I had so much fun creating this collaboration kit with Booland Designs. A trip to one of the local gardens inspired me for this evening garden creation and provided me with lots of photographs of garden and architectural elements for extracting unique elements for the kit.  And as you can see from the photos below we created a lot of add-ons to complement and complete the basic kit.


And it's on sale for its debut at 40% off at all of my stores:

















And as always some inspiration from the talented StarSongStudio CT team:

I had so much fun designing this kit with Manu Scraps and Aquarius Designs. So curl up with the kitten in the rocking chair on the porch, peek into a vine covered window or luxuriate by the birdbath in the garden. Country cottage evokes the serenity and charm of country living in a soft color palette filled with pink, rose, lavender, green, and yellow hues. Complete with its own cozy cottage, domestic animals, wildlife, garden blooms, rustic elements, and more,  this large collaborative kit provides creative inspiration for a wide variety of scrapbooking projects.

A little about your background….

1 When did you start Designing?  I started as ct and made layouts for friends and making my own elements whenever I didn't have the right one in my stash. I joined RakScraps and contributed minikits. Later I got emails from a few store owners asking me if I don't want to sell. In January 2007 I joined The Daily Scrap then. 

2 How did you chose your Design name ? First I had ManuDesigns in mind, but Manuela Zimmermann (you know her as Studio Manu for sure) already had picked that name *lol* So I chose ManuScraps

3 Where do you live? I live in the heart of Germany.

4 Tell us about your family ie, hubby, kids, etc? I don't have kids - I still feel to young ;) I'm living with my partner and cat.

Getting to know you……

5 Do you have a ‘real’ job besides designing? I’m manager of a video store.

6 What is your favourite hobby besides Digi Scrapping? Reading, reading and ...reading. I love thriller and read each evening in bed.

7 How long have you been designing? Since 2003 I think. HUH, that long??

8 What is one of your pet peeves? Definately housework. I work 42 hours and more a week and don't want to spend my little spare time with things like that *lol* But well, not matter what, it has to be done, right?

9 If you could travel anywhere where would you go? That's hard to answer... There a so many places I haven't been yet and would like to go... Hawaii, Egypt, Australia, USA...

10 Tell us something about you that no one knows. 

I don't think I have something left no one knows yet. But 2 things not everyone knows:

- I don't have any pure bright red in my wardrobe because I can't wear it without getting aggressive

- if it was up to me to decide there would be more rectangle, triangle and cubic things in the world than round ones. Yes, my watch is square and I have hexagonal long drink glasses.

Show us three of your own favourite products currently available in your store 

My Nuthouse-Scraps Store

    

Shown above are (in order) Just The Way You Are, Beautiful Bride and Pamper Yourself

I don't have personal CT's at this time - any applicants welcome ;-)

Manu’s Blog 

Manu’s Facebook

Manu’s Twitter

Manu's Pinterest

with taggerkits and creating tags  in PSP in 2006, in 2008 I released my first freebies and learned PS. Now I work with PS CS4 and  Artrage Studio Pro although I still haven’t gotten time to manage all features of this program.. 

2 How did you chose your Design name ? 

I guess my choice for this is quite simple, since I my sign is Aquarius that was an easy pick *lol*

3 Where do you live? I live in the Netherlands nearby Germany and Belgium.

4 Tell us about your family ie, hubby, kids, etc? I am married and have 3 kids in ages 5 to 13, they are my world I can’t imagine having found more joy then with my husband and kids. We also have 2 fur babies a dog and cat.

Getting to know you…

5 Do you have a ‘real’ job besides designing? I work (almost) fulltime as a kind of an accountant, when the kids are at school that is the  place I am at filling my time.

6 What is your favourite hobby besides Digi Scrapping? That is easy I love to take photographs altho I wish I had way more skills in that department, my wish is (when I get more time) to attend a photography course to make my photo’s stunning ;-)

7 How long have you been designing? About 4 years.

8 What is one of your pet peeves? Housework. I mean, who really likes doing this? Just looking at my floors now they are completely dirty with sand, hair and stuff and the laundry (rolling eyes) gosh I thought I had washed it all (except I didn’t iron since it was too hot to do that the last few days) but if I look in the laundry basket I just feel overwhelmed at what is already in there again (sigh).

9 If you could travel anywhere where would you go? I want to see so many places, I would love to go the states, Indonesia, etc. etc. but with kids you can’t go ‘see’ the real country so that is on my ‘to do’ list when they have grown up ( and when I have saved enough to do this ).

10 Tell us something about you that no one knows.  Uhm that is a hard question, I think I am a very private person and rather not talk about personal stuff unless it is someone I really know,  although I could tell you that I have fought cancer a bit too often not just myself but in my family as well  a matter of fact we are dealing with this again with my milf who I love dearly.

Show us three of your own favourite products currently available in your store 

My DigiDesignResort Store and my Nuthouse-Scraps Store

Midsummer Night

My Endless Love     

Midsummer Night

My Gallery

Show us three of your favourite ct layouts 

I love all the layouts my Creative Team makes. I have an AWESOME team but these three are a good representation of the Inspiration you’ll find over in my Gallery

Aquarius Design Blog

Aquarius Design Facebook

Aquarius Design Twitter

Aquarius Design Pinterest

Coming Sunday:

Country Cottage Collaborative

This past week, my husband was on vacation.  We decided to stay home and do day trips and we had a wonderful time taking hikes, visiting local gardens and museums. And of course, we took photos everywhere. Well almost everywhere.  Yesterday morning we took a hike at a local county park. We visited a section we had never gone to before and followed a trail along the lake with some wonderful spillways, small waterfalls and huge rocks.  And of course, we kept saying, Oh, I wish we had brought the cameras.


Here are a few pics that Clemens took:







And two from me:



And yes, you'll undoubtedly be seeing others from this week blended into backgrounds or extracted for elements in upcoming kits.

My newest kit, Nympheas (Water Lily) has just released. You can get the kit right now at 25% off at any of my stores linked in the top right hand column of this blog.

Facebook and Newsletter Freebies

For those of you who have not signed up yet!

I have lots of special surprises coming.  Many of them will be exclusive for my Facebook and my newsletter subscribers including freebies. So sign up today and receive these two free kits, created with the same theme and color palette. When you combine them you have one large co-ordinated kit for free.

To get this free kit with 7 papers, 12" x 12"
and 28 elements, 300 dpi, click on this link to my Facebook page, press like and then press on the image of the kit to download it