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

Hey everyone I’m excited to bring you one of our blog feature, Sweet Talk, which sheds some light on YOU. Our amazing community members. Once a month we will indulge in some “sweet talk” and have some fun getting to know you all a little bit better.

“When someone tells you a piece of their life, they’re giving you a gift.” – Patrick Rothfuss

We’ll start off with an ice breaker and show off some gorgeous pages then we’ll end the interview with a lightning round of 15 questions to learn some fun, interesting and cool things about a different member of the sweetest spot in town!

This month I’m excited to introduce: Kristine (knclark in the forum)

Tell us a bit about yourself. How you came to find digital scrapbooking? Day job, where you live, pets, kids? Give us the tea!!

She says: “I have been married for almost 23 years to my best friend and companion in travel and adventure. I grew up in Cache Valley UT as did my husband. We met in college while attending USU. We have 4 boys ranging from high school senior to 3rd grade. We live in a smaller city along I-80 in Wyoming and commute to Utah regularly to see family, shop and eat.”

“My grandmother scrapbooked and when I saw her scrapbooks, it inspired me to begin scrapping when I was in high school. I made the jump from paper scrapping to digital scrapping in about 2012 and haven’t looked back. It is so nice to stop and start as I need without having to clean up a bunch of tools and I love that I can manipulate my page any way I want to.”

“I am a Clinical Exercise Physiologist and Registered Dietitian. My full time job is as a Professor at a Community College running the Exercise Science Program in addition to overseeing our Wellness, Nutrition and Physical Activity courses and running the campus Fitness Center. To maintain my RD license, I have a private practice on the side. In addition, I also do all the accounting and oversee the office management of my husband’s Counseling Practice. My time is pretty full between my 3 jobs and my kids.”

 

I love our members and I love looking through the different galleries. Kristine’s gallery was full of love and family and super sweet moments like this one:

I love the story that she journaled here and splitting into two sections was creative. The sweet candid moments really melt your heart, or your ice cream. lol

 

I asked Kristine about her favorite pages from her own gallery and she was happy to share these with us:

“I love that I captured “santa” with his eye roll”

 

“I love the sweet smiles of my son and the simplicity of the layout”

 

“I think by nature, I prefer more simple layouts and capturing sweet moments of my boys.”

 

“Kylan seeker – I was inspired by a magazine layout for this one and just highlighting the different shots I captured of him”

 

 

Of course, she’s got lots more of beautiful pages in her gallery as she’s been a long-time member here. If you want to see more or leave her a little love in her gallery I’m sure she would like that.  But this interview isn’t all about her gorgeous creations before we go let’s learn some more about Kristine. I gave her a list of questions to choose from and asked her to answer any 15 of her choice.

 

1. What’s your favorite way to spend a day off?

My favorite way to spend my day off depends on the time of year and how I am feeling. Number one choice would be to go on a hike, either to a waterfall or the top of a mountain. If I can’t go out, then I love to spend time either reading a good book or scrapping about the kids and our adventures.

 

2. What’s the next place on your travel bucket list?

Our next trip is a week in Northern Italy for Spring Break. A week is just not long enough as I am trying to pack in all the places we want to go, see and fit in the foods of the region!

But my number one place to travel that has been on my list for years is Australia and New Zealand. We hope in the next few years we can make that trip work with our schedules.

 

3. Are you an introvert or extrovert?

I think I am a bit of both. In general, I prefer to stay in – read a good book, watch a movie, scrapbook, play games versus going out to events, parties, etc. I also prefer to do things on my own, like exercising, going hiking, etc.

However, when I do attend events, I am social and usually in the mix of things, one of the last to leave the party, etc. By profession, I need to be extrovert – I work with students, co-workers, the public on a daily basis. This may be why, I’d rather just stay home and relax vs. going out after a day of work.

 

4. Amusement park or National park?

We just did WDW and Universal and while I enjoyed the new rides and sharing the fun with my boys, I really dislike crowds and throngs of people. So it is definitely a National Park for me – I prefer the outdoors, hiking, mountains, waterfalls and less people. One my favorite trips in 2022, was going to Southern Utah by myself and just hiking everyday for a week.

 

5. Are you the prankster or the prank-ee?

I love surprising friends, family. When I was a teenager, I would lose my voice 2-3 times a year and when I did, I would get together with my girlfriends and call boys we liked to ask them questions since they could not recognize my voice. One night, I went to surprise a friend getting off work. His car was old and didn’t lock well, so I was in his car when he came out and scared him pretty bad when I surprised him after he got in the car. He wasn’t too happy with me on that one and I have tried to be more careful with my surprises since.

 

6. If you could create the ideal career for yourself what would it be?

I wish I had gotten in on the travel/food blog in the beginning when it first took off – my ideal job would be to just travel, hike and eat taking pictures and sharing my adventures and getting paid to do what I love.

 

7. What’s your favorite board game?

I am not sure I have one favorite, but I do love to play games. Last year, I bought the Battle for Hogwarts and we have not conquered it yet (we have only played a few times, since it takes some time) but I really enjoy that one now. This year I bought a few Azul games and really enjoy both the Chocolate and Stained Glass versions. But my favorite game to play is a card game called Ligreto from Europe. It is like group speed solitare – I love fast games like that and Egyptian Rat Screw!

 

8. What’s your favorite season?

Fall – it is perfect for hiking – not to cold and not too hot. And I love when the leaves begin to turn on the trees and create such beautiful variety of colors. But spring is the best time to see waterfalls at their full flow – so Spring/early summer hikes for waterfalls!

 

9. Are you cooking at home or picking up to-go?

We prepare most of our meals at home. In addition, where we live there are only a couple places I like to eat. In a pinch, I would pick up the Green River Roll from our Japanese steakhouse Sapporo.

 

10. What’s your “regular” coffee order?

I do not drink coffee, but I enjoy my bean to bar hot chocolate almost every day. I love good chocolate and am fortunate to buy Solstice Dark Milk out of Utah in bulk and use that for my hot chocolate. Almost any bean to bar chocolate makes a good hot chocolate!

 

11. What is the first thing you’d spend money on if you won the lottery?

If I won the lottery, I would take that trip to Australia and New Zealand and see the Asian islands and countries – take 3-6 months to travel.

 

12. You’re alone for 24 hours, what do you do?

If I am home alone, I usually put on some good movies, catch up on my favorite shows and scrapbook.

 

13. What was your first job?

My first job was babysitting for families in my ward/neighborhood, which then lead to a house cleaning job. At one time I was cleaning 5 houses in HS. House cleaning funded my first trip to Europe.

 

14. How do you separate your work life from home life?

That is a hard one, I don’t really. I am working at home all the time. My full time job is flexible so I can be home working/grading when my kids are home. I also do all the work for our business at home. So it can be really difficult to separate home and work, especially when my home office is in our bedroom.

 

 

Love the answers to your questions, my hubby always wants to fly or teleport too. I think that would be cool, but heights aren’t my thing. Thank you again, Kristine, for taking time to have a little fun with us. I enjoyed getting to learn more about her and hopefully you all did too. Until next time…♥