Nathalie DeSousa’s use of patterned paper, color, and cut files is truly inspiring and I am so excited to share some of her work with you today!
Name: Nathalie DeSousa
Location: Toronto, Canada
Blog: tachita55.blogspot.com
Instagram: @tachita55
YouTube: NathalieDeSousa
Pinterest: @tachita5005
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started crafting: Hi there, my name is Nathalie but I think I have been called Tachita since the day I was born! I am a 40 something stay at home wife and mother of two teenagers and a Boston Terrier who believes he is our baby! I was born and raised in beautiful Ecuador, but moved to Canada over 20 years ago. My love for arts and crafts comes from my mom, who taught us that homemade is always better and made sure we learned and practiced our crafty skills. I have loved journaling, pretty paper, stationery, and photography for as long as I can remember. My mother was always photographing us when little, unfortunately we lost a large number of these memories when we moved to Canada. Once I became a mom I searched for ways to safe keep my kids’s memories and discovered the wonderful world of scrapbooking. The scrapbooking community, and the art behind each page, is what hooked me to this hobby, and now that my kids are older I dedicate a lot of my free time to it. My projects are always about trying to recreate a small moment of my everyday life through color, paper, and story telling. This has led me to some incredible adventures as part of different design teams and now I get to share my work with you all. I can say I am truly blessed!
Favorite thing to create: I have kept a journal since I was a little girl and I continue to do so nowadays. I mostly use the traveler’s notebooks to doodle, art journal, and my bible journals. However, I love 12×12 scrapbook layouts as it gives me plenty of space for my imagination to go wild.
What do you love about this hobby? I think creating a layout is just the beginning of the journey in scrapbooking. It is the joy of sharing that page with your family, friends, and the community what makes it so rewarding. I love to see how our life has transformed through the years and scrapbooking has allowed us to share our every day adventures in an artistic way with everyone.
5 fun facts about yourself:
1. Have I mentioned I love black coffee and dark chocolate? The darker and more bitter the yummier it is for me!
2. I have a degree in Chemical Engineering and also went back to school to become a Professional Baker. I love to learn!
3. Even after 20+ years in Canada, I have not lost my Spanish accent. I think it is all the novelas (Latin soap operas) I watch daily with my mom and kids. That is why my YouTube videos have pretty music!
4. I don’t drive! It is my greatest fear, though I am walking GPS – or so I have been told.
5. I love baking intricate cakes for my family and friends. My carrot cake (my favorite cake ever) is pretty awesome, you can ask all my friends and their friends.
Here is the STUNNING layout Nathalie made for her feature (seriously though, it’s gorgeous!):
SMILE by Nathalie DeSousa
This layout is full of my favorites: a cut file from the Cut Shoppe, both of Paige Evans’ collections, vellum, lots of hand stitching, and my beautiful God daughter. I tend to add a lot of dimension to my work and having the butterflies with their wings raised gives the page a sense of freedom and happiness, just like the little baby’s smile.
DONUT DELIGHT by Nathalie DeSousa
I love paper piecing! This layout created for Clique Kits is one of my favorites. I enjoy combining techniques, paper, and stitching to recreate a known shape. This page is fun, cute, and my little nephew shines with his nose full of sprinkles.
FABULOUS by Nathalie DeSousa
This layout was a labor of love for my daughter! I created this layout for Maya Road using one of my favorite dies and the beautiful Take Me Away collection by Paige Evans. I love all the patterns and textures the die creates with the papers. This layout now sits as a decoration piece in our home.
FALL SNUGGLE by Nathalie DeSousa
This is one of my favorite layouts ever. I enjoy working with cut files, especially when I can combine a few or manipulate them to create a totally unique piece. On this layout I combined three different cut files from the Cut Shoppe and the super beautiful and colorful Oakley Avenue collection by Ashley Horton to frame a picture of me and the love of my life (my hubby).
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU by Nathalie DeSousa
Life is all about little moments, some good, some bad, but all memorable. This layout is the perfect example of what scrapbooking is all about to me! It brings to life the colorful and happy feeling (watercolor background) of a failed New Year portrait (hence the title) of my kids and the little cousins.
Thank you for stopping by today and getting to know Nathalie DeSousa! I hope you walk away feeling inspired! See you again soon!
