Featured Stamper Friday!

It's time for another Featured Stamper Friday! I do hope you are enjoying this part of our blog, I love that we get the chance to feature not only our fabulous Design Team but also some of our amazing Customers! Today we are getting to know on of our customers Alison Heikkila, if you haven't come across her before, she is a huge Twilight fan, as you can tell by some of her cards!
Alison has a very distinct style that always makes me look at the stamp sets in a different way as I am sure you can tell! I do hope you have as much fun getting to know Alison as I did! So now, lets get on to the questions!
Q ~ Married? Kids? Pets?
I am married to a man named Gene that fully supports (and enjoys!) all of my creative endeavors. I have 2 kids…my son Phoenix who is 3 ½ and my daughter Rhiannon who is 20 months. I’ve got 2 black cats named Tomato and Zucchini and a dog

Q ~ Do you have a job outside of stamping?

My job outside of stamping is being a Mom and a Wife! I used to own a scrapbooking and stamping store, but unfortunately had to close it down last year. I do wish stamping- or paper crafting in general- was more of a job then a hobby though. There’s no better way to make money than by doing something you love!

Q ~ What got you into stamping?

My Mom! I blame her for my arts and crafts addiction completely on her! She is extremely creative and talented and I like to think that she passed that along to me. I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t stamping!

Q ~ What is your favorite embellishment and why?

My favorite embellishment? That’s tough! I’m going to go out on a limb though and say ink! I love my rhinestones, eyelets and stickers but there’s just something about adding a few swishes of an ink pad that seems to always finish my work. I often find that after I ink up a project, I don’t always need another type of embellishment.

Q ~ What drew you towards Artful Inkables?

I was lucky enough to be on the Twilight Tuesday Design Team and we were given some Artful INKables stamps to use on our projects. I can honestly say that I am totally hooked on those stamps! AI has many sets that I would eventually love to get my inky fingers on!

Q ~ Do you have a favorite stamp set from Artful Inkables?

I would say that my favorite set from Artful INKables is Into the Moonlight. I just love that fabulous harlequin stamp as well as the chess piece. I use them both a lot on projects that have nothing to do with Twilight. They’re just so cool!!!

Q ~ How would you describe your stamping style?

My stamping style is…inky, distressed and a little unexpected. I of course put ink on everything. And I love to age things and tear papers up. Plus I love to work with unusual color pallets and weird pattern combinations. And of course, I love anything creepy and spooky! Halloween is my favorite day of the year, and I can never really “put away” that part of me! Yeah, you’ll see me doing cute things here and there…but my roots are definitely in the realm of the freaky! I really enjoy going for looks that you may not expected or things that you may not have originally thought would work together. I like to keep ‘em guessing!

Q ~ What’s your favorite part of stamping?

The entire creative process is my favorite part! I can’t single out just one thing. I love stamping and coloring my images, picking out funky papers, layering things…it’s the process in it’s entirety that I love.

Q ~ What is your favorite non-card type project?

I am an avid scrapbooker. I love to scrapbook. I am forever taking photos and it thrills me to take those pictures and breathe even more life into them. I even love to do custom albums for people. It’s the enjoyment of taking a special memory and bringing it to the next level. Each memory becomes a piece of art. It makes them memories even more special.

Q ~ Have you been published?

Unfortunately I have not been published…yet. It’s one of my goals for the year though, so wish me luck!

Q ~ What is your favorite coloring medium? Why?

My favorite coloring medium would be my Design Spectracolor colored pencils. I love all of the things that I can do with them. The blending of colors, the shading…making images come to life. I really am so happy when I have my colored pencils in my hand. Another medium I enjoy are my EK Success watercolor markers. Those are also fantastic to work with, but my pencils take top notch.

Q ~ Tell us about your blog… (i.e. is it all stamping, or a mix of other things?)

My blog was originally intended to be a place, not just for my crafts, bit for me to open up. Tell some stories, write some fun lists, discuss some of my feelings. My crafts have kind of taken over a bit though! I named it 21^st Century Pillow Book. A Pillow Book is a diary of sorts. It doesn't just talk about the day's events, but contains lists, observations, conversations, musings, anything the writer feels like writing about really. 21st Century is because this is a modern pillow book, since it's done on a computer. I would like to try and get some of those other elements reincorporated into my blog, but I am certainly happy that I have so many projects to share with everyone!

Q- Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

How much more do you want to read? I could go on for a while! ;} I have to say, that a little over a year ago, I didn’t even want a blog! Now, such a short time later I have made awesome friends, learned some great new techniques, brushed up on some of my old skills, and became aware of some fabulous companies, like Artful INKables. I can’t begin to explain how awesome this past year has been because of blogging. And I am so looking forward to whatever is around the next corner! Thank you so much, Artful INKables for this awesome opportunity to share a little bit of myself with all of you!

Wasn't that a lot of fun! Thank you so much Alison for taking the time to introduce yourself to everyone here! It was a pleasure getting to know you a bit more and taking a chance to admire some of your creations!

I hope you had a great time too! Thank you again for agreeing to spend some time with us today!