ScrapScene

Michelle Beck (Michou), from France, was the grand prize winner of our Truly Trendy Contest and now we would like to welcome her as the featured artist for our Spotlight on a Designer series.  You can see Michou’s winning entry here.  To see more of her work, please read the interview below and also visit her blog.

For past Spotlight on a Designer interviews, please click here.

Here are the questions we posed to Michou along with her responses:

{ScrapScene} How long have you been scrapbooking?  What got you started?

{Michou} I have been scrapbooking since 2006 April, two years. I started when my second daughter was born. I wanted to make her an album about her birth, so I searched on (the) internet, and found a message board about scrapbooking… lol! I remember my first page. I think it took me three or four hours to do it!!! And there was nothing too complicated on it! Lol

{ScrapScene} What inspires and motivates you to create if you get a creative block?

{Michou} Everything inspires me! We just have to open our eyes, and we’ll see inspiration! I found it in books (not specially about scrapbooking), outside, when I go to school with my daughters, on publicity, on TV … but when I create a page, the more often, it’s the photo , and what it represents for me.

Sometimes, when I create for the DT like Tada Creative Studio, Onirie or Mémento, it’s the papers who give me inspiration …

Layout below right, "Let’s Go," was made by Michou using her Keep in Touch kit from her Truly Trendy contest winnings.

{ScrapScene} What are your favourite techniques and products? 

{Michou} Well! Do you believe me if I say Prima flowers!? Yes I love flowers… but I try to use it less often on my creations…

My favourite techniques? Painting, and distressing paper, I love giving them a grunge look.

Michou made the layout shown below, "Queen of My Heart," using the Teresa Collins prize from her Truly Trendy contest winnings.

{ScrapScene} What are your most essential scrapbooking tools?

{Michou} The papers because even if you have only papers you can create evrything you want! Alphabets, flowers … and actually my paper distresser and my stapler

Below, "Jolies," is a sneak peek of a layout for La Scrapinerie.

{ScrapScene} What do you think is the hottest trend in scrapbooking? What do you predict for future trends?

{Michou} Hum! I wish I knew the future trends! But no I don’t know … scrapbooking is amazing for that! You can do everything you want, you can draw, you can sew, you can paint … one day we see lots of birds, and another day we see doodling everywhere…

For me the most important trend is painting, it gives so many possibilities! I really love that.

"Etoile" is a sneak peek for Memento for a magazine, Style et Scrap.

{ScrapScene} Do you have any tips for getting published? 

{Michou} Just do your pages as if it was only for you, and then, if it’s the theme for a call of magazine, send it, but do your pages for you, be yourself … it’s the only tips I could give to you …

"Summer" is a sneak peek of Ta Da Creative Studio for Creation Scrapbooking magazine.

{ScrapScene} Are there any other Designers that inspire you?

{Michou} There are so many great designers that inspire me! Lots are in my bloglines like Janine Langer, Celine Navarro, Anna Bowkis, Tammy Kay and so many …

{ScrapScene} What project are you working on now?  Do you have any sneak peeks to share?

{Michou} I am working on new projects for the French shop online Scrapinerie and another project for ScrapGenie.

I continue to do creations for the manufacturers which I design for like Onirie with new papers designed by Pati!  

I have a page made with Tada Creative Studio papers in the next French magazine Creation Scrapbooking and another with Memento in the next Style et Scrap.

And then I continue to do pages, sketches and projects for Scrap-Idees, a French blog I made with friends, and for the first crop (with classes) for DT ScrapNotes, another French blog with friends.

{ScrapScene} Please tell us a little about your scrapping space.  Do you have any photos to share of it?

{Michou} My scraproom is a very, very, very small room! But I love it! I don’t have to stand up every time I want something; every thing is near me… I have boxes for my flowers, buttons, brads, papers … (see photos.)

Thank You Michou!