Telling Stories with Guest Designer Laura Wonsik

Today we are so excited to welcome guest designer Laura Wonsik to the SCT blog! Laura currently designs for Ali Edwards, Studio Calico, and our friend Vicki Boutin, creating beautiful and colorful projects that use products in an innovative way and focus on telling stories! We know you’ll love what she is sharing with us today, as well as her formula for getting a lot documented in an easy way! 

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Hello! My name is Laura Wonsik and I am so excited to be a guest designer sharing a new layout with you today! 

Supplies | Traveler’s Notebook Kit: Studio Calico; Ephemera: Crate Paper; Alphabet: American Crafts; Stamp & die cut set: Vicki Boutin for American Crafts; Cork numbers: Ali Edwards

When my oldest daughter started talking, I found that my style of scrapbooking couldn’t keep up with all of the stories I wanted to tell about her. So, I started doing story compilations and it has been a great way to capture little unrelated stories about her. 

Every time something happens that I want to remember, I write it down in the Notes app on my phone. As soon as I get 5 stories, I find a recent photo of her and then put them together to make a layout. When she was 4 years old, I did 4 stories at a time, when she is 6 I will do 6, etc. That way I will always know the age she was when the stories happened.

To keep it simple, I use a formula for the page design. The first thing I do is go through my stash to find an embellishment that matches the photo and that there are at least 5 of, so that I can repeat a design for each story. Usually it’s some sort of basic shape that will work to create a cluster. For this layout, I used some of the die cuts from the Studio Calico “Chasing the Sun” traveler’s notebook kit paired with some old cork numbers I had. 

Next, I use some kind of repeated formatting for the stories. For this layout, I  formatted the text in a digital heart shape in Photoshop with a black background to create contrast against the brightly colored die cuts. 

Last, I create a title, sometimes using her initial “E” or her age “5”, or if I numbered the stories, as I did in this layout, I create a cluster in the negative space of the photo to act as a title. I used a couple of tags from Crate Paper and some Thickers from American Crafts as well as a die-cut stamp set from Vicki Boutin’s Let’s Wander collection.

If you feel overwhelmed by the number of stories you want to tell, I recommend trying this technique. You could create story compilations about any subject, and it’s very freeing to have a formula and routine for telling stories. Don’t be afraid to repeat a design! You could create your own routine of storytelling; 20 things in 2020, or 36 things at 36 years old—the possibilities are endless and there are no rules to how to tell your stories! Happy crafting!

I have been scrapbooking for over 20 years and my favorite style is hybrid pocket page scrapbooking. The main subjects of my pages right now are my two daughters, Ellie (5) and Isla (1). I work as a therapist at Miami University in Oxford, OH and am married to my favorite human of all time, my sweet husband Chad. 

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Find more of Laura’s wonderful, story-filled projects on her Instagram and Facebook feeds! Thank you so much for inspiring us to tell our stories today, Laura!