We are counting down the days to ND2020! Join us for a little retrospective. A little Studio history. A little glimpse into our team now. A team that would not be what it is without our Next Designer competitions over the years.

Today we are back in 2012! The same year that Manu (Manu Scraps) entered, so did Jill, of Jilbert’s Bits of Bytes. Up until that point, Jill was a scrapper. Sure, she had some graphic design under her belt and a ton of computer programming experience, but zero design experience.

Jill just got better & better each round. Her final round entry almost earned her the win. I still love the nostalgic feel of her “Just Me and the Moon”

Jill took her loss with a grain of salt, and kept scrapping. But. It seems with Jill there’s frequently a but LOL, she kept returning to creating her own designs while scrapping. She also put her computer programming to use writing basic photoshop actions. Ultimately our good friend Karen, SnickerdoodleDesigns, put us back in touch. She told me Jill was too talented for me to ignore. She was right.

She was so, so right. In fact, just this week Jill released a brandnew, not basic at all, action to create amazing digital Paper Flowers. I am just in love with the ease, speed & FUN of this action! Check it out on her YouTube:

I couldn’t stop making flowers when she first shared it with me, but this is one of my favorites. I love how the patterned paper made such a beautiful flower. The action even lets me add a center, perfectly placed. Perfectly shadowed.

These days Jill is primarily a Commercial Use Designer, and one of our very best. Her brushes are phenomenal and her extractions are precise & lifelike.

Will you be our next Jill? Will you join our team? I’m so excited to see what everyone creates! My patience has flown out the window & I so wish it was next week.

It’s audition time for our ND2020! All auditions must be posted no later than 6:00 a.m. on Monday June 1, 2020.
(sorry I can’t math with the time differences. This is the correct due date/time)