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

Welcome to our first Featured Designer post for 2022!  Erica Zane will be kicking off the new year and our new theme. Those of you that have been around a long time will know that in just a few days the Sweet Shoppe will be celebrating its birthday and it’s a big one, our Sweet 16!!

With that festive spirit in mind, our designers decided that a year long celebration of everything that makes our lives special would be the perfect way to keep the party going, so Celebrate YOU! is the theme that will be inspiring our Featured Designer freebies this year! From your job, to your school, to your favorite holidays and more, we’re celebrating all of life’s memorable moments this year, and Erica’s beautiful take is a celebration of Your Family, and it will be free with a $10 purchase over the next couple of weeks!  Don’t you just adore the colors?

This is such an awesome way to start the 2022 Featured Designer Series, this kit works for everyone.   You can use it to celebrate everything that makes your family a family, those you love & think of as family or those everyday moments!

Before we get to Erica’s interview, we also wanted to share some of the extras Erica created to go with Your Family.

With the start of a new year of our featured designer Friday posts, we also need to change up our featured designer interview questions.  I love this part, getting to learn new and interesting things about our designers.  Let’s see what Erica had to say.

What is your favorite thing to “celebrate”? Is it your birthday? Christmas? Something else?
I would say Christmas…especially when my kids were younger. I loved to see the wonder & joy on their faces and to feel their excitement through the whole season, it was the best! Now that they are older, it’s not quite the same but I enjoy the break from school & having the family home together with no real schedule for a few weeks.

Do you watch tv or listen to music when you’re designing? Or do you prefer silence?
I usually need to have something to binge watch while I’m designing. I do best with shows I’ve already seen so I can listen more than watch, otherwise I get too distracted and end up watching more than designing. But if I find that perfect balance, I am typically way more productive than if I try to design without. Sometimes I can even remember what show I was watching when I look at a certain kit/template set.

Favorite TV series of all time?
Dr. Who! The newer ones…though I did watch some old school Dr. Who with my dad back in the day (the Tom Baker seasons). I have watched some of them so many times it’s silly. Every time I hear they’re changing the doctor, I get sad but somehow they always get me hooked on the new one. A close runner up is Merlin, though I really don’t like how they ended that series!

How far in advance do you start working on your next product? Do you have a list of themes in the queue or do you just decide what feels right from week to week?
I have tried all manner of planning, list making and organizing time & ideas but apparently the creative side of my brain wants none of that business. I either start with colors and play around until a theme makes itself apparent or, more often than not, I have a theme idea in mind and try to find colors that fit the mood…which sometimes takes days of changing my mind to get there. If nothing clicks, I save the idea & move on to something else. I have also found sometimes I just have to follow my mood, when I am depressed or in a funk, kits like this happen…

Do you have an all-time favorite kit or product? Share it! Even if it’s been retired.
At this moment in time (I change my mind often) it’s a toss up between All Booked Up & How Eye Roll. I love reading and had been wanting to make a reading kit forever but I knew it’d be a big one so I kept putting it off. I especially LOVE the pin set with that one! How Eye Roll just makes me smile – I had way too much fun making all those “pun-ny” cards!

Now let’s see some beautiful inspiration from our team!

Now it’s time to go fill up your shopping cart with $10, and Your Family  will be automatically added for FREE! This special offer will only be available through Friday, February 11th when our new releases go live, so don’t delay! And don’t forget to come back next Friday for a sneak peek at Erica’s Feature Designer 15 sale.  It will start Tuesday, February 8th.  Have a great weekend!