And the Winner is....

I actually have butterflies in my stomach as I type this, LOL!! But I'm so pleased to announce the winning team from Season 2 of the Amazing Digi Scrapping Race:

For those of you who don't want to watch my adorable children in the video drawing a name out of a pirate's hat, you can scroll down.

Gigi Girls!!

Gigi Girls are Rachel and Amy. You can click on their name to see their galleries. Congratulations ladies!! I'll be e-mailing you tonight for full contact information.

Thanks everyone for participating!!

So, what's going on...

I know you're all dying to know. Here's the scoop. I finally got through all the e-mails and verified all the layouts. However, there are about a dozen or so teams I haven't heard from and these are teams that have never missed. And because, as many of you have learned, for some reason, all e-mails don't necessarily make it to me for whatever reason.

So, to give them the benefit of the doubt, I went to check their official galleries. About 6 teams have their official galleries at DST and, you guessed it, DST postponed their server upgrade to today and I can't check them.

I don't want to unfairly penalize these teams so I'm holding off on distributing the last of the prizes and doing the drawing until I can contact these teams.

Thanks SOOO much for your patience!

Last of the Grand Prizes

These are the last sponsors of our Grand Prize. And for those of you keeping a running total, the prizes total $1,107.50 per team member!!! I want to personally thank everyone who is donating to the Grand Prize, hosted a challenge, or participated as a racer. You all have helped make this race an astounding success!!

Lie Fhung is donating two $30 gift certificates to Ztampf! to the Grand Prize. In addition, she provided discount coupons to all the racers who registered. Plus, there is another little surprise coming your way if you made it this far...

Ztampf!’s sole creator is, Lie Fhung, a Chinese-Indonesian contemporary artist and designer. She studied ceramic art and graduated with a BFA from ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology), Indonesia. Fhung has received many recognitions for her work as an artist since an early age. Click here to learn more about Fhung art and to see her ceramic and installation art work.

In addition to being your host and stop number one in the race, NDISB is offering each member of the winning team a $50 gift certificate to the NDISB store. We have a fabulous variety of designers to suit any scrapping style. From traditional and heritage pages to something edgy and trendy, you'll find it all at NDISB!

Memory Purses is offering each winner a free small purse and checkbook cover. This is a $24 value each! Memory Purses:

~Measures 10.5in.W x 8.5in.T x 3in.D ~Handles measure 22in. long ~Both sides of this sturdy, well made purse have snap openings to hold your 10 x 8 photo or scrapbook page ~The inside of this purse is lined with a black pin striped fabric ~The inside contains a small slip in pocket ~The sleeves are made of a thick, clear acrylic material ~There are small metal feet on the bottom of the purse that allow it to stand on it's own.

What can we say about Shabby Princess? I mean, who doesn't know this amazingly talented designer with the heart of gold? Who among us didn't start digital scrapping with her beautiful freebies? Well the generosity continues. Each winner will get a $25 gift card to The Shabby Shoppe!

Grand Prize Winner Info

A few people have asked when we're going to do the drawing. It will probably be at least Tuesday. First I have to wait for everyone to e-mail me with their layouts from Week 6. They have until midnight Sunday night/Monday morning. I won't see the last of them until Monday when I get up.

After that, I have to write each qualifying team's name on a piece of paper and put them in a hat. I'll probably draw the name Monday night when my kids are home. The tough part will be deciding which kid gets to do it, because they're likely to fight over the right.

I'll record the whole thing and put the video up on the blog. So, it could be Tuesday before that happens. But I'll try to get it up Monday night.

Now, on to more Grand Prizes:

ScrapQuick is offering fifteen (15) 8"x8" premium, archival quality prints of the winners' choice of their own digital scrapbook pages. ScrapQuick.com™ specializes in digital scrapbook printing with no bleed or image loss at the edge, even at 12"x12". We use only pigment-based inks (not dye inks) and heavy-weight, water and smear resistant photographic paper to give you true-to-life color reproductions of the highest quality with long-lasting, fade resistance. Prize includes shipping to North America (winners outside North America receive a $30 gift certificate to our online store good on any digital product except commercial use items.)

ScrapQuick.com™ is the only site on the web offering ready-to-use digital scrapbook pages created exclusively by professional page artists who offer you a unique take on outstanding digital layouts by constructing layouts from 29 top digital designers. In addition to our valued priced, two-page layouts, we also feature albums, templates and embellishments.

Genevieve Sass is offering two $20 gift certificates to her Oscraps store. Genevieve is a hugely talented designer with an amazing variety of products from whimsical doodles to layered templates and fabulously rich and detailed kits. There is something in her store for every scrapping style.

Plain Digital Wrapper is donating two $10 gift certificates to their store along with two $10 gift certificates to Shutterfly.com! Plain Digital Wrapper boasts some amazing designers. Along with a gallery and fun challenges, you're sure to find something here to inspire you. Be sure to stop by and check them out and thank them for not only donating to the grand prize, but for serving as a fun stop on the Amazing Digi Scrapping Race Season 2.

Pickleberrypop is donating two $17 gift cards to their store. Pickleberrypop is an Australian-based scrapping site welcoming people from all over the world. Try out a challenge or two in the forum, upload your layouts in the gallery, and pop by the shop to see what takes your fancy. Join them for a little bit of scrapping and a whole lot of fun.

It Just Keeps Getting Better and Better

My goal had always been to profile 2-3 Grand Prize donors twice a week. But the donations kept flooding in and before long there were just too many to take it that slow. Here are six more fabulous companies/designers who are generously contributing toward our Grand Prize!

Elemental Scraps is donating a $25 gift certificate to each member of the winning team. Elemental Scraps is a full-service site with a gallery, forums, shoppe, chat and more. With a paid subscription, you'll get access to special subscriber only sales, monthly mega kits, freebies and more! With over 20 designers, you'll spend that gift certificate quickly!! Be sure to stop by and thank them for not only donating to the Grand Prize but also for being stop number 6 on the Amazing Digi Scrapping Race!

Kelly Shults is donating two $25 gift certificates to her store at A Cherry on Top. Kelly is an amazingly talented designer with a well-stocked store. There is so much there to fall in love with!

Disc Talk Radio is offering two radio memberships (a $36 value), one for each member of the winning team. Whether you're sitting down, logging on and listening now or downloading and takin' the shows on the road, Disc Talk Radio promises to provide you with hours of information and entertainment from icons in the scrapbooking community. Each month, tune in to hear your favorite scrappin' celebrities share tips of the trade, gain insights that will make your next layout shine, go behind the scenes of your favorite sites, and just plain have a blast - but that's just for starters! So, turn up the speakers and listen now!

Digitals is donating two $10 gift certificates to their store. Digitals is a busy site with lots of fun challenges, products, tutorials and more. They have a well-stocked store with products from dozens of talented designers. And don't miss their free daily download!

Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild is donating two 3-month guild memberships (a $17.50 value each)! The Digital Scrapbook Artisan Guild has been formed for the express purpose of advancing the craft of digital scrap-booking. They are a craft guild dedicated to helping our members grow in their craft. They believe the craft of digital scrapbooking can be most effectively advanced by creating a community that is dedicated to a culture of on-going education.

The Digi Chick is donating two $30 gift certificates to their eBoutique. The Digi Chick, TDC as it is affectionately known around the internet, is a full-service site with community forums, gallery, and a loaded boutique with some of the industry's most talented designers. Be sure to stop by and say thanks for sponsoring the race!

Grand Prize Fever!

Yes, even more Grand Prizes await two lucky racers. I had someone e-mail me asking if we could break it out into first, second and third place prizes. I think that's an excellent idea for next season, but for now, this has been advertised as a race with a single winning team and the sponsors have agreed to donate to a single Grand Prize. But I'll add this to the poll I put up at the end of the race and gauge everyone's interest.

So, with that, here are the next round of amazing sponsors for our Grand Prize:

Robin Carlton and the fabulous Sweet Shoppe Designers are donating two $50 gift certificates, one for each member of the winning team!

Sweet Shoppe Designs was an idea born out of friendship and commitment to one another's designs. We believe in a small, tight knit and supportive environment where each designer and creative team member are truly invested in each others success and have a say in the future of the site and what happens on a day to day basis. The designers at SSD truly believe in each other and the digital community as a whole and we are excited and proud to be bringing high quality designs, inspiration and a sense of community to scrappers around the world.

The fabulously talented Amy Teets is donating a $15 gift certificate to each member of the winning team to her ACOT store. Amy is tremendously talented and sells her fabulous designs at ACOT and now Oscraps. In addition, she has a popular line of papers with Dream Street Papers.

April Staker (aka DigiApe) is donating two $20 gift certificates to her Designs in Digital Store to the Grand Prize winning team. April has tons of beautiful items; it will be easy to quickly spend that $20!

Deco Pages is donating a Club Deco 3-month membership ($45 value) to each of the Grand Prize winners. Club Deco is the fantastic scrapbooking club at Deco-Pages.com. Club membership gets you a monthly kit (MEGA - some almost 1 GB in size) by the many participating Deco-Pages Designers, as well as the monthly Color Challenge Starter Kit, and any freebies from our designers throughout your term - made just for club members!! The value you receive each month is about $15.00 (or more!). A deal that can't be beat. The kits are high quality, fun, and have lots of variety - since many different designers add their own backgrounds, elements, alphas and more...

The fabulously talented and well-endowed Amanda Rockwell is donating a $15 gift certificate to each of the Grand Prize winners. Amanda's style is fresh, wild and a little bit funky and her products are always of the highest quality. And if you sign up for her newsletter, you can find out about sales and specials well in advance of the general public.


Brenda Kempf is offering each Grand Prize winner a $10 gift certificate to her Scrapbook-Bytes store. Brenda has been a designer at SBB since 2005 and has tons of fabulous, unique products to choose from. You could spend hours perusing her store, so why not go check it out now, just for fun. Fill up that wish list in case you win...

We Got Your Challenge #12....right here!!!

Yep, that's right, this is the stop for Challenge #12!!! So, here it is:

Your challenge is to scraplift your favorite layout done by your partner. If you're racing alone now, you can scraplift any other racer. But, your layout needs to be about the ADSR. You must scrap your page about your favorite aspect of the Amazing Digi Scrapping Race.

That's it. Two components. A scraplift and a topic.

And for completing the challenge, you'll get a coupon for $7 good towards anything in my personal store at NDISB. The coupon is good through the end of the year, so if you don't see $7 worth of stuff you don't already have, I've got plenty of new stuff coming out.

ETA: The layout you scraplift of your partner needs to be one an ADSR layout. Thanks for the question!!

Yes - It's Official! The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing!

Yesterday Theresa posted here that she would be putting a poll up on the NDISB forum seeking feedback for Season 3. Yesterday, I started a thread on the forum seeking feedback for Season 3! LOL (At least we're both thinking of doing the same things, and at the same time. Is that scary, or what?!)

If you'd like to leave us some feedback, you can do so here.

Challenge #11 and some Business

Okay, I know I posted Challenge 11, but it's gone... So here it is again at RAK Scraps.

http://www.rakscraps.com/forums/showthread.php?p=228588#post228588

I think I've finally gotten back to everyone who sent me in links for week 5. If you didn't get a confirmation e-mail from me, I didn't get your e-mail. But I will be visiting your official galleries if I didn't get an e-mail from you to see if you posted your layouts in time. If you didn't e-mail me and your layouts are not in your official gallery, you will be dropped from the race.

Also, for those of you who haven't heard back from Dani yet, here is what she says:

"feel free to have them email through the contact page at my store. I think alot of them must have gotten trapped by spam filters cause I have been sending out links all week! LOL! I am in the middle of a move, so if I am a little slow getting links out this week, that is why, I will try to be on top of it though! :)"

I have more Grand Prize information to post, I'll try to get to that tomorrow. You wont' be disappointed.

Many of you have been asking about Season 3. I already have sites interested in hosting challenges contacting me about it. There will definitely be a Season 3. But before we plan it all out, we're going to want some feedback from our Season 2 participants. I'll be putting up a poll at NDISB at the conclusion of this race seeking feedback. Then, start looking for a teammate sometime around the holidays and get ready to start racing in early 2008!!

More Grand Prizes!

We have more exciting surprises in store for our two Grand Prize winners.

First up are two DST Gold Memberships! A Gold Membership costs $25 and with your membership you will be given a full-sized free kit from EACH of our Featured Designers for the entire year of your membership (12 full-sized kits for one low price!!) Each kit will be exclusive to our subscribers for one year after release. That means you won't be able to buy it anywhere else! Your membership will run from the month you purchase it and for 11 months after. No matter what month you purchase your membership, you will get 12 months of kits. Already have a Gold membership? No problem, Shannon will simply add 12 months to your membership.

Gina Miller is donating two $50 gift certificates to her store, one for each member of the winning team!! Gina is an immensely talented scrapbooker and designer and has a huge following. She has a well-stocked site so the winners will have no trouble spending their gift certificates and will undoubtedly be back for more once their $50 is spent!

In addition to being stop #7 on the race, Karah Fredricks, owner of Blue Flombingo is offering each member of the winning team a $20 gift certificate to her store! Blue Flombingo is a full-service site with a shop, forum and gallery. Named by Karah's son, this unique little corner of the digital scrapping internet features designs by Karah and Darcy Baldwin. Be sure to come check them out and thank them for sponsoring our race!

Digital Scrapbooking Magazine is donating two one-year subscriptions to their magazine, plus, two copies of Renee Pearson's latest book!! Digital Scrapbooking Magazine is THE preeminent source for digital scrapbooking. From fantastic articles to amazing inspiration, you'll never want to miss a copy. And with a subscription, you never have to! And, they've just launched their first every, fully-digital edition. In advance of your print copy, you can access the full magazine, online. But this is only available to subscribers.

Kathryn Mhire is donating a $10 coupon to each of the grand prize winners to her Gotta Pixel store. If you haven't seen Kathryn's unique, hand-drawn elements, you really need to check her out!

Challenge #10

http://www.carries.typepad.com/

ADSR Week 4

I've finally gotten through all the e-mails and links. I'm waiting to hear back from Karah to get the prize codes out to everyone who qualifies.

There are 153 teams that are still qualified for the Grand Prize drawing.

A couple of reminders...

1) You don't have to wait until Sunday to send me your links if your layouts are finished prior to that.
2) Don't forget to send me an e-mail. If I don't get one, I will still check your official race gallery that you registered with, but if I don't easily see your layouts (i.e. they are obviously ADSR), I'll remove your access to the Yahoo group and disqualify your team from the Grand Prize. If it turns out you've posted your layouts in another gallery, it's up to you to let me know this.
3) If you change your e-mail address, please let me know!
4) If you change your official race gallery, please let me know!
5) If you sent me an e-mail with your links, I responded with a confirmation. If you didn't get a confirmation, don't assume I got your e-mail.
6) Don't forget to post your link for Challenge #8 on Dani's blog. The prize from Design by Dani will NOT be distributed through the Yahoo Group. The only way to get this prize is to post a link to your layout on Dani's blog.

Okay, that's it for now. Hopefully you'll get an e-mail from the Yahoo Group soon with the prize information for Challenge 7.

I think for Season 3, we'll go for a private forum at NDISB for communicating prize information. Yahoo Groups has been relatively unreliable. But only two more weeks to go and we can abandon Yahoo forever...

Please Be a Little Patient with Me

We had a busy family day yesterday. E and I took the kids to the circus earlier in the day and then went to the Chargers/Seahawks game last night. Roughly 70-80% of the teams sent their links in for both challenges at some point yesterday. I stayed up as late as I could last night checking links, but I still have a lot more to check.

My hope is to get them all checked today, but please be a bit patient with me and don't panic just yet if you didn't receive a confirmation e-mail from me.

Challenge 9 has been spotted!!

At OScraps. Click here to see it!

More Grand Prize Goodies

By now, you're happily finishing up your layouts for this week. Hopefully you have found them as fun as you have challenging. So, it's about time to find out a little bit more about the Grand Prize you're working so hard to qualify for:

First up is Carrie Stephens of Fish Scraps. In addition to hosting a challenge, Carrie is offering up two $35 gift certificates to her Fish Scraps store; one to each of the Grand Prize winning team mates. Here is a little about Carrie from her site:

Hi! My name is Carrie Stephens, I have been addicted to digital scrapbooking from the moment I discovered that it was possible! I stumbled upon digital scrapbooking by accident while trying to find help using Photoshop to edit my thousands of digital photos. I stumbled upon scrapbook-elements.com and was awed by the digital world that opened up to me.

I create the graphics that I design at 300dpi for maximum print quality. If you are a paper scrapbooker and like the value and variety of digital elements, print them out and try them on your traditional paper scrapped layouts.

I am so happy to have my little home on the web here at www.fishscraps.com I hope to continue providing high quality original elements for everyone to enjoy for a long time to come!

We also are lucky enough to have the lovely and talented Traci Reed donating a $20 gift certificate to her Studio Traci Reed store at Scrapbook Graphics to each of the Grand Prize winners. About Traci:

My style is very fun, and realistic. I love grunge and highly textured papers and elements that give your layout that certain "POP!". I often cater to more masculine palettes (since I'm in a house full of testosterone!) but I am such a girly girl, that I can't stay away from the frilliness! I like to say that most of what I design can be used for either sex and practically any set of pictures, but you just can't keep me away from pink for long! Did I mention I was a girly girl?

Bree Clarkson is offering up two $25 gift cards to her store at Scrapbook Graphics; one for each Grand Prize winner. From Bree's bio at Scrapbook Graphics:

My name is Bree Clarkson. I started scrapping back in high school, when I realized that I wanted to document what was important in my life and things that I had done. It was never a serious hobby, though, until I had my first baby, Mason, in November 2002. I became obsessed, but soon the mess was too much to deal with and I would stop feeling creative. Once my second baby (Natalie) came along in April 2004, little fingers were into everything, and I was reluctant to pull out all my supplies from their hiding spots.

I still wanted to do SOMETHING, though, and friends convinced me to try drawing sketches. I got the hang of it quickly and started uploading them to my favorite galleries, and soon after realizing the success of it, I launched Scrap-Maps.com. Learning to do sketches digitally (I was using Paint at this point) opened the door for digital scrapbooking when it was introduced to me. In June 2004 I tried my first digital page, and 11 months later, in May 2005, I decided to take a shot at designing, with a goal of designing kits for charities once my skills had improved and I was known in the community. I designed for about 6 months before life got in the way and I decided to take a break, but was able to fulfill my goal in creating a kit for charity with other designers, and we raised over $2000 for the Kids With Cancer Society. I came back to the designing world in September 2006 with my new line of sketches and layered templates, which I've named Launch Pads!

One of a Kind Scrapz has donated two $25 gift certificates to their store; one for each member of the winning team!! OAKS has unique designs from fabulous designers like Faith True, Victoria Feemster and Dawn Wilson. Be sure to stop by and check them out!

The wonderful designers of Dragon Flaire Studios are donating two kits (an $8 value) to each of the two team members from the winning team. Dragon Flaire Studios has 12 designers, including Amy Teets, LaurasKathi and Jenna Nelson among others. They are a full-service site with inspiration, challenges, a community and more. Be sure to visit them and let them know you appreciate their sponsorship!

Challenge #8

Can be found here at Design by Dani!!

Challenge #7 has been spotted

at Blue Flombingo. Go check it out by clicking here...

More from our Grand Prize Sponsors

Next up we have Butternug Squash, CG Essentials, Metalmama and Sara B. Designs. Read more about these fabulous sites and designers as well as what they've donated to the Grand Prize.

Butternug Squash
In addition to being Race Stop number 5, they are also generously donating a $25 gift certificate to their store. Butternug Squash Designs - a one-woman owned & operated site for high-quality digital scrapbook supplies, gallery, forum, challenges, and chats! Here you’ll find full kits, paper packs, alphabets and elements to make beautiful, realistic layouts for all your most treasured memories. All my products are produced in 300 dpi, so they can be used in digital layouts and printed out for use in traditional 3D paper scrapping, too!


CG Essentials
CG Essentials IS the lovely and talented Kim Hill. And she has graciously offered a $25 gift certificate to each member of the winning ADSR team. At CG Essentials, you will find a store stocked full of digital scrapbooking page kits and elements such as digital scrapbooking accents, embellishments, charms, tags, fibers, alpha sets, frames, borders, brushes and more! If you are looking for free digital scrapbooking items, be sure to check out the Freebies Page. Digital scrapbooking freebies is where most people get their start and soon find they are quite addicted to this fun hobby. Since all of CGE's products are created at 300 dpi, you can be assured that these will print at the optimum quality, whether you are doing digital scrapbooking, traditional paper scrapbooking, or even altered art projects. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to get a 10% coupon to use on your first purchase!

Metalmama Dezines
Metalmama is a tremendously talented designer of fresh and funky scrapbook products. She sells her designs at One of a Kind Scrapz. She is donating two $50 gift certificates to her store; one to each Grand Prize winner!! You can easily spend $50 on her unique cutting-edge designs, so stop by and check out her delicious goodies!

SarahB Designs
Sarah Meyer of SarahB Designs is offering up a $10 gift certificate to each Grand Prize winner. Sarah sells her unique, high quality digital scrapbook kits and other products at Gotta Pixel and Digital Candy. Stop by her blog and give her some love for supporting our race!

Challenge #6!!!

Go check it out at Elemental Scraps!!!

Wanna Know What ELSE You're Racing For?

We continue our profiling of our fabulous Grand Prize donors...

In addition to being race stop no. 3, KB and Friends is donating a $20 gift card to each of our Grand Prize winners.

If you aren't familiar with KB and Friends, now is a great time to check them out. From their site:

"We sell digital scrapbooking kits for use in computer-generated layouts or for printing for paper projects. Kathryn Balint and her designer friends specialize in a wide range of designs, including vintage, retro, whimsical, natural and altered art-style. We are known for our unique embellishments, so if you are a collage lover, this is the place for you."


Katie the Scrapbook Lady is well known throughout the digital world. In addition to her popular blog, she sells her inspiring products at The Digi Shoppe. She has generously donated a $25 gift card to her store to each Grand Prize winner!



Go Digital Scrapbooking is well represented in the race with many of the teams calling their GDS gallery, home. From their website:

If you're new to Digital Scrapbooking or are an avid digi-scrapper, this is the place for you! Our community is the best out there because of the members, designers and moderators that we have!

We offer lots of services to help you learn how to be the best digi-scrapper you can be! Here are just a few of them...

• Freebies
• Tutorials
• Ongoing Challenges with participation freebies to get you to scrap those precious memories
• Unique and High-Quality digital products in our store
• Gallery for you to share your creations with the world and to gain inspiration and ideas from other's layouts
• Professional and High-Quality printing service to print your 12x12 layouts for your albums
• Build friendships by reading and posting in our Forums!

Go Digital Scrapbooking is donating two $25 gift certificates to the winning ADSR team!


And finally, fabulous designer, Michelle Pieters has offered each winner a $10 gift certificate to her Gotta Pixel store. If you're not yet familiar with her work, please take some time to check her out!

Challenge 5

I'm so sorry for the delay in getting this posted. Without further ado, wander on over to Butternugsquash and take a gander at the fabulous challenge Christy has posted for you:

Butternugsquash Challenge

Check out the NDISB Home Page!

If you are new to NDISB, on our home page we feature rotating layouts that have been posted in our gallery. With the race going on, we figured this would be a great way to get some of our racers some extra exposure!

Check out the home page to see if you made it this time around. If not, check back again sometime around Thursday, when we expect to feature even more!

Contact the race host

Every once in a while, we get a comment on a post asking about how to get in touch with us. Theresa's email address for the race is racehost at ndisb dot com. I'll see if maybe we can get a link up in one of the columns - probably the one on the right.

OR... you can always drop a note in the NDISB forum, if you've registered. We check that regularly, often several times per day. If you haven't registered in our forum yet, we'd love to have you!

btw, if you think we're just all about digisrapping, here's a link to our most popular thread, with over 19,000(!) views... Oh my... what can be that interesting?!

Challenge 4 Has Been Spotted

At Plain Digital Wrapper. Check it out, here!!!

Quick Reminder about the Yahoo Group

If you are not a member of the Yahoo Group, where the prize codes were distributed, please, please send me an e-mail at the RaceHost e-mail address. If you post comments in the blog, I have no way of adding you. Even a first name isn't always helpful because many teams registered with only screen names. I need your team name and e-mail address to send you the invitation.

Also, if you ARE a member of the Yahoo Group and didn't get an e-mail, it could be that you are set up to not receive e-mail, are on digest, or for some reason, the message just didn't make its way to your in-box. No worries. You can log into the group at any time and read the messages on line. That's the beauty of Yahoo Groups.

To get to the group, just go to www.groups.yahoo.com. After you log in, you'll see all the groups you are a member of. Mine are sorted in alphabetical order, so you may need to scroll down, but the group name is The Amazing Digi Scrapping Race.

A Few Glitches and Grand Prizes No. 1 and 2

We had a few glitches with the prizes and for that I apologize. Some people were having problems downloading the Pickleberrypop zip files and unzipping them. Since most people were able to download and unzip them without issue, I believe the problem was just too many people trying to download at the same time. If you had problems, try again later.

Also, the NDISB coupon code was set with a limit of 200. In my glorious thought process, I was thinking 200 teams = 200 coupons.... However, anyone with a first grade math class under her belt knows that 200 x 2 = 400. So I've upped the coupon's number of uses accordingly. It should be working just fine again.

We had 198 teams register. Of those, 181 were eligible for the Grand Prize drawing. As of Monday morning, all but five of the eligible teams completed their requirements to move on. So what are the remaining 176 teams playing for? I'll profile the first two prizes in this post and will follow up with more every few days.

Prize No. 1 comes to us from Corel. They are generously donating two copies of Corel PaintShopPro XI and two copies of Corel Snapfire Plus. The retail value of these two prizes is $110 each or $220!

Corel Paint Shop Pro XI
NEW Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI builds on the core values set forth by Paint Shop Pro users themselves: easy-to-use yet powerful tools designed with the photographer in mind. Not only does NEW Paint Shop Pro Photo XI improve on existing features, it also incorporates all-new, one-of-a-kind enhancements including a fully-integrated photo organizer -- giving users a single application that covers their workflow from start to finish.

Filled with one-of-a-kind photo tools sure to please even the most discerning photographer, Corel® Paint Shop Pro® Photo XI is the ideal choice for people who want extraordinary photos. With a built-in Learning Center to help first time users get started, it's the easiest way to get professional-looking photos - fast!

Corel Snapfire Plus
Snapfire Plus picks up right where Snapfire leaves off, from editing and organizing photos and videos to creating scrapbooks. Share photos and videos using 100s of creative templates or make entertaining Snapfire Shows - the best way to share groups of photos and video clips. There's even one-click photo fixes, retouching tools, effortless organization, and automatic backups of your photo collection, making Snapfire Plus the easiest way to work with digital photos.

Prize No. 2 is generously donated by uber-talented designer Trish Jones. Trish is giving away a $15 gift certificate to her store to each of the grand prize winners.

Trish Jones Designs
Create Dream Inspire
That's the catch cry at TJD and we hope that is what you will find here. We are always looking for ways to improve our site and make it better for you!

A Little About Trish
Creating is one of my passions, I get my inspiration from everyday life, my kids, the world around me and I am fortunate that I live in a place that is vibrant and alive with colour!

As the race continues, we'll profile more of our Race sponsors and the prizes they've so generously donated to our Grand Prize winners.

Welcome to Round 2!!

The first week and first two challenges are behind us and we're on to challenge number three and week 2. All but a handful of teams completed both challenges are are eligible to continue.

The prize codes have been posted to the Yahoo Group. If you completed your challenges and are still not a member of the group, send me an e-mail with your team name and your e-mail address and I'll look into it.

What were those great prizes you were scrapping for? First, this kit from the NDISB design team for completing Challenge 1:

And second, this absolutely stunning kit from the Pickleberrypop designers:

KB and Friends...

Is your friendly host of challenge No. 3. Go check it out now if you haven't already. You can find it by clicking HERE.

Challenging you Down Under Style

It's been Thursday in Australia for quite a while now and they have something waiting for you over at Pickleberrypop. Go check it out by clicking HERE!!!

It's Monday Somewhere...

Well, by now, most everywhere except here and Hawaii...

So, without further ado, here is a link to the first challenge:

Challenge 1

Have fun!

Yahoo Group is Set Up

And all registered racers were sent an invite. Two e-mail addresses came back as undeliverable and a couple were set not to accept invitations to Yahoo Groups. I contacted those two individuals, but the two with the undeliverable addresses I can't do anything about. So, check your spam filters and if you don't get an invite by tonight, send me an e-mail and I'll send you another one.

I'll repost the message in the forums about the coupon code and free alpha download, so be sure to check online after you accept your invite for any messages, even if you're set to receive e-mail in case the message gets posted before you accept your invite.

That's it! Hopefully we've got this part squared away. I'm just glad we're dealing with it now and not after the race starts!

The Bain of My Existence

Also known as that danged mailing list. It isn't working the way I had hoped. So, I'm switching to Yahoo Groups. I will invite everyone who is registered. You will only be sent an invite to the e-mail address you provided as your contact e-mail for the race. If you want to change that e-mail, you'll need to let me know at the RaceHost e-mail address.

I sincerely apologize for this added step. But hopefully, this will be it. And the nice thing is, with the Yahoo Group, I can set it up so only I can send out messages. No clogging up your in-boxes! After I get this set up, you'll only receive three messages a week from me unless something comes up.

Thank you SO much for all your patience!

The "Infamous" Mailing List

As many of you are now aware, I have subscribed you to a mailing list. I was hoping it would be a list that only the list owner could send messages from, but that has turned out not to be the case. However, I need a means to e-mail the entire group and my e-mail client doesn't allow me to send out e-mail to as many people as I need to in order to adequately administer this race.

So, this is a portion of the message I just sent out to the list. Also included were a couple of cool little things from a couple of our sponsors. If you didn't get the message, check your spam filter. If you're not in this group for some reason, but received a confirmation from me that you are registered in the race, it is imperative that you e-mail me ASAP. This is the ONLY way you will receive your prize codes so I need to make sure you're in the group and that you're getting the messages.

----copied text from e-mail----

First and foremost, welcome everyone to the Amazing Digi Scrapping Race!! I'm very excited about Season 2!

Now on to the important business
Please, please, do not send messages through this list. You can e-mail me directly at RaceHost@ndisb.com if you have any questions or need to communicate with me for any reason.

I set up this mailing list to allow me to communicate with the group as a whole. I can't possibly send out 380+ individual e-mails to keep everyone informed and send out prize codes. So I'm begging you to not communicate through this list. If I could restrict it to only allow me to post, I would, but unfortunately, this list service doesn't allow that and I don't have any other easy options through our current host.

There are forums set up at NDISB specifically to allow everyone to chat about the race, show off your blinkies, link to your race blogs, etc. In fact, we hope you use these as we'll be frequenting them and answering any questions. You can also subscribe to threads over there if you are the type of user who likes to get an e-mail notification of new posts. But many racers have contacted me with concerns about the number of messages they're receiving through this group.

Unless something unexpected arises, you can expect to only get three e-mails weekly from me through this list. One on Mondays letting you know about the first challenge, one on Thursdays letting you know about the second challenge and a third one with the prize codes for those teams who qualify. If you fail to meet the deadline and have not pre-arranged with me due to vacation, impending birth, etc. you will be dropped from this list. But you can certainly continue to frequent the blog and forums and continue to complete the challenges for fun.

I will primarily use the blog to keep everyone informed about the race happenings, but the e-mail will be a reminder to everyone to check the blog.

----end copied text----

Please respect your fellow racers and abstain from sending messages through the list! Thanks!

Here's the scoop on the ADSR Mail List

Hi! This is Ernie again.

There have been a few posts already about the ADSR mail list, and the concern about email overload. I can understand that, but not being an ADSR participant I had no idea what you were talking about! Thanks to a post by Bonnie in the forum, I was able to check out the ADSR mail list, and came up with the following conclusions:

1. Theresa subscribed everyone in the race to the list. This is how you will learn of challenge prizes.

2. Subscription is voluntary. You do not need to subscribe to this list. That being said, this is how you will learn of your challenge prizes. So you may want to be subscribed.

3. ANYONE on the list can send email to the entire list. As near as I can tell, this can not be changed. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM USING THIS MAIL LIST TO SEND EMAIL IF YOUR NAME IS NOT THERESA HERNANDEZ! :)

4. Under the "Subscribing to Amazingdigiracers" section, the last item prior to clicking the "Subscribe" button is this selection:

Would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest? No Yes

The default selection is "No". By changing your selection to "Yes" and re-subscribing, you will get one email per day, and this email will be a list of all emails sent during the day. You can then scan the subject lines and look for the "important" emails as opposed to the "I'm ready to party!" emails (for those that missed that little note above).

Hopefully, this will help you manage your influx of ADRS race related emails. The whole idea of the race is to have some fun, not create additional stress! If you wish to unsubscribe, you certainly may, but I would think the more prudent selection might be to go the way of the daily digest. But that's just me.

Theresa is sending out an email that says something like "Important: Please Read", asking participants not to use this mail list. That should be going out soon.

One Hundred and Eighty Eight!

That's the number of teams registered! I've got a few more applications in my in box that I'll process tomorrow because, frankly, I'm wiped. But wow on the response! That is more than twice the number of teams that participated in Season 1!

If you sent me your information earlier today (i.e. before 8:00 PM PDT), you should have received a confirmation from me. If not, please send me an e-mail. There are a couple of teams I couldn't complete the registration process for because I'm missing information. I have requested information from those teams. Please get me that as soon as you can.

I'm in the process now of setting up a mailing list to communicate with all the teams more easily. Expect to see something come through on that mailing list in the next 24 to 48 hours.

That's it for now from Race Central. More later.

If you have questions...

The best way to ask them is via the NDISB Forum.

This will require you to register in the forum, but it will ensure that we see your question. While we try to read all of the comments left in the blog, we don't want to chance missing one and not answering your question!

We are also in the process of placing all questions, along with their answers, in this thread to make things a little easier.

Thanks!

PS: Also, we have no way to answer you directly if you leave a question in the comments section. If you post it in the forum, or pm us directly, we can pm you with a response if it is not a general question.

A few more questions

Here are a few more questions we recieved after our last post:

1. If LOs aren't judged but only to make sure they meet the requirements. What determines the GP winners? The team who posts the last LOs first?

As stated in the rules, the Grand Prize will be awarded in a drawing of all eligible contestants. Basically, it will be something like this. All eligible teams will have their names written down on identically sized pieces of paper. One of our children (likely) will draw a piece of paper out of a plastic sand bucket. (We're all about high tech). This may be digitally video recorded to provide a proper accounting.

2. What time on Mondays and Thursdays will the challenges be up on the site?

As the sponsoring sites putting up the challenges are, literally, around the world, we are leaving it up to the sponsoring sites to determine the timing of the challenge postings. We haven't done the calculations, but even with the world time zones, we expect that you should have at least two and a half days to complete Thursdays challenge. When the next challenge is posted, the site owner will send us an email. We may be sleeping when the email comes in. (Yes, we do have to sleep!) What happened last time, generally, was that as soon as someone found the challenge, a link was posted to it in the Natural Designs in Scrapbooking forum. Any and all are welcome to do that this time as well. If you have not checked out the forum yet, we encourage you to take a look. You do not need to register to read any post, but you do need to register if you wish to post in the forum. Sometimes this happened before the official notification. But official notification of the next sponsoring site, and the next challenge, will be made via this blog each Monday and Thursday at no specific time, due to the reasons stated above.

3. What time on Sunday is the cutoff for registering and posting LO links?

Again, as stated in the ADSR rules, layouts must be posted, and the notification email of the posting, must be received by midnight Sunday, Pacific Daylight Time to be eligible.

Yes... we know, we know... it's been six days...

But sometimes these things can't be avoided.

In fact, this is Ernie, posting on Theresa's behalf.

On Thursday, we experienced a medical emergency within Theresa's family that required our presence at the hospital some over the last several days. Everything has resolved itself now, but it was nevertheless a challenging time for all of us for awhile there. If interested, you may find out more at Theresa's blog.

Now on to matters ADSR!

There has been a flurry of activity these last several days, although much of it is behind the scenes. We have received applications for over 150 teams! And still counting! In fact, if you still need a partner, there are some wonderful folks still looking to partner up, and you can find them here. We are trying to get all of the teams names updated in the column on the left. You may submit a blinkie if you wish, and we'll get it up as soon as we can.

We are still finalizing the Grand Prize, but we can tell you that it is now valued at over $800 per team member in Valuable Prizes! (Yes... capitalized Valuable Prizes. LOL)

Keep in mind, registrations will close tomorrow, per the race rules (posted in the first post of June, and also here.)

We'll do our best to keep you up to date on what's going on, but right now we are just trying to keep our head above water (read: Theresa is doing all the work, while I'm sitting around watching TV and eating bon-bons).

And the first challenge is still scheduled for July 16th.

If you have already communicated with Theresa about any special needs, unless you got a bounce back message, rest assured that it's in her in box, and she'll get to it. As registration is nearing a close, we can't believe how close and exciting the action is.

Watch this space...

Answering a Few Questions

A few people left questions in the comments. I can't answer people directly from Blogger, so I'll post the questions and answers here:

Q) The LO'S, does each team member have to make 1 LO for each challenge or should you make a LO as a team?
A) It depends on the challenge and the site. For most challenges, each team member will complete a single layout. You can coordinate on a theme, tell a story between your two layouts, or just do your own individual things. In some challenges though, you'll collaborate. Full details for each challenge will be posted on the host site.

Q) I've uploaded my blinkie you made for our team, and I have been trying to add it to my siggies, but it won't show up. Am I doing something wrong???
A) That's hard to say without looking at your code. All PHP bulletin boards use the same code. The first thing you need to do is upload the .gif file to a photo hosting site such as PhotoBucket or ImageShack. Then, you edit your signature in the forum and insert the following code:

[img]http://whateveryourfilenameis.gif[/img]

replacing the part between the [img] [/img] tags with the actual URL of your file. If you want your blinkie to link back somewhere, like a blog, use this code:

[URL=http://www.sitename.com][img]http://whateveryourfilenameis.gif[/img][/URL]

replacing the site name and file location with your information.

Q) Is there a race blinkie that we can use????
A) Yes, ever team that registers gets a custom blinkie sent when the registration process is complete. If you sent in your registration and did not receive one, then something happened and you are not registered. Please contact me at the ADSR e-mail.

Q) Can we change our information?
A) Yes. If you change your team name, add a blog, or make a team blinkie, go ahead and send those to me. I'll update the blog. But, if you change your team name, don't expect a new custom official Race blinkie. I'm only making one per team, :-). Also, try to get all changes into me before the race starts on July 16. After that, I can't promise I'll have much time to


edited....
apparently I didn't have time to finish this post! I think what I meant to type was that I won't have much time to make edits to team names, etc. with all the race activities taking place.

Registration is Well Underway!

I've been registering teams like mad. In fact, I register teams in my sleep. We've got close to 80 teams already. If you've submitted an application and have NOT heard back from me yet (11:00 PM PDT) please send me an e-mail because I have contacted everyone I've received an e-mail from.

Contact me at RaceHost@ndisb.com.

A few people have posted questions in the comments section. I'll try to get to those tomorrow. Sadly, Blogger doesn't let me e-mail you, even though you enter your e-mail address. Not sure why that is, but it means I can't respond personally to you, but I will address all open questions in my next blog post. Which I hope will be tomorrow.

Now it's time for bed, so I can register more people in my dreams...

A Little Update

We are now up to 28 registered teams (so 56 racers) yay! And since last night, the following sponsors have signed on to donate to the Grand Prize:

Disc Talk Radio
Christine Smith
Lie Fhung (Ztampf)
LaWanna Desjardine
Memory Purses
Shabby Princess

Our grand prize total is now around about $550 per team member and climbing!

Wow, Wow, Wow!! We're off to a Rockin' Start!

We already have 14 teams signed up and there are still 13 days left before we close sign-ups! The theme songs and team mottos are awesome. I know we're going to have a great crowd this season.

And, wait until who you see has signed on to donate to the Grand Prize. I can't tell you what the prizes are yet, but I promise you won't be disappointed. Here is who has committed so far, with more prizes to come. In no particular order:

Corel
KB and Friends
Butternug Squash
CG Essentials
Strawberry Wine Designs
Traci Reed
Fish Scraps/Carrie Stephens
Katie the Scrapbook Lady
Bree Clarkson
DigiShopTalk
Gina Miller Designs
Blue Flombingo
Digital Scrapbooking Magazine/Simple Scrapbooks
Sweet Shoppe Designs
Amy Teets
Amanda Rockwell
Elemental Scraps
Kelly Shults

What I can tell you is that the value of these prizes is already over $400 for each member of the Grand Prize winning team. Now THAT is worth scrapping for!

Due to Popular Demand

I will begin accepting applications immediately. If you've already e-mailed me, you don't need to do it again. If you've been not so patiently waiting for July 1, no need to wait any longer. Go ahead and send in those applications.

Just so you don't have to scroll down, here is the registration information again:

Please send ONE email per team to RaceHost@ndisb.com with the following information:

Team Name:

Racer 1 Name:
Racer 1 Email:
Racer 1 Main Gallery:

Racer 2 Name:
Racer 2 Email
Racer 2 Main Gallery:

OPTIONAL
Your Team's Motto
A Team Blinkie
A link to your Team's Blog (if you have one)
Your Team's theme song (if you have one)

The deadline to register is still midnight PDT on July 10. Once I've entered you into the system, I'll send you a confirmation e-mail along with the official race blinkie which you may display in your forum signature (if you wish).

Let the registrations begin!

A Few Questions and Answers

Since the blog first went up, a number of questions have been asked. I'll to do my best to answer them all here.

Finding a Partner

If you are in need of a race partner, we set up a special forum at NDISB to post if you're looking for a partner.

Who is Eligible for the Grand Prize?

All teams who complete all of the challenges by their respective deadlines are eligible to be in the drawing for the Grand Prize, except teams where one or both members are NDISB Creative Team Members or Designers.

NDISB staff members (Creative Team and Designers) are NOT eligible for the grand prize and by association, anyone they team with is not eligible. Therefore, pick your partner carefully. And NDISB staff members should make sure their partners are aware of this. NDISB staff members and their teammates may participate in the individual challenges and receive their prizes for those challenges.

What IS the Grand Prize?

Ahhhh, yes, that is definitely worth asking. The Grand Prize is ever growing, but if you look over on the right you'll see a list of our Grand Prize donors under Race Sponsors. When we have the final list in place, we'll be sure to post exactly what you're racing for. You won't be disappointed, we promise!

When Does the Race Start/How Long is It?

The race begins on Monday, July 16 and runs for 6 weeks. There will be a total of 12 challenges.

What if I'm Going on Vacation During the Race?

We are sensitive to the fact that the race is smack dab in the middle of summer and thus, summer vacation plans. If you will be gone for a portion of the race without internet access but would still like to participate, contact us before you leave and we'll try to work something out. We will work with the host sites to accommodate you the best we can; but in fairness to the rest of the racers, you will be ineligible for the Grand Prize drawing. But we can work it out so that you can at least participate in the weekly challenges. It is key that you contact us BEFORE your vacation though.

Do We Have to Use Specific Designers/Products?

It is up to each host site what the challenge will be. But the race rules state that racers will not be required to purchase anything to participate. That doesn't mean the host site won't provide a kit for free that must be used.

Last year, all the challenges allowed racers to use whatever they had. One was particularly tough though. The challenge was to create a layout using only one product per designer. You could use products from any designer you wanted, but you couldn't use more than one item per designer. It was tough, but really fun!

Are You Ready for Some Racin'

It's getting close to being that time!! Start thinking about partnering up again. Applications will open July 1!

Weren't around last season for the inaugural race? No problem, here's how it works:

Welcome to The Amazing Digi Scrapping Race, Season 2!

Teams of two will traverse the digital scrapping world, site by site, completing challenges and collecting prizes along the way. Everyone who completes the week's challenges in the allotted time frame will move on to the next week, where they can collect even MORE prizes! And at the end of the race, everyone who has travelled around the digiworld and completed each and every challenge will be entered into a drawing for the GRAND prize!

So the first thing you have to do is find yourself a partner! Once you've done that, please send ONE email per team to RaceHost@ndisb.com with the following information:

Team Name:
Racer 1 Name:
Racer 1 Email:
Racer 1 Main Gallery*:

Racer 2 Name:
Racer 2 Email
Racer 2 Main Gallery*:

OPTIONAL
Your Team's Motto
A Team Blinkie
A link to your Team's Blog (if you have one)
Your Team's theme song (if you have one)

*You may post to as many galleries as you like, but we will link to the one gallery where you will be sure to post all of your Race layouts so we can check to make sure you qualify for the next round.

Your first challenge will be posted in the forums at Natural Designs in Scrapbooking on July 16. Challenges will be posted each Monday and Thursday, and both must be completed by the subsequent Sunday at midnight Pacific time to qualify to continue in the Race.

A project is considered "complete" when:

1. The project(s) have been completed according to the challenge rules,

2. The project(s) are posted to each Racer's main gallery, and

3. ONE email per team is sent containing direct links to the project(s) to RaceHost@ndisb.com.

Clues to subsequent challenges will be posted in the forums at NDISB as well as on the ADSR blog. Everyone who has completed Week One will qualify to continue racing during Week Two, and the fun begins all over again. THERE IS NO JUDGING, AND THE ONLY WAY TO BE ELIMINATED IS TO FAIL TO COMPLETE THE WEEK'S CHALLENGES.

Each time you complete a challenge you will receive a prize from the host site. You may receive a direct link, or you may receive a coupon code. Prizes and delivery of said prizes are at the discretion of the site host.

NDISB has no control over what the prizes will be or how the site host will choose to deliver them. You will never be required to join forums, sign up for newsletters, or purchase anything in order to participate in the Race. You may, however, be required to register in a site's store in order to redeem a coupon.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Your application to participate in The Amazing Digiscrapping Race constitutes an agreement that any prizes or codes obtained in the course of the Race are NOT to be distributed by any means. Terms of use in each prize MUST be honored by all Racers. Failure to comply will result in dismissal from the Race and your application for future Races will be denied. Digital piracy will not be tolerated.

So are you ready? If so, go grab a teammate and get registered. Registration opens July 1 and closes July 10. Then start toning up and working on your endurance...you're going to need all the scrapping strength and mojo you can get if you want to win!