Featured Designer – Traci Reed
Happy Friday Sweet Shoppers! I hope your week was fantastic. Have you been playing along with our Party Game a Day challenges and games to celebrate Sweet Shoppe’s 19th birthday? I’ve always loved February at Sweet Shoppe Designs – there’s always so much inspiration and fabulous products to scrap!
Today we have a new Featured Designer, the legendary Traci of Traci Reed Designs. Traci’s products always include perfectly illustrated elements and fantastic patterns, in so many versatile themes you can find a collection for any memory you’re wanting to scrap about! Her passion for memory keeping is evident in all of her products, and it’s incredible to think about how many countless stories have been told over the years using her kits.
Of course with a new Featured Designer we also have a new Featured Designer kit, which is yours FREE with any $10 purchase from now until the new releases go live on February 21st. Traci’s kit is Love {Yourself} Potion, all about loving the most important person in your life – YOU!
Not only is there this gorgeous kit, she created these incredible add-ons that, when combined together, form a stunning collection. Check out all these amazing extra pieces to this collection:
And now to find out more about Traci!
Tell us about your journey with digital scrapbooking… How did you find out about it? Did you start with paper first? How did you get started designing? Where was your first shop? How and when did you end up at Sweet Shoppe Designs?
I started digital scrapbooking AND designing at the exact same time at the end of 2004 when I found myself 19 with a 6 month old. I had always been a scrapbooker and so it seemed obvious that I would keep scrapbooking now that I had a child, but I was flat broke (as one normally is as a teen parent) and had to find a way to support myself AND my hobby.
Luckily, I was getting in on the ground floor of the industry and there weren’t a lot of options or good products available yet, so my (now pathetic-looking) attempts at early design were well received and it wasn’t long before I was making decent money and could help support us.
I started my own site for a while and bounced around to a couple stores before I joined SSD in 2008 after a designer call and never looked back. SSD and Robin are my home and family and I’ll never sell in another store.
How do you define your style? What does that style include? How has your style changed over the years?
It’s interesting because I went back to my Featured Designer interview from last year (around this same time) and my answer was:
“I think my style has evolved over the years of working for paper companies into a more traditional scrapbooking style. I adore the digital kits crammed with uber-realistic goodies, but since I’m more of an illustrator and pattern designer nowadays, my work tends to focus more on how to make those illustrations and patterns shine! Since I also want to make my product highly accessible to hybrid/paper scrapbookers, I offer patterns in a variety of sizes and sticker sheets that are easy to print.”
I still think most of this is true to who I am a year later, but I have found myself going back to enjoying creating realistic digital textures and styles now. A year ago, I definitely put most of my emphasis on catering to print, but I learned over the last year, that I really do enjoy digital scrapbooking techniques more than paper ones, so my love of digital has started transferring back into my work again.
What comes first when designing… theme or color palette?
Theme, always. This year I am emphasizing my own personality and what I like in my work, from the January Bookish collection to the fun and witchy Love Potion February collection, so I have an idea of themes I want to work in throughout the year already. I will then gather inspiration for those themes and then colors. Oftentimes, colors get reworked a bit once I start drawing
For my new Love Potion (and the coordinating FWP kit Love {Yourself} Potion) I knew I wanted to use traditional Valentine’s colors but give it a witchy twist and I was actually inspired by walking past a display in target plus this potion bottle image and you can see the jumping off place that I made my own!
Check out this video of Traci designing her amazing Featured Designer kit and the whole Love Potion collection:
How long does it take you to put a collection together from start to finish?
Depending on how inspired I am, a week to two weeks. I often spend 2-3 hardcore days illustrating for my collection, then another day or two with papers, then after that I work on cards and stickers to define the text and sentiment direction of the collection and then wrap the whole thing up with the digital embellishments to bring in textures.
Are there any adventures you’d like to go on in the future?
I want to go everywhere! If only I had unlimited time and resources! We’re currently in the process of getting our passports to travel abroad. I’ve been imagining getting a digital nomad visa and just spending a year or two traipsing Europe but your girl is gonna have to get independently wealthy, stat!
Given the choice, would you pick an indoor or outdoor adventure?
Outdoor, always! Take me on a hike, take me to the ocean, take me basically anywhere but in a cave or jumping out of an airplane! My husband and I actually have this long running joke that I love to take him up to the top of everything and since he’s afraid of heights – it’s mean. Which, it probably is, but the mean mug he gives me in every photo, from the top of the Sears Tower, the edge of a cliff at Stone Door in Tennessee, to literal Lover’s Leap in Virginia, is worth it!
If you had an hour to yourself, but were not allowed to use it to scrapbook or design, what would you do?
Read! I read a ton and if I could turn my work brain off for an hour, I would dive into a book. Here’s a book journal page I created with the Bookish collection to wrap up my 2024 reading:
What’s the last really great book you read or tv show you watched?
I just finished catching up on Silo, which is based on a book series I read a decade ago by Hugh Howey and I believe they’re really doing one of my favorite books justice!
I could get lost for hours in the inspiration that Traci and her team share with her products on her Instagram and in the forum. I love this video that she shared of her craft room – I have so much envy of her creative space!
Traci’s team shared some thoughts on why they love her products:
“I love working with Traci Reed’s collections because they are so colorful and versatile! She is the queen of patterned papers and her hilarious wit makes every layout have a little punch too! Her beautiful art style makes for bright and happy embellishments that I want to just use them all up on the page.” – Theresa Moxley
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Traci’s products for over 3 years, and I couldn’t be happier! Her designs are not only incredibly creative and fun, but also perfect for all occasions. Traci consistently produces high-quality digital/hybrid kits and it’s clear she is passionate and dedicated to her craft. Her kits are great value for money, so if you’re looking for a talented, innovative designer who offers great value for money digital/hybrid kits I highly recommend Traci Reed” – Becky Gotch
“One of my most favourite designers to work with! Traci’s collections are always unique, full of beautiful designs and a lot of fun to work with. And Traci nearly always includes her sarcastic and very apt sense of humour & wit which brings a different level of “realness” to pages I create!” – Melinda Sweetman
“Working with Traci has been a fantastic experience; she always surprises us with the themes of her collections. I love the number of stickers she includes (and there are always lots of flowers, which are my favorite!), and her phrases are the best! Something I really enjoy is the quality and variety of her files, they make planning, printing, and scrapbooking easy and fun!” – Noemi Muñoz
If you need more inspiration to go pick up this kit and collection, check out these stunning pages created by the SugarBabes with Love {Yourself} Potion:
That’s all for this week – come back next Friday to see which 15 products Traci has chosen for her Featured Designer 15 sale, and see some videos with them in action! Until then, keep on scrapping!
