Get to Know Julie Billingsley, Our September Guest Designer

with 3 Comments

We’d like to introduce you to our September Featured Designer, Julie Billingsley!

About You:

Q: Tell us a little about you, your family, your pets, and your home.

A: My name is Julie Billingsley, and I live in Oregon with my husband, two sons, and our dog. My husband and I just celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary in August. My oldest son is 21 years old and is in his fourth year of college to be a civil engineer. My youngest son is 10 years old and starting the fifth grade. Yes, that is an 11 year age difference, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

 

Q: How do you spend your time? Are you a hobbyist? Do you volunteer? Are you a workout fanatic?

A: In my rare free time, I enjoy reading and scrapbooking about my family. I do workout for an hour a day but am in no way a health fanatic. I workout to lose weight and hopefully avoid some health challenges like diabetes and heart conditions that both of my parents faced.

 

Q: If you had one hour of free time, what would you like to do with it?

A: Besides spending time reading and scrapbooking, I love to play board games with my family. Currently we are loving the game “Ticket to Ride” and play it as often as possible. If we all have a free hour available, we are sure to grab a game and play!

 

About Your Designing:

Q: What inspires you to create? Are you first drawn to color? A theme? A photo? A trend?

A: I am definitely inspired by themes when I design a scrapbook kit. Before I dig into designing a new kit, I write out a list of elements that will be unique to the theme and then I build on that to create a well-rounded product. Although I do a lot of themed kits, I strive to create kits that, even if you striped away the themed elements and papers, would still be fabulous general use kits.

 

Q: What is the view from your workspace?

A: My desk zone is in my family room. My family room is adjacent to our living room, which is where my guys hang out. I enjoy having it there because it’s within conversation range but a bit away from the noise of the TV and general activity.

 

Q: While you are creating, do you listen to music or television or books on tape? Or do you work best with silence?

A: Silence! I work best in the quiet, but my husband is a TV fanatic, so after he gets home from work, the TV is always on in the next room. I don’t even watch TV except for an occasional football game. I just never have enough time to sit and watch a show.

 

About Scrapbooking:

Q: Do you find that you share the photo or the story more?

A: This year I have started documenting our memories in the Project Life style. I love doing this with digital kits, and my family has greatly enjoyed this new trend in scrapbooking as it really helps me tell the story of our lives. Although, once in a while, I will take a photo that just simply speaks for itself and needs to be the primary focus of the layout. It is my goal that when someone looks at my layout, I have told the story sufficiently, so that the viewer isn’t guessing why that photo was included or why the moment was special.

 

Q: What is one great time-saving tip you can give us to help us create a better layout?

A: I wish I had an answer for that! I am probably the world’s slowest scrapbooker! One thing I can mention is that the best layouts come from good photos, and the best photos come from taking a lot of photos. So, bring your camera out and capture those moments. I find that I’m especially slow on a layout when I don’t have the picture that I wish I had taken, so this is something that I’m personally working on.

 

Q: What kinds of kits are you drawn to scrap with?

A: My family consists of me and my three guys, so I’m especially drawn to masculine kits. That is also why a high percentage of the kits that I design are boy-friendly! I’m not afraid to use flowers on my layouts, though. My guys don’t mind at all.

 

Be sure to check out Julie’s Digital Scrapper shop and her sale going on through September 12th, 2013. You can also follow Julie on Facebook.

Our September Featured Designer, Julie Billingsley!  @ www.digitalscrapper.com

3 Responses

  1. Linda Sattgast
    | Reply

    It was fun to read about you, Julie! You and your family sound like fun people to know. And I really enjoy using your bright, cheerful kits, too!

  2. Brigitta (Scrapgirl)
    | Reply

    Hi Julie,

    Welcome to the September blog. It was interesting reading about you,your family and your designing. We share something in common as I also have two boys but with a thirteen year gap between them. I wouldn’t have it any other way either.

    I made the most of the birthday sale and got a bit heavy handed with the order button, previous video tutorials and two of your kits which I can’t wait to try out.

    “Christmas Lights and the “Fearless Kit”. Love the bicycles in that one.

    Thank you for sharing your story with us and keep those kits coming

    Kind Regards
    Brigitta (Scrapgirl)

  3. Janie
    | Reply

    Hey Julie
    I love you kits. I just spent the last several days looking at them with a sad face, lol, because my laptop crashed just a couple of days before the Birthday
    sale. There were several i would have bought, but not knowing when i might get another laptop i decided to wait. At least i know where to find them. Enjoyed reading about you and your family. Keep creating Kits because you do an awesome job. janiek

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