Trina McClune – our Guest Designer • 7 dots studio

Trina McClune lives in New Zealand. A small country at the ‘bottom’ of the world with her family – Husband Andy, and children Matt and Sarah (twins) and Daniel. They have a lovely property which backs onto the inner harbour allowing them to relax on the water and feed wild ducks and their ducklings when it’s spring time.

Trina has a love for chickens (almost as big as her love for scrapbooking) and has a dozen or so chooks in her backyard which is a little unusual for a property in the middle of NZ’s largest cities, but the whole family love it when they hatch chicks and eat fresh eggs.

Trina McClune is one of New Zealand’s premier scrapbook teachers, teaching both online and in real life for over 5 years, and for the last 1.5 years she has shared her passion of scrapbooking as a Prima endorsed educator traveling throughout New Zealand and internationally.

Because NZ is so far away from anywhere, she loves to travel. And is thrilled that she has been able to travel and scrapbook at the same time with her role as one of Prima’s educators.

In the past, Trina has worked with NZ and Australia’s premium scrapbooking magazines as a writer and designer but is currently relishing her role as design team co-ordinator and blog manager for PaperHaus digital scrapbooking magazine.

Along with her online and teaching roles, Trina spent last year working on her largest Scrapbooking event to date – Scrapfest by the Sea, a mid-winter Christmas luxury scrapbooking weekend with international tutors (from NZ and Poland) which took place in August 2013, on New Zealand’s Southern shores.

Trina has shared her love of die cutting on the spellbinders blog, and their new ‘Explore Beyond’ website creating tutorials for them, and she continues to work with spellbinders, both in and out of the classroom.

Over the years Trina’s style has evolved and changed, but she has always had a simple base with a layered twist to it. She enjoys teaching how to make the most of products, from patterned paper to packaging; die-cutting and layering.

She has LOVED working with 7Dots products and hopes you’ve enjoyed seeing her take on them.

“I love you” made with Messy Head range of product

Trina decided she just wanted to play with some of the 7Dots gorgeous product to see how things would go, so she grabbed a piece of paper, put it on her table, and just started. Adding doilies to cover the base, then lots of texture paste via stencils, glimmer mist and photos she created a simple and effective mixed media layout.

Messy Head – Just saying
Messy Head – Love Letter
6×12 Elements Messy Head
Other: Prima flowers, Stencil, modeling paste, glimmer mist, doilies, seam binding, foam tape, photo by Vicky Gibson Photography

“Happiness” Made with 9th Wave range of product

“Happiness” takes Trina back to her ‘traditional’ style of scrapbooking. She loves to add layers and has done this with various different 7Dots papers and tags. The tags form a fabulous background to her delightful photos. While ripping and punching papers gives new looks for the same papers.

9th Wave – Sea Foam
9th Wave – Wavy Ocean
9th Wave – Coral Reef
9th Wave – Golden Sand
12×12 Elements
Other: Prima flowers/crystals, doilies, Martha Steward Punches

“Not Before You’re 21” made with “Love is in the Air papers”

For this layout Trina had an idea of writing letters to her children that they can open once they are 21. To do this, she has created 3 small envelopes with 7Dots papers and the WeRMemory Keepers Envelope maker, which are then added to the page to add her letters in. The main thing on the page will be the letters, and so she has kept the rest of the page to a minimal look. The one thing she has added is a photo to remind her children what they looked like when she created the layout.

Love is in the Air – I must believe
Love is in the air – Just Dreaming
Love is in the air – Whisper of the tree
Love is in the air – Illusion
Alpha Stickers 6×12 – 9th Wave
Stickers 6×12 – Hopefully
Other: Prima flowers, sandpaper, lace

“Live life” Made with Hopefully product range

“Live Life” is a layout dedicated to enjoying life – making the most of your time. Trina has shown this by adding in some beautiful photos of her children playing at the beach as the sun goes down. The stunning 7Dots range “Hopefully” really helps emphasize this as the colours are bright and cheerful. Adding some glimmer mist to the background helps give definition to her layout which otherwise might have looked a bit ‘flat’.