Featured Member - Brenda Dean!!!!

This week our Featured Member is a wonderful lady who brings so much to TLL. I really enjoy getting to know our members and hope you do too. On a personal note, I have Brenda to thank for my beginning to dabble in Digital Scrapbooking!! :-)

Let's get to meet Brenda -
After many years of working in the hectic, high-stress Corporate world, I left it all to be a part-time church secretary by day, full-time papercrafter by night. And I've never regretted a minute of it! I live in beautiful (but currently snowy) Upstate NY with my husband/best friend of almost 27 years and our 2 feline babies, Chevy and Callie Ann.

How long have you been paper crafting? Does drawing portraits as a 6-year-old count? If not, 7 years in all, almost 4 as a Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator

How did you get started in paper crafting? A longtime friend and her sister came to see us in our new house in Connecticut and brought cards that they had made. I was intrigued and the sister invited me to her house for a stamp camp. I came home with a Stampin' Up! Catalog and spent hours and hours browsing through it. I was hooked from that point on.

What crafting item can you not live without? This is a tough question but I would have to say my Stamp-a-ma-jig. I use it to stamp images where I want them, i.e., straight!, and also to preview what a card will look like if I add an image or sentiment in a certain spot.

What is your favorite paper crafting company? I love Stampin' Up! I know that the ribbon will match the cardstock which will match the ink and the patterned paper. They have taken the guesswork out of color matching which leaves the fun part of stamping to me!

What is your favorite coloring medium? One of my goals is to learn how to watercolor better but I have to say that my go-to coloring medium are the Stampin' Write Markers. I will use them directly on the rubber or I will use them with a blender pen to color a stamped image. Oh, and I have to tell you that I will scribble the marker on the plastic of my beloved Stamp-a-ma-jig and pick up the color with the blender pen. Yup, I love my Stamp-a-ma-jig.

Do you have any other hobbies? Digital photography is probably my top hobby right now. My goal is to photograph barns this year (older barns have always intrigued me!). And I love to read when I have time.

Is there anything else you would like to share about yourself? People are always amazed to discover that I have 2 Masters degrees and that I was a computer geek in my Corporate life (million dollar computers not personal computers). The geeky side comes in handy when I want to make changes to my blog.

Here are some of Brenda's beautiful work -




Be sure to stop by Brenda's lovely blog and say hello!!

Thanks for coming by today. Blessings!!
Melissa