Welcome to New Design Team member: Debbie Ryan

Hi everyone!
I live in Upper Hutt, with my husband and my 3 teenage kids. We've been in New Zealand for 15 years after moving here from the UK. We love New Zealand for its people and its beauty, and consider it home, we became citizens last year.

My day job ;-) is an osteopath and I run a busy practice in Lower Hutt. Creating is my go-to de-stress.

How I got hooked on papercrafting
I started scrapbooking in about 2002 when I wanted to create memory books for my kids, but couldn't find what I wanted so I started with my own books and embellished.

I now do all sorts of paper crafting. My first love is probably still scrapbooking, like most people my style has evolved over time. I'm not a tidy creator so my studio space is messy, I love getting messy with inks and paints. I love the mixed media style, basically because anything goes and you can get real messy :-)

I've also just discovered the art of swapping pocket letters, they are so much fun!

Scrapbooking tools/products that I can't do without

Papers - I love pretty paper, I have more paper than I could possibly ever use in a year.... but as the new collections are released I want more. My go to can't go without, that you'll see on most of my projects is gold acrylic paint, I love it because its cheap, easy to use, messy and adds sparkle to anything.

Advice to people just beginning to enjoy paper crafting?

I would say, go with what you love, don't always copy other styles, sure learn stuff and take classes, but take the bits that you love from them and create from your heart: just do what you like and what you love,

Here are some projects that I've enjoyed creating recently...
Printers Tray

I made this printers tray for my mom's 70th birthday late last year, I wanted to make it just a pretty thing she could enjoy looking at again and again. So I filled it with flowers and pretty trinkets. This might be my only project with no gold paint though :-)

12 x 12 Canvas
For this canvas, I layered lots of torn paper, added to create my own background with stencils, inks and gold paint. I then layered some embellishments and painted them to blend with the papers, this is one of my fav things to do, and is inspired by Finnabair's work, I attended a couple of her classes a few years ago.

Steampunk style grungey card
Finally here's a card I made earlier this year, I love creating layers with inks,paints, stencils, dry embossing and stamps. This card is a good example of the cards I enjoy making, I started with the ATC, and then added to the background.

I'm looking forward to creating with the team, and I hope to inspire some of you along the way!