kit called ‘Jamaican Vacation’. As you can see she has a few fun townspeople to welcome you, a crazy fun alpha, fun seashells, bright colored elements and fun papers. What more could your family photos want!

Heather aka Heather Z Scraps is an amazing designer with some really adorable kits. I love that she has her style set and she isn’t afraid of bold colors or light colors. She creates items that can be easily cut and used with Hybrid scrapbooking as well as planners. Here are some of my favorite kits from her:

I am just in love with this kit. Those animal are way to cute and those splatters are awesome. This kit is perfect for those western style photos of yours!!

I love the bright colors in this kit. The kids are way to cute with their stick figure arms and legs. I love all the swirls and hearts and other fun elements. I just need to find photos for this or create a photoshoot!!

I am a planner junkie, I own like 7 or 9 at this point and am starting my daughter on hers – this doesn’t count the binders, the computer or the phone. Stickers are always a great way to keep me organized, and these are fun and brightly colored – perfect to stand out on the page!!

Here are some layouts using her kits:

If you are not familiar with her products yet, take a minute to browse her shop and I’m sure they will catch your eyes!

Who are you?

Please describe who you are outside the designer world within one to two sentences.

Hi there! I’m Heather, and I live in Northern VA (about 30 min outside DC) with my husband of 11 years and our two boys (Jacob, 9, and Henry, 6).  Rounding out our family are our THREE (yes, 3!) cats.  Bella (9), Charlie (3), and Rio (we’re not sure on his age as we rescued him when he wandered into our yard last summer, but we think he’s around 1-2 years).  When I’m not designing I can be found doing anything crafty, gardening, reading, or hanging out with my family. <3

Tell me about your design world

My design name is Heather Z. Scraps … it’s not super creative, huh? Lol  I have been designing for 3 years now, but only in business for about a year and a half.  I began designing during the summer of 2014 when I took a designer mentoring class that another store was offering.  I offered freebies on my blog and FB page for a year and then the following summer I took the same designer class again.  Finally that Fall (2015) I was offered my first position in the same store that taught me all I know!

I pretty much design whenever and wherever I can.  I absolutely LOVE IT!  I take my laptop with me when we travel and work in the car while driving down 95.  Lol  I work on designing (or something design-related) almost every evening after my kids are in bed, and even in the evening while watching TV with the fam!

When designing I tend to use Photoshop CC (and for scrapping I use Photoshop Elements).  I recently bought a subscription to Illustrator, though, because I’d like to learn to doodle and make some of my own layered CU items.

When I’m prepping a kit, I usually make a list of what I want to put in it, then I pull all those items together into one folder, so when I’m ready to start working on said kit everything is in one central location.  I’m a little OCD, too.  Lol

So far I haven’t run out of ideas for kits, but if I ever do I will probably look to my kids for inspiration and/or Pinterest (I’m something of a Pinterest-addict).

What part of designing comes easiest to you (Themes, colors, papers, elements?)

• Themes, definitely!  I don’t know how to make a “non-themed” kit, unfortunately. Lol

Favorite TV show?

• Overall … FRIENDS.  But lately I have really become addicted to the new NBC show Timeless!

Where is the farthest you have been from home?

• I’m not sure if Nevada is further than Jamaica or not, but Nevada is the furthers West, Jamaica is the furthest South, and Canada is the furthest North.

Do you have another job/career other than designing?

• Yep! I work for my husband’s company (he’s not the owner, but he is the Regional Manager of this office) doing administrative type tasks.

How long were you scrapbooking before you started designing?

• I started digi-scrapbooking in 2013, so a little over a year.

Quick Fire Questions

• Pocket Scrapbooking or Traditional? Traditional
• Single or Multi Photo? Single
• Sun or Snow? Sun
• City Break or Beach Holiday? Beach!
• Ice Cream or Cake? Ice Cream CAKE! Lol

Your Featured Kit

• What inspired you to create this month’s featured kit? I had actually planned to release this last month, but time got away from me, so I didn’t get around to designing it until now .. anyway, last month (May) was my husband’s and mine’s anniversary month (11 years!) and we got married in Jamaica (plus honeymooned there), so I thought it would be fun to create a Jamaican destination kit!
• Tell us about your featured designer’s month, sales, promotions, gifts… / My entire store will be 50% OFF all month long!
• What can we expect to see on your store on the next weeks?  I have some outdoorsy kits coming up, plus a few summer fruits kits and a Baseball themed kit.
• Are you already working on some new releases? Yes! I’m always working on something new .. every second of every day!