Sweet Shoppe Designs – The Sweetest Digital Scrapbooking Site on the Web

Hey Hey Sweet Shoppers! Can you believe it? We’re halfway through the month of November which means that 2012 is nearly history! I’m really excited because it’s time to put another of our incredible designers into the spotlight, and I know you guys are going to be thrilled by who it is! Zoe Pearn has been part of the Sweet Shoppe family from nearly the beginning, and her incredible designs are among those I count as absolutely iconic in the digital community. Scrumptious, hand-crafted, unique prints and patterned papers are part of Zoe’s signature style and her kits are packed to the brim with elements that make pages scrapped with her products stand out from the crowd. You’ll get an awesome taste of her talents in her featured designer kit, That’s My Girl, because it’s yours FREE with any $10 purchase made in the shoppe between now and November 30th!

Just The Basics

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the city of Brisbane, Australia, and only just moved away from there after 30 years!  I have fond memories of my home town – we got married there, had our children there, had our first home there – it will always be home in my heart!

Where do you live now?

My family and I recently made a bit of a sea change – literally – and moved to a little beach-side town on the beautiful Mid-North Coast of New South Wales, Australia.  We fell in love with the place while on a short holiday and decided to take a chance on life and move away!  It’s been hard being a six hour drive from everything we know and love in Brisbane, but we are loving our new home so far!

Early bird or night owl?

Most definitely a night owl!  I seem to be most creative at night, in the wee hours of the morning, and am hopeless at getting up early!  If I could work all night and sleep all day, I’d be a happy girl… Unfortunately my kids and the rest of the world don’t agree LOL!

What’s your favorite number?

Either 6 or 16 – my birthday is the 16th of December, so it’s always been a bit of an exciting number for me!

Who’s your favourite author?

I love a lot of authors, but my absolute favourite would have to be Marian Keyes.  She is absolutely hilarious and her books are so much fun to read.

Coke or Pepsi?

I’m a Pepsi Max girl… I drink way too much of the stuff!  Which is probably why I’m awake all night, haha!

What’s your favorite fast food?

My favourite treat is Chinese Take Away.  I love Beef with Black Bean Sauce and Special Fried Rice… yum!

What’s your favorite season?

I absolutely adore Spring…  I have just always loved the feeling in the air as the weather warms up and nature seems to come back to life.  It always feels like the world is full of possibilities in Spring – plus it’s not as hot as Summer, which I love because we have such hot Summers here!

What’s your biggest fear?

I am terrified of spiders and am completely and unashamedly Arachnaphobic!  The only good spider is a dead spider in my opinion – LOL! I am so scared of the things that I have jumped out of a moving car to escape from one once!

Read the book or watch the movie?

Read the book, for sure!!  I love reading, and if I never laid eyes on another TV or movie screen in my life it honestly wouldn’t worry me.  I rarely watch TV or watch movies, and love when the kids are at daycare so I can switch the box off and have silence.

Inside The Artist’s Studio

When and how did you get started as a digital designer?

I discovered digital scrapbooking in 2005 when I was looking for some fonts to download for our wedding album.  We had just come back from our honeymoon, and I had bought some scrapbooking magazines while we were away and was excited to find that you could download free fonts. I came across digiscrapping on my travels and became instantly hooked!  I have always loved patterned fabric and stationery, so when I realised that I could make my own papers, I started designing my own.  I started selling my wares in December 2005, and have been at Sweet Shoppe since August of 2006… and haven’t looked back!

What was the first kit you ever made?

Haha, this is so cringe-worthy!!  I remember making this and I was so proud – this was one of the kits from my debut weekend at Sweet Shoppe – LOL!  Even though they are embarrassing, I like to look at my really old previews to see how far my style and skill has developed in that time!

Is there a color you really dislike creating with and try to avoid? Why?

Poor old purple is the colour I love to hate!  I avoid it at all costs as nothing seems to work for me if it has purple in it… And if I do happen to use purple, that kit will do really badly… I call it the “Purple Curse”.

Do you scrapbook too or just design? If you scrapbook, share your favorite layout.

When I get the chance, I love to scrapbook!  I scrap any which way – digitally, with traditional supplies, and lately I have been doing more hybrid work.  My favourite thing to do is make hybrid mini albums when I get time.

My favorite digital page:

My favorite hybrid mini album using my collab with Sugarplum Paperie If Friends Were Flowers:

Is there another designer you really love collaborating with? Why?

That would have to be my buddy, Kristin Cronin-Barrow!  She is one of my best online friends, and we chat at least a few times a week… We work together really well and I feel our styles really complement each other.  And we just have a lot of fun!

Food For Thought

Which is worse, failing or never trying?

I feel like life is just one big adventure… You only get one go around, so you may as well make it how you want it to be!  I have a terrible fear of failure, and like to play it safe… and that holds me back sometimes.  BUT I also believe in taking a gamble if you really believe in something – I think if you never try something that you really want to, you will always wonder “what if”?  I think that would be worse.  As they say, a life lived in fear is a life half lived!

If you were forced to eliminate every physical possession from your life with the exception of what could fit into a single backpack, what would you put in it?

Unfortunately, this isn’t a hypothetical question for me as I have been in this situation before when we lost all of our possessions in the Brisbane Floods of 2011… I am so thankful to still have my photos.  They were the first thing I packed then, and would always be the first thing I would pack in that situation.  They are the only thing you truly cannot replace, apart from human life, I suppose. Every photo is a moment frozen in time that you can’t get back, and that is extremely special to me… I have always been the family “photographer”, and I dearly love all my photos.

What do you wish you spent more time doing five years ago?

I wish I would have spent more time appreciating what I had back then!  For example, I would have spent more time just cuddling with my (then) new baby instead of wishing that the hard time of being a new parent was over!  In a month or so he starts school and I feel like it was only yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital, and I wish I could go back in time!

Oh, and I would have taken all the advice about sleeping when the baby is asleep instead of ignoring it and working instead… Nobody tells you that you don’t get to sleep when you have two – they NEVER sleep at the same time to give you the chance to have a nap!

What simple fact do you wish more people understood?

I wish more people would follow the saying, “treat other people how you would like to be treated”.  It is a motto I have held since I was a little girl in grade two – it was the first saying that I remember had an effect on me and I “got it”. It is such a simple thing, but it is so true, and I think the world would be a much happier place if more people just treated others the way they want to be treated.

What does your joy look like today?

My favourite thing at the moment is watching my two kids, Josh (5) and Lola (almost 2), grow up and the sweet relationship that they have together!  It makes my heart do flips just watching how much they love each other, and I hope they are always like that!

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Now that you’ve gotten to know Zoe a bit better, take a peek at some of her favorite products, and don’t forget you can pick up her fantastic featured designer kit, That’s My Girl, FREE with ANY $10 purchase made in the shoppe between now and November 30th!