To our newest Z!Girl, Carin Van Kuijk from the Netherlands! I’m sure most of you have known her as CarinPixel in forums and galleries as she an active scrappers who always ready to comment and help others.
I would like you all to get to know her. She is one of my long time customers – a very good one too! And she scraps delightful and eclectic pages that I’m sure you would find inspiring. She has been a Z!Guest too when we used to have the spot regularly. I am so happy that she’s joining us here at Ztampfilicious Team! You can take a peek at her new Z!Gallery here, and also here at her oldie but goodie Z!Guest Album. And now… let’s start interviewing her so we’ll get to know her even better!
Q: Please tell us a bit about yourself!
Carin: I’m a 36 years old chocolate-holic mom, I’ve got 3 official teens in the house now, Jeroen my oldest is a musician in the making, Esmee my beloved DD is 14 and she’s the artist in the family, and Aranka just turned 10 last week and she’s the little house dragon. Every bad habbit of the oldest 2 are combined in her. When I was younger I loved to draw, make little fantasy dragons and such with Clay, making fantasy books with modgepodge, clay, paint and everything else I could get my hands on. After Aranka was born I struggled with my colons a lot, some hospital errors later they removed my gall bladder, but sadly it didn’t do much good. Until this day I struggle with colon problems and some days are better then others and that keeps me bound at home a lot of times.
Q: What is your mostest favorite thing to do?
Carin: Spending time with my children, my family, my husband and discovering the world little by little. When I was growing up, we didn’t go on vacations outside the Netherlands. The first time I ever set step outside our own country was with my husband. I remember spending a lot of time in the car to go to Spain, and usually I sleep inside the car. This time I didn’t sleep for a minute, the big sunflower fields, the castles, the amazing huge parking areas along the roads, the views and wow the mountains between France and Spain. I knew that minute I wanted to see the entire world!
Q: Any favorite food/drinks you can’t live without?
Carin: A yellow bag of M&M’s is a standard in my shopping cart, I can not go without them, need them, want them, crave them always. Next to that I can not go without a large latte machiatto at my favorite coffee shop Merz, I think I’m there at least 4 times a week!
Q: How about music/songs or books – what are you into these days?
Carin: Make a guess…okay that’s not fair, actually I’m a metal chick….I love Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Guns N roses, well not the new trashed metal like slipknot that’s too much for me I like them singing not grunting. I also love a little gothic like within temptation. As far as reading goes, my collection contains nothing but fantasy, Christopher Paolini, omg did he really write Eragon on such a young age? He can become HUGE! R Feist, Bernard Hennen, and offcourse Tolkien, oh those hobbitses and those hairy feet.
Q: What is your favorite subject to scrap about?
Carin: Well if you look at my gallery it says my own children and that is almost correct, however I love to scrap daily live, vacations and my project 365.
And uhm I have a secret never shown stash of… ‘toiletscrap’. I can see your wondering ‘toiletscraps’? well I allready said I have colon problems, and it basicly means whenever I have to go, I NEED to go and that brings me in quite a few toilets. Some are amazingly decorated others are very, very, very dirty. I remember an iron toilet in Barcelona and in Rome we had a kind of shuffling system that was very YUCKY. In Egypt at the Piramides I really needed to go and got a bucket of water with me to wash and flush. That toilet received a -10. I take pictures of those toilets and collect them and scrap about the toilets and give them a rate, 1 being bad, 10 being excellent. LOL.
Q: How did you first find out about digital scrapbooking? Did you paper-scrapbook before?
Carin: Well I think it was old style scrapping I did, saving receipts, tickets, brochures of places we visited and glued them in albums together with photos I cropped and chopped and torn apart. In 2006 somebody introduced me to digital scrapbooking and well that got me hooked!.
Q: What do you love most about digital scrapbooking?
Carin: Well it keeps my room tidy, no mess after scrapping AND there’s an undo button! Besides that when your done with a page and get it printed, inside an album or lose pages or whatever, you have a great memory to share and show others.
Q: Why do you want to be in a creative team? What do you love most about it? Any tips for being a good CTM?
Carin: Well off course if you’re on a creative team it saves you some money. But that is not my main reason; there are designers out there that I really love and adore, I love quality and uniqueness in a kit and I am truly fed up with all the CU items sold everywhere because it gives a lot of kits the same look. Since I do foremost make pages to record memories for my family and future ancestors, I only want to CT for a designer if I know the designs will fit my own needs as well. I think as a CTM your love for the designs itself is enough to make great pages for designers. And next to that I off course play the praise, take a look at ISO threads and enable when fitting. I know as a former Z!Guest that Ztampf! designs are 1 of a kind for sure, and I actually bought quite a lot and well being a Z!Girl has always been 1 of my ‘goals’. So now I can get that out of my 1001 things to do in my lifetime!
Q: How do you manage your time between being your own person, a mother, a wife, a scrapper and a Z!Girl – among tons of other things?
Carin: What other things? Do you really mean to tell me there’s more besides scrapping and family? Kidding off course, well I’m fortunate to still be able to be a SAHM and do volunteers work. I just make time to scrap in the morning hours when everyone is off to school and work. And in the evening, because basically TV only shows stupid stuff. I scrap at least 1 page per day, it is my therapy, my fix, my need. It keeps me a happy mom and wife, and my kids and DH all love a happy me.
Q: How/when did you first find out about Ztampf! – if you remember it? What first attracted you to Ztampf!?
Carin: November 2006 I started scrapping and my first home was SBB, I remember Fhung was selling there as well and I joined in a party chat and won a coupon for Ztampf!. I was in love right away – the rich colors, the unique elements and wonderful fasteners, it all just fitted my style right away!
Q: How/where did you learn digital scrapbooking? Best way/place to hone in your digi-skills?
Carin: Well it was at SBB where I started and learned to create pages, I love the tutorials they have there. I involved in challenges colors and templates, and to me that is a great way of exploring ideas, giving you other options to do things and so on.
Q: What program do you use to scrap with? Is there any certain scrapping tools that you found yourself using again and again?
Carin: I scrap in Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and that it is.
Q: What is your ideal scrapping time/space would be? Any certain gadgets/programs you are coveting right now?
Carin: Hmmm the ideal space would be a room where no sound from outside could get in, no screaming kids, no TV noise, yeah that would be scrapheaven. And off course a nice printer that could do canvas and large paper sizes. And I really need to sort my photos, my EHD crashed and I have recovered almost all photos, but they are all renamed in lost file with loads of numbers. Sadly I lost most scrapping supplies. Also if a faerie could magically sort my photos again that would be amazing!
Q: What is the single most useful scrapping technique you found so far?
Carin: Extracting, blending and playing with layers, I love that!
Q: What do you love most about Ztampf! products?
Carin: Well I stated earlier that I love quality and uniqueness, and that counts for everything Ztampf! And off course I do have favorites. The sparkle spray overlays are so versatile and pretty.
I think I used them for over a year on almost every layout. And off course, what’s a page without a good stitched photo, and these truly are the best I ever found! And these wandering soul pendants and pins, I just adore them I would really love such a pendant in real live, they look so pretty.
I hope you enjoyed getting to know Carin – isn’t she fun! I’m also so looking forward to see more her ztampfilicious layouts!
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