A spot of guest designing. Saying yes.

I have been keeping something in the pipeline these last few weeks...
I am thrilled to announce that I am guest designing this month with Cocoa Daisy.

The story behind this is a funny one.
A while back I was checking my blog stats like I normally do. ( I like to try and get a picture of where my traffic is coming from and who is reading. I'm going to post more about this soon.)
One of the referring sites was Cocoa Daisy.

The name struck a chord with me and I hopped over to check them out.
Cocoa Daisy are a scrapbooking kit company who create gorgeous monthly kits using a range of supplies, some exclusive to them. There are two kits each month and one is a 'day in the life' project life kit. After seeing such beautiful products and pages I was pretty flattered that they had found my blog to be honest!

I wandered around the site and came across the forum where I signed up to become a member. I created an account and waited for it to be verified. No sooner had I done this than a sweet email came in from the lovely Emily. She had noticed my name pop up and realised I had stumbled across the site from my own blog. She told me, wonder of wonders, that the design team had been looking at my blog and wondered if I would consider being a guest designer for them!

At this point I genuinely thought she had found the wrong person. I mean, I haven't paper scrapbooked in a very long time. Goodness, I have never even touched paper project life. I explained this to Emily and she very graciously said they would still love to have me.

Now this is the point it would have been easy to back out. To be content with the fact that I had put paper to one side and carry on my merry way with digital PL.
But I wanted to be brave. An opportunity had been handed to me. I wanted to say 'yes'.
I took a deep breath and agreed. I would be designing with the August kit, I would be on my holidays and I had plenty of photos to work with. Everything was lined up.

And that's where I am today. A week ago a big box of scrapbook things arrived on my doorstep. I was so nervous and so excited to open that box. The kit this month is called 'modern and vintage' and it is beautiful. Strong colours, pretty patterns and totally me.

I sat down with photos in front of me, a box of supplies on my desk, took a deep breath and began. I didn't know where to start but just went with what I do normally. Telling the story. I gave myself regular pep talks like, "just because I have done digitally, doesn't mean I can't do paper."
And you know what? I remembered totally, why I got into scrapbooking in the first place. I remembered why I have stuck paper with glue for so long.
The pages came together easily, mostly because the supplies were so lovely.

After making my PL spreads, I sat back and pulled out that 12 x 12 sheet. It sat on my desk all day.
PL is my comfort zone. 12 x 12 scrapbooking isn't any more.
But I was determined to be brave. That evening I carefully grabbed some of my favourite parts of the kit and began.
I am shocked and delighted by how the page turned out. It was a step for me and I'm so glad I said yes.

Thank you Cocoa Daisy for asking me to guest design, thank you for trusting in me and sending me such a gorgeous kit to play with.
If you want to see the finished results, my pages will be up in the gallery on the site from the evening of the 28th of July! And if you want a kit, I couldn't recommend them more.