Hello Again, it’s the last Friday in July, how on earth did that happen? Maybe it didn’t sneak up on you like it has on me. We’re t-minus 25 days until our oldest moves to college, and 26 days until our other two go back to school, so summer is officially entering the final countdown over here. How about you? Or are you in a part of the world that kids are in school already and the weather is nice and mild? I think one think we can all agree on, is it’s always nice to get some beautiful sunshine when the weather is absolutely perfect outside and I feel like our next featured designer is always a ray of sunshine, so why don’t we get to her, Kristin Cronin-Barrow! Kristin has been a designer here at the Sweet Shoppe just about as long as anyone can remember.
As you know, this year our theme is ‘Designer’s Choice’ What does that mean? Well, just what it sounds like! This year our wonderful team of designers will be coming up with a heap of fantastic new collections inspired by whatever is exciting or motivating them in the moment. They have total freedom to express themselves however they’d like, and we’re super excited to see where this adventure takes us over the next year. Kristin’s Live by the Sun is bright, warm and so pretty! I love pinks and yellows together, so this is a must have for me. You can get it for free, just add $10 worth of goodies to your cart and it will automatically be added to your cart. The offer is good until our new releases go live on August 11th.
This kit is going to work for so many different projects, I feel like you can’t go wrong adding it to your stash and I’m going to bet there will be some extras to go with it.
Now, as your know if you’ve been following our featured designer posts for any length of time, we have a Featured Designer interview with questions straight from our SSD community this year, so let’s see what Kristin had to say.
Tell us about your journey with digital scrapbooking… How did you find out about it?
Kristin: I found out about digital scrapbooking way back in 2003.. 20 years ago! I was on my year long maternity leave and I knew that I wanted to scrapbook but I also knew that I did not have the resources or commitment to do paper scrapbooking. Prior to my maternity leave I worked in a printing shop so I had experience with both photoshop and Illustrator. I had also been in college prior to that for visual arts and this is where I first used photoshop – boy things were different back then. It was 1999 and I saved my work to floppy disks! I found digital scrapbooking through a smaller mommy group and the rest as they say is history. At the time there was really only one main site – scrapbook-bytes. It was a forum and gallery but there were no stores selling digital products at the time. We would make freebies and share them with others. Stores started popping up more and more in 2004 and I started selling in 2005. I sold at a handful of stores and then was lucky enough to land my dream gig at the sweet shoppe near the end of 2007.
When it comes to collabs, do you usually work with designers that have styles that you’re comfortable with and you think complement your own designs or do you like to challenge yourself and work with designers that have a completely different style?
Kristin: I don’t have the chance to collab as much as I used to but I still collab often with Rubia and we have been doing our note to self series for quite a few years now. I LOVE working with Rubia because I feel like I can let loose a little more and really play around with different things. The artsy papers Rubia makes are just so amazing and fun. It’s really nice to change things up once and awhile and she’s the perfect partner to do that with.
How do you stay motivated or deal with the loss of mojo?
Kristin: I have been dealing with this a lot over the years. It gets hard when you feel like everything has been done before. I think stepping back and doing other things helps some! I am slowly finding my groove back again and am having a lot of fun with my featured designer kit and companion kit for this week. Looking around at various places helps for motivation as well as just getting outside! Many of my kits are very heavily inspired by nature and where I live so actually getting out there to experience it is important for me.
What new trends do you see coming to digital scrapbooking?
Kristin: I’m always curious about this and I feel new trends have been a little lacking in recent years! I would actually LOVE to know in the comments what you think new trends might be. I’m all ears!
What are your must-haves when creating a kit or collection? How do you know when a product is ? finished?
Kristin: All the flowers and foliage! I try to include a lot because I know there are people who love to layer and layer and I want to try and make sure every kit feels full so they can reach for everything needed in that kit.. in all honesty I know when a product is finished when I’m inching closer than I should be to the deadline.. haha
What brings you joy?
Kristin: WALKING! I know I have likely said this before but walking is what I do to make me happy and clear my head. I listen to audiobooks and go for an (almost) daily walk all year long. Sometimes I have to skip if work is really busy. During our big event weekends my walking definitely takes a hit. I walk all year long and I live in the mountains in Canada so even though we get a LOT of snow here I’ll still be walking. I actually prefer walking in the winter vs summer.. I really am not a fan of the heat at all.
What’s the last really great book you read or tv show you watched?
Kristin: My husband and I have been watching a lot of TV in the last year – I’ve watched more shows this year than the last 10 years combined probably. We just finished watching “Six Feet Under” and I really loved it. I did not watch this when it aired so it was all new to me even though it finished almost 20 years ago. The finale of this show is so well done! It really makes you think a lot about life.
Kristin’s scrapbook story is like so many of us old timers, lol! We had babies back in the early 2000s and had to do something with all these photos. You know fun fact, Kristin, Janet and I were all on the Shabby Princess’ creative team when we were expecting. Lucas, Katie & Cooper and all just a few days apart, they were all due like the first week of March in 2008. It felt very much like something was in the water back then. LOL!
Be sure to come back on Friday to get a sneak peek of Kristin’s featured designer 15 sale.
Bienejen said...
on August 2nd, 2023 at 4:10 pm
I remember Shabby Princess! This is a beautiful kit (as usual)!!! I love reading these interviews and getting to know a little bit more about each designer!