Each month, we get a glimpse into the creative process of our Scrap Girls Club designers, and this month’s designer is Melissa Renfro!

1. When you started working on your club, what was the first thing you did?

When I first start working on a collection, I like to browse fabric websites, Pinterest, and home decor blogs to see if any color combinations stand out to me. The first thing I like to decide on is a color palette. Then I can gather other inspiration pictures and gather them into a mood board type file.

2. What inspired the colors in your club?

Knowing that my club was going to come out in December. I knew I wanted to use a little bit of red and green, but I didn’t want to make it so exclusive to Christmas. I really wanted it to be a very versatile kit. I was able to pull some colors from a hand-painted Christmas card that I had seen years ago that had a lot of brown and blue in it with the red and green. I couldn’t find the actual card but I could see it in my memory.

3. Where did you find the inspiration for this club?  

One of the first things that I had to have for this club was the cowhide. I live in the southwest so cowhide is just always there, but lately I started seeing it everywhere! HGTV uses cowhides to decorate EVERY room. Several blogs I read use cowhide rugs extensively and not just for a country look. I could spot a cowhide in about 10 seconds flat. Then I decided I wanted one, you know, for my living room, or maybe next to our bed in the master bedroom. So I bought one and brought it home. I put it in the living room, and my husband just about died. It was so stinky! It was truly awful. I thought maybe it just needed to air out, but after a few days of just moving the stench to different rooms, my new cowhide friend had to go back to the store. I was sad, but by putting the cowhide in my club collection, I was able to satisfy my cowhide fascination – but without the smell.

Check out all the cowhide at our local craft fair, including items from triple-c-creations.com. It is truly everywhere.

4. The club includes several products, did you start and complete each one before moving on to the next?

I actually start creating a lot of products, several alphas, lots of embellishment ideas, tons of papers, then I edit. I throw out the ones that aren’t working together, then I go back and refine the ideas that really stick. Sometimes, I go back to a product several times, and I think to myself, “Really? You haven’t finished that yet?” Sometimes I start with a drawing or design and then use it in several different ways.

5. What was your favorite thing to design?

I loved designing the arrows. They are so fun to decorate and fun to use, too; you can use arrows in almost every layout. I tried to really make a lot of different ones that could be used in a variety of ways.

 6. If you could pick only one word to describe your club, what would that word be? 

Versatile. I really hoped that my club would be versatile, that it could be used for a variety of styles. I hoped to include things for people who like clean graphic designs as well as people who like more flowery romantic layouts, and everything in between. It is kind of a crazy mix of things, but even when I make layouts, I don’t have just one style; I like to mix things up!

I hope everyone enjoys using this club as much as I enjoyed designing it!

Thanks so much, Melissa, for sharing this little piece of your world with us!