Please welcome our August scrapbooking guest designer, Melanie Blackburn. We are SO excited to this talented crafter on the blog today! Please be sure to follow Melanie on Instagram, plus read more about her and check out her projects below!

Hello! I am delighted to be here as guest designer for Pinkfresh Studio! I’m a longtime fan of Pinkfresh Studio and having the opportunity to work with the latest collection “Office Hours” was such a thrill and honor!

Thought I’d share a little bit about me, I’m Melanie and live in beautiful Eastern Canada with my three daughters and wonderful husband who are such good sports at making sure to help me in my quest of storytelling and documenting. By day I work outside the home and try to schedule my crafty time during a quiet evening or early on a weekend morning. I love sitting at my craft table before everyone gets up and spend time crafting while enjoying a warm cup of coffee.

I’ve been scrapbooking for over 14 years, my work has evolved from traditional 12x12 layouts, to 9x12 documenter pages and now Traveler’s Notebooks. My love of paper started at a very young age when I started hoarding a collection of notepads and fruit scented pens and evolved when I became a mother and wanted to document every milestone achieved by my daughters.  My design style is eclectic, from complex multi layers and mixed media projects to simple TN spreads, I love, and want to do it all!!!

My current go to format for documenting is a Traveler’s Notebook (TN) and 6x8 monthly project life documenting. I love how a TN enables me to combines my love of scrapbooking and storytelling, it gives me the creative outlet I need all the while telling those meaningful everyday stories.

Today I’ve opted to share three TN projects, the Office Hours collection is so fun and fresh, I decided to document three different stories. I mostly use white cardstock in my TNs but the pattern papers in this collection are too gorgeous to pass up! My first project titled Focus features the “Dream” pattern paper, how gorgeous is this paper!!!

I love to create grids on my projects and this collection was ideal to do this design technique. I placed various embellishments below the picture along with my journaling and a 3x3 picture. I opted to keep the embellishments to a minimum on the left side as the patter paper is already beautifully embellished.

My second project, titled Goals, is a reflection of the goals I’ve set out to accomplish this year, 2019 has been very productive and rewarding! I love the pink puffy alpha and wanted to make it the focal point of my TN spread.

Again by using embellishments I was able to create a fun grid pattern. The right side balances out my TN spread with simple embellishment’s and journaling. I love plants, so this little potted plant diecut was ideal for this spread.

My final spread features my youngest daughter and her excitement for second grade!! The chipboard elements were ideal for this school themed TN spread.

I created a frame around the left page with a marker and ruler, I felt this anchored the embellishments at the center of the page. I also combined the puffy alphas, the script and type fonts are perfect together! On the opposite page my picture is anchored by a puffy sticker and journaling. Love how fun this TN spread turned out to be.

As you can see this collection is so versatile, from documenting my workplace, to my goals this year and my daughter school adventure, now this is a versatile collection! I love it when a collection can document more than one type of story!! I hope you have enjoyed my projects, I have tremendously enjoyed working with this amazing collection! Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for being our guest this month, Melanie! We LOVE how you've used the Office Hours collection, and know many crafters will be inspired by your projects!