Design Team Introduction :: Sara Talib

Hey, Sara here, a mum, business owner and a craftaholic. I live in a suburban home in Surrey with my IT geek husband Reza and my dinosaur loving princess, Nora. We are quite a multicultural family, with Arabic, Persian, Norwegian and English culture all mixed up together! From my home, I have built my own Etsy business, Jojo and the Moon, which was born out of this passion for crafting and digital design. 

I have been crafting since I could hold a scissor and glue in my hands, but my passion really grew when I discovered scrapbooking 20 years ago. Now, I like to experiment with different materials and techniques, and the Silhouette Cameo has been my faithful assistant in helping me making my ideas come to life. My specialty is papercut designs, but love to go out of my comfort zone and try different things and way of crafting. Particularly creating new designs with influence from the countries I have lived in and my life as an expat living in London. As I am a bit of a perfectionist, I don’t mind spending hours and days designing and editing something till I get it right!

Very excited to be part of the Design Team and can;t wait to share with you creations!

Here are some of my favorite projects

Design Team Introduction :: Nadine Muir

My name is Nadine Muir, I’m 35 and I originally hail from Northern Ireland.  I moved to Edinburgh for university, where I met my boyfriend Robbie.  By day I work in Financial Services as a programmer, but my spare time is spent designing and making.

I adore home decor, in particular anything Scandi or Mid Century Modern.  I've a weakness for nice stationary and anything by Orla Kiely.  I’m currently mad for lovely fonts, typography and all things geometric.

I bought my Silhouette Cameo two years ago and I’m in love!  I’m a craft magpie and a bit of a perfectionist, so the precision and versatility has made me a devotee.

I enjoy paper crafts such as birthday cards and intricate paper cuts.  I am currently making my friend's wedding invitations.  I even used my cameo to score all the folds for an origami lightshade!

I use heat transfer vinyl (HTV) in lots of projects to make custom onesies and t-shirts, but also use it on canvasses, shopping bags and even to decorate mugs.

I like to experiment with new techniques, or Proof of Concepts as we’d say at work!  I’ve chemically etched sterling silver with fantastic results and I’m currently working on other interesting jewellery projects using the Silhouette.  I can’t wait to share my adventures with you!

Here are some of my favourite projects so far:

Design Team Introduction :: Karen moss

Hello, hello.  My name is Karen and I live in Essex with my lovely husband of 30 years.  We have one daughter – Gracia and a Golden Retriever – Kiera, Gracia and Kiera are the main focus of my scrapbook pages.   I have been scrapbooking for about 10 years, having been introduced to it by my best friend and during that time have been published most UK scrapbook magazines and have been on the design teams for Scrapagogo and Shimelle.  I am currently on the design team for A Trip Down Memory Lane.

I have loved to craft since my grandma taught me to knit and sew when I was five and have been ‘making stuff’ ever since.  Once I discovered scrapbooking all other crafts fell by the wayside. My style is very layered and full on and my friends joke that if you can get more than one of my pages into a page protector then it can’t be finished yet.  My style is constantly evolving with each new challenge. 

Crafting is an inherent part of my everyday life – I have to do something creative every day or my day doesn’t feel complete.  I like to scrap my frustrations, my triumphs, my love of life and my family, I like to record the sad, funny, ordinary and just plain weird things that happen in our everyday life, I scrap the everyday.  I am not an acid free scrapper as I like to add all sorts to my pages. 

I bought a Cameo three years ago and never looked back.  Now almost every one of my projects uses it to some degree or other and I am constantly finding new ways to utalise this amazing machine.  As I run a Rainbow Pack it is s

o useful for cutting out quick projects for the girls to make.

I am thrilled to be part of this ultra talented group of girls who will be showcasing their amazing projects over the next year.

Some of my favourite projects.

Design Team Introduction :: Niki Rowland

Hi there, Niki here. I’m 33 years old, live in St Albans, am married to Ben and have two little ones who keep me very busy: Sophie aged 4 and Max aged 2. I’ve been scrapbooking and making cards for about 10 years but in a previous life (pre-children) I was a divorce solicitor. Since having Sophie I have managed not to step foot back inside a corporate office and I’ve never been happier J  I started teaching local card-making and scrapbooking classes before giving up work and stepped this up a notch when I did. I now regularly teach and it has grown so much that I would call myself a full-time scrapbooker!  I also teach at retreats and have taught a few online classes too.

My first ever scrapbook was of mine and my (now) husband’s first holiday together. I hand-wrote titles, cut my photos into shapes, drew pictures which I coloured with kids colouring pencils – you get the picture. I occasionally look back at that album, with huge fondness of course, but I am very glad I discovered real scrapbooking products soon after, and of course my Silhouette Cameo in due course. My Cameo was the biggest investment I have made in my craft room to date and I while I do use it quite a lot I am so looking forward to pushing myself out of my comfort zone and exploring all those features I haven’t yet been brave enough to try.  And I’ll share every moment J

Here are some of my favourite projects so far:

Design Team Introduction :: Caroline Free

Hello, Caroline here, I’m actually a social worker by trade but when I needed to move from my home town of Huddersfield to Llandudno in North Wales I couldn’t speak Welsh which was essential in order to work here, so I took the opportunity instead of starting up my hand made business making my Memory Keeper Books. I was already crafting before the move so it seemed a natural thing to do. Now the reason I fell in love with all things paper I blame on the colour yellow! I saw the paper in a shop window, so pretty and bought it HA! I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do with it but it led me down this path and I’m so grateful that it did. I still haven’t used that yellow paper - it’s too symbolic so I treasure it instead. 

We don’t have our own children but we adore my best friends twins called Lily and Freya and they are collectively known as the frillies. Their mum and I now work on the Frillies Project where we document their lives, I create pages and Louise and I both do the journaling - that’s why you rarely see it on a page as I have to wait until I see Louise! This is a secret project from the Frillies as it will be given to them when they are 18, they are 11 at the moment. 

I am engaged to Aldo and we have two miniature schnauzers. We live by the sea so it’s perfect, very very busy in the summer and quiet and peaceful in the winter months. You will see lots of layouts featuring the beach as it’s where we spend a lot of our time when the frillies come to stay. I also run a vintage and retro business on etsy as I love pretty china and kitsch mid century, my house is bursting with them, it keeps me very busy treasure hunting, photographing and listing the ones I can bare to let go!

Finally I have to say that the scrapbooking community is just amazing, the friends I have made, the layouts I have swooned over, the laughs I have had mean the world to me. I just couldn’t imagine my life without this wonderful group of people, I feel so lucky to be part of it. 

Here are some of my favourite layouts

Silhouette on Tour :: Hobbycrafts Show, NEC

We are starting to get excited here about the Hobbycrafts Show at the NEC in March, the 17th to the 20th to be precise!
For those of you that normally stop by to see us at the November show, we are changing things around a little bit this year and have doubled the size of our stand and will still have a similar sized shopping area but have added a demonstration area too!
There will be some seating, a large screen connected to the software and me with a head mic (insert nervous smile here!) I will be doing hourly demonstrations, that will last around 30 minutes each on our different machines, want to know more?

Here is the timetable, each day will run the same


Silhouette - Stand E24
11:30 – Curio – Cutting, Embossing and Deep Cutting
12:30 – Mint – Overview, software and making a stamp
13:30 – Q&A Session - This will be on all machines but will be questions about the range rather than troubleshooting
14:30 – Cameo – Pixscan and print & cut
15:30 – Curio – Sketching, Stippling and etching
16:30 – Mint – Overview, software and making a stamp
10:30 – Cameo – Cutting Demonstrations

Fancy coming along?
Well, I have a pair of tickets to give away, all you have to do is head over to our facebook page and like an share our Post about it, we will pick a winner at random on Monday 29th February 

Design Team Introduction :: Beverley Edwards

Hello Bev here, I am a stay at home mum to my two scrummy little Edwards, Poppy (5) and Chester (3). I also run my own small business, Love from Poppy from my little studio in Warrington.

Poppy was our first and much longed for child. We went through a lot to get her here and I knew once I had her I didn’t want to miss a minute! So I began thinking of a way I could earn money alongside being at home with her. I decided to train as a hairdresser, as I thought it would work perfectly with my Beauty Therapy qualification. But I hit a stumbling block in the fact that I wasn’t able to get the financial support to actually study.

I decided to take the money I already had in savings and bought myself a sewing machine. I've never taken a sewing class (except the ones you have to take at school and end up making a tea towel in order to pass your exams) but I had convinced myself it couldn’t be that hard. Could it?

Armed with my sewing machine, some material from an old top and a cup of tea, I sat down to teach myself how to sew. I googled and you-tubed into the small hours, and then back into the big hours. And slowly but surely me and my little sewing machine (which I had decorated with Cath Kidston stickers by this point) made an item that didn’t fall apart when it was pulled at the seams. Success!!

I introduced three ranges over time, which included a baby items line (items to make your changing bag a little brighter and organised). A handbag items line and a home line. In the home line, the personalised cushions and bunting are by far the most popular.

Hand drawing and cutting the individual letters for the cushions and bunting was labour intensive to say the least! So after some research I decided to make my biggest investment to date and bought a Silhouette Cameo. It was love at first sight. It was shiny and beautiful and I couldn’t wait to get started.  It hasn’t always been a harmonious relationship, there have been times when my cameo and I couldn’t be in the same room together, but a couple of years on I would never be without it. It saves me time and creates perfectly cut shapes and letters every single time.

I can not wait to share my makes with you over the next 12 months, but here are a few pictures of some of my favourite projects