In July 2018 we had Samantha Shepherd as our guest designer, she has been using the Cocoa Daisy kits for a year now and we love how she is using her inserts. Let’s learn a bit more about her and see what she created:
I love to use my month at a glance spread to have a word of the day. Inside the front cover is the perfect spot to hold my notes and post it’s.
“Hi I’m Sammy and I live near Manchester in the UK with my husband Chris and 2 puppies, Milo and Bailey. I’m 32 and currently pregnant with our first baby due in October. I work as a designer for museums, art galleries and heritage sites and in my free time I love planning, memory keeping, art journaling and as many crafty hobbies as I can fit in!”
Currently lists are one of my favourite ways to fill up spare pages. I love seeing what has changed when I look back to last year, or what has stayed the same (I still haven’t finished the same book!).
“I’ve been planning and decorating my spreads since I was in high school but as I got older my planners got more functional and less pretty. Until last year when I discovered Cocoa Daisy. I signed up to as many of the Planner kits as possible last August and have been hooked ever since!”
All the pretty stickers and embellishments mean even my to do list is pretty!
“I’ve also been doing Project life since 2015 and in January this year I also added the Cocoa Daisy pocket memory keeping kit to my subscription. I love that my planner and memory keeping spreads match each month.”
My weekly spreads are always so pretty! I needed some more space here so used one of the beautiful cards.
“I love experimenting with different media and adding ephemera from my daily life to my journals and layouts. My style can be quite eclectic and busy but at the same time very functional. I also think it’s really important to record our memories and journal alongside the photographs to record our stories. Whilst I love creating pretty pages I really want to be able to look back on my journals and see a snapshot of my life at this moment. Journaling about what is happening and how I’m feeling is part of that. I love to look back at some of my high school journals and read about the things that felt like such big issues at the time but now just make me laugh. The things I loved like strawberry scented gel pens, the spice girls and my very cool Nokia phone were all part of my story and I love to see how that’s changed. I’m sure the things I’m writing about and recording now will give me as much pleasure to look back on in years to come and I’m sure this baby will find them fun to look through one day too. Who knows, maybe one day Washi Tape will seem as old as those scented gel pens. I hope not though!”
I always use the middle pages as some form of tracker. At the moment it’s a pregnancy log but I’ve also had a meal planner and fitness tracker here as well as gratitude lists.
“Being part of the planning and memory keeping community on YouTube and Instagram has been such a pleasure and I have met so many amazing creative people. I’m so excited to be the guest designer this month and can’t wait to share my ideas with you all xx”
Here I used stickers and die cuts to brighten up my journaling. The card flips up to reveal a photo and some more journaling.
Thank you so much, Sammy, for being our guest in July! Please make sure you check out Samantha’s youtube channel, she uploaded so many (eleven!) Cocoa Daisy videos this past month! You can also follow her on instagram @simplyhappysam.