Adobe Awareness Leadership Award—Ulrike Donovan

with 17 Comments

“I love that Rikki is so willing to jump in and help with questions or encouragement. She’s a little ball of sunshine at Digital Scrapper, and I’m so glad she’s chosen to be here with us.” —Darcy Balwin, Digital Scrapper’s Forum Director

RikkiGet to Know Ulrike Donovan (aka RikkiD)

She says: “I am German, will be 46 in a few days, and live in Bavaria. Before I had my sons, I worked full time at the front-office of a hotel belonging to a very large hotel chain. Now I am working part-time in the background. Our boys, Corin and Sean, are 9 and 7 years old and a total handful. I never knew boys could be so energetic!

I caught the digiscrapping bug about nine years ago when I saw a program called Scrapbook Factory Deluxe on Amazon. Unfortunately, it turned out that the only nice page it offered was the one on the packaging that made me buy it in the first place. Disappointed, I looked around and found Michelle Shefveland and her PSP book which was a godsend.

Apart from digiscrapping I enjoy reading and crafting. I have two blogs: an English blog, Rikki’s Teleidoscope, where I talk about books, food, and crafts, and a German digiscrapping blog. My mission is to make digital scrapbooking more popular in Germany, which can be frustrating at times.”

Here are a few of Rikki’s beautiful layouts showing off her family:

Rikki's DS Gallery

Q: Being from Germany, how do you find the scrapbooking hobby there? Do you have friends who scrapbook? Do you have friends who think you are odd by taking up a hobby that’s not popular?

Rikki: I don’t know any scrapbookers personally. There is a fairly large paper scrapping community (we even have a brick and mortar store about an hour away—but, for Germans that is a long ride). The few German digiscrappers I know, I only know from international forums.

I never talk about scrapbooking with friends but I show them my photobooks occasionally or give them birthday cards I made, and they find them awesome. However, they have no idea how much time and effort goes into those books. If they knew, they would call me insane. Most of my friends and colleagues are not the techno geek you need to be to digiscrap.

A lot of Germans make photobooks, though they are only the “throw the pictures in and let the software do all the work” kind, but I am hoping to bring them around slowly single-handedly.

Rikki's DS Gallery

Q: Encouragement is an obvious gift of yours. Is this a learned gift or something you were born with?

Rikki: No idea! I like to show people things and enjoy it if they discover something new because of me.

Q: Which classes have you participated in here at Digital Scrapper? Which is your favorite? Why?

Rikki: I have participated in Michelle’s Pop Art Posters and Soulful Silhouettes class and in Linda’s Powerscrapbooking class, Easy page design 2: Focus on Elements and Little Known PS Secrets. It’s hard to name a favourite because each class covered a different subject, and they are all important to me. However, I particularly loved the Soulful Silhouettes class, because it introduced something completely new to me, and the PS Secrets class (and I am still only at the second tool) because PS has so much to discover, and I am sure I don’t even know a tenth.

Rikki's DS Gallery

Q: Tell us about a favorite page from your Digital Scrapper Gallery.

Rikki: I chose a layout that, to me, stands for everything that scrapbooking is all about. I am not an event scrapper (even though I scrap events, naturally), but I scrapbook each and everything (you should see my page about our dough scraper), and this page called “Skillz” features a photo of a croissant gone badly wrong. I love the kitchen look of the page, and I know that in years to come we will have a good laugh when we look at this breakfast “treat.”

Skillz by RikkiD

 

Leadership Award - Rikki

Click on the award image above to congratulate Rikki on her award. This award will be placed in her gallery at DigitalScrapper.com.

Along with this award, we are sending Rikki a FREE copy of Photoshop Elements 11 to save for herself or to give away to anyone she’d like to bless.

Congratulations, Rikki. We do appreciate your service to the site and how you make it friendly and inviting.

_____________________________________________

jenwhite-48x48Author: Jen White | jen@digitalscrapper.com

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17 Responses

  1. Kimberly
    | Reply

    Good for you! I have enjoyed your posts over the past months 🙂

  2. Maggie
    | Reply

    Love your pages as they are so different, creative and a real inspiration. You are always generous with your comments to others. Congratulations on this award as you really deserve it!

  3. shirl/grambie
    | Reply

    You are such a caring and wonderful person as your layouts and remarks reflect so wondrously. It is with much love that I say congratulations as the recipient of the Adobe Awareness Leadership Award. It is always a pleasure to observe your layouts and to read your encouraging and helpful comments. It is always a pleasure for me to visit with you through your layout pages. I say wear your banner with pride because it is individuals like you that make DigitalScrapper a warm and loving place for all its members. You are the best!

  4. Michelle Shefveland
    | Reply

    What an awesome, deserved award Rikki! So happy to have you on our team and love all that you do to help the digital community.

  5. Lozzie
    | Reply

    Congratulations Rikki…so nice to get to know you through your interview ..I always see your smilimg face when I am looking up Questions in the forum…your always coming in with answers .I really appreciate that…

  6. Canay
    | Reply

    What an honor Rikki Congratulations!!

  7. Barbara Schladitz
    | Reply

    Your pages are so individual, Rikki. The failed croissant will be a treasured memory to your sons [or at least for your future daughters-in-law!]

    When two of my husband’s German relatives joined us for a month in Texas, we also cruised the Caribbean. They were so excited. I sent them the scrapbook pages I made of their first cruise and they immediately became interested in digital scrapbooking. Unfortunately, they live close to Mainz and not near you.

    Congratulations on this well-deserved award!!!

    • Rikki
      | Reply

      Barbara, that sounds great. If your relatives are still interested you can always refer them to my blog which might help them out a bit.

  8. connieg
    | Reply

    I loved getting to know more about you. Congratulations Rikki!

  9. Rikki
    | Reply

    Thank you, Jen, for the award, for featuring me here and thanks to everybody for your kind words. They mean a lot to me.

  10. Ngaire
    | Reply

    Oh Rikki how exciting for you! BIG Congratulations!! What a wonderful accolade for you to have and it is much deserved. Really enjoy all your layouts but I did enjoy our time through December doing the Dec layouts. 🙂 Keep up the wonderful work.

    • Rikki
      | Reply

      Ngaire, I already have a few ideas for December again and am already collecting supplies I want to use. I hope we can do a December Daily again at Digital Scrapper.

  11. Barb
    | Reply

    Congratulations, Rikki! It was wonderful getting to know a bit more about you, and we are very fortunate to have you with us at Digital Scrapper!

  12. Jenifer J (rfeewjlj)
    | Reply

    WTG Rikki!! I agree that it’s always fun to see your smiling avi here at DS! 🙂 Your pages also shine, too!! 🙂

  13. Kathy Black
    | Reply

    Congratulations Rikki!! You are always so positive and supportive and I love your LO’s!

  14. Annette
    | Reply

    First Congratulations. It is so nice to know more about you. I have enjoyed seeing the many fantastic layouts you have posted to the gallery.

  15. Nannette
    | Reply

    Oh I love RikkiD’s work so glad to get to know her a bit better. She really is an asset to our community!

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