Sunday, September 30, 2007

Meet The Week Two Judges

It's time to meet this week's group of amazing and talented judges. Last week's team had their work cut out for them and all of us know that it won't be any different this week. The work shown so far in the Stand Up Gallery for Week 2 is incredible and all of you should be applauded for making this so incredibly hard to judge! Introducing...

This week's celebrity guest judge is the fabulously talented Janet Phillips. We are thrilled that Janet was able to join us as a judge for Week 2. She has just returned from Memory Trends 2007, where she was celebrated as one of 10 finalists in this year's Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooker of the Year contest. What a well deserved honor to a great scrapper. Janet is a wonderful representative of what is special about our community. As for her style, clean lines, strong design, heart-felt journaling, and a touch of fun is the best way to describe it. After more than two years scrapping digitally she is forging a path trying to encourage others to scrap their life, their way. Her passion is to help others scrap -- easier, faster, better, more genuinely. With her daily blog posts, her template business at Scrapbook Graphics, and her creative team work with some of the top teams in the community, she strives to put herself fully into her art and to let others come in and take a peek at who she is. "If I can show someone that their life is beautiful and worth recording, then I am happy" she says. Janet is wife to husband Jason and mother to three preschoolers - Alaina (4), Caleb (3), and Levi (1) and one more on the way. They live in Orlando, Florida where Jason and Janet serve as house parents to ten boys in a residential facility. Want a real treat, listen to Janet's interview on DSTR, you'll be truly inspired.

One of the Dream Girls at Little Dreamer Designs, Tiffany Tillman is a brilliant digital artist. Tiffany fell in love with patterned paper in May of 2005 when she casually peeked into a scrapbooking store one year after her daughter was born. A regular Friday crop-night with friends turned into a passion once she discovered digital scrapbooking and how to mix digital techniques with paper products. Her colorful and playful designs always feature her fervor for storytelling. Tiffany won the Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame contest in 2006 and was a finalist for 2006 Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooker of the Year. She contributes regularly to Simple Scrapbooks Digital Magazine, designs for ScrapNFonts, Little Dreamer Designs and writes hybrid tutorials for Tarisota Collections based in Australia. Read more about Tiffany by checking out her blog, SimplyTiffany, where you'll find links to all her wonderful work and activities.

A founding designer at Sweet Shoppe Designs, Amanda Slagle, known to the community as MandaBean is not only a trendsetting designer, she's a brilliant scrapbooker too. She resides in Northeast Georgia with her adorable husband Jules. Although Manda has no children of her own, she absolutely adores her nieces and nephews. Aside from digital scrapbooking, Manda loves completing 1000 piece puzzles and preserving them, cooking up southern cuisine and shopping at some of her favorite places like Hobby Lobby and Marshall's. Manda is insanely fond of tacos and goats..something that her friends never quite understood, but it's good for a laugh. Her favorite sweet treat is a nice thick slab of NY style cheesecake with caramel or strawberry topping. She collects 80's memorabilia and is especially fond of her Miss Piggy collection. Manda currently designs products for Paper Salon and is also a proud member of the Scrap Gypsies team.

Joining us this week from the Disc Talk Radio team is one of the producers behind the scenes, Bree Clarkson. Bree started scrapping back in highschool, when she realized that she wanted to document what was important in her life and things that she had done. It was never a serious hobby, though, until Bree had her first baby, Mason, in November 2002. Once her second baby (Natalie) came along in April 2004, little fingers were into everything, and she became reluctant to pull out all her paper supplies from their hiding spots. Still wanting to do SOMETHING, friends convinced her to try drawing sketches. Bree got the hang of it quickly and started uploading them to her favorite galleries, and soon after realizing the success of it, launched Scrap-Maps.com. Learning to do sketches digitally opened the door for digital scrapbooking when it was introduced to her in June 2004. 11 months later, in May 2005, she decided to take a shot at designing. September 2006, Bree launched a new line of sketches and layered templates, which are appropriately named Launch Pads, and has expanded from just layouts to printables and hybrid classes! When Bree is not busy creating amazing templates and other wonderful goodies, she finds herself holding down the job as Producer of Inside The Scrapper's Playhouse and Admin. Assistant at DiScTalkRadio. You can check out Bree's Launch Pads in her Studio at Scrapbook Graphics.

Another of the dreamily delightful Dream Girls at LDD, Tana Coleman has been an accomplished member of the community for a long time. Tana has been a digital scrapper for two years, thanks to the introduction and beginning lessons from a good friend, Michelle Coleman! It completely captivated her and she often finds herself thinking about this crazy hobby every day. Tana also loves to play board games, baseball, garden, read a good book and volunteer in her children's classes at school. She is also known as an adrenaline junkie to her family and close friends. Her motto - "I will try anything once!" Tana is an amazing scrapper and we'd love to invite you to check out her gallery for some real inspiration.

Finally, we are so excited to introduce you to one of the sweetest SugarBabes of the lot, Aggie Aviso. Aggie is a non-practicing registered medical technologist and licensed nurse currently living in Manila, Philippines. She is a happy and loving wife to a man she has been with since she was 15 and a doting mother to two adorable kids, Matthew and Martha. She was lured into digital scrapbooking in December 2005 and has not stopped preserving memories since then. She loves the ease of scrapping without the mess and the wonderful community the digital world has. She is now involved with an online Filipino community which motivates fellow Filipinas to try digital scrapbooking and hopes to get digital scrapbooking into the mainstream of scrapping in her homeland. She is a self confessed chocoholic and pink and brown addict, and is now trying to not drink Coke like water.


As a reminder, the results from Week One's challenge will be aired on this week's Dishin the Digi Coast to Coast show at DiSc Talk Radio first thing Tuesday morning. So if you havent registered at DSTR to listen, we would strongly encourage you to do so sometime in the next 24 hours! Good Luck : )

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 10:31 PM 0 comments


Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Stand Up: Challenge #2

So Week #1 is in the history books and your hard work is in the hands of our brilliant team of judges. All of the layouts in the gallery were absolutely stunning this week and honestly, we don't know how the judges are going to do it! A huge thank you to each of you who put your hearts into these pages, you should be proud of the gorgeous galleries that have come out of week one's challenge.

We have five challenges to go in this amazing contest, so let's keep the momentum going with the announcement of your second challenge! Don't forget, you must create a layout which ties both the inspirational and design focus of the challenge into one outstanding and memorable page using products from Sweet Shoppe Designs, Little Dreamer Designs or any of our contest sponsors exclusively.

Our first challenge was dreamy, so it's only right that our second challenge is sweet right? Here are the details...

Challenge #2: Life Is Sweet

Inspirational Focus:

"That it shall never come again is what makes life so sweet" - Emily Dickinson

What makes your life sweet? Where do you find sweetness in your everyday life? What about today do you want to remember for a lifetime? What happened yesterday that found you standing there with a smile on your face, or a tear in your eye? It can be as simple as an 'I love you', whispered across the room. It can be life altering; the birth of a baby, a brand new home. This week, we want you to tell us about your sweetest moments.

Design Focus:

Patterned Paper - most of us have a huge stash of gorgeous papers laying around and we want to see you use them! This week, we challenge you to bring your sweet moments to life using no less than 3 prints on your page. Remember, a little pattern goes a long way so show us your creative uses for patterned paper without being gawdy.

Challenge #2 Layouts must be posted in the following galleries at Sweet Shoppe Designs no later than midnight PST on Tuesday, October 2nd.

Week #2 Intermediate Gallery
Week #2 Advanced Gallery

Challenge #3 will be posted Wednesday, October 3rd. As always, we wish you the very best of luck!

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 12:01 AM 3 comments


Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Final Push

Hey guys!! We just wanted to post a reminder that we're in the final stretch of week one with just about 14 hours left to get those layouts finished and posted in the Week #1 galleries at Little Dreamer Designs. We are so proud of the work you have done as a result of this challenge and hope that you love your layouts too!

Once midnight rolls around, our amazing team of judges will have 24 hours to submit their scores so that the Disc Talk Radio team can begin production on the Week #1 Results show!

Every Tuesday, beginning on October 2nd, DiScTalkRadio will be airing the results of the past week's challenge. Point distributions, judges comments and links to the top 10 layouts in both categories will be shared by Shanah Gordon and deann McDaniel on Dishin' the Digi - Coast 2 Coast.

In order to listen to the show, contestants will need to register at DiScTalkRadio. Listening to the shows, as well as registering, is free and easy, and takes just a minute to do. If you are not already registered at Disc Talk Radio, we highly recommend doing this BEFORE Tuesday, October 2nd. Please use your user name, rather than your ID # that has been given to you as a contest participant as DSTR doesn't need the same level of anonymity and would like to get to know you by your names!

After registering, you will receive a verification code, if you don't receive this immediately, check your junk folder, they like to hide in there every once in awhile. If you have questions about registering at DSTR, please feel free to contact them.

We'll see you back here at midnight for a brand new challenge!

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 10:00 AM 1 comments


Saturday, September 22, 2007

Meet The Week One Judges

Hey guys! As you know, there will be a new team of judges evaluating and choosing their favorite layouts for each week of the competition and we thought it would be fun for you to get to know the incredible team who will be picking their faves this week.

Each team of judges will consist of Two Sweet Shoppe Staffers, Two Little Dreamer Staffers, One of the radio sirens from the Disc Talk Radio Team and a Special Celebrity Guest Judge. So let's get to the introductions!


This week's celebrity guest judge is none other than the fabulous Jessica Sprague. Jessica started scrapbooking in the summer of 2004, after having set out to make a "baby book" for her first child. A web designer by trade, Jessica incorporated computer techniques into her pages from the beginning, but didn't start digital scrapbooking until October of 2005. Jessica won both the Memory Makers Masters and the Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame contests in 2006, and was invited to join the Creating Keepsakes team as a contributing editor in July 2006. She authored a special issue of Creating Keepsakes called "Computer Tricks for Scrapbookers", which shows scrapbookers how to incorporate computer techniques into their paper pages. She regularly contributes digital and paper layouts, digital scrapbook kits, and Photoshop tutorials to the magazine, teaches at CK live and online events, and provides a free weekly Photoshop tutorial called Photoshop Friday on her blog. She also teaches instructor-led online digital scrapbooking classes at her web site, jessicasprague.com

Mandy Koontz aka Mandy joined the Sweet Shoppe Team as a SugarBabe in 2006. Mandy's scrapbooking addiction started in 2003, shortly after her husband left for a 2 year deployment. She read about scrapbooking online and made the decision to take the plunge into the paper crafting world. It kept her mind off of missing her husband and her hands busy...she loved it! She slowly found her niche in altered arts and became a published scrapper and a design team member for Fibers by the Yard. In 2005, Mandy began dabbling in Photoshop and really enjoyed the capabilities of the program. She started out making photo bars for friends and decided she liked using the program so much that she'd read every tutorial she could. It wasn't long before she heard about digital scrapbooking and decided to give it a try, hoping maybe her love of scrapbooking would stimulate her to create again. She made her first digi layout in the summer of 2005 and was instantly and hopelessly addicted. These days you can find her behind the lens of her digital camera or in front of her computer trying to create digital memories that her family can cherish for years to come. If you missed Mandy's interview on DSTR's Inside the Scrapper's Playhouse, it's not too late, listen now.

One of the Dream Girls at Little Dreamer Designs, Stacy McFadden aka flowergirl has been scrapbooking for 10 years. In 2005 Stacy was chosen as a Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame winner and shortly after that discovered digital scrapbooking and hasnt looked back! Scrapbooking took on a whole new meaning for Stacy when her husband died a year and a half ago. She decided at that time to make each of her boys an album with all the pictures she could find of them and their dad and it has blossomed into so much more. Stacy keeps a scrapbook/journal for herself, recording her journey and allowing her to express herself creatively; she's discovered how truly important it is to document fleeting moments as well as events and casual occasions; she's also learned to hand the camera over and get into the pictures with her kids as she was sad to realize how few pictures she had of herself and her husband together! Most importantly, she's learned to try and open up her heart when she has something say. It makes her happy to be involved in a hobby that can bring so much more than she ever thought it could!

One of the sirens on the Disc Talk Radio Team, Kristin Tilley aka wyowoman is the co-host of Site Sensational which airs on the 14th of each month. Kristin is a semi-kooky, 38-ish, mom to three and wife to one. She lives on the farm that she was raised on in Wyoming and works in local government with natural resources and agriculture. She tells us that she eats chocolate chip cookies (must be homemade) for breakfast, can't survive without fraps, and loves color- vivid, wonderful colors. She has been scrapping for 3 years, digi scrapping for two. She is on several creative teams, including: Amy Martin, Amy Wolff, Gina Miller, Kimberly Giarrusso, Kim De Smet, Lauren Reid, Misty Mareda, Shawna Clingerman, The Lilypad, and Traci Murphy, as well as being a guest on Eve Recinella's team. Kristin also has fun as the Associate Editor for the DigiShopTalk Insider. If you missed Kristin's Interview on Inside the Scrapper's Playhouse, you can listen now!

Also a SugarBabe at Sweet Shoppe Designs, Dixi Goulden aka 2BG joined the team in April of 2007! Dixi is a stay at home mom to her two girls (ages 3 and 1) and wife to Mike for 4 wonderful years now. She lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. She has always been fascinated by design and all things crafty, but has never really found one thing that she was drawn too as much as digital scrapbooking. Growing up she always wished that her mother had captured everyday moments and documented them for her to read when she was older and she knew that when she had a family of her own that that was exactly what she would do for them. At first she thought that just taking pictures almost everyday was enough but soon she discovered that she needed to tell the stories behind the photos. She found digital scrapbooking through an insert in her photo editing software and being frustrated by the lack of immediacy and fed up with the constant trips to scrapbooking stores for supplies, she soon found that digi was the perfect fit for her. Digital scrapbooking is so much more than a hobby for Dixi now, it is a creative outlet, a passion, an addiction, and a stress reliever.

Our final judge for week one, is the amazing Dream Girl, Ranie O'Dell aka Juliet! Ranie lives in Oklahoma with her husband and daughter. She's a full time working mother and also owns a non-profit overseas ministry. She discovered digital scrapbooking after her daughter was born and she was searching for a special way to preserve family memories. When it comes to scrapbooking, she enjoy trying new things and getting inspiration from the world around her. She and her husband both have a passion for photography and collect antique cameras. Not only is Ranie a fabulous scrapper, she also designs amazing quickpages which are available at CatScraps for purchase.


We hope you enjoyed getting to know this week's amazing judges. Each of them has their work cut out for them as they begin looking through the stunning layouts you are creating for our first challenge. Good Luck!

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 1:03 PM 3 comments


Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Stand Up: Challenge #1

September 19th is finally here and all of us on the Stand Up & Scrap Team are so pleased to be officially kicking off the first of six challenges that more than 500 digital scrappers will be completing over the next six weeks in an effort to raise awareness for a climate in crisis while also proving they are among the best of the best scrappers out there!

All of us want to thank each of you for being a part of this gigantic event and wish you all the best as you complete each challenge in the contest. We hope that the anonymous aspect of Stand Up & Scrap allows you to explore things you might not otherwise have challenged yourself to create and that you end up with six gorgeous layouts that you will cherish.

Each contestant must create a layout which ties both the inspirational and design focus of each challenge into one outstanding and memorable page using products from Sweet Shoppe Designs, Little Dreamer Designs or any of our contest sponsors exclusively. Here is your first challenge...

Challenge #1: Dream Big

Inspirational Focus:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has a genius, magic and power to it." -Goethe

Dream Big - If you could have one dream come true what would it be? What does your dream say about you? Be creative and design a page that is meaningful to YOU and shares with the world a dream that you hope will come true someday.

Design Focus:

Brushwork - we think brushes have the ability to take an ordinary layout extraordinary places and want to challenge you to use brushes to bring the inspirational focus of your page to life. Brushes can add whimsy, grunge, beauty and so much more to a page so use them to create a mood to suit the dream you are sharing.

Challenge #1 Layouts must be posted in the following galleries at Little Dreamer Designs no later than midnight PST on Tuesday, September 25th.

Week #1 Intermediate Gallery
Week #1 Advanced Gallery

*Please remember to post your layouts using your anonymous contestant numbers only*

Challenge #2 will be posted here on the blog Wednesday, September 26th. Good Luck!

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 12:01 AM 4 comments


Monday, September 17, 2007

Are You Officially Registered??

Click Here to view the official contestant list of eligible scrappers as of 4pm PST on Monday, September 17th. Please make sure your contestant # is on the list in black to assure that you are properly registered to compete in Stand Up.

If your number is missing from the list or highlighted in red, please review the registration instructions to make sure you have followed the steps required to be considered an official Stand Up & Scrap contestant.

Thanks so much & Good Luck!!

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 3:33 PM 1 comments


Friday, September 14, 2007

Semi Annual Sale at Little Dreamer!!




Stock up and save BIG!! Save 30% on everything in the Little Dreamer Shoppe!
*Excluding the Stand Up and Scrap Kit*

Sale is on now!

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 9:12 PM 0 comments


3 Days Left to Register

It's Friday afternoon and that means there are just 3 days left to purchase the Stand Up Contestant Registration Package at Sweet Shoppe Designs and get yourself registered to compete in what is sure to be an incredible six week competition! The first challenge will be posted here on the Stand Up Blog on Wednesday, September 19th, so stay tuned!

The registration package will be removed from the Sweet Shoppe on Sunday night at midnight PST and all contestants will have until Monday night at midnight PST (9/17) to send their private message to Register4StandUp on the Sweet Shoppe forums requesting that their entry in the contest be considered official.

Don't forget that the password is not sent automatically and if you would like to unzip the kit and compete in the contest, you will need to confirm your registration via PM at SSD. Any contestant who isn't officially registered via private message by Monday night will not be eligible to compete in the Stand Up Contest.

As a reminder, Stand Up will remain available at Little Dreamer Designs throughout the contest for anyone wishing to purchase the kit without the obligations of competing in a six week competition.

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 11:08 AM 0 comments


Saturday, September 8, 2007

Stand Up Contestant FAQ

By request from on ongoing Q&A thread at Sweet Shoppe Designs, a contestant FAQ has been added to the Official Links in the sidebar. All contestants should review the information posted in the FAQ as some great information has been shared as a result of the questions asked by other contestants. Please let us know if you have any questions before competition begins on the 19th.

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 12:17 PM 1 comments


Stock Up to Stand Up

If you're looking to grab some new goodies eligible for use in the contest, Sweet Shoppe Designs is having a storewide sale for the next 4 days. Check it out...



In addition to all the latest contest news, we'll be keeping our eyes open to keep you informed on any of our sponsor sites who might be making special offers throughout the Stand Up event so stay tuned!

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 10:05 AM 0 comments


Monday, September 3, 2007

Stand Up Contestant Blinkies

The official contestant blinkies are here so snag one to your liking and add em to your signatures around town. When allowed, we'd loved if you could link em back here to the blog so people who are interested can come find out what you're up to!







Remember you ARE allowed to wear these on your "real" usernames but please DO NOT reveal your Contestant # to anyone! We're so excited that some people might reinvent themselves and their style to be the best they can be as one of the anonymous 16K. Exciting stuff!

In other news, Stand Up is on sale without encryption NOW at Little Dreamer Designs. Anyone who wants the gorgeous Stand Up megakit but doesnt want to compete in the six week competition should head over there to pick it up soon.

Remember Stand Up is a limited edition kit and will be available to contestants at Sweet Shoppe Designs until 9/16 and throughout the contest at Little Dreamer Designs. When the contest ends, this kit will disappear forever.

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 9:29 AM 2 comments


Sunday, September 2, 2007

Contest Dates

Some people have mentioned that they are trying to think about dates and their schedules before they register so I thought I would post our schedule so you can take a look at what will be happening when...

September 1st-16th - Contest Registration at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Wed, September 19th - Challenge #1 Revealed
Tue, September 25th - Challenge #1 Due
Wed, September 26th - Challenge #2 Revealed
Tue, October 2nd - Challenge #2 Due, Challenge #1 Results Show airs on Disc Talk Radio
Wed, October 3rd - Challenge #3 Revealed
Tue, October 9th - Challenge #3 Due, Challenge #2 Results Show airs on Disc Talk Radio
Wed, Octiber 10th- Challenge #4 Revealed
Tue, October 16th - Challenge #4 Due, Challenge #3 Results Show airs on Disc Talk Radio
Wed, October 17th - Challenge #5 Revealed
Tue, October 23rd - Challenge #5 Due, Challenge #4 Results Show airs on Disc Talk Radio
Wed, October 24th - Final Challenge Revealed
Tue, October 30th - Final Challenge Due, Challenge #5 Results Show airs on Disc Talk Radio
Tue, November 6th - Finale Show on Disc Talk Radio - Grand Prize Winners Announced

There will be NO eliminations throughout the event and you must complete all 6 challenges to be eligible to win any of the grand prize packages. We do reserve the right to give extra goodies away throughout the event on a "because we feel like it" basis : ) Buckle your seatbelts and prepare for an inspiring ride!

Posted by Stand Up and Scrap Team at 11:57 AM 0 comments