LDrag Designs

I have a real treat in store for today with the featured designer spotlight. You get to spend a few minutes getting to know Lina of LDrag Designs. It was not hard to get Lina to tell us about herself and her designs, she makes doing an interview a delight and so easy! I always like to start with getting to know our designers as people. Lina is certainly one interesting woman! Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee and spend some time with her!

“Hello, I’m Lina, married with 2 kiddos that can completely drive me crazy. I love my work which is being a foreign language teacher! So my basic work is teaching English to Greek students at school of all levels! Unfortunately, the difficult situation that Greece faces with the economy has made my work really difficult. It is really difficult to work where I live and so basically this year I am unemployed as I refused to leave my family again cause the salaries have really taken a downfall.  I couldn’t support my family this way, on the contrary in order for me to work my hubby had to help me pay my bills as my salary wasn’t enough to pay for everything where I had to go to work!”

“Now, I love doing things with my hands and basically do things that involve creativity and inspiration! My activities from time to time vary as I have done many things like painting, scrapbooking, making lamps and ceiling lights, creating all the invitations to my children’s baptisms and many other things! Here is a layout that shows what I did for my son’s baptism.”

Here is the invitation she made for the baptism.
Lina loves doing so many other things.  I am not sure where she finds the time.  Here she talks about more of her creative products.

“Generally,  I love to create and that is why I love my digital designing! My newest expression of creativity is decorating the house starting from my children’s rooms. This is the lamp I made for my dd’s bedroom!”  I need Lina to come to my house and make some of these!

“Of course I love photography! Especially the editing of photos. Lately I am making my cousin’s album for the baptism of her goddaughter! I just love it! You can find here some photos from my editing of this album!”

Be sure to visit Lina’s Facebook to check out some of her photography and photo editing skills Lina’s photography album on Facebook.

Since Lina is ScrapMatters resident Greek goddess she also wanted to us a bit about her beloved Greece.

“I love my country! It is beautiful and amazingly great! Although things are difficult right now I wouldn’t change living here for the world! I can’t imagine living paradise for something else! It is known of course in history that the greeks might fall but they always return stronger than ever! I believe this situation was something that needed to be done in order for us to realize that our country was going the wrong way! For us to realize that we need to be united to get through this and not look only our personal profit!”

Naturally,  I wanted to hear how Lina got started in digital design and her answers are also a timeline of her history at ScrapMatters.

“I found scrapbooking completely by accident, as I was looking through the internet to find tools for making my daughter’s photo album! In Greece scrapbooking is something really unknown! Most people say “what?” when I tell them what I am making! Anyway, I found ScrapMatters in 2008 around March and I entered the first Queen of Scrap contest and I got 2nd place after the mighty Denise! I was offered a place in the creative team and I just loved playing around with papers! It was then that I made my first paper pack to give as a participation prize to a Speed Scrap! The ScrapMatters owner saw my paper pack and saw potential in me so she offered me a position as an apprentice designer to! I had great help from Erica Zane at the time. She was my mentor and a great friend. I was following her around everywhere she went!”

“Due to a very bad pregnancy with my son, I decided to resign in December 2008 and I came back to designing when my nightmarish pregnancy ended in May 2009! So I had to start again from scratch and did my very best to come back to ScrapMatters! It was my home and all the time I had to stay away until I came back in June 2010 I always had a feeling of loss. So after that I am here and LOVE it! I was offered a place a few months ago to one of the best shops in digiland but I wouldn’t leave ScrapMatters again for anything! Amber will have to throw me out for me to leave! But  I love everyone here and I am sure they love me too! The only thing I feel bad is that I come from the other side of this world and it is so difficult to come and meet any of you guys!”

Lina went on to tell me about her design inspiration.  She is inspired by colors and specific photos.  I loved seeing the photos that inspired some of Lina’s beautiful kits. Here is the photo that inspired Narcisse Des Près.

and this one to make Practically Perfect.

“Pinterest is a great place to find photos to inspire me! And give me ideas of things to make, especially word art. I love colors in general. I love lace and flowers and greenery. So I have many of them in my kits. As a scrapper I loved making clusters and these are the things I love as a designer! These things will just need to be in all my kits as I love romantic things! When I make themed kits I love epoxy gels and metal. Gels are my personal favourite and I play with them a lot! This is my latest layout!”

After reading this I want to go to Greece, make lamps and scrap with Lina’s kits!  To help you scrap with one of her kits Lina has this fabulous Halloween kit for you free with a $10 purchase in the store.  You can get this kit while Lina is the featured designer, October 1 through the 14th. What are you waiting for? To help connect you with more of Lina’s creations here are some links for you.   Lina’s ScrapMatters Shop        Blog       Facebook        Twitter