Sweet Shoppe Designs – The Sweetest Digital Scrapbooking Site on the Web

Hello! I’m Julie Billingsley and I’m a bookworm! LOL I know I’m not alone, because the Sweet Shoppe forum has frequent discussions of books and e-readers. In the craziness that plagues most of my days, there are few things that bring me bliss like quiet time with a good book.

My love of reading was definitely passed to me by my mom. I have fond memories of sitting together with a dozen Little Golden Books and her tirelessly reading them to me. She read for her pleasure too, often reading a couple books in a day. As I grew up I was never a big TV watcher, instead choosing to lose myself in a book. I read a little of everything these days. From crime drama to chick lit, to self help and how-to books. I read for pleasure and instruction. Reading is something I need to do… it soothes my soul and feeds my brain.

In the last year I’ve given up my page-flipping days for the technology of an e-reader. My current choice is using the Kindle app on my iPod Touch. If you have an iPhone or Touch or other smartphone, I highly recommend giving the Kindle app a try. There are lots of free books at Amazon.com to see if you like reading on your phone. They are small, extremely portable, and since I was already carrying it with me it is very convenient. At some point I would like to change to a larger e-reader like the Nook from Barnes and Noble or an actual Kindle from Amazon. Both have great features and you can read several threads on them in our forums like thesehere, or here, or search the threads for lots more! I’m leaning towards the Kindle since I already have a ton of Kindle books that I purchased for my iTouch, but those Nook features are very tempting! Jump into those discussions and maybe you can sway me one way or the other.

I almost always have a few books going at once and will choose from them depending on what I’m interested in at the moment. Most of my reading is done in the car while waiting to pick up my son from school or activities, but I always read for 30-60 minutes before bedtime too. Right now I am reading 3 books: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen for the Sweet Reads Book Club, How to Raise the Perfect Dog by Cesar Millan to help me with my dream of having a puppy, but mostly I have been spending my time reading a series by Debbie Macomber. I stumbled upon her Cedar Cove 12 book series and quickly fell in love with it because surprisingly it is written about the small towns in Kitsap County where I grew up in Washington! It is a contemporary fiction series for women that focuses on the people of a small town. Each book builds upon the previous and the series is very much like watching a TV show with a large cast of characters and all the weaving of storylines and it’s slight soap-opera-ish drama. I am on book 7 right now, so it’s really captured my attention. It’s a nice enjoyable read and gives me an extra dose of bliss since I recognize places within the stories. When the characters go into the mall where I once worked or the yarn store that my sister worked at, it just brings a big smile to my face. And makes me miss living there a LOT!

Being a bookworm also makes me want to scrapbook about that, and luckily the designers at SSD have made some kits that focus on reading. There are kits for both you and your child’s love of reading! Here are a few of the kits-
click kit to see it in the shoppe.

Here is a layout that I did about my love of books using Kristin and Jenn’s new Me Time: Chick Lit kit shown above.

And here are some bookmarks that I made for my son to track his daily reading on! Sara inspired me to do this in her recent blog post. We are using it as a reward tracker, for every 20 days he reads for at least 20 minutes we will go to get an ice cream. It’s a great idea and will keep those kids reading all summer long! I used Penny’s 12 Months: Month Blocks and a few kits (click the image for the links to all) for this super fun and easy idea.

For a fun little surprise, I’ll be giving away a coupon for a free kit from my shoppe to 1 random person that links me up to the best book(s) they have read in the last 12 months. Contest ends midnight Pacific on May 22nd. Winner will be announced in the SSD forum. Comment here on the blog and link me up to some sweet reads! 🙂

Thanks for reading my novel blog post and I hope you are inspired to join our Sweet Reads discussions or scrap about your love of books! 🙂
~Julie Billingsley