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