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I love so many different colours, styles and techniques – but I’m crazy about dimension and stamping! I love cutting out an image and ‘bumping’ it up by backing it with one, two or even three layers of adhesive foam squares. I love to add depth so that the viewer feels like they are entering another world in my art. That's why I do a lot more beyond the page projects such as canvas, altered books, boxes and tunnel cards. I also really like my work to be interactive and have movement. Much of it includes niches, layers, opening flaps, inserts that slide in and out. That way the person looking at my scrapped memories gets involved – opening envelopes, zipping lids and pulling out inserts. We're all curious by nature and who can resist finding out what the little handle on the canvas opens? Another big influence on my style is stamping. I started about 12 years ago and I'm a rubber stamp addict – I own about 2500 mounted and 1800 unmounted stamps – and growing. A lot of the techniques I use on my projects use stamps, inks, paints, embossing powders, pigment powders, watercolors and a lot of other great products. My motto is if I can get to hold still long enough I'm going to ink it or stamp on it.

Colour your world! Many people mistake distressing for just brown, black and sepia tones. Not at all! I love scuffing, scraping and crinkling paper, then adding bright pink and blue ink. Spritz it with some water and iron dry. Add a little coating of beeswax and tah-dah – instant colourful distress. Years ago when I was in high school, during the rockin' 80's, the book ‘Color Me Beautiful’ was selling like crazy and everyone was discovering their colour palette. I'm a Spring that can cross over into Winter colours. For those of you not familiar, each season was broken into a palette of colours that look best on you. The funny thing is, you’ll find that the colours in your palette are ones you are naturally drawn toward. I love deep purple, bright pink, yellow gold, emerald green, royal blue, turquoise – bright jewel tone colours and I often use metallic gold as an accent. All of these are in the Spring colour set. When I teach a class, I can often match the project to the artist based on the colour scheme and the clothes, jewellery, hair colour and make-up a person is wearing.

Miniature work can have maximum impact Working in miniature is so much fun! I love 8in x 8in or 9in x 9in pages, small albums, boxes, tags etc. Small projects can say so much and hold a lot of memories. Small projects can be more inviting for others to look at sometimes. For example, in my new Design Originals book Mad for Minis you can make a 3in x 3in, 16 page mini album from a 12in x 12in piece of scrapbook paper. Fill it with photos, embellishments, mini die cuts and more until it's bulging. Make several, put them in a basket and put it out on your coffee table. The next time you have guests over, I promise, they will be going through that basket.

When planning a page I work from a central image. I really want to tell a story about that image so next I will choose a theme based on the image – baby, princess, summer, fall, sports etc. Once I choose the theme I will then set the mood. Is it happy or sad, cold or warm, love or heartache? Mood, for me, really determines the colour scheme that I'm going to use. For example, I did a page using a picture of my niece dressed in her princess costume, holding her hands out in front and she has a big smile on her face. I fell in love with the picture the moment I saw it and knew I wanted to scrap it. Rather than going with the obvious theme, Princess, I wanted to focus on her little hands. So I chose "hands" as the theme. My niece is such a happy and vibrant little creature so I really wanted to portray a happy mood. So my page title was "Happy Hands" and I created a background by stippling really bright inks on the background paper, used bright cardstock for matting the photo, and embellished with small hands punched from bright cardstock, coloured bottle caps, etc.

Inspiration is everywhere for me! I'm often sketching or jotting down ideas on napkins, scrap paper and deposit slips when I'm out and about and inspiration hits me. It can be as simple as a really great photograph, a beautiful piece of architecture or even a movie. Advertisements in magazines or even on television can have great colour combinations that catch my attention and inspire me to use it in a layout. There are so many fabulous scrapbooking papers on the market. Sometimes I buy a paper because I like the colour or I will pick up a piece of paper and am instantly inspired with an idea for layers, dimension and theme. Probably the craziest but best place of inspiration for me can come from movies. Especially if the movie is about a particular era such as World War II, Victorian Age, the Roaring 20's etc. It will really get me in the mood to scrap my family history photos and remind me of colour, beauty, heartache, joy and so much more!

MICHELLE’S SCRAPPIN’ TIPS AND IDEAS
- Colour stamped images with a Dove Blender and dye inks.
- Stamp an image in light pink or blue. Color it. Then over-stamp it in black. This is easy to do with clear stamps. If using rubber mounted stamps, be sure to use a stamp positioner.
- Edge ANY colour of paper with Colorbox Sepia black pigment ink. It looks great! Hot pink, light blue, beige, green, etc. Try it. You'll like it!
- Go miniature! If you haven't tried small projects give it a go. I think you'll be really inspired and will get a lot of projects finished. The small projects provide a lot of satisfaction and less intimidation and stress than trying to complete an entire 12in x 12in album.
- Mix Ranger Glossy Accents with a little alcohol or dye ink, then apply it to your project thin as a glaze or thick for dimension.!