Featured Designer
Sunday, September 2nd, 2012Featured Designer-Memory Clips by Ramona
It is time to get know our featured designer, Ramona Brown. She is the designer behind Memory Clips. I really enjoyed getting to know her a little better, I am sure you will to. She has quite a story to tell. I asked Ramona to tell us a little bit about herself. She really does open up her heart to us.
“My name is Ramona and I live in northern Utah with my husband of almost 17 years and my 6 kids! My oldest if 15 and my baby is 3. They keep me busy but are also the joy of my life. One of my children; Sam, my 8 year old,was born with a chromosomal defect, a speech delay and on the autism spectrum. I have become passionate about spreading the word about autism and other disabilities that are becoming more and more common. The more that people can understand about these things, the more accepting they can be of children and adults who struggle with these challenges. I have learned that it is really hard to not feel judged every time we go out in public and although most of it is probably in my own head, it is nice when I can educate people about the little quirks that make up my beautiful boy!”
“Here is a layout I scrapped last summer using the lyrics of a favorite song that kind of captures the pain that goes with being the parent of a child who works so hard to fit in.”
Ramona loves gardening and canning and all things dealing with whole, natural foods. She and 5 of her children have Celiac Disease, so they have learned to eat a gluten free diet and do most of their cooking by scratch. Ramona told me that there are days that it can be a pain, but mostly she loves how it feels to take a few simple ingredients and make some pretty amazing foods for her family to eat! Ramona says “I am working hard to lose weight and have been exercising almost daily. A lot of my journey is on my blog and I’m hoping that over the next year to lose 130 pounds!” I have a feeling she will be successful, she is one determined woman! Ramona also loves the outdoors and the beautiful mountains that surround where she lives. She grew up the oldest of 5 children and loves that she has 22 neices and nephews!
The theme for this month is Back to School and life long learning so I asked what that means to her and her family. Here is what she had to say “I love this time of year and sending the kids back to school. I always loved back to school myself and could literally spend a small fortune on school supplies! I LOVE the smell of crayons-but only the Crayola ones! My kids are into the arts from choir, band and theatre and I LOVE looking forward to what each new school year will bring for them. My youngest daughter just entered first grade and is in Chinese Immersion. I can’t wait to see all the things she will learn. I love reading to my kids and our favorite series of all time is the Harry Potter series. Although for my older kids, the Hunger Games have taken a close second!”
Ramona considers herself a scrapper first and a designer second. She designs for her own scrapping! Ramona started scrapping in the 80′s and has several albums she did in her early married years. She told me that she hated having to drag all the supplies out and then put everything back away. She felt that she spent most of her spare evening time, just getting out and putting away! Ramona said “When I found digital, I have never looked back! I do a yearly album of all our family adventures that are usually around 60 pages each. I am also working backwards and doing albums for each of my kids.” Ramona started designing in the spring of 2008, she tells us about her evolving design name. “When I started designing, I designed as ‘browniescraps’, then I opened a store with that name so I changed my design name to ‘Designs by Ramona’. I thought this was boring! After about a year or so, I changed it to ‘Ramona the Pest’ Designs. This was inspired by my childhood nickname! In the spring of 2011, I retired and took some time off from designing. We were in the process of moving and I was stressed out a ton! But I couldn’t get the ideas for templates and kits out of my head, so at the end of 2011, I opened my shop at ScrapMatters under the design name of ‘Memory Clips’. I think my frequent design name changes represent a lot about me! I love new things and new beginnings and lots of change. This drives my poor hubby crazy and my kids joke that “if you don’t like how the house is arranged, come back tomorrow”. I admit that change is dominant in every area of my life! I love being spontaneous and easily get bored with structure and an organized schedule!”
I think I had a pretty good idea, but I wanted to hear what Ramona had to say about design inspiration. As I expected she told me that it is mostly the things in her life that she needs to scrap about that she designs for! From kids activities to the every day moments she love to captures, she likes to create kits that help her scrap and hopes that they help others as well. She finished up by saying “I do design some themed kits, but I also try to include enough neutral things that anyone could use the kits for their own scrapping journey! My favorite items in a kit are stitching, journal cards and little unique elements that are great for clustering! I try to always include these in my kits!”
Since Ramona keeps her customers in mind when she designs I wanted to show you some of her favorite layouts scrapped with her designs.
Scrapped with Scholastic Fantastic Scrapped with Captured
Scrapped with Captured
Ramona has designed a special kit that is free with a $10 purchase in the ScrapMatters store while she is the featured designer, September 1-14.
Here is a layout made by the creative team from the kit
Be sure to join Ramona in the chat room on September 4th to get to know her even better. I am sure that she will have some surprises for all you chatty people!
If you still have not signed up for the monthly newsletter, do that right now with the form at the top left of the blog screen. I heard that Ramona has an extra goodie for everyone who subscribes!
Here are the links to all things Memory Clips.
Subscribe to Memory Clips Newsletter
It would be great if you all could leave a comment to thank Ramona for all the goodies and tell her how much you enjoyed getting to know her.
Debby
