August 2011 Featured Designer: Allison Pennington

What is your favorite part or element of the kit?
I really love the papers in this kit. They’re a very eclectic mix, all shabby but still vibrant and fun. And I love the sticks on the popsicles for some odd reason.

Tell us about your family.
We have a pretty big family:  the two of us and our four kids (three of mine and one of his). We each have full custody so it’s full time madness.  My girls, Lillian and Montana, are ten and a half months apart so they’re freakishly close in age, thirteen and nearly thirteen. And each of our boys, Maximus and Kai, are ten. My guy’s been a stylist for over thirteen years so there’s never any bad hair days for any of us. We also share our home with a family of chihuahuas:  Pippi and Gomez and their girls, Franny and Lulu.

What program(s) do you use?
Photoshop and Illustrator (CS5) exclusively.

What part of designing comes easiest to you (themes, colors, papers, elements)?
Colors drive my designs. If the colors aren’t right it ruins everything for me. I love papers and thoroughly enjoy creating them. The doodling comes pretty easily, too, and is a huge part of my designs.

What part of designing is most challenging to you?
I’m very critical of myself and my work and have a very hard time knowing when something’s ready or done. If it’s not just right it gets thrown out. I take it all very seriously. It all feels very personal and sometimes it’s hard for me to feel like I’m putting such a big piece of myself out there to either be accepted or rejected.

What inspires you? If you’re running low on design mojo, where do you go to kick-start your creativity?
I scrap! I love scrapping as much as I love designing and I have found that, for me, when I’m stuck it means I need to step away and remind myself why I love what I do. While scrapping a page I try to pay attention to what I find myself looking for, what I don’t use, what I wish I had, etc. And, besides all that, taking a break from what I’m struggling with and coming back to it always helps.

What has been the greatest compliment you have received about your designs?
Just the other day someone mentioned that she loved looking at pages made with my kits because they vary so greatly and that it’s sometimes surprising that they came from the same kit. I take that as a huge compliment because I try very hard to include enough variety and content for many pages.

Link us to a layout that you have seen using your work that just left you awestruck.
I’m always awestruck when I see a layout using my stuff! It’s so amazing to see how someone else interprets what I’ve created. But there’ve been a couple that’ve amazed me lately:Who Do You Think You Are by KalaMae
It leaves me speechless. It’s such a beautiful layout and such a creative way to tell her story.

Baby Girl by Bethie
This page is so different from all the other pages that came from this kit. She used it in such a different way and it completely works!

How much time do you allocate to designing in a typical week?
It’s my job so I don’t allocate at all. I work until it’s done even if that leaves me up till the sun comes up – a frequent occurrence.

What book are you reading right now?
I’m always reading at least two, one on my Kindle and one on my mp3 player while I go to sleep or when I‘m alone and working. Right now I’m reading Deadline by Mira Grant (number two in the Newsflesh series) and I LOVE it! And I’m listening to (I can’t believe I’m fessing up to this) City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.

Name five of your favorite CDs.
There are so many, but if I have to pick:
Citizen Cope: The Clarence Greenwood Recordings
Citizen Cope: Citizen Cope
Portishead: Dummy
Florence and the Machines: Lungs
David Gray: Life in Slow Motion

Where is the farthest you have been from home?
Germany and Austria, when I was fifteen, as an exchange student. Honestly, I don’t remember much.

Which would you pick…more money or more time?
More money. If I had more money I’d automatically have more time.

What personality traits do you hope to pass on to your children?
Compassion, gratitude, integrity, silliness. The truth is, though, I think they’ve passed these things on to me.

What was it about you that first drew your significant other to you?
Well, let me ask him. We have kind of an, er, interesting love story. He says: “Besides proximity (he lived across the street) and my mess of curls (a good challenge for a good stylist), it was her bright bright blue eyes with their mischievous dark ring around them and her dark, sarcastic sense of humor. And the way she and her three kids were together was hard not to love.” Blush.

At the end of the day, how do you want to be remembered?
Colorfully!

Allison Pennington
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August’s Gold Kit:
In My Own Backyard

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