Each month, we plan on bringing you a guest designer to wow you.  To knock your socks off with the way they put BasicGrey to work on their projects.  That’s not setting the bar high, right?

We’d like to welcome and introduce you to Danielle Flanders as our guest designer for March 2012. 

Danielle has been scrapbooking for almost 12 years now, since her first daughter was born. She began scrapbooking to create a memory book for her newborn daughter. Shortly after, a friend introduced her to card making and stamping. In 2007, while a stay-at-home mom, Danielle discovered scrapbooking sites on-line, began applying for design teams and started a blog to display her work.

Currently, Danielle is working for several manufacturers and still blogs regularly at Homespun With Heart. She has been published in over 20 different publication titles and has taught classes at scrapbook stores, events and trade shows all over the country. Her unique designs and ideas keep her readers coming back for more! She has a love for creating handmade cards for family and friends and always loves to include homespun touches like stitching on them.

Having grown up most of her life in South Dakota, she is a midwest small-town girl at heart. However, she resides in upstate New York now with her husband and 2 daughters, ages 12 and 6. Danielle holds an Elementary Teaching degree and a Speech Language/Audiology degree, however loves being able to stay home with her girls…and design in her spare time.

Today, we’re sharing the first project that Danielle has created for us this month along with a step-by-step tutorial.

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When I began this layout, I was inspired by a “houndstooth” pattern. After playing around with my square punch and trying to recreate houndstooth, instead I came up with something that looks a bit more like arrows! Perfect for a love layout of any sort, but here I’ve scrapbooked an older photo of my youngest daughter with her blanket that she adores so much. It’s been in our family for probably 35 years now and is torn and tattered, but it still means so much to us as it was handmade by my grandmother so long ago!

I’ll show you how to create this simple arrow technique that I used on this layout.

First you will punch two 1 ½”squares from several of the different patterns in the Konnichiwa line by Basic Grey. You’ll need seven sets of patterns. I used all different patterns from the Konnichiwa papers, along with some red cardstock for a bit of contrast. Cut the second square of each set in a diagonal with scissors.

Begin by placing them on a 12 x 12” piece of white cardstock as shown, with each of the two triangle halves pointing inward at each other, creating an “arrow” look.

Continuing placing the squares and triangles. Leave room on the right hand side of the page for journaling. Also, be sure to leave room in the bottom left corner for a photo and in the bottom right hand corner for a title.

Adhere the patchwork arrows to the layout. Add strips of Konnichiwa patterned papers at the top and bottom of the layout. Machine stitch with a zig zag stitch over the strips of paper if you’d like. This adds to the homemade “quilted” feel of the layout.  Print out journaling onto a piece of white cardstock 1” x 11”. Adhere to right side of page.

Adhere round stickers from the Konnichiwa line and Basic Grey sticker letters for the title. Add brad.

Add a photo to lower left corner.

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Thanks for sharing your time and talents with us, Danielle.  We’re thrilled to having you joining us this month on the BG blog!