Featured Designer: Crystal Livesay

I‘m so thrilled to have Crystal Livesay in the house with us today. When Crystal started designing, I had three different people email me saying “you must check this girl out!”

Here’s her story as well as her exclusive tips for keeping it simple!

How long have you been designing templates? What inspired you to start your business?
I started last Fall and kind of just on a whim. I thought I would see if I could make a template and then maybe just put it on my blog as a freebie. I had a couple well known designers take a peek at it and let me know what they thought or if it was worth pursuing. The response was really great so I just kind of went from there.

What do you love most about designing templates?
I love being able to help tell people’s stories in my own unique way. I feel like even though my templates are definitely made in my own style they are easily customizable and I love being able to help people get their memories and stories recorded in what I hope is a quick and easy way.

Do you have any time-saving tips you swear by?
Well in general I just don’t fret and fret about my pages. As long as I can look at it and tell what the moment/memory was by the photo and journaling I am happy and I move on. I don’t fret over the best shadows, or having the most layers, or doing some super new and creative technique..etc. I just stick to what I know and what I think works for me and the page I am doing.

What is your most popular product? What about it do you think gives it a broad appeal?
My Jumpers with Textpaths have sold the best thus far. I think people really like them because in programs like Photoshop Elements you cannot make textpaths so this is a great way for more people to be able to do something like journal around shapes and what not.

Templates can be fabulous launch pads, allowing scrappers to build on a great foundation with their own creativity. Can you share with us one of your favorite templates and examples of its use in a variety of styles?
I really like how my Photo Centric collab with Emily Powers turned out! These were made as a photo focus type album but some people took these and made some really amazing scrap pages!

What tips do you have for helping scrappers customize a template and give it their own creative spin?
Don’t feel like you have to keep everything exactly the way it is when you open it. Sometimes when I go to use a template I will just start off by rotating my entire canvas one direction in order to make it a bit different then move from there. You already have a unique take on a template and then it helps to make the template more usable for the future because you can just rotate it and then you will have a bran new page again!

Simple Scrapper is all about making digital scrapbooking easier and more fun. What are you best tips for keeping scrapbooking simple?
The main thing to me that keeps it fun is to try to focus on your own memories or stories. Dont’ feel like you have to do things a certain way or in a certain order. Scrap the way you feel best tells your own stories and don’t worry about much else past that.

Bookmark Alert: Where to Find Crystal

• Blog
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Shop
• VanillaBees

A Gift from Crystal

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Chat with Crystal

Tonight at 9pm central time, in the Simple Scrapper chat room, Crystal will join us for #scrapchat.

Each month at Simple Scrapper, we’re featuring a wonderful designer who creates templates to make your scrapping easier and more fun.