LOAD 213 Blog Hop

LOAD 213Welcome to my Artful Adventures post for the LOAD213 Blog Hop!  If you are following in order, you have come here from my talented friend Beth Soler’s Scrapping Wonders website.

Do you ever get together with others who share your love of a particular hobby?  If so, you know they can identify with your feelings of how wonderful you think your hobby is!  If scrapbooking is something you like to do, and you want to find some others who share that passion, then Lain Ehmann’s Layout-a-day (LOAD) February 2013 may be just for you!  The goal is to create at least one scrapbook page each day for a particular month, and this time it’s February. Does one page a day sound overwhelming?  It’s not — read on!

Along with the basic goal, each LOAD has a theme, daily prompts, and at least one sample layout for each day.  If the theme doesn’t particularly tickle your fancy, you can still participate — just get your pages done!  There have been LOAD months where I have completed a page day, and others that I ended up with my total number of pages for the month, but perhaps didn’t get them done on the 1 per day schedule.  I didn’t care — I still ended up with a pile of completed pages!  Yeah ME!

If you are afraid that you won’t be able to complete a page each day and have time for your day-to-day life, never fear! With a little planning, I’m sure you can do it.  We all handle it a little differently.  Some people may slack off on having a spic-n-span environment, some may use the crockpot for help with meals, some people have a stack of pictures they want to get put on pages and have their own theme…. You get the idea, it may be a little different than other months of your life, but it can be done!

This is one of my favorite layouts!  It is a 2 page layout at the end of LOAD212.  It is digital and has a mini version of all the other pages I had made during February 2012.

Artful Adventures Final 2 page layout for LOAD212

Whether you are a digital scrapper, traditional paper scrapper, or combination “hybrid” scrapper,

You Will Have Fun and Complete Scrapbook Pages!

There is a private Flickr group for the event.  You upload your completed page, and receive comments about how fabulous your page is, and how smart you were to think of doing that way!  Of course, you reciprocate the favor and pass on the love by commenting on other people’s layouts they share with the group.  Soon you will be pinching yourself to see if it is really true — your dream of having a whole bunch of scrapping friends really has come true!

Artful Adventures Progressive Page Sample

Progressive Scrapbook Page Technique

If you do paper layouts, be sure to have paper, pictures, adhesive and some embellishments for your pages.  If you’ve been scrapping for awhile, only buy adhesive.  USE the stuff you already have!  THAT is one of the benefits of LOAD — you can use up your stash. Sshhh….and then you’ll have a reason to get new stuff!  I won’t tell, if you don’t!

For digital pages, you may want to go through some of your pictures as a reminder of all the people who live in the digital world of your hard drives.   Stop holding them captive and let them get out onto some scrapbook page layouts. I don’t print digital pages at home, but if you do, you’ll want to be sure and have plenty of ink on hand for your printer!

If you sometimes feel stuck in getting a page together, you may want to try the “progressive” page technique.  I did a post on the technique last year, and you can find it here.

Artful Adventures Using Templates

Templates and Scraplifts

Also, remember that you can use templates, and by rotating or flipping them, you can really give a page a run for the money!  Here’s a few thoughts on using templates or doing some scraplifting.

If you aren’t signed up yet, click here to learn more and to see if there is still room and join us!

Stop by again, any time!  I enjoy comments and try to always reply!


Here is the list of the LOAD213 Blog Hop Participants and you’ll see where to hop to next!

Heather Dubarry: http://noexcusescrapbooking.com
Alison Day: http://adayinthelifeor5.blogspot.com/
Danielle Taylor: http://scrapperonthestreet.com
Alison Charlton: http://scrappinginsingapore.blogspot.com/
Christy Strickler: http://myscrapbookevolution.blogspot.com/
Lynnette Nagle: http://sassyscrapper2010.blogspot.com/
Julie Shepler: www.sheplerfamily.com
Joy McHargue: http://www.studiowowjoy.com/
Kelli Panique: http://scrapbookgirl71.com/
Cathy Holiday: pikespeakscrapper.blogspot.com
Leslie Smith: http://lcsmithsaved-outofthemire.blogspot.com/
Lori Martin: http://www.chaosandcraziness.com/   
Connie Hanks: http://ClickyChickCreates.wordpress.com
Betsye Erazo: betsyerose.blogspot.com
Marcia Fortunato: mfortunato.blogspot.com
Regina Huminski: http://ginabeth1.blogspot.com/
Beth Soler: http://www.scrappingwonders.com
You are here:  Kristie Sloan’s Artful Adventures: https://kristiesloan.com/blog/
Next:  Danielle Hunter: http://ecoscrapbook.blogspot.com/
Katrina Forman: http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com
Jessica Baldwin: www.inkyaddict.com
Cheryl McCain: http://cherylmccainphotography.com
Briel Schmitz: http://scrappingwindow.blogspot.com/

LOAD Bloghop 2012

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