Gigi,
Although you "can" use it without SCDP, I would highly suggest you take a look at the 2 programs trial versions before you decide against it as you're very very locked into the exact setup of the theme and cannot change anything about it at all. SCDP gives you a lot of features to change a lot of things about a theme, and in most cases it's the only way to edit images, resize the way the shop looks (in other words the product images, thumbnails of the products etc.). Just some food for thought

Here's a video walk through of Shopping Cart Creator Pro, but it's a) 4years old and b) not good quality.
However, it should help as the interface looks like today's SCCP and the speech is clear even though the video image is not the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fi9mZ3Zcow

Dave