Welcome Our December Guest, Ashley Calder!

This month we welcome designer Ashley Calder as our honored guest with the JBS Mercantile Kit Club. 

Ashley writes, "I am mom to three, married to one, petter of two cats, student of science, baker of cupcakes; reader of books, taker of photos, lover of art, neighbour to my mom and dad, wearer of nail polish, tip-toe walker, gardener on hiatus...

and I scrapbook it all.

I started scrapbooking just before our second daughter was born, just about exactly nine years ago, and I have never looked back! I absolutely love being able to not only play with fun little bits and bobs, but also to document all of the wonderful things I love about my family.

I blog almost daily at things that shine, ashleycalder.blogspot.com ."

Here is a little glimpse into a mini-album on a layout from Ashley.  Be sure to check out the layout and mini-album in its entirety in her December gallery.  About it she writes, "Not only do I love these photos that I took with my iPhone out the car window as we were driving to spend the weekend with Paul's family, but I absolutely love including little mini-mini albums directly on a layout. This gives me the spacious feeling of a single photo, single page layout, but I also get to layer and include all of the event photos I need or want to."

We adore her usage of the Exclusive Seal Stencil from the November Kit here as well.  You can see more of Ashley's work with this kit in her recent blog posts.

I believe Ashley must be often found at her happiest when dabbling with messy mediums.  Of these paintbrushes she says, "I am super rough and super irresponsible with brushes, so I buy them in packages of 5 or 6 at the dollar store and keep LOTS on hand. These are great for matte gel, gesso, acrylics, and messy watercolours. I use them for everything but careful detail work. And when I leave them out and they get crunchy and hard, I don't feel TOO bad about tossing them. (Though so far I've been keeping them to use in mini albums and pages!)."

And finally, here is a timeless photo of her two older girls that is one of her current favorites.  I can't wait to see what she does with it.  She says, "I love this Instagram I took of our two biggest girls earlier in the month, making a huge leaf fort in the front yard. They laboured over it, intense and serious, but also laughed and had so much fun together. They are 11 and 8 years old, so I enjoy seeing them PLAY and have so much fun together, because I'm sure before long they won't want to roll in the leaves in the front yard!"