LOAD Bloghop 2012

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The LOAD challenge for February 2012 is almost here, and we hope you’ll participate!  LayoutADay.com owner, Lain Ehmann, makes sure participants are treated to many interviews, tips and inspirations from the best of the best, while being challenged to create one layout each day.

If completing at least one layout each day of the month seems like a daunting task, never fear, I have some tips that can make it easier.

  • Pick a Theme. If you decide ahead of time what you want to work on, you’ll be able to pull together the pictures you want to use.  Be sure to gather more pictures than you may need, because sometimes a photo you didn’t really intend to use suddenly seems to be the perfect choice.  By selecting a theme, you’ll be able to pre-gather some of your supplies.  Paper and embellishments just seem to be easier to select when you have a theme in mind.  You will naturally select a different set of items for a  set of pages for a baby book, than you might for an album about your family’s heritage, or a vacation to the tropics.

Use interesting information for a layout in your theme!

  • Have supplies and adhesive on hand. Again, by planning your theme, you should be able to have pulled out what you need.  Nothing is more frustrating than being in the middle of a layout and using the last bit of adhesive.  It could make you want to go mix up some flour and water paste to finish up, and I don’t think that is considered archival quality.  If you know you use a lot of brads or buttons or ribbon, and you have nothing to match the papers you just love for the theme you just decided on, you’re not going to be very happy.  Change something or get appropriate embellishments now!
  • Caution: This is the perfect time to use up some of your supplies, so don’t go hog wild on new things to match the new paper you just bought!  You may actually may make faster pages if you limit what you are using!  Crazy, but true.  Limiting your choices even with digital scrapbooking can be helpful.
  • Pick pictures that mean something to you. It will make it easy to journal and you’ll be so glad to have the pictures and stories on layouts to enjoy.  After all, in the end it’s about the pictures and the stories!  How I wish I had stories to go with some of the pictures that have been from previous generations.  Who am I kidding, even names would be great!

This picture always makes me smile! Simple layout. DONE!

  • Don’t feel that you have to scrap in chronological order! Pick a picture or several and just do it.  Don’t let a sweet picture wait to be scrapped just because you didn’t get to that year yet!  Just do it!

A day spent with 4 generations of family, doesn’t happen every day!

  • Don’t feel like you have to start from scratch! There are so many templates, pagemaps or scrapmaps to give you ideas!   Becky Fleck’s site PageMaps.com is a great place to start.  There are monthly ideas on the top of the left menu bar.  Look for her archives as well.  With that many ideas, there can be no excuse to get started!
  • Get started right away. Don’t let a blank page just stare back at you.  You may want to try a progressive scrapbook page if you seem to be stuck.  Start with a 6×6 page, then layer that on an 8.5×11, and finally lay that on a 12×12 page.  (I’ll be showing one of these in the next few days, so stop back by!)
  • Plan Ahead. Make sure you plan some time into the day to work on a layout.  If you have more time one day than another, you may complete a page and start the next one as long as you have thing at hand!
  • Strive for done not perfection. You can always add or change something later, but just get your layouts done!
  • Enjoy the experience. It is so fun to see everyone’s work that is loaded into the Flickr group each day.  Think of all the ideas you’ll have after looking at all those other pages.  However, don’t feel like you have to look at every page, every day.  I’m not sure that’s possible!

Thanks for stopping by and visiting!  The next stop on the tour is Janet’s site.

LOAD12 Blog Hop Participant List:

Margie     http://xnomads.typepad.com
Kelli          http://www.scrapbookgirl71.blogspot.com
Jennifer   http://atthebluebarn.blogspot.com
Lisa           http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com
Monica     http://scrapinspired.com
Kimberly  http://www.kimberlykalil.com
Eileen       http://thinkinkpaperscissors.weebly.com
Danielle    http://acoffeeaddict.com
Pam           http://dailypamage.blogspot.com
Katrina     http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com
Cate           http://www.lifebehindthepurpledoor.com
Gayle         http://www.lifeonlilypadlane.blogspot.com
Heather    http://heathersdragonsden.blogspot.com
Gina          http://randomthoughtsmindlessmusings.blogspot.com
Kristie       https://kristiesloan.com
Janet         http://khashabfamilymusings.blogspot.com
Lydia         http://lydiaink.wordpress.com

 

Rotating Backgrounds or Templates 90 or 180 degrees

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Whether it’s a template or a background for your art, simply rotating it can give you a whole new look or feel to the project.

Donna Downey’s new series, Canvas Create 2012, looks like it will fun!  I decided to join the fun and while I was watching the January episode, and then working on my own art piece, it made me think about how a simple rotation of a piece can give it a whole different spin!

After finishing my background, I turned it several ways, and decided I liked it a whole lot better turned a different direction than the way I had originally painted it!

Rotating a template for a scrapbook page can also give you a different look, especially if you are working with digital.  You can even do a mirror image flip and have work better for what you may be using it for.  That is especially helpful if you are working on a two-page spread and the template just doesn’t seem to be working.  If you aren’t working in digital, you can still use a template as your guide or map for your page.  Look at these four pages, and think about how many options you could create with just the different areas for pictures, journaling, paper, or embellishments!  I don’t like to have to do statistics and scrapbooking — but I’m sure you get the idea!

scrapbook sketches rotated

Rotate scrapbook sketches for different looks.

…and the mirror images…

rotating scrapbook sketches_mirrored

Mirrored image of rotated sketches give even more options!

 

Layout a Day is Just around the Corner!

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I participated in Lain Ehmann’s Layout-a-Day in February 2011, and it was a challenge, but I did it!  There is another one just around the corner starting this February, too!  You create one scrapbook page per day, during the month of February.

You should try it!  After creating your scrapbook page for the day, you take a picture of it, and upload it to a special place online.

This picture is of one my pages I created that month.  This is my maternal grandmother.  The picture was just a little wallet-size photo that we had.  I scanned and enlarged it, and am so pleased to have put this photo into a format that can be enjoyed by my family!  This page happens to be digital, so I can make copies for any of my girls or my cousins that would like a page of their own.

To make the event special, Lain will have  interviews and tips galore.

Here is information for the event in February, and this is her main site!

Check it out!!

Making Time for Yourself

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I am always amazed at how quickly time passes.  Whether we are enjoying what we are doing or just muddling through, time slips by day-by-day, moment-by-moment.

I have so many interests and so many things I want to do!  I find it hard to work them in to the time I have, or don’t have (however you want to look at it!).  Where do I start?  If I start one thing, I feel that something else has been put on a back burner, or ignored.  Is that okay?  Who gets to decide which things move to the back?  I’m sure I am not alone in this feeling, yet it’s not something I hear other people speak about very often.  I’m afraid each person feels they are all alone, and it is their own little struggle deep inside.

Perhaps there are things that SHOULD go the back of the line, or maybe even be deleted from our lists of to-do’s!  I hope that many of you will join me this year and just DO some of the things you WANT to do!  Perhaps you will come across something you enjoy even more than you thought you would and surprise yourself at how good you are at it!

Have you considered the possibility that God has planted the seeds of some of those thoughts?  We often spend so much time fighting off human desires that we forget to listen to the whispers of our Creator — whispering to us to nurture the seeds of greatness he has already planted within our existence!

I urge you to not wait weeks or months, but to take some sort of action towards one of your want to-do’s in the next few days.  Join me and change one of those into a will do now!

  1. Decide what your will-do is.
  2. Decide when you will do it.  Get it on your calendar so you can schedule and make the time for it.
  3. Get ready to do it!  Do you need to gather some supplies, or take care of something that has been keeping you from your will-do?
    • If there is something that has been standing in your way, make a plan for how you will take care of it.  Perhaps some of your first steps in the next few days will be to address this portion of your preparation.

I have a new painting I WILL get done this week.  What will you get started on?

“You said to me,”I will point out the road that you should follow. I will be your teacher and watch over you.”  Psalms 32:8 CEV

 

Welcome – Today’s the Day!

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Yes, today IS the day! It’s time to stop thinking about things and get started.  Remember that done is better than perfect, especially if it means you are waiting for something to get the “perfect” stage before you complete it!  That’s it for the important stuff of the day!

The Fourth of July is over and they’ll be trying to sell off summer things and bring in the snow shovels.  The retail world is just like that!  So in a couple of weeks if somebody needs a swimsuit, they’ll be able to buy school supplies or corduroy pants.  Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but it’s not far from the truth!

Many of my friends are getting ready to go to their annual events that their direct sales companies hold.  It is an exciting time to get together with others who enjoy the same products, the company philosophies, and meet new friends along the way.  Some of these events are rather overwhelming for those with rather laid back personalities.  I heard a lady not long ago tell about going to one, and that she really did not enjoy it — she felt like they would be serving the kool-aid next!  (Kool-aid is a reference to a very sad cult event where poison was interlaced in kool-aid for a mass suicide/murder.) In my case, I love the events because I’m just not that timid, and the events are a great way to get a pulse of the company by meeting people from corporate.

I’m not attending anything again this year, as there are just too many family members with health issues that need tended.  I’m okay with that, because my art projects are working there way into little crevices of time!  Sometimes I don’t get something finished, but it needs to dry anyway between things I doing, so it works out well.

Have a wonderful summer and get something done!