Behind the Scenes with Mary Jo

Welcome to our first Behind the Scenes for July's "Communication".  Today, we are talking with one of our new design team members, Mary Jo Rhoda.

Mary Jo selected one of her layouts from the Communication kit to... well, converse about.  Let's check out what she has to say!

What prompted you to pick this "take" on Communication?
I am always looking for connections between now and the past. How things have changed or stayed the same. When I saw all of the little rotary phone embellishments that were in this kit, I knew I wanted to talk about the older phones from my youth. Especially since my children were so fascinated with the one they saw on display with a project at my son's SMART fair for school.

Why did you choose this photo?
I knew the minute I saw the product in the kit, that this Instagram photo with my daughter and the phone would be the one! It was perfect!

What symbolism did you try to bring through your design?
The banner from My Mind's Eye made me think of an old fashioned phone cord :) So I knew I was going to use it on this layout along with all of the rotary phones I could find in the kit. Plus I loved the October Afternoon paper with the women at work! I hand cut one talking on the phone to help embellish my title. This kit just has so many great communication elements, such as the wooden hello flag at the top of my layout and the Jillibean Soup stickers at the bottom. They helped tie everything together.

How did you feel about the message of the layout?
My children are always asking to hear "stories" from when I was younger. So I find myself scrapbooking about quite a few of those stories. And I know I have talked to them about what phones were like when I was younger, and how my nana even had a "party line" which is a completely foreign concept to them!

Why did you choose to show/hide your journaling?
I love typed journaling on my layouts and wanted to embellish it with the little hand cut phone from one of the sheets of October Afternoon patterned paper. So for me, I knew I was going to show my journaling.

Tell us a little bit about how you feel now that this layout is done.
This is one of my favorite layouts this month! I can't wait to look back on this layout when my children are older and see how much technology has changed once again. I think when I scrapbook pieces of my history, it keeps it alive for future generations.

Thanks Mary Jo!

You can visit Mary Jo's blog here.


Visit the Design Team Gallery to see more of Mary Jo's and the rest of the team's amazing work using this month's COMMUNICATION kit!

And a shout out to everyone in the US of A - Happy Independence Day!  Please scrap safely, don't run with scissors, don't drink and glue, and please, please, keep the mustard off the layouts.  Unless you want that yellow splat.  :)