Happy New Year! January 2012 Guest Designer

Help us ring in the New Year with our January guest designer, Laura Liddell.  Here's a little info on Laura:

I live in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, UK, with John, my partner of many years and our 2 daughters who are now 17 and 15. I love the area in which we live. It is so beautiful nestled between two salmon rivers, the River Severn and the River Wye. Our home is situated on the borders of Herefordshire and Wales.

I feel I am a person with little emotional baggage with a joy for life. I feel I have learned to smell the roses. This saying is on my list for a journal page soon.

I have always been creative and before the children were born I designed knitwear and exported mainly to America and Japan. The landscape around me was very much the inspiration behind many of my designs. Taking colours from the every changing seasons and countryside around us. I found a niche in the market for hand knit menswear and sold to many prestigious stores. The colours I used appealed to this market where I would combine up to 30 different yarns together to create a subtle design full of texture.

When my first daughter was born it coincided with the markets weakening and deadlines were too stressful with a young baby, so I decided to wind up the business. It was also a relief not to have to create in straight lines anymore, which is the structure of knitting.

I came to stamping about 6 years ago. Prior to this I would make up creative projects to do with my children and for my job in family learning. I must admit I love stamping. I love how instant it can be and how one stamp can be used in so many different ways. It has opened up so many peoples creativity and made this part of their life accessible. It is the closest thing I have found as an adult to be like playing as child. I love to combine humour into my creations. There are not many days when I do not find time to play.
Laura joins our current challenge to celebrate the New Year with her creation here:

Her creation uses Starbird with Chick 3059 and Peace on your Wings 8875.
Happy new Year, hope you will join us for our current Stampotique Designer's Challenge here.