Kyla Cesca
by Angie Felix

With a passion for crafting, art and scrapbooking, Kyla Cesca became a member of Hot Off The Press’ graphic design team over a year ago. “I’ve always liked scrapbooking and crafts and thought it would be a fun place to work,” she explained.

Now this Oregon State University graduate and paper-crafter is the talented designer behind Paper Pizazz’s two newest 12”x12” books: Kyla’s Classic Color Block Papers and Kyla’s Tone-on-Tone Color Block Papers.

We recently had the chance to sit down with Kyla for a brief Q & A session.

Q. What do you like the most about your job?
A. I love that I get to be creative and am given the opportunity to try new ideas.

Q. Where do you find your creative inspiration for designing papers?
A. I spend a lot of time looking through industry magazines and interior decorating magazines as well. I learn a lot about trends and design in general from fabrics and interiors. It also helps that I’m a scrapbooker and paper-crafter—I’m able to envision how consumers can use the papers as I design them.

Q. What’s so unique about these new color block papers?
A. They’re really easy to use—the backgrounds already have a page layout for you. The Classic collection is fun and has a very unique look. The Tone-on-Tone collection is more mellow—the papers work perfectly with embellishments because the textures are so simple, soft and subtle. The embellishments really stand out and “pop” off the page.

Q. What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on at Hot Off The Press?
A. My favorite project is an upcoming Ephemera book called More Ephemera Background Papers (watch for this coming soon!). In these papers, I was able to combine a bit of color blocking with the shabby chic ephemera look. I’m really excited about it.

Q. What excites you about the future of this industry?
A. I really like the shabby chic look that’s taking place now, and I’m thrilled about all the new embellishments that are becoming available to scrapbookers—there’s a lot to choose from, which is nice. I’m also very excited about the potential of the new Cardmaker’s line that is coming out; there are a ton of cool patterns and a lot you can do with them.

You can check out Kyla’s Color Block Papers at paperwishes.com. Each collection contains 30 sheets of true 12”x12” papers with two sheets of each design. Both books retail for $9.99.