Meet the Digital Elite Team

Amy

aka dogartist

Hello! My name is Amy and I am so thrilled to be chosen as one of the DET 9 team!
I live in Kettering, Ohio with my husband Mike of 34 years. We have 3 children, our 18 year old son, Michael Paul is still living at home and is still in High School. Our two daughters Melanie and Jennifer are both married and live close by. Melanie has 3 children, 2 boys and 1 girl. I enjoy scrapping all of them as well as another family member - our dog Valor, who is the featured subject in many of my layouts. We also have a Rat Terrier, Fergie who makes occassional appearances in my work. I am blessed to have such a great family.
In real life I am a Dog Artist. Creating original dog clip art (cats and horses too) is what I do when I am not putting together a layout. The total number of pieces/images I have done is over 1000! I also digitize the art into stiches for embroidery which is very time consuming but rewarding. I do own the company which allows me the freedom to work on my digital scrapping when not involved in everyday business. It is a luxury that I do appreciate!
My main hobby is digital scrapbooking of course but I love photography and working in Photoshop. I also am an avid reader, love to work in my gardens and enjoy running! My husband and I do like to go fishing and enjoy walking/hiking at local and state parks. It is always a great opportunity for some nice photos.
I came across DSP in 2005 and was hooked immediately. I love the DSP community, everyone is so friendly and funny - I couldn't imagine a day without creating layouts using the fantastic products offered here. I am excited to begin my term on this DET and I am truly honored to be in such remarkable and talented company!
Thank you designers for your confidence in my ability and creativity and for producing such outstanding products to work with.

Diane

aka diturpin

Hello, my name is Diane and I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I grew up in rural East Tennessee where I met my husband Ron. We have a 12-year-old daughter, Savannah, who is the subject of most of my scrapbooking layouts. I have a step-daughter, Dawn who has blessed us with two grandsons, Brooks and Brady, along with an upcoming addition in the spring.
I work for our church as the office manager and coordinator of our children’s ministry. In my spare time, I enjoy scrapbooking, photography and reading. I’m an assistant Girl Scout leader with my daughter’s troop and wife of a professional Boy Scout. We enjoy camping, of course, and spending time outdoors.
I bought a lot of paper scrapbooking supplies but never completed many layouts. I’ve always loved computers so digital scrapbooking was the avenue of choice for me. I did a few layouts years ago in various desktop publishing programs before I ran across digital scrapbooking in a magazine and wandered into DSP from either a freebie link or just credits in a layout. I already had PSE from a digital camera purchase so I downloaded some freebies and never looked back. DSP has been a wonderful place to learn and grow as a scrapper. Everyone I have met here has been so friendly and helpful. It felt like home to me from the very beginning.
And home it is now! I’m so honored to be a part of DET 9 and am looking forward to getting to know more of you along this wonderful journey. I hope to share my joy of scrapbooking with you and showcase the talents of our wonderful DSP designers.

Heather

aka HeatherH

Hi! My name is Heather. I’m so excited to be a part of the Digital Elite Team here at DSP. I’m from a small town in the state of Maine (USA). I have been married to my husband, Paul for twelve years and we have two sons, Connor who is 10 years old and Ian who is 6 years old. They are the subject of most of my scrapbook pages (sometimes willing, sometimes not). Since I haven’t found a way to make a living at scrapbooking yet, I do have a day job as an X-ray technologist at a local hospital. I’ve been in that field for 21 years. The job can be stressful at times, but I’ve found scrapping to be a great stress reliever!
I was a paper scrapper for about 8 years and discovered the wonders of digital scrapping by accident when I purchased a wide format printer to use with my paper scrapping. The printer came with a CD and on it were links to various scrapbooking sites, one of which was DSP. I spent some time lurking around the site and downloading freebies before getting up the nerve to post a layout. I was absolutely amazed at how friendly everyone was here. I eventually got up the nerve to sign up for NKOTB10 and although I didn’t win, I learned tons and made lots of new friends. I have since participated in many challenges and contests and have had many rewarding experiences here. Anyone who has checked out my gallery knows that some of my other loves are rock music, blue jeans, chocolate and working out (another great stress reliever!).
DSP is truly the best digital scrapbooking site around and the designers are, by far, the best I’ve seen. I look forward to creating for them and hopefully can inspire others along the way!

Jenni

aka Jenni

Hi! My name is Jenni and I am from Eden Prairie, MN. I have been married to my wonderful husband, Will, for thirteen years and we have three great kids that I am home with full time, Bill (10), Cole (8) and Brooke (5). Add the one year old dachsund, Cinnamon, and it's a very noisy and active life!
Will and I have moved around a great deal for his job living in eight different cities in twelve years. That is probably the biggest of the many reasons I love DSP so much. Even through the moves....my DSP friends get to move with me! I started digital scrapbooking in 2005 after giving up on the idea of paper scrapping. The kids were always trying to "help" in their loving way and honestly I never figured out how to keep all of the paper supplies organized. I was given a newspaper article about digital with DSP being mentioned in the article and the rest is history! While scrapbooking is my main love, I also love to work on my photography skills, sing in the church choir, and exercise with an emphasis on weight lifting. My family and I are also avid sports watchers especially loving football and NASCAR. Yes, I catch some grief over the NASCAR thing but it is VERY fun!
DSP is like a second home to me and the members like my family. I am thrilled to be able to serve on the DET 9 after serving on DET 6 and 7 as well. I know the fun involved and I am so excited and honored for another chance to highlight the beautiful creations from all of the DSP designers.

Kathleen

aka kathleen

Greetings! I'm Kathleen, and I live in Des Moines, Iowa. I grew up in Chicago, and have also lived in the Detroit area and Indianapolis - I am just a Midwest girl at heart! I'm married, and we have a beautiful little girl, Delaney, who is 4. She truly makes every day a delight. I also have worked for a large software company for the last 10 years - not quite as exciting as the time I spend here at DSP and wandering in the world of Photoshop, but it does help keep some balance in my life.
I have always enjoyed creating one thing or another, and am also a bit on the geeky side. So in my quest to expand simple computer crafts and collages not long after Delaney was born, I stumbled across DSP, and I was instantly hooked on the fabulous designs and community!
Scrapping has lead to a growing interest in photography, and my Canon Rebel XTi is never far away! Just ask Delaney who early on learned the phrase "no more pictures, Mommy."
I am so excited to be part of the DET 9 team. The DSP designers are the best, and being able to use their designs to help me document big and small events is such a blast. I hope I can share some bit of inspiration and excitement with you.
Happy scrapping!

Mars

aka MarsOlson

I found DSP in 2005 while searching for a way to put together an album of my first grandson's baby photos. I fell in love with digital scrapping and the site. I has been very active with challenges, contests, socializing and shopping at DSP ever since! I am a Canadian living on Vancouver Island, BC with Ken. I am the mother of 6 grown children and my two oldest have given me 5 grandchildren so far; Jenna, David, Hannah, Madelyn and Mateja. I adore my golden retriever, Sunny, and a beautiful old orange cat, Tugger. My inspiration for scrapping comes from my family and the beautiful kits and layouts at DSP.

Melissa

aka Melissa

Hi! I'm Melissa, and I live in a small town in WV with my wonder hubby of 11 years, Bruce, and 2 children: Patrick, 12 and Chloe, 6. We also have two furbabies, Fliffi and Nellie. I have scrapped about my family, but usually you will find more pages about my daughter, because, well, girls are so fun to scrap!
In real life, I am self-employed and am the PTO President at my daughter's school. I have tried a lot of professions in my life, such as cosmetology and phlebotomy. But I found I am needed much more here at home, especially with raising my son who has Autism. I began paper scrapbooking in 2000, when I found out I was pregnant. Unfortunately, I had a miscarriage and lost the heart to scrap. After my daughter was born in 2002, I began paper scrapping again, but was always aggravated at how little space I had for all those paper supplies, and how long it took me to do one page. And the mess of it all was stressful, too. In 2006, I found DSP and knew from the moment I did my first page that I would never go back to traditional scrapbooking. Now, I am honored to be a member of the DET, as well as a DSU Instructor and DSP Moderator! The community at DSP is like no other and the designers' work is of the highest standards. I am proud to call DSP my home. I hope you will call DSP home too, and even invite your friends along. I hope that I can inspire you with my layouts during my time with the DET 9, just like I've been inspired with previous DET teams!

Sam

aka sammimagoo

Hi there, my name is Sam. I live in Australia and have been happily married for 15 years to Phil (we all call him Changa), and in that time we have had 3 gorgeous, rowdy, crazy, full-of-life boys. There is Baxter (8), Archie (5) and Kobe (3), so it is a house full of testosterone so a little escape to my PC for some scrapping time-out is my idea of bliss.
Before kids, I used to run my own Architectural Design & Drafting business. When the boys came along I was lucky enough to be a SAHM for the first 5 years of their little lives…so Kobe being 3, I have 2 more years to go. I love hanging out with my guys, I’ll miss it when I have to start working again. Although…3 boys…any job will be like a holiday after them J
My mother would tell you for most of my life I did not have a crafty bone in my body. She was the crafty one, knitting, macramé, cross stitch, hobby text, you name it she did it and no matter what she tried to teach me…it just didn’t stick.
Then I found scrapbooking about 8 years ago, just after Bax was born, and paper scrapped for about 6 years on and off, but I found it getting very expensive and harder and harder to leave my stuff out with the boys around, so I went in search of the DIGITAL experience. I thought…if I can draft and design buildings on the computer why not scrap on them…and I haven’t looked back.
I found DSP through a friend I met at the boys school, Sheree (aka Butterbly) in July 07 and have been quietly lurking around here ever since. I started to play with my PSE5 program and took the plunge a few weeks later and joined NKOTB9, that was so much fun and getting all the comments and guidance was so uplifting that it gave me the confidence to keep creating…thank goodness because they were some pretty rough layouts when I look backJ
I love scrapping, and no matter what standard we are, we will always have so much to learn in this craft and this site is just a terrific place to do that. The designers here are so creative and I am so honoured to be a part of this DET team to work with their wonderful kits. I will do my best to inspire your creative side and look forward to making a whole heap of cyber friends along the way.
6 months of total devoted scrapping…BRING IT ON!!!!

Sandy

aka sands_healy

Hello, my name is Sandy, but my friends call me Sands. You can call me either, I have no preference.

I'm currently living in the Sultanate of Oman, in the Middle East. We left South Africa 3 years ago, to pursue a career opportunity for my husband, Bruce. He is very supportive of my endeavours, even though it costs him loads of money! We've been married for 6 years, and have two awesome kids, Courtney who will be 5 soon, and Connor, who's just turned 3.

When in South Africa, I was a Dog Trainer for Obedience and Carting. I've recently been qualified as a judge for Carting. I also took part in Field Trials and competed in both Carting and Obedience. I had no time for paper scrapping, as all my time was spent on my doggie activities. Then we moved out here, and I was at a loss. I no longer worked and suddenly became a SAHM. A friend that does paper scrapping, told me about digi scrapping, and sent me a couple of google searched sites. DSP was the first one I investigated, and I've never looked back.

I started with Digital Image Pro 9, but then saw so many techniques and effects that others were getting with Photoshop, so convinced Bruce that I really NEEDED Photoshop. So now I scrap with Photoshop CS3. I also have a keen interest in photography which I've been exploring more within the last 3 years. Along with my photography passion, comes my Scuba Diving, and naturally my underwater photography. I love to scrap my photos from this area, as well as my dive photos. I love sharing my experience with those that won't have a chance to see what I see.

I have been part of DSP since August 2006 and have been hooked ever since. I spend the majority of my day on DSP while I'm playing around with my photos, learning new techniques or scrapping a page.

Sue

aka Muma

I am Sue and I’ve been living in Central Illinois USA for approximately 6 years now. Before that I lived in the UK about 30 miles north of London but moved to the USA to be with my partner Tom. We actually met online and now have a sweet ~cough~ angel [with hidden horns] named Amelia Grace [4].
I started scrapping when Amy was born so my mum had more than just photos to look at but I have been trained in several different types of arts and crafts for most of my life. Starting with Art and Ceramics when I was at school, then gaining a diploma in general art and design and finally going on to silver-smithing and jewelry design. However, being very disillusioned with the jewelry design industry, I did a 180 and went into pharmacy ..... LOL yeah I know ... something completely different. I finally found my way back to arts via the PC creating 3D environments for a 3D web chat.
When I became a SAHM I decided to concentrate totally on my family and discovered digital scrapping. I've never created a paper page in my life but fell in love with digital. Less mess, less money, reusable goodies, and oh so rewarding. When I first came to DSP I felt very bewildered but slowly joined in with a few challenges such as NKOTB, DET Bootcamp, the Mentor program and one of the LO lessons and all that lead me to where I am today. Outside of scrapping I enjoy reading sci-fi and fantasy as well as playing MMORPGs. Of course there is my photography which I hope I am getting better with.
The DET is such an honoured position to be in with such awesome girls and at such an awesome site. Thank you for the opportunity.

Past Digital Elite Team Members

DET 1 April-Sept 2005	DET 2 Oct-March 2006	DET 3 April-Sept 2006	DET 4 Oct-March 2007	DET 5 April-Sept 2007
Luv2Crop (Samara) mandy@netlive MaureenH rnorwood (Rosemary) shazzt	Bad JuJu (Judyy) BerryGirl d2vasquez dlhoffer Luv2Crop (Samara) sallyscrapper	Karen B keeplearning MommyMeg (Meg) sallyscrapper sandra thyme_4_me	boobearsmama1 Corgi Lover kimscrapping lbfpebbles OrangeSue sandygb Guest Elite Members: Bkyboo/Becky Soto Frachioni JamieStillwagon Ky Bumpkin paulaoneil	Bocca Gail S. lbfpebbles MaureenH Jill W paulaoneil Sharon1313 twinkerbell
DET 6 Oct-March 2008	DET 7 April-Sept 2008	DET 8 Oct-March 2009
Corgi Lover (Beth) Christine (Christine) Lynnie (Lynnette) Gail S. (Gail) Jill W (Jill) webfrau (Julia) Sharon1313 (Sharon) sssnoo (Sandra) Jenni (Jenni)	carolat (Carola) Lynnie (Lynnette) MarsOlson (Mars) Melissa (Melissa) Jill W (Jill) sands_healy (Sandy) Scrapping4Him (Mandy) Jenni (Jenni)	MarsOlson sands_healy Muma SailingSue HeatherH honeymoon Jeanet diturpin